On a rainy night while delivering a shroud, Shen Qingyan mistakenly entered an old green lantern shop.
The shop does not sell gold or silver, only obsessions: memories, marriage, life span, hatred and wishes can all be used to establish a contract. The shopkeeper Gu Huaixu is as gentle as water, but the account book is colder than a knife edge - what he signs is not a transaction, but an inescapable rule.
Shen Qingyan originally wanted to save money to find his lost sister, but was forced to grind ink to make seals and became an apprentice in a trading company. He transcribed every cruel transaction and left his own mark in the dark: if a mortal wants to live, he cannot just be devoured by the contract.
Ruan Xiaotang is the shadow of a young man in the shop, smiling with his eyes crooked, but he will suddenly say a sign of disaster; Su Huaixi is in charge of the deed, as if nailing the grievances of the world into the paper; outside the door there are fake deeds, black markets, Yin Ming and Qingyun swordsmen, and there is an invisible "sky" looking down - it wants to harvest obsessions and choose sacrifices.
When the direction of the altar was exposed underneath the trading house, and when the name "Shen Qingyan" appeared repeatedly in old deeds and heirlooms, he finally understood: he was not the shopkeeper, but the container; not the guest, but the last one.
But he also gradually learned to use the contract to write the terms in reverse - not to kneel, not to obey orders, not to use the people as food.
This is a yin and yang business that looks like a mirror to demons: what it sells is obsession, what it reflects is the human heart, and what it changes is the "destiny" written on paper by the way of heaven.
There are nine volumes in the book, with the contract as the bones, the price as the blood, and the glimmer of light in the world that refuses to kneel as the blade.
Intention: Use "contract" to write about human nature and destiny: obsession can be sold and rules can be established, but kneeling is not the law of heaven. The trading house is a magic mirror - it shows the price that mortals are willing to pay, and also shows how "heaven" harvests according to rules. The protagonist goes from being forced to make a contract to daring to change the terms. The core is not invincibility and cheating, but the choice to stand, record and redeem in the conservation of cost; victory must leave irreversible scars, and perfection will not erase the debt.