In Huai'an Lane in Great Yu, Xiong Ling'er runs a noodle soup shop and guards a truth everyone knows: she was born without spiritual roots. Lu Jingheng, who grew up alongside her, can hear when the patterns between worlds fall out of order. Fourteen years ago, his parents vanished at the Luoyan Ancient Post Station, leaving behind only an old bowl, a few incomplete Return Lamp Letters, and a bridge between worlds that no one dared open.
When the ancient bridge awakens once more, the two of them cross into the Celestial Continent of Xuanyuan. Sects demand years of life in exchange for so-called immortal fate. Merchant alliances turn life-saving food and medicine into century-long debt contracts. And the price paid by those who ascend to immortality is quietly passed on to mortals. Faced with layer upon layer of old rules, Lu Jingheng uses the art of restoring order to investigate tampered cause and effect, while Xiong Ling'er relies on ledgers, testimony, and ordinary objects to forge an unprecedented path of cultivation despite having no spiritual roots.
From Huai'an Lane to the bridges between the nine cities, from searching for their parents to uncovering the truth behind the division of the two worlds, they must prove that no one has the right to choose on behalf of all living things, and that no ordinary person’s name, memories, or wishes should ever become a stepping stone for the powerful on their way to heaven.
