Amid the ruins of the interstellar colonization era, Lin Jin, a former elite of the Space Military Academy, scrapes by scavenging battlefield wreckage, until his mechanical eye deciphers a code formed by bullet holes. It leads him to a cloned scientist, Irene V, dissecting her own corpse; Old Ghost, a mechanical maniac convinced the universe is a virtual program; and Red Sparrow, a secret police officer concealing deadly tentacles beneath her qipao.
They discover that the forbidden “Black Salt Edict” can rewrite the laws of physics, but it is also accelerating the universe’s death. The most horrifying truth is that Irene is no clone, but a “human tombstone” bearing the memories of the original.
As the stars begin going dark one by one, the team must choose between seeking redemption and stopping the universe from being formatted. Will they become the kindling for a new world, or the gravekeepers of the old universe?
