Seven hours after his grandmother breathed her last, Chen Mo hurried back to Huaiyin Town. In the mourning hall stood a coffin that should never be opened. Seven grains of rice lay on the threshold, and four rules for keeping vigil were posted on the wall. The first three could save his life. The fourth read: The Chen family has no eldest grandson.
His relatives looked at him as if he were a stranger who had wandered into a funeral. Even his own father didn’t recognize him. But midnight was fast approaching when his grandmother suddenly knocked three times on the coffin lid and called his name, clear as day. Chen Mo soon discovered that the rules could do more than kill: they could alter memories, identities, and family ties. And he could change one character in a rule. But each time he did, the world took away one thing that proved he existed: his ID card, photos, fingerprints, voice… When the entire town of Huaiyin remembered him as having died fifteen years ago, Chen Mo had to find out before he was erased completely: why the Chen family had no eldest grandson, who the girl in the coffin was, and why the Ninth City, which managed “those no one would acknowledge,” had been waiting for his return.
