One ill-fated choice brought his life crashing into the depths of despair. One act of kindness, however, stirred a thousand-year-old coin, which made a pact of merit with him.
Reborn three years earlier, Chen Mo could see the secrets behind billions in lottery winnings, but discovered that he had become Heaven's hired hand. Wealth was a borrowed flame, and he had to use it to kindle eighty-one hearts hanging by a thread. Save one person, light one lamp; overcome one trial, renew one bond.
He was both a tycoon with billions of devoted followers and a lonely lamplighter walking through a boundless sea of suffering. Only after seeing the deepest darkness could he understand the value of a faint light; only after tasting life's joys and sorrows could he understand that kindness was no easy thing. It wasn't until he met the woman who made the lamp in his heart flicker that he realized the greatest merit might be learning when not to save someone.
When the eighty-first heart-lamp blazes to life, the road back to Heaven lies before him. Will he take his billions and return to the modern world to make up for the regrets of his past? Or will he give away every last coin, remain forever in the mortal world, and become a beacon who turns himself into a candle to illuminate the lives of others?
This is a stunning wager that uses wealth to measure human nature, and a modern fable about kindness illuminating the course of fate.
As lamps kindle and die, so do bonds begin and end. Whose way will his light illuminate?
