The Cleansing of Souls Hall

Every soul that dies with regret eventually finds its way to the Hall of Soul Cleansing. Shatang is its keeper — the one who meets each soul at the threshold, reaches into their deepest memories, and washes away what should not be carried into the next life. Some of the souls that pass through her hands once wore crowns. Some once held empires in their fists. Some loved so fiercely it destroyed them. An emperor who chased immortality and found only ash. A prince who died for a throne that was never his. A general who lost everything to love a woman he could not save. Through Shatang's eyes, their true stories — the ones history never wrote down — finally come to light. But the longer she does this work, the more Shatang begins to wonder: whose soul cleansed hers?