Echoes of Chang'an: Chapter I

April, 778 AD. The rains have come early to the Huainan road. My name is Duan Zhifang, adopted son of the frontier general Duan Xiushi. I grew up in army camps. This time my father has entrusted me not with scouting an enemy, but with a sealed letter that must reach Luzhou by my own hand. Caught in a downpour, my small escort and I take shelter at the Wild Geese Inn beside the highway. The inn is crowded: a scholar bound for the examinations, a merchant travelling with his children, a silent swordsman, an over-attentive old waiter. A meal, a jug of wine, a night of talk — nothing out of the ordinary. Yet when I wake, everything before me is exactly as it was "last night": the same faces, the same words, the same dishes. How many times must this night repeat? And what is hiding behind every smile at the inn? Echoes of Chang'an is a mystery visual novel set in the mid-Tang Dynasty.…