Hidden in Sanxingdui's Pit No. 8 is a bronze artifact that must not be touched. It cut the finger of technician Sun Kaiye, and with it, opened a passage to three thousand years ago. From that day on, he could "hear" the memories of cultural relics. But the price was that every layer of truth he uncovered made him forget a part of himself. He forgot his mother's face in exchange for the ability to sense the earth's ley lines. He forgot his father's name in exchange for the right to speak with the ancients. The stronger he became, the less he seemed like himself.
Then the organization called the "Zeroing Faction" told him, "Forgetting isn't destruction. It's returning to zero. Without memories, there is no pain."
But when the girl who protected him with her restoration knife asked his name, he still answered, "My name is Sun Kaiye. My grandfather said that artifacts have spirits. Don't let them cry."
Only later did he learn that the entire ancient Shu kingdom had forged artifacts, sealing the rifts beneath the earth with their lives. Yu the Great's flood control had been about taming the chaotic currents of energy tearing the land apart. Jiang Ziya's conferring of divine titles had preserved civilization's final archive. Qin Shi Huang's book burning had destroyed not the classics, but history corrupted by contamination.
Even if one day he forgot himself, he would make sure the stories of this land were remembered.
