Northeastern Spirit Medium: My White Snake Guardian Is Far Too Protective

The 1990s. Northeast China. The wave of layoffs.

Others lost their jobs and found new ones. I, Chen Bafang, got laid off and was sent straight to the underworld for my next job.

I’d barely been kicked out of the tractor factory when my father collapsed on the kang, unconscious and black all over. The hospital couldn’t find a damn thing wrong.

Just as a six-foot-tall man like me was about to be forced to kowtow to a weasel spirit, a beautiful white snake claiming to be my immortal patron appeared in a dream and told me:

“Boy, you’re destined to have a bond with the immortals. If you don’t set up a spirit altar, your father will die, your family will fall apart, and you’ll spend your whole life rolling around in the dirt.”

Bullshit. I, Chen Bafang, was born under the red flag and raised in the spring breeze. I believe in science.

But when a bowl of clear water could reveal past and present lives, and three sticks of incense could summon ghosts, gods, and immortals, I lost my nerve.

For my father, and for myself, I accepted it.

What’s the big deal about becoming a spirit medium?

A bowl of clear water, three sticks of incense. From then on, the road through the human world was hard, but I would reign supreme on the path between yin and yang.

Read fortunes, tell the future, catch ghosts, drive out evil. There’s nothing you can think of that I, Chen Tang, can’t handle.

The Black Altar’s money thicker than paper? I’ll burn it all to ashes with a blaze of merit.

The old demon of Changbai Mountain drools too much? I’ll summon heavenly thunder and show you what it means to be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

They say it’s easy to invite a god but hard to send one away. But when it comes to me, Chen Bafang, the rules need a little changing.

Human or ghost, immortal or demon, if you mess with me, I’ll show you what Northeast-style hot pot means: everything goes into one pot.