We are at the Summer Palace in Hwaguk, together with Gyen Jebi, a lead character from "Phoenix Extravagant", a book written by a Korean-American writer, Yoon Ha Lee and first published in October 2020 by Solaris Books.

Yoon Ha Lee is a Korean-American science fiction and fantasy writer, who received his M.A in math education. He's known for his novel "Ninefox Gambit", that won the Locus Award for best first novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula and Clarke awards. Yoon’s short fiction also has appeared in publications such as F&SF, Tor.com, and Clarkesworld Magazine.

The lead character, Gyen Jebi, is a non-binary painter, who’s just trying to get by in their conquered homeland. They are recruited by the Ministry of Armor to study and paint the lexicon of mystical glyphs to animate the occupying governments automaton (or robot soldier), including a giant mechanical dragon or mecha-dragon, called Arazi. But they discover a secret that convinces them to take a stand against the conquerors and steal the dragon.

The book's setting is loosely based on Korea during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) and the world building comes originally from the story of pigment color PO49 or Quinacridone Gold. It's a beautiful orange-gold color. It was originally manufactured for car paint until probably gold-colored cars out of fashion. The paint manufacturer Daniel Smith bought up the world supply and put them in their watercolors. This was all fine and dandy until the supply literally ran out.

This show is a free interpretation of characters and events in the book, especially connection between Jebi and Arazi, that had been given speech ability by them. According to the myth, dragon-spirits inhabited lakes and clouds and mists, stories that the people of Huang-Guan, Razan, and Hwaguk held in common.