Everyone in Linchuan Town believed that a person had only one life and only one past.
That is, until the seventh day of the eleventh lunar month, when the old gatekeeper told Shen Zhao that his younger sister had come to watch the Shadow Play the day before.
But the troupe had never performed yesterday, and Xiao Yao had never left home.
Yet somehow, an old ticket from yesterday had appeared on her person.
After that, Shen Zhao found a prescription in the apothecary's ledger, written in his own hand but absent from his memory; a name left four years after its owner's death appeared in the Water God Temple, sealed for three years; and beyond the red door sat another boy named Shen Zhao.
Only after leaving Linchuan did he learn that what cultivators called “Oneness” meant choosing one life from countless possibilities and keeping it.
Those who Awakened could glimpse old shadows. Those who Guarded their Sense could remember themselves. Those who Condensed Seals could lock existence in place. Those who Saw Forms could glimpse the future. And those who Settled Domains could even make an entire city acknowledge only one particular past.
The peace that had lasted for centuries under the Great Ding Dynasty was built upon countless discarded lives.
Three years ago, someone had tried to crush the two Shen Zhaos into one.
Now the one behind the door was coming back.
What he wanted to take back was not a name, nor a younger sister.
It was Shen Zhao's entire life as he now knew it.
