The Mask Theater

There are no masks in this world. Every face is shaped by life.

In an old, fog-shrouded alley in the western part of the city stands a mask theater. The downtrodden can put on a mask and live through an extreme life turned upside down: the timid gain courage, the ordinary gain an edge, and the meek gain desire. But every gift of fate comes with a price secretly marked on it. The more you gain, the more you must stake.

Chen Gang, a debt collector who had spent half his life enduring hardship, was originally chosen by the theater as "fodder." But the moment he saw through the truth behind its harvest, he staked his own unyielding spirit and gained eyes that could see debts. From then on, he could see the debts of everyone around him. He would collect, one by one, the old debts that the law could never reclaim. Radio host Liang Yun and barbecue stall owner Sun Qiang were also bound to him by the theater.

Following an old debt his grandfather had left unpaid for twenty-three years, he forced open the hidden door: the three factions of Fate Seizing, Ruin, and Memory Theft had been entangled for three thousand years. The divine mask shattered into eight souls scattered across the world, each capable of changing fate and becoming a treasure people would fight over. And in the eyes of the theater's master, who stood at the helm, lay a past unknown to all.

From Linjiang to Ningzhou, from business rivalries to formation-setting, from debt collector to theater master. Liang Yun and he traced the current upstream, through the Republic of China era, the late Qing, and the end of the Ming... One old theater after another, one buried truth after another, all led back to the fire three thousand years ago.

Three thousand years was a game of chess.

But when he reached the other side of the board, he discovered that this was never the only game being played.

This time, he would move the pieces himself. But in the end, he made his own ultimate choice.