Life Hidden in Old Things

Everyone has regrets, and nothing in life is ever perfect. Lin Yan runs an old curios shop in a timeworn alley, but wields the world's strangest ability: dredging up phantom fragments of fate. Old tickets, faded photo albums, broken jewelry, keepsakes left behind by the dead... Anything that bears the weight of an obsession holds a life that was supposed to happen, but was lost forever. He cannot undo the past, bring back the dead, or erase anyone's sins. But he can drag stillborn destinies, lost chances at happiness, and long-awaited reunions that never came to pass back into the present. Yet the Heavenly Way is just, and borrowed lives must be repaid. Borrow a little happiness, and pay with half a lifetime of karma. Some covet perfection and overdraw their own lives, becoming soulless fate-wretches. Others steal the anchors of their fellow man, building their own splendor atop the regrets of countless people. When phantom fragments begin to flicker across every old keepsake in the city, and countless regrets threaten to overturn reality, the antique restorer who has guarded the alley for three years finally chooses to reveal the world's cruelest rule of fate. I won't change the past. I'll salvage what remains of life.