My family has guarded an abandoned grave for generations. The villagers say a songstress from the Republican era is buried there, her vengeful spirit unable to rest. Every year on Tomb-Sweeping Day, Grandpa takes me to burn paper offerings and bow before the grave, but he never lets me get close. Until the night of my eighteenth birthday, when a woman in a qipao beckons to me in a dream:
“Come here. I’ll show you something wonderful.”
When I wake, I’m clutching a bloodstained piece of jade.
Grandpa turns deathly pale when he sees it. “She’s chosen you… No matter who knocks tonight, don’t open the door!”
At midnight, there’s a knock.
The woman from my dream is standing outside. She smiles at me and says:
“Open the door. I’ll take you to see something wonderful.”
