The Cognition Pawnshop

In 2079, the neon lights of Xinjing City dissolve in the torrential rain. Memories have become currency, and time is riddled with cracks. Lin Wan clutches her meager 37.5 credits as she stands before the Eternal Memory Pawnshop. Her younger sister's life is counting down, and the only thing she can wager is an S-grade memory labeled “Core Childhood Trauma.”

Seventeen clocks point to times out of joint, and the silver-haired shopkeeper Li Xuan hides secrets as cold as glaciers in his eyes. The rules of pawning are merciless: the “ownership of experience” is transferred permanently, and anything not redeemed before its term expires will be auctioned anonymously, potentially triggering “temporal flow disturbances.” Lin Wan has no choice. She sells the pain of losing her mother in a fire, but the instant the emotion is stripped away, she discovers an even more uncanny truth behind the blaze: her identity, her memories, even her very existence are all part of a carefully orchestrated deception.

She is not Lin Wan. She is Subject 47, an experimental subject meant to serve as a vessel for consciousness. The real Lin Wan perished in the fire long ago. Hunted by Song Qinghe, caught in the gravekeeper's conspiracy, and facing the collapse of wounds in time, she is driven toward the heart of fate. She is both a natural temporal anchor and the key to repairing time.