The Shadow Book of Ji Yun is proving to be great fun. These are trufax! stories of things Ji Yun himself witnessed, or his relatives and friends. Already we've had an experience of Immortals confronting human beings in what the translators point out is very like an alien abduction, and a pair of stranded merchants in Tibet being rescued by what sounds like a group of yeti. There's also the father of Ji Yu's tutor, an inventor who constructed something similar to Pratchett's Gonne. The Chinese had firearms by this time but they were all single shot muskets. This man devised a repeating revolver that could shoot 28 times in a row. He was about to send it off to the military authorities but dreamed that night of an Immortal who chided him for creating such an instrument of death, so he swore never to make another and to keep this one hidden. A pity, I think.

Ji's childhood friend remembered his past life but forgot it bit by bit after the age of five: "...up to the age of four years he had very clear memories of his previous life-- including specific events,  friends,  and family members. But around the age of five these memories began to slip away-- tree by lover by co-worker-- until, in a few years, he only recalled that his former life's hometown was close to Chang-shan village..."

Ji himself, when a child, was able to see in the dark as if it were daylight "in a windowless and lampless house in the dead of night" but also started losing the ability about the age of seven. From time to time the 'light at night' ability would return but only for a split second.

One night he dreamed that his dead servant, who had been 'criminal and treacherous' in life, came to him and said, "I humbly offer my services to my master who has been conscripted into the army three thousand miles away." Next day one of his students gave him a black puppy, who went with Ji when he was exiled shortly thereafter, became very attached to his master during his time at the borders, and was indefatigible in guarding the baggage on their return. I don't know if Ji Yun suspected he was for the chop when he had that dream of being conscripted, but he was certainly convinced that the dog was his rascally servant come back to make amends.