The One Who Walks Behind the Lamp

Seven lamps burn in this city. Six hang in the sky, and one lives in people's hearts. When the lamps go out, the city is gone. Nineteen-year-old night watchman Lin Diqi guards the last lamp for his late master. He's seen corpses open their eyes, corpses walk back to their hometowns, and corpses that wouldn't burn even after three days and nights in the fire. But he's never seen a person's shadow stand up on its own. At 2:40 a.m., the old clock tower rang thirteen times. A clock with twelve marks struck thirteen. The city's lamps went out one after another. The one in his heart had just gone dark. The shadow walked toward him, using the bell's tolls to sound his death knell. Lin Diqi didn't retreat. He stepped forward, gripping the copper nail that had once pinned an ancient relic, and stood alone in the middle of the long street. His master had said, “When the lamps go out, the city is gone.” But he hadn't said that people could light the lamps again. Walking with his back to the light, one man shoulders a city on the brink of death.