In 2047, humans over-exploited "time crystals", causing time anchors "human common memory symbols" (such as the Great Wall, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", Mom's Osmanthus Cake) to fragment. Time has been reduced from a "linear river" to a "boiling porridge": 1 day = 1 year in the acceleration zone, where strangler vines grow wildly; time is frozen in the stagnation zone, and passengers are always holding unsent messages; the resurgence zone cycles through a certain period of the past, replaying the "Time Collapse Day" every day; the time spirit wields a rusty sword and chops at the cracks in time.
Lin Zhan, a 28-year-old cultural relic restorer, witnessed the "reverse restoration" of celadon from the Song Dynasty in the museum, and the boatman in the ancient painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" ran out and yelled "Run" - she received the last voice from her sister Lin Xing: "Sister, I am at the old observatory, and the wound of time is here... It is breathing!"
In order to find his sister, Lin Zhan stepped into the decaying timeline and formed the "Repairers Alliance" with Chen Mo, an engineer from the Time Crystal Company who defected, and Mrs. Zhou, who was obsessed with her grandson. Their goal is not to "eliminate the cracks in time", but to "piece together time" using the logic of cultural relic restoration - retaining the "temperature of memory" in the cracks like repairing celadon.
But as the truth is revealed: the time crystal is the "time excrement" of alien civilization, and repairing time will awaken the "scavengers" (alien survivors who want to recover the crystal and destroy mankind), Lin Zhan faces the ultimate choice:
Should we repair time and return the earth to "normal", or should we give up repairing and coexist with festering time?
