"The Curse Cloth Merchant" is a fantasy novel that combines Miao witchcraft culture and the aesthetics of ghosts and monsters. It tells the story of a young girl named Ali who struggles between human nature and witchcraft rules after inheriting her family's curse cloth shop. The starting point is that in order to save his seriously ill mother, Ali was forced to break the family rule of "not weaving a hundred-year-old picture" and accepted a taboo order that required the collection of hundreds of souls. Faced with the first dilemma - follow filial piety and trample on human life, or follow the rules and see her mother pass away, she chose the former. Conflicts ensue. Every time she completes a transaction (wedding clothes steal love, shrouds extend life), she bears a karmic debt. The distorted faces appearing on the fabrics and the customers' sinking desires constantly test her conscience, and the color fastness rules (the contract is irreversible) make it impossible for her to turn back. The climax is on a moonlit night when the Hundreds of Life Diagram is about to be woven, with hundreds of human faces wailing and struggling on the fabric, presenting a strange and unique visual impact. After her mother learns the truth, she is filled with grief and anger, which puts Ali into a second dilemma - completing the fabric to save her mother but falling into hell forever, or destroying the Hundred Years of Life Diagram to liberate her soul but all her previous efforts have been wasted. She finally chooses destruction and sacrifice. The ending is that Ali sacrifices his own soul, cancels the contract and liberates all trapped souls. Although his mother fails to live longer, she is able to find peace before her death. The ancient spell shop is quietly closed under the moonlight, revealing the moral premise that "real salvation comes from reverence for life, rather than blind obedience to rules or exchange of desires."
