Heaven's Gate in the Bones

The sun set, and never rose again.

For seven hundred years under the Calendar Without Daylight, the dead of the Nine-Wall Realm have been forgotten by the living on the seventh day.

Shen Yanchuan, an apprentice at an old-curio shop in Ashen City, only wants to repair the ancient mirror his mother left behind and hear the final words that were erased from her voice. But when his restoration knife comes down, the voice in the mirror is not his mother's alone. The vanished Shen family, the nine spirit ramparts that sealed away mythology, and the "echoes of the dead" that the Xuanting forbids anyone from touching all begin to stir within the cracks.

Repairing an ancient artifact requires sacrificing a piece of his own memory. The deeper he repairs, the more he forgets. And the person in the mirror who keeps warning him not to open the door may be the very mother he longs most to find again.

When the Xuanting issues its ban and the entire city begins hunting the man who should not be able to hear the dead, Shen Yanchuan can only carry a broken mirror, a snapped knife, and three unreliable companions as he heads into the depths of the Starfall Sea.

There is a door there.

Behind it is no god, only a version of himself from the future.

**This is a story about repairing ancient artifacts, restoring memories, and giving all living beings back the right to choose.**

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.