People who explore tombs want what's inside them.
Gu Xinbai is different. He wants to put things inside.
In 2075, the earth's ley veins collapse. Azure Spirit seeps out of geomantic treasure sites, growing up through people's veins until they freeze into stone statues. His younger sister, Gu Xiaoran, has already reached that stage.
To save her, he signs a one-way agreement.
He should have landed in 1880, when the ley veins had only just been excavated and the damage was still slight. The machine goes off course by thirty-two years, and he plunges into the cold waters of the Ou River in 1912.
A glitching chip is embedded in the back of his neck. He carries a transforming medicinal hoe, three doses of medicine, and four ley veins in need of repair.
Every repair turns one strand of his hair white.
Every time the chip glitches, he forgets someone.
When the medicine runs out, he will have to use people themselves to make up the difference.
His grandfather, Gu Xuantong, paved the way, but never finished the journey.
No one knows whether Gu Xinbai can finish it.
Each generation does its own work. The Gu family's work is to fill the gaps with themselves.
A small hand waits for him at the bottom of the river, a red cord tied around it.
His sister braided that cord herself.
He isn't here to save the world. He's here to give himself away.
The net in front of me shattered into snowflakes.
A "Brother" came up from the bottom of the water!
Nine people, nine pillars, nine shackles! ~
Hundreds of faces, always staring at you!
Under the jade, there is a formation! ~
The tomb door was blocked and the river poured in! Want to escape?
The black mist in the coffin is about to take shape! "Run!"
The iron chain is broken, and the contents of the coffin are about to come out.
His shadow held a hand! ~
She touched the red rope and let it go.