No Lights on the Night Road

Title: Night Road Without Lights

Subtitle: The Laughter of He Xiangu

I. Overall Concept

Length: 120,000–150,000 words, complete in one volume, divided into three books and six episodes (six to seven chapters per episode, approximately 6,000 words per chapter)

Genre: Folk horror, family drama, and rural supernatural tales. No ghosts, yet more terrifying than ghosts; the fear comes from “unknown rules.”

Theme: A night road, a string of laughter, an “invisible” collision: how can ordinary people reconcile with the “local deity”?

II. Structure of the Three Books

Book One: “Laughter Knocks at the Door”

① Mother hears laughter on the night road → leg pain → the spirit medium points to the ground → burns incense and recovers

② “I” return to the village to investigate → the old locust tree at the village entrance laughs → the same leg pain spreads

Book Two: “The Footprints of He Xiangu”

③ “He Xiangu” in the county annals: a female opera performer who drowned in the late Ming dynasty

④ The pattern behind the laughter: night road + woman + not yet home

Book Three: “Repaying the Incense”

⑤ “I” break the rules → the whole family is surrounded by laughter → the leg pain shifts to the child

⑥ Find the “source” → repay the incense + restore the soul + return the road → the laughter is sealed away, and the night road returns to darkness

III. Sample Chapters for One Episode (First Six Chapters of Book One, Ready to Expand)

Chapter 1: Nine O'Clock on the Night Road

9:00 p.m. Mother returns from visiting relatives. The village road has no lights, only the faint glow of an opera stage in the distance.

9:15 p.m. Laughter breaks out: a woman's soft chuckle, now near, now far, but no one is in sight.

9:30 p.m. She gets home with pain in her leg. The spot hurts as if bound by a “red thread.”

3:33 a.m. She wakes in pain as an operatic voice drifts in through the window.

Chapter 2: Pain Like a Mountain

The county hospital finds no cause. The orthopedics department sends her to rheumatology, and rheumatology sends her to psychology.

Mother begins saying, “There's someone pulling at my leg,”