The first time Yin Zhiyuan saw Li Youqing, he almost thought he was going to die.
Later, he realized that if every day meant smiling at all those nameless demons and monsters and giving them sincere service, then he'd be better off dying sooner.
"Shopkeeper, why are you so good to that young son of the Yin family? Why are you always protecting him?"
"I don't know."
"But he's not him. There's really no need for you to..."
"I know, but I just want to be good to him." Li Youqing closed the book he hadn't finished reading and looked up toward the alley entrance, where an ageless young man was playing with a dog and teasing it with a sausage.
"I mean, good enough to risk everything for."
Winter, 2012. Guichun-dong, Gangnam District, Seoul, South Korea.
They say that when the sun sinks below the horizon, if you close your eyes and walk three hundred and thirty-three steps along the stone-paved road to the left of Guichun-dong's third intersection, you'll find a huge banyan tree that three people can't wrap their arms around.
They say that if you make your most heartfelt wish beneath that tree, an old-fashioned antique shop will appear beside it, with no signboard and just two old lanterns hanging beneath its eaves.
Shh! Keep quiet.
They say the eyes of a god dwell there.
Previous life: Li Wan, also known as Que'er, the sixteenth princess of the Li Tang dynasty, whose father never loved her and whose mother died. She struggled to survive, only to die in the An Lushan Rebellion, x Yin Qi, also known as Yin Huaiji, a young nobleman who traveled thousands of miles from Silla to the Great Tang to serve as a prince's companion and study abroad.
Present life: Li Youqing, the Three Realms' shopkeeper, who has lived for a thousand years, is a powerhouse in a fight, but occasionally softhearted, x Yin Zhiyuan, a single divorced older idol who's terrified of ghosts but forced to sell his talents and even himself.
Theme: When two people who yearn for each other share the same snow, it still counts as spending the rest of their lives together until their hair turns white.
