219 BC

The ruler of Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, fears death and seeks a way to live forever. He tasks his court sorcerer, Xu Fu, to find Mount Penglai, return with the elixir of life, and with Anqi Sheng, a magician claimed to be already one thousand years old. Fu’s first expedition fails.

210 BC

Xu Fu’s second expedition launches with soldiers, craftsmen, and 3,000 boys and 3,000 girls. The expedition never returns. Storms and sea monsters ravage Xu Fu’s fleet. Miraculously, and at only 11 years old, Xiao Hong washes up on the shores of Penglai with the flotsam. What remains of Fu’s ships find a land of flat plains and wide swamps. There he proclaims himself king. This would one day be known as Japan, but that’s another story.

206 BC

At the dawn of the Han Dynasty, Hong calls Mount Penglai her home for four years. There was must discussion amongst the immortals of the isle and she was not killed, nor thrown back into the sea. Given a place in their midst, albeit lowly, Hong serves at their grace.

201 BC

Five years later, as the construction of Nanchang begins on the mainland, Hong is now Anqi Sheng’s apprentice. She climbs the ladder, and even makes rungs for herself when none existed. Her aptitude, determination, and skill impresses Sheng. He instructs her in the arts and unravels the secrets of life.

191 BC

When on the other side of the world, Cisalpine Gaul becomes a Roman province, Hong is a practiced alchemist. She knows the theorems and the formulae and is one of Penglai in all but name. She will always be an outsider while she still ages.

184 BC

At age 37, and while the Empress Lü has Emperor Qianshao of Han deposed and executed, Hong becomes immortal. She chooses a new name for her rebirth: Anqi Hong, in honor of her master. This is her first death.

164 BC

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Many view the comet as a dreadful portent. Anqi Hong is taught what it means to be an immortal. The lesson will never end.

149 BC

As the Third Punic War picks up steam, Hong has not aged for 35 years. She is 72, older than she has any right to be. Penglai is home and she is no longer an outsider. Her studies beneath Sheng continue and she perfects the theorems of life, adding to Penglai’s collective knowledge.

121 BC

When Roman armies enter Gaul for the first time, Hong grows listless with her life in Penglai. She lingers on memories, her first family, even though it’s faded.

87 BC

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Emperor Wu of Han dies after a 54-year reign in which he leads the Han dynasty through its greatest expansion. Hong’s cloistered life comes to an end. She’s left Mount Penglai and returns to the mainland. Even knowing it’s been over 120 years since she seen her family, she returns to her home village. It’s unrecognizable to her. She stays for a time, meets her great, great nieces and nephews, sees the family resemblance, but cannot reveal who she is. Anqi Hong is a world apart.

80 BC

When Alexandria comes under Roman jurisdiction, Hong has travelled the Silk Road for many years. She marries a trader and her life is comfortable. No child comes from the union and the marriage doesn’t last.

76 BC

As Chinese historian Ban Gu ponders the origins of the universe, Hong is a hermit in the mountains of Zhangjiajie. She, too, ponders things, and helps the occasional lost traveler.

67 BC

As Han forces defeat the Jushi kingdom, Hong is counted as a casualty.

63 BC

Hong marries again, and acting through her husband, makes a good living as an intermediary trader between China and the west as Jerusalem is besieged by Pompey the Great. She is widowed. No child comes from the union.

44 BC

As Julius Cesar is murdered in Rome, Hong returns to China with her fortune. She is 177 years old.

31 BC

The gold doesn’t last, and by the time Rome has conquered Egypt, Hong is back at Mount Penglai. She pens stories of her travels.

27 BC

In the founding year of the Roman Empire, Anqi Hong is back on the Silk Road, determined now to reach the end. She settles in Tyre and lives there for many years as a merchant’s wife. Poor investments put them into the red and Hong stages their deaths to escape the creditors.

14 AD

By the death of Augustus Caesar, Hong has married and is widowed. No child comes from the union.

41 AD

By the assassination of Emperor Caligula, Hong marries a magistrate and gets a taste for politics.

66 AD

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Hong marries again. Sickness takes her husband but leaves her untouched. No child comes of the union. She is destitute.

