[Urban Folklore + Forbidden-Rule Containment + Secret Arts Power Fantasy]
After the dormitory lights go out at midnight, a white figure in the corridor is the embodiment of an unresolved fixation. In a mountain village, a taboo against making offerings to the mountain is broken, and a beast covered in fur tramples homes. Beneath an ancient city gate, a centuries-old gate fiend awakens the grievances of the High Tang era...
As forgotten folk taboos become breeding grounds for supernatural beings, Shen Yan, a folklore student at Jinghua University, unexpectedly awakens “Taboo Resonance.” He can read the fixations of these entities and understand the origins of their taboos. The half-volume of The Ancient Manual of Taboo Exorcism left behind by his parents becomes his key to entering the mysterious world.
After joining the Bureau of Folk Supernatural Threats, Shen Yan follows the principle of “lifting taboos before containing entities.” Armed with ancient secret arts, from talismans to suppress evil, apotropaic rites to invite blessings, and prayers for divine protection, he travels across the country:
He restores mountain worship rites in the Taihang Mountains and appeases the mountain fiends; summons the ancient city’s guardian deity in Xi’an and seals the gate fiend; holds a festival to pass on civilization at Lop Nur and contains the ghosts of Loulan; and ultimately faces the evil force in the dragon vein beneath the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, protecting the fortune of China!
Along the way, he clashes with the Destruction Faction, which advocates using technology to eliminate supernatural beings, fights alongside a hot-blooded operations chief, and befriends guardians of taboos from across the land. He must also take on the Gatebreaker Sect, which plunders secret arts and refines vicious entities, and uncover the long-buried truth behind his parents’ disappearance.
Miaojiang’s Gu taboos, the spirit-medium traditions of the Northeast, the Pudu rites of southern Fujian, the desert taboos of the Northwest... Every folk taboo holds a piece of forgotten history; every supernatural entity contained is a chance to redeem human nature.
Shen Yan gradually comes to understand that taboos were never meant to bind us. They are humanity’s expression of reverence for nature and civilization. Watch as he wields ancient arts like a blade and reverence like a shield, becoming the guardian who commands the taboos of the land!
