Lin Huan thought she was dead. As she fell into the well, she thought that was the end. She’d quit her job, broken up with her partner, and her life was a complete mess. Dying would at least be a clean break. But when she opened her eyes, she found herself standing on an unfamiliar street, beside a Ming dynasty girl named Chu Yue, under a blazing sun. This place belongs to no dynasty. The old farmers of the Western Han, monks of the Tang, and imperial concubines of the Qing, everyone whose name made it into the history books and everyone who didn’t, gathers here after death. The dead wait to be reincarnated, while the living who wander in must find a way out. There’s a tower north of the city, and the light at its summit leads to the human world. But living people who approach the tower will exhaust their yang energy, while the dead will be reincarnated faster if they stand before it. Lin Huan doesn’t want to die here. She still has a flame of life within her, proof that she’s alive in the human world. To keep that flame burning brightly, she stays to farm, bask in the sun, and go about her days. Around her are a Ming dynasty girl who fled an arranged marriage, a Tang dynasty monk on a pilgrimage for scriptures, a Qing dynasty consort embroiled in palace struggles, and a strategist from the Three Kingdoms who lays out battle formations. These people from different eras gather around her, helping her keep track of the days, tend her life flame, and pave a way home. But gradually she realizes the way back isn’t at the top of the tower. It lies in the glimmer of light she saw in the well, the one that reflected her own face. The person she’s been angry with all along is herself. The life she needs to return to is the one she once gave up.
