The funeral home my grandfather left behind is full of deadly rules: never accept a red string at midnight, never look in the morgue mirror, and never look at the green flames in the cremator at three in the morning.
I took over the place only to raise money for my younger sister’s leukemia surgery, but unexpectedly became bound to a Life-and-Death Livestream System. A hundred rules of death hang over me like a death sentence. If I can’t break them, the ghosts will devour me. In the livestream, millions of viewers become my “online ghost-hunting think tank.” Folk remedies and old taboos shared in the comments become my lifeline, helping me escape death time and again.
But as I unravel the rules, my grandfather’s secret comes to light: he wasn’t the keeper of the funeral home, but the guardian who sealed away the ancient ghost known as the Soul-Devouring Crone. Three ancient jade pieces of different colors are the key to restraining her. The Crone’s guardian, who covets the jade, has already laid a deadly trap, altering the rules and awakening vengeful spirits to bring the Soul-Devouring Crone back into the world.
From the clutches of a spirit consumed by grief to the exchange of living souls in a world inside a mirror, from the relentless pursuit of the night patrol ghost to the final battle in an underground ancestral hall, I grip the peachwood sword my grandfather left behind and struggle onward at the boundary between yin and yang, bolstered by the power of the wishes my viewers have joined together. The moment Gu Mingyuan sacrifices his soul and becomes a ghostly envoy, I finally understand that this livestream was never just about saving my sister’s life. The peace of the human world that my grandfather devoted his life to protecting, and the strangers who lit a glimmer of hope for me despite never knowing me, are all worth giving everything I have for.
Ghostly energy spreads like ink, and the human heart shines like a lamp. When the golden light of the three-colored jade blankets the land and a sword forged from the power of people’s wishes slices through the darkness, I finally understand: protection has never been a lone struggle. It is the determination in our blood and the kindness of strangers, joined together into a beam of light in the depths of despair.
