Gatekeeper of the Anal Dimension

Lin Yan inherits the colorectal clinic passed down from his grandfather and becomes the third generation of the family doctors. To outsiders, the clinic tucked away in an old lane on the outskirts of town specializes in all kinds of difficult colorectal conditions and has stood for a century thanks to its mysterious ancestral medical techniques. Only Lin Yan knows that the shadowless lamp in the treatment room, its shade made of deep-sea mother-of-pearl, and the anoscope on the operating table, engraved with spiraling patterns, are all “sealing tools” left behind by his grandfather. The folds around the human anus are the thinnest natural fissures between reality and the Cthulhu dimension. Those so-called “strange illnesses” are merely signs that “Deep-Dwelling Tentacle Ones” from beyond the dimensional divide are trying to force their way through. His scalpel isn’t used to excise diseased tissue. Instead, he uses flesh and blood as ink and pain as a spell to carve temporary seals around his patients’ anuses. The “laxatives” he prescribes are actually dimensional sealant mixed with stardust. When seawater begins seeping through the scale-covered wooden door in the clinic’s basement, and he sees green stars that should not exist through the anoscope, Lin Yan finally understands the meaning of the words in his grandfather’s journal: “Every generation of doctors must become the final seal.” His rectum will be the last fissure holding back the abyss.