Tales  of  Alive

Six Hours.

Every time he closes his eyes in the modern world, the clock dissolves. Every time he wakes, he is standing in a different century — mud on his boots, incense in the air, and the weight of a dynasty he was never taught.

Six hours in the old world. Then the present pulls him back. He has learned not to sleep near anything sharp.

The anchor is not a gift. It is a debt — paid in disorientation, in grief for two timelines he cannot hold at once.

I am 吕恩豪. The character 吕 — two mouths, stacked one above the other. Two voices. Two eras. The character has carried my family forward through dynasties it was never taught to name.

When I began researching the historical record that became this novel, I expected to find strangers. Instead I found the same surname, inscribed in a ledger that was not meant to survive — that should have burned, been buried, or simply been forgotten.

This novel is not invented. It is reconstructed. Every court session, every meal, every execution — I have a source, and the source has a date. What I cannot prove, I have marked clearly. The rest, I will stand behind.

Two mouths. One story. You are reading the second voice.

— 吕恩豪