[Republican-Era Mystery] + [Agents of Order] + [Chinese-Style Weirdness] + [Cthulhu Files] + [Conceptual Authority] + [Espionage]
I transmigrated to 1934 and became a beggar in Shanghai’s Zhabei District.
I’d planned to keep my head down until the founding of the People’s Republic, but a mysterious household registration officer rescued me and took me on as his apprentice.
That was when I learned that household registration in the Republic of China was no simple matter.
White files record life and death. Yellow files document demons.
Red files seal away uncanny objects. Black files…
They conceal horrors that have been erased from history.
My master was an “archival tailor” who stitched the cracks in reality together with his pen.
After he disappeared, I was forced to inherit his mantle.
Japanese onmyoji seek to usurp the nation’s fate. Green Gang bosses forge false identities for their doubles. Foreigners in the concessions spy on the Way of Heaven… As for me, armed with a strange ledger that can see through “true names,” I navigate among the various factions, stitching things back together.
When night falls over Shanghai, the archive room door slowly swings open.
Which “nonhuman” will I register tonight, and which taboo will I seal away forever?
A novel theme; looking forward to the following chapters.