In the third year of Yuanyou's reign, there were many book shops in Bianjing. Xin Qichi guarded a book repair shop left by his father, filling pages and unmounting them for others, and also collecting old books that no one would listen to.
He has a craft that he dares not show to others: using clear water, old paper and light against each other, one can see the "shadow of the book" between the incomplete writings - it is not the words of a ghost, but the hesitation of the author, the sigh of the scholar, and the human world that was seen when the page was hidden.
A Caocang account book that was supposed to be blank turned into ink characters growing on each page in the rain. Twenty years ago, a river disaster that was downplayed, a slave boy who was removed from the roster, and a deal to seize land by borrowing ancient books all returned to Bianjing through the paper seams. Xin Qichi discovered that his father did not die in an accident that year, but left a final collation note for a book that had never been put into storage.
From the loose pages of "Hequ Miscellaneous Notes" to the disappeared "Old News Records", to a column deliberately dug out of the catalog of the Song Dynasty's book collection, Xin Qichi has never just made up for books. He wants those erased names to return to paper and to the world.