79 AD

When Mount Vesuvius destroys the of city of Pompeii, Hong is married and is widowed. No child comes from the union. She swears to never again give her heart to another. She is 300 years old.

111

Hong cloisters herself away in a Tibetan monastery as the Book of Han is completed.

122

11 years later, as construction of Hadrian’s wall begins, and now going by Xiao Ban, she breaks her promise and gives her heart to another. She is soon widowed. No child comes from the union.

141

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Xiao Ban walks the many kingdoms of China. She brings news between the villages and is something of a travelling sell-sword. Her price is food and lodging.

220

The Three Kingdoms period begins. This is the fall of Han dynasty. Ban is mentioned in the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” as Lady Huang. The tale is far from what happened.

228

Xiao Ban dies at the Battle of Shiting between the states of Cao Wei and Eastern Wu.

234

Xiao Ban dies at the Battle of Wuzhang Plains between the warring states of Cao Wei and Shu Han.

280

46 years later, as Emperor Wu of Jin establishes the Jin dynasty and unites China, Xiao Ban studies the heavens. She falls on hard times.

295

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. With no prospects and over 500 years old, she swears off her peach pits and decides to end it all. In the depths of withdraw, Ban comes to the painful decision she’s not ready to lose herself.

300

As the Mayan civilization reaches its most prolific period, Xiao Ban is a palace courtesan during the War of the Eight Princes. It is a devilish time of intrigue and assassination.

330

When Constantinople becomes capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Ban establishes a finishing school for young women. This is the beginnings of an information network. Ban’s school shows promise but she never plays things through to the end. The school flounders and eventually closes.

406

With the Roman expulsion from the British Isles, Xiao Ban has married and is widowed. No child comes from the union. Swearing off material attachments and associations, she returns to the mountains of Tibet.

410

As the Visigoths sack Rome, Xiao Ban strives for enlightenment.

478

As the first Shinto shrines are built in Japan, Xiao Ban strives for enlightenment. Looking the same age as when she arrived at monastery, the others treat her differently.

530

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. The monastery is attacked and Xiao Ban gives her life in its defense. Things are tense when she walks off her mortal injuries. Enlightenment is starting to feel out of her grasp.

618

By the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Xiao Ban has returned to society. Enlightenment eluded her. She plays the courtly game and amasses influence. Life is good and she has many servants and many horses, but she is not happy.

635

When the first Christian missionaries arrive in China, Xiao Ban establishes a finishing school for young women. Her second attempt is more effective with her courtesans and concubines plump with secrets. She wields her influence like a club. The school does not last.

768

As Charlemagne ascends the throne, she marries into the Tang dynasty and becomes Tang Ban. The throne is beyond her, but she plays the game and positions her husband well… maybe too wells. Soon, she is widowed and the assassin’s knife turns upon her. Tang Ban is murdered in the palace and Zhou Lan slips away. She leaves no family to mourn her.

800

Away from the intrigue of the courts, Lan takes up the merchant’s mantle again. She takes on able hands to manage the day to day and stays in the shadows. With the invention of gunpowder in China, Zhou Lan undertakes some of the most prosperous trades of her long life.

827

In the year Emperor Jing Zong is assassinated by a group of conspirators, Lan becomes her own estranged daughter, Zhou Shufen, and takes the reins of her mother’s estate. The daughter’s ruse was all but transparent to those close to the business, but they are paid well. Still, rumors get out.

885

As the Vikings besiege Paris, Zhou Shufen does the inheritance trick again and Zhou Ban come into her estranged mother’s estate to little fanfare.

907

The Tang dynasty collapses and Ban’s mercantile empire falls with it, her house propped against those fragile walls. Having witnessed the fall of three other dynasties, she should have known better. Ban salvages what she can.

1066

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. As the Battle of Hastings rages on unimagined shores, she crosses the sea. In the land of the rising sun, Ban commits to a quiet life. Local strife makes that difficult.

1095

When Pope Urban’s Crusade to retake the Holy Land is underway, she returns to China as Chao Hong with little to her name. Jaded, she takes the Silk Road south in hopes of finding hope. At over 1,300 years old, little excites her anymore.

1118

As the Knights Templar are founded, Chao Hong is at her most restless and self-destructive. She takes unnecessary risks, and puts herself in danger. Death is a game she can’t lose, but doesn’t win.

