On the day Lin Mo quit her job, she received her grandmother's belongings: a copper key and a slip of paper bearing the words "No. 7 Qingtan Alley."
When she opened the door, she found not the dilapidated old house she had expected, but a little Jiangnan courtyard hidden in the heart of the city. There was a moss-covered old well, a thousand-year-old osmanthus tree, and a studio piled high with ancient books. Time seemed to have stopped there.
The centenarian next door squinted at her and said, "Nannan, you're home. Your grandmother waited sixty years for you."
Only then did Lin Mo learn that her grandmother had been the last Misty Artisan, a woman who repaired the books of life for broken souls.
Her very first client was Jiang Che, a hugely popular idol. He showed her a crack on his wrist that only she could see, his voice trembling:
