Strange Tales from the Common Folk

Zhang Qingyuan is the most unruly disciple of this generation at the Celestial Masters’ Mansion on Mount Longhu. He commands orthodox thunder arts and has mastered talisman magic, yet instead of staying on the mountain to cultivate, he chooses to plunge headfirst into the mortal world. He trades his Daoist robes for plain clothes and looks like an ordinary wanderer, but the smooth, jade-like thunderstruck jujube-wood token at his waist and eyes that can see both the yin and yang worlds hint at his extraordinary origins. He travels far and wide, taking on all sorts of “strange” jobs: “An old house echoes with opera singing every night, though no one is there. Newlyweds keep seeing another ‘self’ in the mirror. Livestock in a village are dying for no reason, each with bluish-black handprints on its neck. People walking at night get trapped in a ghostly maze in the wilderness until dawn...”

These local tales, which send ordinary people running in terror and leave experts stumped, are Zhang Qingyuan’s specialty. He is more than a simple “Daoist exorcist.” He moves between the worlds of yin and yang, seeing not only the evil of ghosts and monsters, but also the darkness in people’s hearts. Behind every bizarre incident lies a forgotten past, an unresolved obsession, or a tragedy born of human nature.