Some souls are destined never to cross the River of Forgetfulness in peace.
He wanders on the border between life and death, neither a dead soul nor a living being. He is Lin Xiaoman, the ferryman beneath the Ruined Bridge, unrecorded by the Underworld and unseen by the living. He runs a “convenience store” that only souls burdened by the deepest obsessions can find. Here, tears can be weighed, memories pawned, and unfinished wishes traded for one last glimpse across the divide between yin and yang.
But no one knows that the boy who trades in the obsessions of the living carries in his chest a wound that never healed, left by a shattered story from the 1990s.
Every story begins on an afternoon that seems perfect, with his heart-wrenching plea as he falls to his knees. He once thought going with his mother would save him, never knowing it was the start of another life dependent on others, where he would learn the full range of human warmth and cruelty. At last, on a rainy night, nine-year-old Lin Xiaoman quietly let his final attachment to the world fade away.
Death was not the end. His obsession was too deep: he refused to be reborn and could not forget, wandering in the space between the worlds of yin and yang. By a twist of fate, he gained a sliver of power to maintain their balance and connect the two realms.
He began by helping lonely ghosts deliver a message or burn a stick of incense. In time, he became the night watchman of the Ruined Bridge, witnessing countless partings and deaths, loves and heartbreaks. He could ferry countless souls across, but he could never ferry the boy within himself who begged his mother not to leave.
This is the story of an obsession a child could never let go of, even after a lifetime. This is a convenience store for those who never got to say goodbye.
A firefly may be small, yet it can light the night; a ruined bridge may be broken, yet it can ferry lost souls. But who can ferry him?
