(Modern setting + Supernatural Resurgence + Faith in the Gods + No Qing Dynasty + Spiritual Qi Revival + Embroidered Uniform Guard + Ming Dynasty + Folk Customs)
“It’s 2014 now, but according to the old-timers’ way of reckoning, it should be called the 14th year of Ping Sui under the Great Ming.”
Li Yihui was born different from other people. Ordinary people with yin-yang eyes can see ghosts and monsters.
What he sees is Lovecraftian horror.
A city shrouded in nightmares, an ancient city stained with blood debts.
When did the supernatural first appear? No one knows.
Day or night, gods and demons fall, and countless strange beings take to the streets: head-shaped balloons, knife-wielding male ghosts…
“As long as those ghostly things know you can see them, they’ll become real in the Black City.”
He has survived in this hellish place for 24 years.
By day, he hunts down criminals in the ancient city. By night, he slays evil spirits in the Black City.
“I am Shen Lian, an inspector of the Yin Patrol Office. By day, I investigate cases. The living must not leave, and idle ghosts must not wander.”
“I am no more than a country Taoist. I happened upon a few minor arts from Miaojiang and cobbled them together. I can hardly call myself a member of a sect. I have no master above me, nor any disciple to carry on my teachings. I’m just a lone ghostly soul. But if you insist on a name, you may call me the Wandering Taoist.”
After Li Yihui dies once,
by day, he is the Yin Patrol officer from a century ago;
by night, he is the Wandering Taoist of the present.
(Disclaimer before we begin: All place names, folk customs, and ghosts in this novel differ from those in reality. Please do not take them as fact. The same goes even more so for anything related to religion.)
