I Open a Paper Effigy Shop in the City

Li Xiaofan, the owner of a joss-paper shop in Jiangzhou, appears to be an ordinary young man, but is actually a Nascent Soul cultivator from the Age of the Decline of the Dharma. Hidden among the common people, he crafts paper offerings to guide the dead into the afterlife. But after a bizarre incident at a funeral home, where a paper figure swallowed someone's heart, he draws the attention of the secret government agency Dragon Hidden.

Dragon Hidden is a mysterious organization that has existed since ancient times. It was called the Heaven-Mending Pavilion during the Han dynasty, the Imperial Observatory during the Tang dynasty, and is now known as Bureau 749. Its sole mission is to deal with supernatural and uncanny events. Mistakenly believing Li Xiaofan to be merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator, its leader recruits him with generous benefits and gives him the codename Reverse Scale. From then on, Li Xiaofan runs his paper-offering shop while helping Dragon Hidden resolve all kinds of paranormal incidents: a river dragon stirring in the Yellow River, a stone coffin beneath the river, a severed dragon vein on Mount Zhongnan...

As the investigation deepens, Li Xiaofan discovers that these events are closely connected to the disappearance of Emperor Jianwen six hundred years ago, the surviving fragments of Li Chunfeng's Prophecy of Pushing the Back, and the impending Catastrophe of the Jiachen Year of the Dragon. More terrifying still, someone within Dragon Hidden seems intent on restarting the ancient Heaven-Mending Project. The wounds on Li Xiaofan's Nascent Soul, the sorrowful cries of the dragon bones beneath the Dragon-Locking Well, and the workers who melted on Mount Zhongnan all point to one earth-shattering secret: he may be the most crucial Reverse Scale in this catastrophe.

**Traditional Chinese Metaphysics x Modern Cultivation**, uncovering a thousand years of hidden secrets in China and defying fate, all in the Jiachen year!