In a dark future where time is currency, memory is the last flesh and blood that can be sold.
Zheng Ni, a "time-reversing blade" whose hourglass in his brain is about to run out, relies on a scalpel to carve instructions on his skin to remember "Kill the Gray Sparrow". But on the ninth mission, he fell into the auction house, and what he choked was not the target, but Chen Daupai, a woman holding an emerald pocket watch - the pocket watch contained the last memory fragments of his deceased mother.
Chen Daodao, the angel-faced nurse in the nursing home, is the most dangerous memory broker in the black market. In order to redeem the memory fragments of her mother Lin Xiu, she took on a fatal mission: using her lips stained with corpse-blue lipstick, she kissed an actress's "kiss pocket watch" that contained the X-type dementia virus.
When the cold scalpel touched her throat, she called out his forgotten real name "Zheng Ni". This call exploded into the dusty hell. The killer whose nerves were eaten by nanoworms had ten "spinal racks" nailed to his spine that carried the resentment of the dying old man. A cold nurse, her late mother's old and broken shirt is hidden under her uniform.
"There are ten old people waiting to die living in your mind." She crushed the positioning trap, "Want to live? Just use this pocket watch and let the time-sucking buyers... Be buried with you!"
Why did Zheng Ni become the "Blade Against Time"? What happens when the hourglass runs out? What does the name "Zheng Ni" mean? Why is mother's memory so important?
Why is Nurse Chen the Fallen Angel the Deadly Broker? How is she related to Zheng Ni's mother Su Qing and his own mother Lin Xiu? What is her purpose of redeeming her memory?
Why do the images of Su Qing and Lin Xiu overlap? The writing on the care code, the floral shirt, the fragments of the badge... What do these clues point to?
