The Time Ruins Exchange

Han Xiaoyu, the heroine, 22: An orphan raised in a welfare home, she was shuffled among several foster families as a child. Her only warm memory is the half of a jade pendant her foster mother, Granny Lin, pressed into her hand before she died when Han Xiaoyu was 12. The pendant is actually an “anchor” from the Temporal Ruins Exchange, capable of sensing its bearer’s deepest longing. Tough yet sensitive, she craves a sense of belonging because she grew up without love. She seems cheerful, but has a habit of pleasing others. She studies archaeology at university and, while searching for clues to her origins, accidentally falls off a cliff. At death’s door, the pendant draws her to the Temporal Ruins Exchange, where she becomes a “spacetime broker,” a junior trader.