From the Start, I Cultivated Ancient Books, and Cultivated One That Says

"Books can bury the dead, and bring the living back to life." In ancient times, people seeking immortality used the living as characters and their blood as ink, sealing "life" inside books. The fate of anyone written into The Book of Burial cannot be undone. Only by finding the "one who holds the brush" can the ending be rewritten.

Shen Yanzhi, a restorer of ancient books, takes on an unmarked damaged manuscript. Written on its pages in cinnabar are his name and the date of his death. To survive, he follows the clues hidden among its pages into an ancient town that appears only at midnight. There, he discovers that he has long been a character whose fate was already written in the book.