Xie Bi'an is an illegitimate son on the fringes of the wealthy Xie family in Nanzhou, neglected and humiliated at every turn.
Fan Wujiao is a taciturn clerk at a convenience store that stays open late, spending his days amid neon lights and loneliness, with a hidden brutality beneath the surface.
A prolonged rainstorm blanketing all of Nanzhou brings these two seemingly unrelated men together again by chance at the thousand-year-old Nantai Bridge.
The moment they touch an old stone pillar by the bridge, memories sealed away for nine lifetimes surge back like a flood:
A broken bridge beneath the snow in the Western Jin dynasty, a bloody case in Chang'an during the High Tang, a butcher amid the chaos at the end of the Ming, corrupt officials holding sway at the end of the Qing… In every life, they became soul-reaping envoys in the mortal world, wielding the power over life and death and executing the most wicked.
“Lao Fan, our nine-life pact has come due. It's time to clean up the filth in Nanzhou.” Xie Bi'an's voice had shed its former restraint and taken on the authority of the underworld.
As the black umbrella in Xie Bi'an's hand transformed into the white impermanence's mourning staff, and the belt at Fan Wujiao's waist became the black impermanence's soul-binding chain, Nanzhou's peace was shattered for good.
The powerful who ruled their corners, the heretical cultivators hiding in the city's shadows, and the criminals who had blood on their hands yet walked free all felt the bone-chilling terror rising from the depths of the underworld that night.
“Your allotted years in the mortal realm are not yet over, but your virtue in the underworld is depleted. I shall send you on your way ahead of time!”
This is not the end of reincarnation, but the beginning of the gods' descent. The cycle of nine lifetimes has finally ended, and the Black and White Impermanence have returned to their posts, passing judgment over the mortal realm and safeguarding the balance between yin and yang.
