A new work is here! Welcome to read my story on Tomato Novel. I hope you enjoy it. Your support is what keeps me writing, and I’ll do my best to tell every story well! Early in the Republic of China, in the Huaihai region. Chen Gaotui, a student at a modern school, returns to his hometown to mourn his father, Chen Xuanqing, who has died suddenly. Little does he know that he has stepped into a bizarre mystery woven from a century of grudges.
His father’s funeral marks the beginning of a string of strange events: ashes from burning spirit money gather into the word “wronged,” the eternal lamp goes out and relights three times, and sixteen pallbearers cannot lift a simple coffin. Stranger still, after the burial, the family’s heirloom earth lute begins playing by itself in the dead of night, though no sound can be heard. One by one, those involved in the funeral die sudden deaths, and rumors spread through town like wildfire. With help from Zhang Tiekou, a blind fortune-teller, and Master Wang, a feng shui expert, Chen Gaotui is forced to open his father’s coffin in the middle of the night. Inside, he discovers that his father’s body has not decayed, and his face wears a strange smile.
To protect himself, Chen Gaotui seeks help from all manner of extraordinary people in the Huaihai region: the painter Li Danqing gives him a painting of Zhong Kui guiding the way, while Su Qingci, a ferryman, joins him in investigating vengeful spirits along the river. They discover that everything traces back to an unfinished magical duel a century ago, when Chen’s grandfather and Xu Zhuzi, a sorcerer of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, killed each other here. Using secret Miaojiang arts, Xu Zhuzi split his soul into three and lay dormant for a hundred years, waiting for Chen Gaotui, whose birth chart is pure yang, to become the perfect vessel for resurrecting his “young lord” and reviving the “Heavenly Kingdom.”
As the investigation deepens, Chen Gaotui realizes that his father, Chen Xuanqing, had concealed his identity and made a living playing the lute for a reason: he used his own soul as a prison, refining a fragment of Xu Zhuzi’s soul day and night with an earth lute made from lightning-struck wood.
