Tales from the Alley: The Book of the Fate Defier

Lin Zang, a modern-day reader, is drawn into a cycle of ghost stories set in the Edo period by an old manuscript of Strange Tales of the Strange World. Every time he wakes, he finds himself cast as the villain in one of its tales: a fraud posing as a fox spirit, a vengeful water ghost who drowned, or a fake monk who beguiles people with sorcery. His fate is already written: he will be exposed by Hyakki Tsumi, Ogin, and the other members of the Hyaku Monogatari group, die in despair, and then watch time rewind and everything begin again.

Death follows him like a shadow, and the cycle has no end. But Lin Zang refuses to give in. Carrying the memories of every death, he struggles to survive amid flashing blades, cursed talismans, and the deviousness of human hearts. He learns to suppress the villain's obsession, exploit loopholes in the Hyaku Monogatari group's reasoning, and set traps of his own in Edo's rainy alleys and dark nights. He cautiously approaches those who walk the edge of the supernatural, glimpsing the secrets behind the cycle through Hyakki Tsumi's coldness and Ogin's compassion: the Imperial Lantern and the Primordial Monster. It turns out every story is an offering to feed a monster, and he is the variable that refuses to be devoured.

Reborn hundreds, thousands of times, he has battled fate again and again. When at last he is no longer the villain in the story, and the gears of the cycle crack in the face of