With poetic language, prose style and a historian’s attitude, Zhu Yong takes us into the space inaccessible to ordinary tourists: the Hall of Martial Valor, the Hall of Displaying Benevolence, the Palace of Peaceful Longevity, the Pavilion of Literary Profundity and the Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service. The book tells the secret things in the hidden corners and depicts the historical figures who have appeared and disappeared in the Forbidden City and the ups and downs in their lives.

The Forbidden City is both a witness to and a participant in history. The vicissitudes of the world in the distant history are beyond the reach of ordinary tourists during their short visit to the Palace Museum. The writer’s aesthetical writing of these hidden corners revisits and continues the memory about the Forbidden City, and brings out a significant part of the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Xiaozhuang, Fulin, Li Zicheng, Wu Sangui and Qianlong and so on, all these characters are lifelike. Vivid stories make history no longer so far away, but close to people.