While guiding souls across the veil, Chen Youzhu, a spirit-walker, encounters the opera singer Liu Yinxiao defying death and forcing his way into the River of Forgetfulness. His water sleeves are frosted white, and he seeks only the remnant soul of his elder sister, who should have long since entered the cycle of reincarnation. Chen Youzhu should drive away a living soul, but the unextinguished obsession in Liu Yinxiao's eyes makes him break the rules and guide him instead.
At the boundary between the opera stage and the underworld, Liu Yinxiao sings "A Mortal's Longing" as he searches for his sister, while Chen Youzhu uses his spirit power to keep Liu's soul from dissipating. From the old memories of a lonely ghost in a mass grave to a decades-old murder in a troupe's hidden chamber, the two navigate the space between "life" and "ashes." Liu Yinxiao fights for a chance at life for his family and the troupe's former members. As Chen Youzhu guides souls, he encounters a love that has not yet grown cold in the human world, and gradually realizes that "near ashes" is not the end, but a new beginning.
When the soup of oblivion cannot extinguish the obsession in an opera, and the soul-summoning bell cannot dispel the living's longing, this journey across the divide between yin and yang will let a glimmer in the "ashes" become a flame that lights up the long night.
Theme: In the desperate state of being "near ashes," let obsession and loyalty serve as kindling, and set alight the hope of "life"
