Inkheart Pavilion

Deep in the old quarter’s Qing Teng Alley lies an antique-book restoration studio called Yanjin Pavilion. Lin Yan, its 26-year-old proprietor, spends his days among yellowed pages and mottled ink. With deft movements of his fingers, he can breathe new life into damaged books. Thin and reserved, he is like the old locust trees in the alley, quietly rooted in his own little world, with only a calico cat named Momo for company.

No one knows that this young craftsman, who can barely use a smartphone, comes from a family of “Inkstone Keepers,” a secret lineage entrusted with restoring energy-marked antiques for “special individuals.” Lin Yan himself also has a vague ability: when he touches certain old objects, his fingertips go numb, and fragments of scenes that do not belong to him flash before his eyes.

He had planned to live quietly, looking after the studio his grandfather left him. But when an antique theft pulled him into a vortex, Su Wan, a reporter covering social news, dragged him right into the fray. The stolen ancient jade concealed the energy signature of a superpowered individual, and collector Zhao Chengze, who coveted this power, closed in relentlessly, even dragging in Lao Zhou, the neighbor who ran a coffee shop.

When his peaceful life was shattered, and the responsibility of the Inkstone Keepers stepped out of his grandfather’s notes and into view, Lin Yan had no choice but to face his own “specialness.” Using the meticulousness he had honed restoring ancient books to piece together the truth, and the stubbornness in his bones to protect those around him, he forged his own path between the ordinary city and the hidden supernatural world.

This is a story about legacy and protection, and the journey of an ordinary person who gradually comes to understand himself and seize his own power amid the tide of events.