Lin Bufan was a staunch atheist who only wanted to study hard, pass the imperial exams, and become someone extraordinary. But after being coaxed by Zhi Xiaopang into entering the ruined temple at the edge of the village, a place no one dared to go, his life changed completely.
The female ghost Qi Lian, who possesses Lin Bufan, has had a terribly tragic fate. She has lived seven times, and in her first six lives, she was born to the same mother, only to be drowned in a chamber pot by her gambling-addict father, Jin Li, because she wasn't a boy and was a waste of food. In her seventh life, even though her mother fought to the death to protect her, her father still resented her for being a girl and refused to let her take his surname. She could only take her mother's surname, Qi. Her mother believed every child was a lotus before Buddha, so she named her Qi Lian.
Born into poverty, Qi Lian was sold into the imperial palace at fifteen and became the empress's personal maid. She thought her fate had finally taken a turn for the better, but after the empress fell ill and died, the emperor ordered every maid in her palace to be buried with her. Unwilling to accept her fate, Qi Lian used the gold, silver, and jewels she had earned as a maid to bribe the Black and White Impermanence, and has remained in the mortal world ever since.
Lin Bufan never believed in the ghosts and gods of this world: rituals to deliver the dead, spirits being judged in the underworld, ghosts returning to their places after a rooster crows three times, or using only roosters and never hens in sacrifices. But now that Qi Lian has possessed him, the two of them set out on a frenzied money-making spree at her direction...
With the female ghost's help, Lin Bufan eventually becomes the richest man in Huaxia. He also wins Qi Lian's heart, and the human and ghost marry, acting out a real-life tale of love beyond death...
