The Urban Book Restorer: Seeing Truth Through Old Objects

Three years ago, Gu Yan, a gifted forensic doctor, was framed and forced to leave his post in disgrace. He retreated to an old street and became a restorer of ancient books. He possesses a unique ability to empathize with old objects—by touching yellowed manuscripts or worn keepsakes, he can glimpse the hidden past and unfulfilled regrets of their owners. This power comes at a steep price: each empathic connection forces him to endure the pain and despair of the person involved, leaving him emotionally drained and closed off from his own past. One by one, commissions for old books and tales of human regret arrive, yet beneath these scattered tragedies lie traces of deliberate silencing and tampered records. When Lin Zhixia brings her mother's damaged, water-soaked suicide note to his door, it shatters Gu Yan's reclusive peace. To uncover the lies of time and clear his own name, Gu Yan teams up with policewoman Su Qiao to dig into long-buried secret files. Using ancient books as a mirror to reveal human truth and old objects as evidence to pierce the fog, he mends half-lives of broken scrolls and soothes the regrets of the living. In saving countless souls trapped by the past, he ultimately breaks free from his own obsessions, confronts the old injustice, and achieves redemption, upholding justice and clarity of heart. — Description from novelcodex.org