Strange Happenings at the Ancestral Hall Back Home

After my grandfather died, I was forced to return to our mountain village in southern Anhui and keep vigil at the ancestral hall for the first seven days after his death.

The old ancestral hall was thick with a sinister aura, and every taboo the villagers warned me about was more frightening than the last:

Never leave the eternal lamp unlit at night. Never strike the wooden fish. Never answer anyone outside the door. No matter what you hear, never open it.

On the night of the seventh day, I heard fingernails scraping at the door, followed by an old woman's chilling sobs.

I unexpectedly awakened the ability to see ghostly ties and hear lingering thoughts, and was forced to become entangled in one bizarre mountain-village incident after another.

A drowned washerwoman, a missing cowherd boy, a hanged embroiderer, a haunted old well, an ancient tree that demands lives...

Behind every strange occurrence lies a grievance or regret buried by the passage of time.

I guard not the ancestral hall, but the human heart;

I unravel not strange events, but obsessions.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.