A broken jade pendant engraved with a flying apsara from Western Xia connects three eras. In 1941, Zhou Chengyuan carries the pendant in search of his father and uncovers the secret history of his father, a guardian of the scriptures. In 1998, laid-off factory worker Zhou Xiaomei follows the clues in the pendant and uncovers the truth about her family's guardianship. In 2023, programmer Lin Xiaoman uses AI to decode it, bringing digital light and shadow into conversation with scriptures thousands of years old. From the turmoil of the Republican era to the digital age, three generations use the pendant as a key to write the story of ordinary people and the Hexi region among its sandy dunes. “Above the sea of sand, beneath the starlight, the guardians' spirits will endure forever.”
