In Quancheng, beside Qushuiting Street, lies Wanying Road.
A soft, warm haze hangs over the old street all year round, making it a rare, peaceful corner in this bustling city.
Zhong Qingya's clinic is at the front of No. 18 Wanying Road. In the back courtyard is the Yuzhi Botanical Dye Workshop, run by Su Qingge.
Outsiders know him only as a quiet psychologist, respectfully addressed as Teacher Zhong. Few know that he carries on the scholarly tradition of Zilu, a disciple of Confucius.
There is a strange illness in this world called the Beastification of Lost Virtue. Obsession, guilt, and greed gnaw at a person's soul, changing their pupils as their memories gradually vanish into nothingness. Behind all this disorder stands a mysterious pale sorcerer.
The mists in the wilderness mountains are merely one of the sorcerer's traps.
A city teeming with people yet cold in its human connections is his true hunting ground. Rumors, predatory capital, and the cracks in countless hearts are all fertile soil for delusion to take root.
One calligraphy brush, two anchor characters.
Zhong Qingya does not rely on talismans or cast spells. He gives those lost in the depths a courtesy name and establishes an anchor, using the legacy of Chinese characters to hold their wavering souls in place.
When the ancient tradition of botanical dyeing comes under attack, the villagers' efforts to save themselves win them only a brief respite. To truly break the deadlock, he sets out on a journey to distant cities, seeking to continue an old family record left incomplete for two hundred years.
With a single lineage's incense burning, he safeguards the human world of an entire city.
