She Seeks Memories in Ancient Books; He Shields Her Light with Ink

Deep in the old lanes of Yunze City, where a light mist hangs year-round, stands an old bookstore called the Mistveil Bookshop. Its owner, Shen Yanzhi, is a 27-year-old young man who seems laid-back, but he has a secret: through the “ink-colored patterns of light” at his fingertips, he can sense the “fragments of memory” hidden in ancient books. When he touches a Qing-dynasty thread-bound poetry collection, it reveals a scene of “a scholar writing poetry by lamplight as snow blankets the branches outside.” A notebook from the Republican era softly “tells” how its owner “carried it while fleeing the turmoil, unwilling to throw away even a single page.” But no one believes in his ability, and the shop is so quiet that Uncle Li from the teahouse next door even jokes, “Xiao Shen, if you don’t get any customers soon, you’ll have to start selling tea eggs to make ends meet.”

Su Qinghuan, from the “world of ancient books,” is a “memory seeker” who can control “threads of light from ancient books.” The world of ancient books is overrun by “memory-eroding fog.” Countless books have had their memories devoured, and the residents are gradually forgetting their pasts. Following fragments of the fog, she arrives in Yunze City, only to discover that the ink-colored patterns of light in the Mistveil Bookshop can stabilize her threads of light. One foggy morning, Su Qinghuan rushes into the shop clutching a faintly glowing Qing-dynasty book, fleeing “memory-eroding hunters,” and knocks over the pile of books Shen Yanzhi has just sorted. Before Shen Yanzhi can complain, “Hey, you girl dressed up in a period costume for cosplay, could you be a little more careful?”, he sees the threads of light from ancient books at her fingertips coil around the Qing-dynasty book, and the pages begin to...