The Green Horse of the Earth Veins

In Penghu Town, Yongchun County, Fujian, secrets older than any family genealogy lie hidden among the folds of the mountains. The incense at Wujiyan cannot dispel the chill of Baizhangyan. A century-old banyan tree hums on rainy nights, and a whirlpool at the bottom of the reservoir swallows the souls of anyone caught alone at midnight on the fifteenth day of the lunar month.

Xie Ping is an irreverent odd-jobber at the town clinic, born with a pair of eyes that can see both the living and the dead. His speech is full of the fiery flavor of Minnan slang: “Damn it, even the ghosts around here have to fight fair!” He carries a family heirloom, a bronze willow-leaf knife, and keeps a glutinous-rice sachet stained with cinnabar at his waist. He specializes in dealing with spirits who don't know their place, like the cockroach demon that traps hikers in a ghost wall and chews on their brains, or the opium wraith that has been hanging from a beam in an old mansion for thirty years, draining young girls of their yang energy.