Lu Jiuming’s Paranormal Case Files

A coming-of-age supernatural detective story about two boys. The romance is subtle and best appreciated on a closer read, while the strange, unconventional plot mixes humor with crime-solving. This is an unconventional story, so if you’re up for something different, give it a try. Thanks! Jiu Ming is a little Taoist priest who is the transformed form of a golden-eyed cat demon. On the ninth day of the fourth month in the tenth year of the early Republic of China, his master, an unreliable old Taoist, abandoned him and Cang Jiu at the gates of Yongcheng and told him to find his own way back to the mountain. Holding Cang Jiu, who was still a kitten, Jiu Ming set out to make his way in the world. He worked as a police officer, a delivery runner, a sanitation worker, a fish seller, a university professor, a fortune-teller, and a traveling doctor who claimed to cure every illness. Now he’s a private detective at a tiny supernatural investigations agency. Jiu Ming never found the way back to the mountain, but he never doubted the old Taoist. The old Taoist had rescued him and Cang Jiu and raised them. Following his instructions, Jiu Ming carefully wrote down everything he experienced among humans and left it in the designated place. Of all the files, the supernatural detective agency’s cases filled the thickest folder. Jiu Ming thought the old Taoist must really love these stories. For example: the Paper Bride sobbing tears of blood in the dead of night; the ghost-world Tony doing hair online; the Clocktower Monster turning a working stiff’s work hours upside down; a top-tier star from the Peking Opera scene becoming a skin-stealing idol; and a cyber-fortune-telling gadget that uses a magic mirror to predict the date of your death...