Three thousand years flow through his blood. Chen Yan has hidden among ordinary people under seventy-three different identities. He was the last shaman-healer of the late Shang dynasty at Sanxingdui, personally forged the Bronze Sacred Tree, witnessed “visitors from beyond the heavens” feeding on souls, and saw his mother seal jade with her blood in a final act of resolve. The Black Jade Cong holds the curse of his immortality, and locks away the darkest secret of ancient Shu: those worshipped as gods were actually alien marauders coveting Earth.
When carbon dating of Sanxingdui’s fourth sacrificial pit points to the late Shang dynasty, when a bronze fragment embedded with a soul crystal glows blue in a museum, and when the bronze claw marks of the Soulkeeper reappear on an old Chengdu street, the nightmare he has fled for three thousand years is finally awakened. The broken Black Jade Cong burns against his chest. His mother’s soul whispers from within its cracks. The soul-guiding threads ensnare not only the life force of the living, but also a destiny that crosses time and space.
From the sacrificial pit at the Jinsha Site to the secret passageways of Xingqing Palace, from the blind old woman in Luoyang’s ghost market to the bizarre deaths surrounding an archaeological team, Chen Yan is forced to take up the bronze dagger of a shaman-healer once more and pursue the truth amid the collision of modern technology and ancient Shu curses. Can a blade stained with divine blood pierce the Soulkeeper’s metal shell? Will the union of three jade cong awaken a god, or reveal the cure for the bloodline curse? When the wreckage of the “Heavenly Ark” rumbles beneath the earth, he finally understands: immortality was never a blessing, but a redemption he must fulfill, using the bloodline of the Can Cong clan as his guide and three thousand years of memories as his offering to fight the alien ghosts lurking in the shadows of history.
