At midnight, No. 99 Shiyi Lane: the Time and Space Lost-and-Found Office opens for business.
Shen Zhiwei wields the “Eye of Tracing Light,” transmigrating across the modern era, different periods, the Republican era, and ancient times to take on the regrets of ordinary people: a jar of candy from 1988, a stack of unsent love letters, a wedding dress sewn over a lifetime but never worn.
Every era bears traces of her, yet she never remembers having been there.
Even stranger, a note in her own handwriting appears in the candy jar: “Don’t open the sandalwood box.”
The office also has a mysterious man, Xie Wuwang: gentle as jade, with an old scar a thousand years deep on his wrist. Before every journey, he says, “I’ll wait for you to come back,” and when she returns, he hands her osmanthus tea at just the right temperature.
“Who are you, really?”
“The Mirror Keeper.” He smiles. “I’ve waited a thousand years for you.”
When the fortieth mark lights up, the truth tears through the tenderness:
A thousand years ago, she was the Creator God, and she personally laid down eighty-one rules for perfect endings. He was her fiancé, but a crime condemned him to spend a thousand years atoning as the Mirror Keeper. She sealed her heart inside the sandalwood box and scattered her soul across every era.
“Those eighty-one perfect endings were my wish. I wanted you to see that life is worth living, and then learn to love me.”
