The Curse of the Yin Mark

Synopsis of Late-Night Tales from the Funeral Parlor: The Soul in the Mirror

At the Ji Family Funeral Shop on an old street in Nancheng, young funeral-shop owner Ji Chang'an inherits his grandfather’s business. But after accidentally touching a blood-red jade pendant, he opens his spiritual eyes and glimpses the eerie truths of the worlds of the living and the dead. When his first job cleaning a haunted house comes along, he enters the century-old mansion at No. 7 Huai'an Road, which has swallowed three owners. In a mirror patterned with intertwined lotuses, the vengeful ghost Liu Ruyan launches a deadly attack. A bloodstained embroidered handkerchief reaching out from the mirror and the strange transformation of a corpse’s face into a reflection draw him into a massacre that began in Republican-era China.

When the mysterious Su Yuqing arrives with her silver-chain soul-binding technique, Ji Chang'an discovers that he has been forced to sign a seven-day life-or-death contract with a messenger from the underworld. If he cannot uncover the story behind the evil spirit in the mirror, he and Su Yuqing will become the next sacrificial victims. The investigation points to the wealthy Zhou family, exposing the atrocities committed by their ancestors, who tortured and murdered the concubine Liu Ruyan to seize an antique mirror. The resentment of the evil spirit in the mirror is tied to the forbidden soul-refining arts of the Mirror Society a century ago.

When Ji Chang'an’s spirit-seeing blood jade resonates with Su Yuqing’s soul-binding silver chain in the mirror world, they must not only fight the mirror ghost’s deadly curse, but also gradually uncover the secret of Ji Chang'an’s grandfather, a defector from the Mirror Society. The yin-yang fish gear tattoo on the back of his neck, the legend of the Gate of Eternal Life, and the cruel truth that twin souls’ blood is the key to opening the gateway between life and death all come to light. Amid the cries of infant skeletons and the shadows of the bone butterfly array, Ji Chang'an transforms from an ordinary funeral-shop owner into a mediator between yin and yang, only to discover that he has long been an indispensable part of the Mirror Society’s conspiracy...

This is a story blending Chinese funeral customs, haunted Republican-era mansions, and battles of mystical arts.