When the black rain fell in Wuni Town for the first time in sixty years, Zhou Yan, a 16-year-old kiln worker, heard the dead man's cry for help in the abandoned kiln.
The blank ember book left by the father can borrow the unfulfilled promises of the deceased and also take away a memory from the borrower. In order to prevent the whole town from being thrown into the furnace, Zhou Yan made a promise and forgot his father's face for the first time; for the second time, he lost his father's voice.
He escaped from Wuni Town with Lin Xiaohe who could smell the ashes, but found that sixteen years had passed outside the town. The people who were deleted from the fate list, the city that sank to the bottom of the river, and the dynasty that exchanged their names for peace have all surfaced one by one.
This river never carries only dead people. Some people want to return their names to all living beings, and some people want to use the world to repay old debts. Zhou Yan must decide who to send ashore in the next punt before he completely forgets himself.
