The Old Contract Trade

Every wish comes with a price. Some give up all the joy they have left in life to save their husbands; some trade a forgiving heart for vengeance against an entire family; others stake their names, their faces, and even the chance of being remembered. Shen Yubai, a contract-bearer, carries a black oil-paper umbrella reinforced with bamboo ribs as he helps people fulfill their old contracts. Each time he sees one through, redeems one, or takes one on, another crack appears in his umbrella. He has fulfilled eighteen contracts, and it bears eighteen cracks. If he carries on, even the three characters of his name, “Shen Yubai,” will be worn away completely. The woman who has stood watching at the mouth of an alley for decades; the words “Nanny, it hurts” carved into a hairpin in an abandoned house; the name reflected in a bronze mirror, guarded for eight hundred years but no longer spoken by anyone… He goes to each of them, leaving a name behind for those who have been forgotten. Until the ancient contract at the source of all things, a thousand years old, waits for him in the dark. This time, will he bear it alone until he vanishes into nothing, or will he let everyone remember together?