Borrowed Years – 80 Episodes – Bible + Storyboard

A canal-town scale-clerk is bound to a ledger that sells real techniques and bills his own remaining lifespan only after the purchase, so every rescue he performs for the people he loves shortens the life that performs it.

Shen Mu, twenty-one, weighs dried fish for the market and keeps his sister alive on a clerk’s wage. When the dye-gate buckles and the canal starts eating the lower streets, a ledger binds to him and offers a technique that will hold the gate; no name, no price, only the offer. He takes it, the gate rises, and nine beads drop off a wire that has appeared over his left eye, one for every year he has just spent. The ledger is honest: it sells real techniques, deducts real years, and never quotes a price before the fit is in his hands. He can read every other person’s wire, so he knows how long his sister and his teacher have left. What he cannot find is a way to stop.

Part A – the script bible

• Logline, premise, setting and the story engine that generates episodes
• World rules written as hard story constraints
• Character bible – 6 roles, each with a stated voice and a stated arc
• Relationship map
• Three-act structure with act-by-act episode ranges
• Turning points mapped to episode numbers
• Episode hook map for episodes 1-10: the closing beat of each episode
• Three written scene samples
• Marketing copy you may reuse on your own platforms

Part B – the storyboard

• Episodes 1-5 broken down panel by panel
• Every panel gives shot size, camera move, panel duration, the drawn action, the dialogue, the sound cue and the transition out
• Panel budget for episodes 1-20 with effect and motion counts
• Full art asset list: character sheets, background plates, props and effect overlays, with reuse notes

Series facts

• 80 episodes at 60-90 seconds per episode
• Genre: Cultivation & System
• Vertical 9:16, motion-comic panel animation
• Production tier: Low
• Board 3 episodes per week with 2 boarders; line art 5 days per episode, colour 3, composite 1. 80 episodes in 19 weeks with a 6-person team

Production notes

• Cast: 10 speaking roles, 6 principal (4 male, 2 female), 4 supporting
• Backgrounds: 6 standing backgrounds: the dyke, the market row, the Shen house, the Cranespan drill yard, the counting house, the Weighing House; 3 swing backgrounds
• Key props: Brass balance and weight set, the bead-wire glyph, one copper coin, Shen Rou’s fever lamp, Jiang Bo’s abacus, a reed boat pole
• Cost tier: Low – one town, no crowd plates, and the countdown is a reusable UI overlay
• Art assets: 30 character sheets (6 principal x 4 expressions x 2 poses, plus 10 supporting), 9 background plates with 3 parallax layers each, 16 prop cutouts, 13 effect overlays (bead drops, water surge, qi edging, ledger glyphs)
• Panel load: 1,120 panels across 80 episodes at 13-16 panels per episode; 18 of the 80 episodes reuse the market-row background unmodified

Format note: this is a complete development package for a vertical motion-comic series, not a finished shooting script. Episodes 1-5 carry full panel dialogue; from episode 6 the budget and hook map carry the beats and you write in your own register.

Delivery and licence

• Instant download. One plain-text package file, no software required.
• Licensed for development, adaptation and production of the material described above.
• Adaptation, translation and sub-licensing require the extended licence supplied with the All-Access Master Library.
• Because the files are delivered immediately and cannot be returned, all sales are final once the download link has been used. See our Refund Policy.