Zhang Ping'an, a history graduate, sent out forty-seven resumes. With just 372 yuan left in his bank account, he was finally taken in by the owner of an antique shop, who offered him room and board and a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan.
He thought this was how he’d spend the rest of his life: wiping dust, minding the shop, listening to the owner brag, and occasionally appraising old objects whose authenticity was hard to judge. His days passed like ash in the incense burner at the City God Temple: deep, quiet, and never-ending.
Then one day, three thugs barged into the shop.
Blood dripped onto the old jade pendant his grandfather had left him, and he heard a soft hiss, like hot iron plunged into water. Then he saw a courtyard: rockeries, a pond, and a stone tablet engraved with three characters: Dongxuan Blessed Land. The lingering souls of generations of inheritors emerged from the shadows. Their first words were:
“I pass on to you the art of reading qi.”
From then on, he could see the “qi” of all things in the world: gray-black for baleful energy, blue-purple for nobility, and golden yellow for wealth. He could see whose body was wrapped in resentment, which antiques concealed vengeful spirits, where a city’s dragon vein was clogged, and where the order between yin and yang was beginning to break down.
He thought it was merely a skill, one that could help people assess homes, ward off evil, and spot hidden treasures for money, enough to keep him alive in this city.
But he didn’t know that what he’d inherited was more than just the art of reading qi.
From Li Chunfeng to his grandfather Zhang Chengyuan, every generation of inheritors had been investigating the same enemy. The organization lurking in the shadows of the city, feeding on the misfortunes of all living beings, had already extended its tendrils beneath the streets. Every time he intervened in something that seemed unrelated, he unknowingly dismantled one of their pieces.
From the insomniac villa of a CEO to the haunted dormitory of a medical school; from a thousand-year-old site beneath an ancient town…
