Post-00s Paper Effigy Maker: The Paper Doll Livestream

At three in the morning, never stare at the bluish eyelids of the paper figures in the livestream of a paper effigy shop

Luo Yuan never imagined that just three days after inheriting his grandfather’s traditional paper effigy shop, he’d be forced to become a “midnight streamer.” He planned to slack off and earn enough for the electricity bill, but while livestreaming himself making paper figures, he saw beads of blood seeping from the bamboo strips overlap with a message appearing in the chat: “The paper figure you’re making is smiling.”

Stranger still, someone ordered a “custom paper figure in a red wedding dress, with a lifelike smile”; the livestream’s location suddenly switched to a murder scene in the outskirts; and the paper figures he made stood up by themselves at midnight, lined up, and bowed deeply to the camera.

When Luo Yuan found his grandfather’s old employee badge inside a paper figure’s chest, he finally realized: paper effigy makers don’t make lifeless objects. They make “death warrants” recorded in the Book of Yin and Yang. And not everyone sending gifts in the livestream is alive.

The rationality of a science student born in the 2000s crumbles at the sound of paper figures’ necks turning. The strands of hair, buttons, and even birth details sewn into the figures are weaving a net that will swallow reality. And most terrifying of all, his name has somehow been carved into the paper-cutting knife his grandfather left behind…