Chen Xuan, a paper effigy maker in a remote town of the Great Chu Dynasty, accidentally activates a golden finger called “Enlighten All Things” while crafting paper figures for the dead. To his surprise, every figure he makes gains a spirit. At first, the oddities are minor: paper children serving tea and paper horses pulling carts. But on the seventh day, a vision of “ghost soldiers borrowing the road” erupts, as a hundred thousand paper ghost soldiers smash through the Yellow Springs and roam the living world. From then on, Chen Xuan becomes the heart of the “Fourth Calamity.” The Underworld hunts him, the mystic sects lay siege to him, and demons and ghosts covet his creations. Every paper figure he makes raises the level of disaster by one rank. The thrills come from watching the figures rocket up the ranks, from lively little imps to ghost marshals and nether lords. And with the immortal army’s special trait, “fallen paper soldiers can be remade, and their intelligence only grows,” Chen Xuan ultimately reveals that he himself was transformed from a “Yellow Springs guide effigy.” Wielding calamity as his sword, he sets out to reorder the balance between yin and yang.
