Soul Catcher

My name is Wang Cuihua. Everyone in Zhaojiagou avoids me because I'm a foul-tempered shrew.

I treat my brothers coldly and turn a blind eye to my neighbors. As for my father-in-law, who's been dead for three years, I never burn even a single paper offering for him.

Then, one Dragon Boat Festival, I picked up a piece of colorful paper with red borders and gold threads beside his neglected grave.

That one act was all it took. That very night, an invisible hand closed around my throat.

Auntie Zhao, the sensible woman at the east end of the village, said it was an old man's “soul-sending paper.” I'd blocked his path in life, then locked his soul here again with my own hands after his death.

The paper burned in the brazier by the stove, and I spat up a mouthful of black blood before surviving.

But that was only the beginning.

Because, in the charred marks the brazier left on the wall, a face slowly began to appear: my father-in-law's...

He's back. And this time, he doesn't just want to choke me to death.