Male-oriented | No romance | Modern supernatural | Folk customs | Suspense | Slow burn | Character growth | Grave keeper
Spiritual energy has been depleted for three hundred years, and all magic has become useless. He can’t even light a talisman, so he has to rely on the steam from a wok of fried glutinous rice to sense where the rifts between layers are leaking.
Until one day, the old copper needle his grandfather left behind begins to tremble. A line of golden characters appears on its shaft:
“Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
It is both a warning and a final message.
His future self is desperately sending word back just before dying. Three warnings, three escapes from certain death. But the more he investigates, the more terrified he becomes. The apocalypse is counting down, and he is the only person who can “die once in advance” before the end arrives.
No System, no golden finger. Just a wok, three needles, seven copper coins, and a box of matches.
Before he dies, he must find a way forward and keep the flame alive.
Sixty years later, his remains are forged into a silent guardian, stationed beside a rift between layers to keep speaking for him:
“I’m ready. Don’t be afraid.”
(But we haven’t reached the depths yet.)
