He is an immortal prisoner of time, and prey caught in a loop that resets every seven days.
Gu Cheng is a cleaner in the Lower City, tasked with disposing of the nameless corpses in its alleys. He has a secret he cannot tell: for him, death is just another chance to reload and start over.
The price is that every time he rewinds, he enters a full seven days of absolute vulnerability. During those 168 hours, any death will be permanent.
In a cyberpunk wasteland where acid rain never stops and class divides are ironclad, he has to tread carefully. Then, after one act of meddling, he rescues A Man, a mute berserker, from an underground fight club; awakens J, a cybernetic revenant, from the depths of the data abyss; and draws Ya, a faceless killer, out of the shadows. Under the protection of Mu Lao, a thousand-year-old tree, they form a band of misfits called the “Time Reversers.”
But they have struck a nerve in this twisted world.
Shen Ce, the yandere precognitive of the Dusk Bell, sees an “unpredictable variable” for the first time across countless possible futures. He regards Gu Cheng as the only unforeseen piece on the chessboard, and also…the “key” to opening the final door.
As the light of the artificial sun can never reach the abyss, and both the corporations and the rebel factions turn their attention to this struggling band
Gu Cheng grips the metal capsule around his neck, the one meant to let him “restart quickly,” and looks at the countdown reigniting in the corner of his vision: [167:59:59].
This time, he will carry all his companions' memories and fight against time to break through the encirclement.
