Shen Yu can see the numbers above people’s heads: the time each of them has left. At twenty-four, he finally understands the symbol above his own. It isn’t a number, but a minus sign. The old man who taught him his trade never dared to explain what a negative number meant. He only said, “You can take on other people’s misfortune because you’re empty. Anyone empty enough to have a negative number won’t live to see twenty-five.” Then one night, a young woman came to his door. Her younger sister had entered Linyuan Tower and never come out. The surveillance footage showed her going in, but not coming back out. Linyuan Tower had been abandoned for ten years. The deeper Shen Yu investigated, the colder things became. Buried beneath the building was a city that should not exist. In the city stood a furnace, and beside it, an iron pillar held a row of people who should have been dead long ago, yet were still breathing. His mother’s name was carved into the seventh pillar. He had only thirty days left. In thirty days, he had to reclaim every life that had been stolen, or become fuel for the furnace himself. Shen Yu chose a third path: he would carry that furnace out with his own hands.
