A Step into the Past, Volume 26

This volume is issue 26 of the Hong Kong full-color comic A Step into the Past, adapted and drawn by Liao Fucheng and published by Caiye Production Co., Ltd. The series adapts Huang Yi's wuxia novel of the same name, centering on Xiang Shaolong, an elite special-forces soldier of the twenty-first century who, after a failed time-travel experiment, ends up in the late Warring States period in the state of Zhao. He first becomes involved with the Wu family, repeatedly contends with Zhao Mu, Lian Jin, and others in Handan, then realizes that the child controlled by Zhao Mu is not the real Ying Zheng, and, at Lü Buwei's behest, tries to send Zhu Ji and her son Ying Zheng back to Qin. The first half of the story unfolds around power struggles, martial contests, and rescues within the city of Handan; this volume falls in the transitional stretch between the Zhao arc and the Qin arc, as Xiang Shaolong's maneuvering in Zhao gradually shifts toward arrangements for escorting and fleeing. A single issue of a Hong Kong full-color comic has limited space and usually advances only one or two events; this is volume 26 of the series, and readers can regard it as a single installment continuing the surrounding plot rather than a self-contained story.