[A series of mystery cases, not a wish-fulfillment story]
A cataclysm brings about the extinction of humanity. The King of Hell sends Qiao Banshan, heir to a family of ghost hunters, a thousand years into the past to find five spirit pearls lost by the underworld. Only by finding them all can she stop the apocalypse.
When Qiao Banshan arrives a thousand years in the past, she opens her eyes in a wedding sedan. She's about to take her sister's place as the bride of the capital's famously sickly prince, supposedly to bring him good fortune.
Everyone laughs at her and says she'll be a widow in all but name at the prince's manor.
Qiao Banshan: Who cares? The King of Hell sent me to find the spirit pearls, not to sleep with a man. I don't have time to play your household games.
The five spirit pearls are lodged inside ghosts burdened by resentment. Resolve their grievances, and the pearls are yours.
To find them all, Qiao Banshan travels between the worlds of the living and the dead, solving one bizarre murder case after another.
Strange crying from an ancient well in the Grand Tutor's residence?
Children dying under mysterious circumstances at the orphanage?
The Duke's eldest grandson plagued by nightmares?
A pregnant woman giving birth to bugs after carrying a baby for ten months?
People spontaneously combusting in the Western Regions of Loulan?
At last, she finds all five spirit pearls and averts the apocalypse.
Qiao Banshan completes her mission and returns to the modern world, but a clingy ghost follows her. Every night, he kisses her until she cries.
Qiao Banshan is astonished: “So you're the King of Hell?!”
I haven't seen enough, so I'm binge-watching.