Dark Ink, Embers of Light

My name is Lin Jin, and I'm an antique restoration apprentice.

Ever since my mentor died under mysterious circumstances, I've become a magnet for criminal cases. Every crime scene seems to be calling me.

Everyone says I'm unlucky. Only my adoptive father, a detective, looks at me with growing unease.

Then I met Jiang Yan, a mixed-race aristocrat from Europe.

He can draw golden talismans that ward off evil with his bare hands. He told me that the aura of death wrapped around me is heavier than that of a century-old haunted house.

A cultural relic smuggling ring, a mysterious organization overseas, ancient families searching for immortality… They come after me like mad dogs.

I thought they were after Jiang Yan's occult arts, until a top-secret case file was slapped in front of me:

The thousand-year-old unsolved case known as the “Xuan Dynasty Blood Sacrifice” has an astonishing match with my DNA.

Now Jiang Yan's compass has shattered because of me, and my adoptive father has been shot while shielding me. He's in the hospital.

The old monsters lurking in the shadows of history are waking one after another, howling my real name.

I wipe the blood from the corner of my mouth and look at an ancient emperor's portrait in the mirror. He looks seven-tenths like me.

So it turns out I'm the one… the ultimate secret the whole world has been hunting for a thousand years!