Twin Qilin. In the twenty-third year of the Republic, Changsha's Nine Gates are caught in turbulent times. A bronze demon-faced statue from a Warring States blood tomb surfaces in Changsha's antique black market. Legend says a "Qilin gallbladder" is sealed inside the statue's belly, one that can bridge the worlds of yin and yang and reverse life and death. Whoever obtains it can glimpse the path to immortality. Zhang Tianting, a descendant of a quiet, mysterious branch of the Zhang family, the most enigmatic of the Nine Gates, slips into Changsha alone to investigate the connection between a traitor in his clan and the statue. Born with Qilin blood, Zhang Tianting is taciturn and carries an ancient black-gold saber. His eyes seem to hold a century of loneliness. The world knows only that the Zhang family lives long, not that their endless lives are a torture with no end in sight. Yin Xinying, the cherished daughter of Changsha's prominent Yin family, appears to be a pampered young lady studying Western archaeology at a modern school. In truth, she has possessed an uncanny intuition for antiques and the supernatural since childhood. During a sudden upheaval at the black market, she accidentally triggers the inscription on the bronze statue, and she and Zhang Tianting are both drawn into the most mysterious underground Warring States palace of the Nine Gates. She sees the turmoil beneath his cold expression; he understands the obsession behind her smile.
