“It was tradition to offer a familiar to young sorcerers on their fifth birthday, right before they entered the Magic Academy — at that age, they were old enough to understand witchcraft, but still had a whole lifetime ahead to bound with their new charge. When Junhong turned five, his parents offered him a skateboard.”

Junhong is a helpless insomniac and meets a plain-spoken, sharp-minded cashier in a gas station.