The Old Booze Detective

A cup of aged wine, a grudge unresolved for a hundred years

On an unremarkable corner of an old street in Linchuan County, the sign for “Xia’s Aged Wine Buyback” has gathered dust for years. The owner, Xia Ling, seems like an ordinary young man, but he carries a family-secret art. Using the wine-buyback shop as a front, he makes his living catching ghosts and settling grievances, a dangerous business indeed.

One day, a jar of Republic-era nu’erhong wine engraved with the words “Blood for Blood, Grudge for Grudge” is brought into the shop. As soon as the jar is opened, its bell rings and the goldfish die. That night, dark red water seeps from ancient wells all over the county. A string of bizarre deaths follows, each victim found clutching an empty wine jar and wearing an eerie smile. The once-quiet town is swallowed by a haze of blood.

Xia Ling joins forces with Su Wanqing, a sharp-minded folklorist, and follows the clues hidden in the wine jar to uncover a massacre buried for a hundred years. During the Republic era, Wanniang, the daughter of a brewery owner, was forced to marry a sickly young master to bring him good fortune. On her wedding day, she was murdered and, pregnant, thrown into an ancient well. The four great families of Zhao, Qian, Sun, and Li colluded for their own gain to cover up the crime. They even hired a practitioner of the dark arts to set up the Seven-Star Soul-Locking Formation, trapping her spirit at the bottom of the well forever.

A century of resentment awakens in the present day. Using empty wine jars as “invitations,” the vengeful spirit follows the threads of blood ties and old debts to exact precise and merciless revenge on the descendants of everyone involved. Before the spirit fully takes physical form and slaughters the entire town, Xia Ling must break the vicious formation, recover the stolen dowry, the Dragon-and-Phoenix Blood Jade Pendant, and face the overwhelming resentment of Wanniang.

On the night of the full moon, blood mist seals off the town and all water turns to blood. By the ancient well, Xia Ling lays out a ritual altar where life and death hang in the balance. Using aged wine as his guide and an unfinished love letter as his token, he performs the ancestral art of “Wine Passage.” This is not merely a battle against a hundred-year-old vengeful spirit...