Listening to the Tides Above a Sea of Clouds

Three years after transmigrating, Luo Chaosheng has failed the imperial examinations twice. He thought he was destined to spend his life as an impoverished scholar.

Then, at the Lin Yuan Prefecture ferry crossing, he examines a "breath-drained corpse." A silver string pierces the dead man's chest, and he clutches a slip of paper: "The seventh anchor must not awaken."

The jade pendant he wears against his skin grows hot, and the first floor of the Hidden Edge Pavilion opens to him. By listening to the tides, he can discern the vibrations of strings. The Hua Zhen Bell can seal a murder weapon for thirty breaths. The Star-Roaming Chessboard can preview life and death three breaths into the future.

But on the pavilion wall, the skeletons of the six previous owners are nailed to strings. The seventh place is empty, with the character "Tide" carved into it by someone's fingernails.

"You are not the seventh anchor." Su Ye, the envoy who mediates between immortals and mortals, sneers. "You are an unpredictable variable."

The immortal sects strip the people bare with their sea tributes. Tide patrols kill mortals like dogs. There are the String Slave case, gray-string smuggling, and soul extraction through love threads...

Luo Chaosheng opens the first article of the Great Yong Code and begins writing his autopsy report:

"I will not worship immortals or cultivate immortality. I will seal the Abyss of Love with my own hands."