The Daoist Academy’s Only Real Man

Maoshan arts are mysterious Daoist practices from Chinese legend. It is said that after casting spells with paper talismans, practitioners can drive out ghosts and subdue demons, inspiring awe in all who witness it. Maoshan Daoists are even more mysterious and inscrutable. They can divine the future, foresee good and ill fortune, inspect homes, and read feng shui. At their greatest, they can summon wind and rain, commune with ghosts and spirits, subdue demons, and even reverse the order of the universe, return to the past, and change the future. But with reform and opening up and the arrival of a new era, old customs were swept away, superstition rejected, and science embraced. Maoshan arts gradually fell into decline, and Maoshan Daoists vanished from sight, fading from people’s lives. And yet, deep in the mountains and forests stands a mysterious academy for girls, where the students are learning...