★ Copyright sold: Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Russian!

★ The Japanese edition ranked consecutively in 2022 on two globally authoritative mystery lists: “Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!” and “Weekly Bunshun’s Best 10 Mystery Novels”. It marked the first time a Chinese novel was shortlisted for the “Mystery Writers of Japan Award”!

★ The original novel of the TV drama Four Directions Hallstarring Tan Jianci, with more adaptations in development! The author spent 13 years meticulously crafting this work, hailed as a masterpiece of Chinese cultural suspense fiction!

★ Highly recommended by Chinese suspense writers Ma Boyong and Lei Mi, Japanese mystery writer Natsuhiko Kyogoku and more.

★ The author brilliantly reimagines the classic fantasy IP Journey to the West, blending history, fantasy, mystery, and detective elements. Xuanzang takes on the role of Di Renjie, using the eighty-one tribulations (eighty-one cases) of his arduous 108,000-li pilgrimage as the narrative foundation. The divine and demonic realms are reconstructed into historical crime scenes, exhausting every category of worldly crime. Each case exposes the greed, selfishness, and evil lurking in human nature, interrogating the meaning of life and the truth of mortality.

This series consists of 5 volumes:
1. The Hell Prison of the Tang Dynasty
2. Chronicles of the Western Kings
3. The Heavenly Record of the Tang Dynasty
4. The Dunhuang Transformation of the Tang Dynasty
5. The Song of Striking the Earth in Chang’an

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“I began wandering at the age of ten after taking my monastic vows. I walked across battlefields ravaged by the endless wars between Wang Shichong and the Wagang rebels, through the dying days of the Sui Dynasty in Chang’an, along the Three Gorges, and across the lands of Jingchu. In Kaishan Temple, I heard the true teachings of the sutras; in Danyang, I witnessed the corpses strewn across the earth after the Tang Dynasty crushed Fu Gongshi. I have traversed this sky, this earth, this mortal realm, and these passing years. Yet I am confined by this mortal flesh, unable to glimpse the scenery beyond it. Sometimes, when I preach the Dharma to sentient beings, it feels like telling winter tales to summer insects. But if one day a Maitreya incarnation were to teach me the true Dharma, I would fear I might be that very summer insect. So, elder brother, if I were inside this room, I would push open the door to see the people and the city. And if this courtyard and the city were trapped within his alms bowl, I would still smash the bowl and tear through this flesh, to glimpse the world beyond, to see past lives and this one.”

In the winter of the third year of the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzang arrived in the Western Regions, where he encountered his second disciple—Prince Qiu Zhisheng of the Gaochang Kingdom. As the prototype for “Pigsy” (Zhu Bajie), he was amorous and fond of women, to the extent that he stole the Persian Empire's national treasure, the “Bottle of King David,” in order to win the favor of a princess from a rival country.

At this time, the Western Regions were on the eve of a fierce struggle among various powers. The vast Persian Empire was under siege by the Byzantine Empire and the Western Turks. The countries of the Western Regions were like a pack of wolves, sharpening their knives, each plotting to seize a share of the spoils. In a desperate bid for survival, the Persian king was willing to trade the “Bottle of King David” for military aid from the mighty Tang Empire in the East.

What kind of magical power did the “Bottle of King David” possess that it could draw in both the Eastern and Western superpowers of the world? Would the Tang Dynasty send troops? Could Persia be saved?... Unaware of the trouble he had caused, Xuanzang was oblivious to the fact that this second disciple's mischief would bring not only himself but also the Western Regions, and indeed the entire course of history and the human world, into a whirlpool of unforeseen consequences.

Chen Jian​​

A renowned writer, screenwriter, member of the China Writers Association, and council member of the Henan Provincial Writers Association. He has authored over ten novels, including University Bridge, Ears Underground, Freud’s Forbidden Zone, and The Age of Emperors. The Journey to the West Eighty-One Casesseries is his magnum opus, a meticulously crafted novel born from years of research into the classic Journey to the Westand 13 years of dedication. It is hailed as a masterpiece of Chinese cultural suspense fiction.