Inside a firewood shed in the 1970s, Cheng Zhaodi lay covered in whip marks and breathed her last.
When she opened her eyes again, the body now housed Cheng Yunli — a 21st-century pawnshop owner.
Awakening alongside her was the “Pawnshop of Time.”
The original owner’s dying memories, battered body, and the stigma of being called a “bastard child” flooded in. Then came the system’s cold mechanical voice:
> “Pawn painful memories in exchange for anti-inflammatory ointment.”
> “Pawn your dependence on coffee in exchange for a lock-picking hairpin.”
—This business, she knew well.
After escaping the man-eating Cheng family, she vanished into the county town. On the surface, she remained the orphan girl Cheng Zhaodi. In secret, she had become the master of the “Pawnshop of Time.”
People came to pawn family ties, luck, and memories in exchange for grain coupons and protection. Meanwhile, she collected her foster mother’s “son’s future” and her eldest brother’s “malice” as bargaining chips for survival.
But when the mystery of her birth began to surface, her hostile twin brother drew near, and the contract left behind by her father reappeared… Cheng Yunli realized something terrifying:
She herself was the most important collateral in a transaction spanning across time and space.
And when pure love finally arrived, the system issued a warning:
> To accept it would mean he must pawn away his “sense of self.”
The pawnshop’s ultimate rule was cold and absolute:
> “Items pawned can never be redeemed.”
As Cheng Yunli brushed her fingers across the scales of trade, she made her decision.
If the rules of the world were unjust by nature—
then she would rewrite them with her own hands.
From an abandoned girl in a woodshed to the sovereign who governs the value of all things, this is a story of loss, gain, awakening… and the most dangerous bargain of all.
