He can read. In a group of people who can't even write their own names, he is assigned to record the fallen.
Year 1927 of the Ashes Era. The war shows no sign of ending. Lu Zhao, a new recruit in the Ashes Company, is the only person in the company who can read and write, and the one most afraid of dying. His task is simple: write the names of the dead into the register, one stroke at a time.
He does it well, until one morning he sees the name "Lu Zhao" on the list.
The handwriting is his own.
Only then does he learn that the book can hear the voices of the dead. Writing down a name lets him hear everything the dead person heard in their final moments. But each time he listens, he has to forget something about himself. He wants to survive. He wants to find out who is prematurely striking their unit from the rolls. He wants to make it home alive and see the extinguished lamp at the village entrance.
But the first page of the book lays down one rule: It only works on the dead.
Written into the list of fallen soldiers, the cannon-fodder recruit decides to rewrite his own fate.
