The Hidden Treasures Pavilion in the old district conceals a secret: wealth, talent, and opportunity can all be pawned in exchange for years of life.
Fresh graduate Lin Chen inherits the shop and learns to understand the price of each deal through its threadbound ledger. Every exchange carries a backlash of karmic consequences, driving those who get what they wished for into the abyss.
His grandfather vanished under mysterious circumstances, and the ledger’s faded entries point to a strange tsunami seven years ago.
It turns out his grandfather traded his entire remaining lifespan for a “miracle” that saved hundreds of thousands of people. But the miracle tore open a rift in time, and the survivors are now aging rapidly, becoming grains of sand that fill the gap.
The Guardians of Time demand that Lin Chen recover the time debts that have spiraled out of control. That means erasing the lives sustained by the “miracle.”
Watching the bronze hourglass turn and the time crystals pulse in the hidden chamber, Lin Chen finally understands: pawning time is never an equal exchange. It means using obsession to borrow against the future.
When the clock tower runs backward and fate exacts its revenge on everyone, he must choose between salvation and destruction. And the truth buried among the antiques is a time paradox powerful enough to overturn the world, born from his grandfather’s sacrifice.
