[A trope-savvy author gleefully serves up shit]
[Brains + villain + dark themes + the legendary protagonist + a refusal to be formulaic + vivid prose]
[No heroine? One heroine? Dead heroine? Mad heroine?]
My name is Chen Ren. I am dead.
I died in the jaws of a white tiger on Yinze Mountain.
I became a changgui, the tiger's ghostly servant described in the tale of “a tiger's accomplice.”
Every night at midnight, the changgui's curse descends, and I am devoured all over again by that enormous tiger.
Ever since then, the night has been sticky, sickly sweet, scorching, viscous, and deep crimson…
I have to escape all this!!!
No matter what it takes!!!
One tiger, three changgui: this is the iron law of reincarnation.
Just as a drowning ghost must find someone to take its place, I have to make this beast eat three more people to take my place before I can be reborn.
And so,
that mountain, Yinze, is slowly growing fangs…
