The end of the path to immortality is no escape from the world. The vast mortal realm is the true way home.
Bearing broken memories, Lu Li awakens to a soul from another world on a night when the steps to immortality run red with blood. With a copy of the Scroll of the Netherworld and a nine-tailed guide to point the way, he opens a mysterious inn in a humble mortal alley: the Red Dust Inn.
This inn accepts no gold or silver. Instead, guests pawn their obsessions, calamities, and karma:
A painted-skin demon weeps blood as she embroiders a soul-cloak; a heart-devouring drought demon burns a city to beg for rain; a calamity hound carries disaster to the door; an ink-black seal locks away misfortune and guards all living things... The three thousand souls of the mortal world are all characters in a book.
When the Ascension Platform shatters and the three realms collapse, this inn becomes the last anchor in the heavens:
A demon's lair is built at the bottom of the Dragonfall Abyss; the bones of artisans lie buried in the mines of Sin Star; the Yellow Springs flood backward as a pot of bitter soup is brewed; all living beings find shelter in the sea of heart demons. Immortals and gods see the inn as poison. Heaven issues a decree to destroy the rebel inn, but the nameless innkeeper smiles faintly and says, “Wherever this immortal inn stands, there is the mortal world.”
War across the heavens burns through the old era, and the Gate of Return opens onto eternal night.
When the inn lights its lantern to illuminate the way home, the heavens finally understand:
What does the innkeeper pawn besides karma? He pawns the shackles of immortals and demons, and buys back the freedom of all living beings.
When a new covenant is made and mountains and seas are set right again:
The auspicious calamity hound patrols the four seas; demonic night fiends are born in a Buddha's realm; a shepherd boy in the snowy mountains commands frost charms; a courtesan embroiders heartfelt longing into a painted bone...
And deep in the vast mortal world, someone always opens that wooden door:
“Innkeeper, would a flask of life-as-a-dream be enough to buy me a lifetime of clear-headedness?”
