Face Reading the Dead

Legend has it that physiognomy has existed ever since the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors created the world! Over the centuries, the art continued to develop, and it only became widely known after figures such as Yuan Tiangang during the Tang dynasty. But as the saying goes, what reaches its peak must decline. In the centuries that followed, physiognomy was branded a heretical practice, countless secret texts were burned, and the tradition fell apart.

Then, in the early Qing dynasty, the three Zhang brothers stumbled upon a secret text and raised an army against the Qing, plunging the realm into chaos! From then on, physiognomy split into two schools: physiognomy for the living and physiognomy for ghosts.

In truth, the two are not all that different in essence. One reads faces for the living, while the other reads faces for ghosts! This story begins with the latter.