Eight Gates, Martial Arts, and Yin Catchers

The Eight Trades: Jianghu craftspeople say that among the 360 professions, none lies outside the many branches of the world.

Martial arts are techniques for killing. The arena does not decide who is better; only life and death do.

Grave robbers make money off the dead, or use the dead’s power to take lives.

I’m not Third Master Tan’s grandson, but he pulled me out of a coffin and raised me. I called him Grandpa and took his surname. My name is Tan Yidao.

Grandpa said my name wasn’t in the King of Hell’s ledger, so I learned the trade of robbing graves from an early age.

On the third day of the third month, Third Master Tan went into the city. While I was at school, I received the news of his death. Someone had tampered with his corpse, filling it with mercury and sealing it with wax.

To avenge him, I dropped out of school and opened a coffin shop in the city.

In a year, I closed only one deal, but it drew me into the deepening fog surrounding the curse of the seven-layer coffin.