Tales of Strange Things from the Folk

In the factory workers' residential compound of the 1990s, once summer came, adults and children alike would head to the hill after dinner.

There was a streetlamp there, with a green metal shade. Beneath it stood a bamboo bed, where an old man in a white undershirt sat, waving a large palm-leaf fan back and forth. The children leaned against the edge of the bed, while the adults squatted around them. Nobody spoke. They were all waiting for Grandpa Chen to begin.

Grandpa Chen was from Tangshan. He had come here years ago for the Third Front construction campaign. He told ghost stories about things he had seen with his own eyes or heard with his own ears when he was young. The summer nights were stifling, and whenever his fan stopped, the story was reaching its most suspenseful moment.

Back then, there were no phones or internet. One childhood after another passed with these stories for company.

Now I've gathered up the stories that still linger in my memory, one by one, and written them into this book.

The lamp is still lit. The fan sways, and the story begins.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.