The Kingdom of Qingqiu

This is a long historical novel drawn from true stories recorded in the old town's gazetteers. The land of southern Liaoning stretching from Dalian to Xiuyan, rich in hot springs and jade, has in recent years been identified by experts as the Qingqiu Kingdom of the Classic of Mountains and Seas. When the Revolution of 1911 was sweeping across China, the ancient town of Piziwо near Dalian was still under Japanese rule and known as the Kwantung Leased Territory. The townspeople practiced Shamanism, the belief that all things have spirits and that totems are worshipped. The pizi, or raccoon dogs, of the old town were Shaman totems, clever and mischievous, adept at imitating human speech and behavior, as if in a beautiful, tender fairy-tale world. In the year [X], the pizi were all poisoned to death by the Japanese, a mystery of the century. University lecturer Zhou Ye and Japanese exchange student Yukiko come to the old town to investigate the cruel truth behind the Japanese extermination of the pizi. No sooner has the investigation begun than Zhou Ye becomes entangled in emotional complications. He is admired by Yukiko, the Japanese student, yet his heart belongs to Zhao Yue, the first love he met not long ago, while Russian student Nadya also harbors feelings for him... Divorced Zhao Yue will not accept Zhou Ye's proposal and will only be his lover, to his great frustration and utter helplessness. Zhao Yue is a descendant of the Aisin Gioro clan; her maternal grandmother was a shaman and still lives in Piziwо. Back in the old town, the anti-Japanese exploits of forebears such as Second Master Ma and Ju Shide stir Zhou Ye's blood, and the bloody mystery of a contest of national courage and wisdom gradually unfolds. The Shaman world lets them feel the primal spiritual power of a people and its profound significance for today's world.