At first, Old Stories of Southern City sounded like it was set in the Republican era, but the dynasty the production recreated was actually far more ancient.
It was not long after feudal society had been established. The various regimes had yet to consolidate their power, and warfare raged constantly along their borders. It was an exceptionally dark period when the people could barely survive. (This history is fictional.)
The Prince of Zhennan, played by Lu Yanting, had made Southern City his capital and held the lands south of the Yangtze. His territory was vast, his army powerful, and his wealth immense. He was on the verge of swallowing up every neighboring country.
Yet on the eve of unifying the Central Plains, he suddenly died.
The once-mighty Southern Kingdom abruptly fell into decline and was soon invaded and occupied.
The Prince of Zhennan's cause of death remained a mystery, and his burial site was exceptionally well hidden. It was not until after the founding of the nation that villagers discovered a collapsed section of a building in Southern City.
Archaeologists quickly gathered at the site, only to discover that Southern City had an underground palace identical to the buildings aboveground, practically as though they had been copied and pasted.
And the Prince of Zhennan, whom people had sought for hundreds, even a thousand years, was buried there.
When Jian Ran reached this part of the script, he really wanted to give it a thumbs-up and shout, "One word: brilliant!"
Rulers throughout history had gone to every possible length to hire occult practitioners to design their tombs, paying attention to both feng shui and secrecy. After all, who wanted someone dragging them out of their coffin to flog their corpse after they died?
But the Prince of Zhennan had taken a