The Sect of Unwanted Things

About this book

Shen Qingchen is twenty-six, stuck at the fourth layer of Qi Gathering, and extraordinarily good at cleaning. When he points out that his sect's waste ledgers don't add up, his superiors reward his honesty with a title. He becomes Pavilion Master of Clear Dust Pavilion, a dead sect in Ashfall Basin. The basin is the polluted valley where great sects dump failed pills, cracked artifacts and poisoned spirit stones. He has collapsing halls, a fouled well and a bamboo broom. Everyone assumes he will starve or crawl home. Instead he starts sweeping, and he finds that some of what the world throws away can still be saved. So can some of the people it throws away. But the basin is changing. Patches of ground are turning strangely white and silent, and something deep in the valley is stirring. Shen must decide what is worth keeping and learn what should never be cleaned.