1125

With that out of her system, and the Jin declaring war on the Song in China, Hong returns to the capital and their dynastic games.

1189

When Richard I becomes King of England, she has served the Jin under various names and roles, eventually becoming consort to Emperor Shizong of Jin.

1206

The Mongol empire is established. Going by the name Zhou Lan, she serves as an advisor to the Great Khan.

1222

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Zhou Lan reads the portent and advises caution.

1227

Five years later and Genghis Khan is dead. She continues as an advisor and now mystic to Ogedei Khan.

1251

Continues to serve the Khans seeing through Guyuk’s reign and into Mongke Khan’s empire.

1271

Kublai Khan conquers China and establishes the Yang dynasty. Zhou Lan meets Marco Polo. She has worn the same guise at court since the Great Khan and has not aged a day. She is more feared than revered.

1294

Kublai Khan dies, leaving the Yang dynasty in the hands of Temur Khan. Zhou Lan parts ways with the Khans after 88 years.

1298

The year Marco Polo publishes his tales of China, Zhou Lan arrives in Venice with an entourage. The new world he described in court fascinated her, but most of all… it was new.

1337

By the time the Hundred Years War begins, Zhou Lan has travelled the length and breadth of the peninsula, and a number of the surrounding islands. She is something of a curiosity.

1405

Back home, China expands into southeast Asia and the Indian ocean. Zhou Shufen, assumed daughter of Zhou Lan, doesn’t know what to do with herself. Trade does not excite her as it once did. Eventually, she decides to attend the University of Naples Federico II.

1456

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Shufen’s secret is known to an opportunistic cabal. They conspire to bring this immortal under their thumb. Using her then-family as collateral, the cabal makes her their creature. Shufen abides, does their bidding and waits out the clock, then takes her revenge.

1492

As Columbus sets sail for the new world, Shufen is a free woman again. Wanting to feel something familiar, after 1,500 years, she returns to Mount Penglai. Everything is as she remembers.

1513

When Portuguese explorers first arrive in Ming dynasty China, Shufen enjoys Mount Penglai’s hospitality. She chronicles her adventures, what she can remember of them, and adds to Penglai’s collective knowledge.

1531

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Zhou Shufen re-enters society as Xiao Lan. While little changed in Penglai, the world raced ahead as if trying to outpace her.

1548

When the ruling Ming dynasty shuts down ports and bans foreign trade, Xiao Lan sees an exciting opportunity in illicit goods. In Shanghai, she turns her hand to smuggling.

1577

The Portuguese settle Macau, one day to be Hong Kong, and Lan has built a quiet empire. It is a flower and she nurtures it, letting it grow. It’s her flower whose petals cast a shadow over the city.

1585

As the colony of Roanoke is founded in the Americas, Xiao Lan is rich and powerful, and controls much of the illegal traffic in and out of Shanghai. She has people, and her people have people. Lan does not hide what she is and lets the rumors flourish.

1600

At the beginning of the Edo period in Japan, Shanghai belongs to her in everything but deed. She is Triad before the word has meaning. The flower she nurtured became a garden which many covet.

1607

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Ming magistrates, cracking down on smuggling, fencing, and corruption, fall upon her organization. It is bloody, many die, and many flee the city. Xiao Lan is executed for her crimes. The execution did not take.

1616

When William Shakespeare dies in England, the former Xiao Lan turns her mind to petty revenge and political revolution.

1644

The Manchu conquer China, ending the Ming dynasty. The revolution would have happened without Xiao Lan, but she credits herself for taking everything from the Ming, as they did to her. She feels a little better.

1666

In the year of the Great Fire of London, Xiao Lan is now Xiao Hong. She is the wife of a Qing official. It’s comfortable and boring, an anticlimactic turn after decades of smuggling and revolution, and she knows it.

1682

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Xiao Hong has left her Qing official of a husband. At over 1,900 years old, this is a resurgent mid-life crisis for the immortal. Hong does not know what to do with herself. Old destructive tendencies that Hong thought she had left behind are back.

1692

As the Salem Witch Trials burn innocents in the New World, Xiao Hong is restless and self-destructive. She takes unnecessary risks, and puts herself in danger. Death bores her.

