She has been dead for a thousand years, yet she is more human than the living.
“Mother, are we people or ghosts?”
At the end of the Southern Song dynasty, Liu Qingtang died in childbirth, but her soul was refined into a “Mother-and-Child Fiend.”
She should have become a fierce ghost wreaking havoc among the living, but instead she wandered the world with her son for a full thousand years. They slept in coffins in mass graves, evaded talismans at Taoist temples, and escaped the pursuit of underworld bailiffs, all because she was unlike other fiendish ghosts.
She still remembered what it felt like to be human.
Until one rainy night, when the sword of the young Taoist Lu Mingchuan pressed against her throat. “How interesting. A Mother-and-Child Fiend that doesn’t kill.”
His proposed deal was dangerous:
“Help me catch the evil ghosts who harm people, and I’ll help you evade the underworld’s pursuit.”
But more dangerous still...
- She finds herself growing addicted to the warmth of the living.
- Her son is becoming more and more like a human child.
- The look in the Taoist’s eyes clearly says, “I would defy the laws of Heaven for you.”
And when they find a mother and child who willingly chose death, Liu Qingtang finally understands:
A thousand years of longing amounted to nothing more than wanting to hear her son call out once again:
“Mother, I’m home from school.”
