Soul Unbinding

My name is Lin Du, and I’m a Taoist priest. This is my “Ledger of Underworld Journeys.”

It records the truths I encountered on the margins between cities and countryside, starting when I became my grandfather’s apprentice at the age of nine. He was a retired Celestial Master in a purple robe. There was the “living” village of Mushui, empty of people yet still sending up cooking smoke; the “Eye Sacrifice” mark on a female university student from the provincial capital, originating from an ancient tomb; and the blood-and-flesh pact between an indigenous Miao village in the Wild Man Mountains of the southwest and the “Corpse Buddha”… Using ancestral talismans, hand signs, and a little worldly experience, I dealt with these “incidents” that lie beyond the reach of scientific records.

This book was compiled from the manuscripts I left behind. Some place names and personal names have been obscured due to taboos. Do not imitate the methods described; whether you believe the events is up to you.

This is not merely an account of ghosts and monsters. It is also a cold confession of how a Taoist was consumed by the truth, and tried to preserve his humanity amid fear.