1775

When the American Revolutionary war begins, Xiao Hong has emerged from her funk. Nostalgia has her return once again to her family’s village. It changed so much in 1,800 years that Hong can’t be sure if this is the right one. She hasn’t felt this apart from the world in very long time.

1824

Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th symphony premieres in Vienna, and Xiao Hong is back on the road. She has explored much of China, and tries to find those places that are new to her. There are still many for her to find.

1839

At the time of the First Opium War, Xiao Hong is in Canton and smuggles opium for British merchants to sell illegally in China. This is a lucrative arrangement and it makes Hong very rich.

1850

The year of the Taiping rebellion, Hong remains in Canton and trades western goods above the table and illicit goods beneath. Balancing the two is her new game. She is enamored with the tales from the west and longs to travel again.

1856

By the time of the Second Opium War, Hong realized the landscape had changed. She lost much property and goods, and even her life, during the battles for Canton. Eventually, Xiao Hong cut her losses.

1876

The year 13 million die of famine in northern China, Xiao Hong is Chao Shufen is on her way north and cannot turn a blind eye to the hardship. Haranguing local magistrates, she re-directs food and aid to those hit by the famine. It is little more than a drop in the ocean, but she tried.

1905

When the First Russian Revolution set the stage for things to come, Chao Shufen watches the anarchy from Tsar Nicholas II palace in St. Petersburg. She is a guest of the Tsar. This is not her first revolution.

1910

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Chao Shufen comes to blows with Grigori Rasputin, a man who knows the lesser formulae of life. Shufen leaves the palace in a whirlwind. To hear of his murder six years later pleases her greatly.

1914

When Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo, Shufen is in Belgium and is one of the 200,000 some refugees that made their way to Britian. She is resettled in London and is employed at the Belgian Munition Works. Shufen is an oddity amongst them, but makes herself essential. She is someone who can get things.

1918

By the time Armistice is signed, Shufen has carved a niche for herself in war-torn London.

1937

As the Hindenburg crashes and Japan invades China, Shufen goes by Chloe Chan. She lives amongst the Chinese diaspora in Paris, France. This is an attempt at a quiet life away from the spotlight.

1939

During World War II, Chloe resists the Nazi occupation of France. She’s part of the Resistance and works with SOE. Her time in Shanghai and Canton made her perfectly suited to smuggle men and materiel through enemy territory.

1945

By the end of the war, Chloe had died in new and exciting ways. She marries an American GI and emigrates to the US. This is her first time in the New World, though she heard many stories.

1969

When the US landed the first man on the moon, Chloe Chan is now Hanna Chao and she is at Woodstock. Changing her name is more difficult this time around.

1977

Elvis Presley is dead and Hanna has a van. She’s driving coast to coast, exploring the continental US. It reminds her of the old days and the spice road, and the world feels big again.

1986

Halley’s Comet is seen in the night sky. Hanna’s secret is known to a dangerous cabal, the Black Lotus Triad. They conspire to bring this immortal under their thumb. They seize her and withhold the means of her continued existence. She resists and starves herself, almost to the point of losing everything. There is no clock to wait out this time. Eventually she relents and the cabal makes Hanna their creature. They tattoo her with an insidious ward to cement their control.

1989

As the Tiananmen Square protests unfold on TV, Hanna Chao is in East Berlin. Nothing good comes of what the cabal has her do there. She looks for an opportunity to slip the cabal’s noose.

1997

When Britian returns Hong Kong to China, she’s exacting retribution on a man and his business associates in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is messy; she is to send a message. Hanna resists on occasion, and the Black Lotus tightens the nose until she chokes.

2001

In the year the Twin Towers fell, Hanna stands vigil over an archeological dig in the artic circle. They recover something from the ice.

2012

By the year the Higgs Boson is discovered, Hanna has committed to the long game. She does not resist anymore, doesn’t question orders. She is their creature, through and through, until she isn’t.

2022

In February of the year Russia invades Ukraine, the triad sends Hanna to Easthaven, MA. She attends a Chinese New Years celebration and leaves a parting gift.

2023

As Hawaii burns with some of the worst wild fires in recent history, the Black Lotus sends Hanna Chao back to Easthaven to pull on the Chain and see what comes loose.