To Embers We Return

Original title: 焚情 (pinyin: fen qing)

Author: 宁远 (Ning Yuan)

Synopsis: It’s the Tang Dynasty, but not as you know it. Hovercars criss-cross the sky; drones whisk back and forth; and the commander of the city guard’s favoured weapon is a Gatling gun. The rich augment themselves with a wide array of cybernetic implants, while the poor have to scrimp and save for even the most basic prosthetics. The empire’s machinists make a lucrative living crafting, installing and maintaining implants and neural modules.

When Shen Ni, the empire’s foremost machinist, returns home victorious from battle against their long-standing foe, the emperor showers her with rewards, including the hand in marriage of the woman she had loved in her youth — Bian Jin.

Bian Jin had once been the empire’s sharpest blade: a living weapon whose very name made their enemies cower. After a string of near-fatal battlefield injuries, however, she’s battered, broken, and stands accused of high treason, though she claims to have no memory of what transpired. Shen Ni takes on the onerous task of retrieving Bian Jin’s lost memories and repairing her much-battered cybernetic spine and neural core, but Bian Jin seems to be keeping something back. Can they trust each other? And can they trust the empire?

Veteran baihe author Ning Yuan’s most ambitious work yet, this historical cyberpunk novel tells the story of a group of determined women whose lives become ever more intertwined as they seek to uncover secrets both past and future, and make a place for themselves in a turbulent world.

Chapter count: 182 chapters

Word count: 839,874

Translated by: douqi

JJWXC links: The original novel can be found here on JJWXC. The author’s JJWXC page can be found here. A guide for navigating JJWXC can be found here.

A note on pinyin: The pinyin for kinship terms, forms of address, etc generally follows the rules described in superborb’s pinyin guide.

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Table of Contents

Volume One: A Butterfly’s Dream of Chang’an

Volume Two: Wanderings in the Wilderness

  • Chapter 104
  • …
  • Chapter 162

Volume Three: A Beautiful Day

  • Chapter 163
  • …
  • Chapter 173

Extras: Jade Fragments and Scattered Pearls

  • Chapter 174
  • …
  • Chapter 182