Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor

The first book in a middle-grade fantasy series follows twelve-year-old Zachary "Zack" Ying, a Chinese American boy living in a basement suite in Maine with his single mother. Zack is Hui, a Chinese Muslim ethnic minority, and his father, Ying Qiaosong, was executed by the Chinese government for speaking out against its oppression of Uighur Muslims and other minorities. Zack's mother, a former biochemical engineer now working retail and part-time lab jobs, has raised him alone, leaving Zack with almost no knowledge of Chinese history or legends.

Zack is the only Asian kid at his school and constantly self-conscious about standing out. He secretly discards the Chinese lunches his mother packs. His social life centers on Mythrealm, a dominant augmented reality game played on portal-lenses, specialized eyewear made by XY Technologies. When a new Chinese boy at summer school named Simon Li mentions that Zack's surname is the same as the First Emperor of China's, Zack dismisses the connection, though a mysterious voice has begun speaking in his head.

Events escalate when Zack's team captain, Aiden, pressures Simon to lend a rare Mythrealm creature. Simon refuses, and Aiden grows violent, grabbing Zack and threatening to hurt him unless Simon complies. A spirit tag appears in Zack's portal-lens identifying a taotie, a mythological creature of greed, possessing Aiden. Simon urges Zack to read about Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China. When Zack does, a shadowy figure offers to grant his greatest desire in exchange for becoming his mortal host. Zack blurts that he wants to be stronger, and the spirit rushes into him, temporarily taking over his body to fight the possessed Aiden with water-controlling and time-slowing powers. Zack expels the spirit, and Qin Shi Huang binds instead to his portal-lens.

That evening, Zack's landlord and his son arrive possessed by spirits and use a glowing pagoda to extract Zack's mother's spirit, leaving her in a coma. Simon defeats the attackers and reveals he is the host of Tang Taizong, a later Chinese emperor. He explains that demons captured Zack's mother's spirit and that Zack must join a mission to China to retrieve it.

On the flight to Shanghai, the emperors explain that Qin Shi Huang originally sealed the largest portal between the spirit and mortal worlds by building his mausoleum over it. A recent earthquake has loosened the plug, and they have 14 days before Ghost Month, a period when spirits cross into the mortal realm, to reinforce it before the flood of spirits ruptures it entirely. Legend magic powers spirits based on how widely they are remembered. The emperors reveal that Jason Xuan, the billionaire founder of XY Technologies, is the host of the Yellow Emperor, a legendary divine ancestor of the Chinese people who plans to rupture the portal and raise a supernatural army. Because Zack knows nothing of Chinese legends, his spiritual connection to Qin Shi Huang must be strengthened through contact with historically significant artifacts.

In Shanghai, Zack meets Melissa Wu, the twelve-year-old host of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The team breaks into the Shanghai Museum to touch Shang Yang's measuring vessel, a bronze artifact that standardized measurements across ancient China. After absorbing spirit residue, Zack gains stronger powers and defeats the spirit of Jing Ke, a legendary failed assassin of Qin Shi Huang. As Jing Ke dissipates, he denounces Qin Shi Huang as a tyrant and transmits visions of the emperor's historical atrocities. The warning deepens Zack's doubts, but Qin Shi Huang draws parallels between their lives as boys raised by single mothers and caught between two cultures. Zack remains skeptical yet resolves to continue for his mother's sake.

At a halal restaurant where Zack eats Lanzhou beef noodles and feels connected to his Hui heritage for the first time, Simon reveals the team's ultimate goal: retrieving the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, an imperial stamp carved from legendary jade, lost roughly 700 years ago. The emperors believe it rests in the Dragon Palace of the East Sea. To survive the ocean depths, the team travels north to Penglai, a mythical island of Daoist immortals, for immortality pills. After battling mermaids, spirit dragon boats, and a giant whale, they reach the island, where Zack must impersonate Qin Shi Huang before the Eight Immortals, Penglai's leaders. The Eight refuse a pill for Qin Shi Huang's host and throw his portal-lens into the Guixu, a mythical ocean abyss. Zack dives in after it, forcing the immortals to save him by sending a pill. He rides inside a kūnpéng, a mythological creature that shifts between whale and bird form, to the Dragon Palace.

Zack bargains with the Dragon King: He will fight the Eight Immortals in the Dragon King's name in exchange for the seal. After a brutal battle, the Dragon King delivers the seal. Visions of every emperor who wielded it flood Zack's mind as he erupts from the ocean in a cyclone, his meridians (spiritual energy channels) glowing gold. Voices urge him to conquer, but Zack resists. He rides a water dragon along the spirit construct of the Great Wall before collapsing.

While Zack is unconscious, the emperors repeatedly try to seize the seal. Upon waking, Zack discovers that the father of Nezha, a famous warrior deity in Chinese mythology, served under Tang Taizong and carries a spirit-capturing pagoda identical to the one used on his mother. Using the seal's power to compel truth, Zack forces Simon to confess: The attack on Zack's mother was staged by the emperors. Tang Taizong summoned his own legendary subordinates to capture her spirit as leverage. Her spirit was never in danger.

Simultaneously relieved and furious, Zack throws his portal-lens out a window and flees. Wandering Yulin alone, he discovers the seal lets him command anyone to obey. Jason Xuan finds him and shows Zack a video of his father's final message: Everything he did was so Zack's generation could be proud of themselves and not live in fear. Jason proposes breaking the portal fully open so ordinary spirits, including Zack's father, could communicate with the living again.

Jason brings Zack to the tomb of Fusu, Qin Shi Huang's eldest son, a beloved prince tricked into suicide by forged orders after his father's death. Fusu's spirit possesses Zack's body and leads a crew into Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum, navigating deadly traps to reach the burial chamber: a colossal cavern with bronze mountains, flowing mercury rivers, a ceiling of glowing gem stars, and vast plains guarded by an enormous army of colorfully painted soldier statues. Fusu and Jason begin weakening the portal plug. Simon and Melissa intervene, and Qin Shi Huang's spirit materializes to beg Fusu to stop, warning that freeing all spirits would unleash entities of unimaginable power. When Fusu refuses, Qin Shi Huang summons the assassin Jing Ke and commands him to finish the assassination that failed two thousand years ago, conquering his lifelong fear of death. Jing Ke's dagger dissolves both spirits into nothing.

Galvanized by this sacrifice, Zack expels Fusu and reclaims his body. The Yellow Emperor fully possesses Jason and summons a spirit army. Zack uses the seal's last power to heal the portal plug before the seal disintegrates. He then grasps Qin Shi Huang's skull from the coffin, absorbing remaining spirit energy, and invokes the legend of China's unification to reanimate the army of painted soldier statues. A bronze chariot arrives, its driver calling Zack by his Chinese name in a voice like wind, suggesting his father's spirit. The Yellow Emperor escapes, and Zack collapses.

Zack wakes four days later. The portal held but may not survive Ghost Month's peak. An AI called Qin Ai, which Qin Shi Huang created before his destruction, explains that Zack must gather mythical five-colored stones across China to fashion a new plug within 11 days. The program warns that Qin Shi Huang's spirit will eventually reform from cultural memory with no knowledge of Zack; because Zack carries a piece of the emperor's spirit within him, the reformed Qin Shi Huang will try to reclaim it by killing him. Simon and Melissa deliver a final shock: The hospital reports Zack's mother recovered and checked herself out, but her spirit remains trapped, meaning something unknown now inhabits her body.