In 1937, signs of a paranormal resurgence begin to appear in Shanghai. Seventeen-year-old orphan Chen Daoxuan makes a living doing odd jobs at the City God Temple. By chance, he finds a fragmentary silk manuscript hidden in a secret compartment. It contains the Twin-Soul Tempering Art.
This cultivation method can create a Dao body that can withstand the bite of evil spirits, harm ghosts with true qi, and even temporarily shut them down. In a city where hauntings have begun, it is nothing short of his greatest means of staying alive.
But there is something strange about the method. The warning at the end of the manuscript, the note inside a cloth doll, and the copper-coin mark on his chest that grows hotter by the day all hint at a danger he doesn’t yet understand. Meanwhile, a gray-white face beneath a black umbrella keeps appearing around him, and something beneath the City God Temple is stirring.
Many years later, on the orders of the Seven Elders of the Republic of China, Chen Daoxuan travels to No. 7 Middle School in Dachang City to secretly protect a boy named Yang Jian. He thinks he still has everything under control. But he doesn’t know that every time he uses his Dao body, the true owner of the cultivation method draws one step closer. He thinks the power belongs to him, never realizing that he might be the one being “cultivated.”
This is the story of an ordinary man with no golden finger trying to survive in an era of paranormal resurgence. Every step toward greater strength brings him one step closer to the abyss.
