The Yuan and Qing Dynasties could never forget the day when Taoist Niu disappeared. The smell of burnt talismans floated in the morning mist.
People in the village have long said that following a crazy old Taoist to learn how to step on the Gang is a fool's errand - what serious child would treasure a piece of yellow paper filled with cinnabar? But when the neon lights of the city cannot shine through the gloom of the rental house, and when the sound of fingernails is heard under the desk late at night, those mantras that are laughed at as "tricks" have become the only charms that can calm the mind.
The broken wooden sword left behind by the master is still burning hot, and the thread-bound notebook contains surprising secrets: the yellowed pages contain not only the names of places and people, but also metaphysical dilemmas that have been pressed on the pause button - the unburned avatars in the ancestral hall, the unresolved resentment in the ancient well, the red thread hanging from the beams of the old house... It turns out that the master left in a hurry, and there were so many hidden dangers buried in time.
A compass for detecting evil is pinned to the collar of the school uniform, and a rune to ward off evil is sandwiched between the textbooks. When Yuan Qing walked through the crowd with his schoolbag on his back, he always thought of his master's last words: "What you learn is skill, but what you owe is cause and effect."
The ink marks in his notes are gradually emerging as he follows his footsteps. Are those unsolved old cases closely related to the disappearance of his master? When the young boy grasped the broken wooden sword, he realized that this practice that started in the countryside had already been tied with endless threads of cause and effect...
