In 2026, on the Lantern Festival during the Year of the Horse, your perception is your prison.
Wang Yan, an abandoned researcher at a biotech company in Shanghai, awakened two things amid the flames of a laboratory explosion:
First, the shattered reincarnation legacy of the ancient cultivation-world Daoist Venerable Lumo,
Second, the most forbidden "Error Pathway" in the arcane Sequences.
The price: his fiancée publicly called off their engagement, his life's research was devoured by capital, and a three-colored flame was etched into his right eye.
Su Ye, heir to the multinational group Eye of the Deep Dark, was born as a sacrifice her family would offer to the "Mother Goddess."
An awakened one on the "Dreamer" Pathway, she can weave dreams and peer into the threads of fate,
yet she alone cannot see a way to survive.
When a reincarnation flame meets the power of imagination,
when a cultivation spiritual root is grafted onto an arcane Sequence,
two young people whom the world treats as pawns join hands amid the wreckage of the 2026 Lantern Festival.
"Let's work together," she says. "You help me deceive the gods, and I'll teach you how to cultivate immortality in the city."
And so
Alchemy becomes gene serums, secret-realm expeditions become virtual-reality dungeons,
sect wars are hidden behind multinational corporate mergers, and flying swords race alongside sports cars beneath the neon lights of Lujiazui.
Meanwhile, in the shadows, the ancient civilization's legacy of "Heavenly Dao corruption" and the arcane Outer Gods' "whispers of source matter" are turning the modern city into a hunting ground.
"They want the 'truth' at the end of reincarnation."
"All we want is the freedom to stay alive."
In this game of strategy with an entire era at stake,
Wang Yan and Su Ye will use the numbers from the laboratory...
