Zao Brand

On the high seas, there is an isolated island fishing village. No one knows its exact location, only that the people who were taken there never came back. When I woke up, all I had left on me was a piece of black paper with family rules written on it: worship the kitchen god at Mao time, stay away from the sea during You time, speak forbidden words in the ancestral hall, and touch tablets. Those who violate the rules will either have their anger taken away by the Kitchen Lord, or their lives will be taken away by the Water Ghost, leaving only clothes and silk but no bones. The island is filled with cigarette smoke all day long, and there are many ancestral memorial tablets. Each name represents a disappeared person. In the middle of the night, cries came with the wind, and shadows floated on the seashore. Everyone looked numb and kept silent, relying only on notes to pass on secretly. In my fear, I gradually realized that all the strange things were not the work of ghosts, but more like a carefully woven network. Incense, chanting sutras, family rules, and visions all quietly control people's minds and bodies. Someone is in the dark, using the most local awe to lay the cruelest plot. In order to find my missing sister, I must pretend to be obedient, survive within the rules of life and death, and uncover the truth behind the mask of the "Kitchen God" on this island. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.