Three hundred years after the rift tore open the heavens, spiritual energy has grown polluted and heretical paths run rampant. In this dog-eat-dog world, Lu Chen is just a poor scholar who scrapes by collecting the souls of the dead and refining them into incense.
He can see the glow of souls on those nearing death. When someone dies and their soul disperses, he gathers it and refines it into a coin's worth of soul incense. It can blind cultivators' spiritual senses and fetch a price like gold on the black market. All he wanted was to save up enough silver coins and find a peaceful place to spend the rest of his life.
Until Liu Niangzi, the flower seller next door, was found dead at home, a fist-sized hole carved out of her back.
A sinister excavation beneath the eastern city wall, an ancient whisper from the time the heavens split three hundred years ago: both are stirring awake in this crumbling city. Lu Chen gathers the pale pink soul glow and realizes he's already been dragged into the heart of the vortex.
Soul incense can blind the eyes, but it can't cover the rumble of something turning over beneath the earth.
"We were down there when the heavens split. Now the sky is about to split again, and it's our turn to come up."
In a world on the brink of collapse, an undertaker decides he will no longer just bury the dead.
