Restoring Haunted Artifacts: Starting by Painting Eyes on Lord Guan

[Intangible Cultural Heritage Crafts + Urban Mysteries + Episodic Stories + Golden Finger]

In the old district of Jiangcheng, there’s an antique shop called Hidden Retreat, and it only opens on rainy nights.

The proprietor, Lu Yan, is young, yet his skills are almost divine. He repairs more than just broken porcelain and yellowed paintings. He also restores “cursed objects” tainted by karmic ties and burdened with resentment.

A statue of Guan Yu without painted eyes claims lives in the dead of night; a blurred face in a Republic-era photograph traps a vengeful spirit; a dressing mirror that eats people, a shroud that’s never finished being woven...

Behind every cursed object lies a buried truth and a soul unable to rest in peace.

With a carving knife in hand and the Heavenly Craftsman’s Compendium as his guide, Lu Yan repairs objects and cultivates his heart, redeeming things and saving people.

“What I repair isn’t antiques, but the human heart.”

When Shen Qinghan, head of the special cases investigation team in the criminal investigation squad, shows up at his shop reeking of corpses and carrying a strange black-and-white photograph, Lu Yan knows his “business” has only just begun.

As he repairs one cursed object after another, Lu Yan gradually uncovers a mysterious organization called the Faceless Ones and their thousand-year plot to overturn the balance between yin and yang.

He repairs cursed objects, but what he glimpses is the human heart.