Chapter One: Thirty Years on a Shoebox

Sweat crawled down his back. This was no hallucination. Touching a box showed him a shoe's ledger—its past, its future, and secrets its owners had buried. “Defects are nine hundred a pair,” Manager Ma said. “Register it and we'll deduct it from your wages.” Lin did not have nine hundred. At the top of his contacts was Su Tang, an independent restorer. Two years earlier, she had been the only person in Hailin willing to restore a pair his father left him. After his father's investment collapsed, friends disappeared one by one. Su still messaged every New Year: Alive? He called. “Lend me a thousand. I'll repay you in forty-eight hours.” “Did a loan shark beat the sense out of you?” “I'm buying shoes.” “Then there was no sense to begin with.”