The twenty-third year of the Republic of China, Fengmu Village in western Hunan.
Old Master Zhou knelt on the bluestone floor of the ancestral hall, his forehead pressed against the cold ground. Three incense sticks burned straight in the censer, their smoke winding between the beams in eerie shapes.
"Ancestors, hear me..." The old man's bony fingers clutched a yellow talisman, its twisted symbols drawn in cinnabar. "The blood debt the Zhou family owes must now be repaid."
A baby's cry suddenly came from the back room. The midwife rushed out, drenched in sweat. "It's a boy! But... but there's a blood-red birthmark in the palm of his right hand, just like..."
Before she could finish, a loud crash came from the ancestral hall. When everyone rushed inside, they found Old Master Zhou bleeding from all seven orifices, the talisman in his hand burned to ash. In a copper basin in the corner, a severed finger bobbed in bloody water.
That night, the whole village of Fengmu heard crying. It sounded like a woman sobbing and a baby wailing at once, drifting from the forbidden ground behind the village, "Ghost Crying Woods," and winding around the rafters of every house.
