Modern office worker Gu Yan drops dead at his desk after another all-nighter. When he opens his eyes again, he's a “foreign entity” awaiting execution in a dungeon belonging to the Demon Suppression Bureau.
Outside the black-iron cell door, the cool, austere Shen Che wears a moon-white brocade robe. Rolling a demon-suppressing talisman between his fingers, he fixes Gu Yan with a gaze colder than ice. “In three days, you'll be burned as an offering to the tower. Don't struggle.”
Gu Yan smiles. He has pulled projects through mountains of corpses, and accepting his fate has never been his style.
He hides a shard of broken porcelain, mixes it with cinnabar, and slices his palm. Taking advantage of a demon's escape, he crashes through the cell door, only to run straight into Shen Che, who has returned. As the sword presses against his throat, he catches a flash of surprise in those dark eyes, not just murderous intent.
“You're different from those other entities.”
That quiet remark binds them together through countless battles for life and death.
Shen Che is the hereditary guardian of the Demon Suppression Bureau, with enough demonic power sealed inside him to destroy the world. Beneath his white robes lies a ruthless devotion to all living beings, along with a struggle no one knows about. Gu Yan is an intruder from another world, armed with modern cunning and resilience, who glimpses the burning warmth beneath Shen Che's icy shell through their repeated clashes.
When the Demon Suppression Bureau's conspiracy tears away its tender facade, and Shen Che turns completely dark to protect him, demonic power surges in their eyes and burns between them.
“Gu Yan, do you know that letting you go would cost me the entire Demon Suppression Bureau?”
“Shen Che, do you know that if I stay, I'll fall into the abyss with you?”
As the rift between worlds opens and closes and the Soul-Suppressing Tower trembles, two people who should have been mortal enemies clasp hands amid flashing blades.
Did he bind Gu Yan's fate, or did Gu Yan become part of his very bones?
This entanglement, which began with imprisonment, will end with blood and fire as its ink
