Modern Exorcism Begins with Fraud and Deception

My name is Ning Baize. I’m twenty-five, and I make my living as a fraudster, a con artist in the vernacular.

My team provides “exorcism services” for the wealthy: we use holographic projections to conjure ghosts, infrasound to cause palpitations, and my brilliant acting and a collection of “family heirloom ritual implements” to persuade tycoons to pay us seven-figure fees.

Then, while I was “exorcising” the daughter of a real estate mogul, the ghost candle I’d casually made as a fake suddenly burst into flames when it encountered a real evil spirit.

A hideous ghost tore through the illusion created by technology. My team screamed, and all our high-tech equipment failed.

The ghost grabbed me by the throat, its icy breath on my face.

“Who are you?”

In that instant, the memories in my body awoke before my mind could catch up.

My hands formed an ancient mudra of their own accord, and the wooden sword at my waist, which I’d thought was just a trinket, shone with golden light.

Incantations poured from my throat, as if I’d chanted them a thousand times before.

Three breaths later, the ghost was sealed inside a clay jar. Its final expression was one of utter disbelief.

“Wait... Aren’t you a fraud? You can really do this?!”

I wanted to ask myself the same thing.

Worse, after that night, the world, peaceful for over a thousand years, began to change.

Urban legends became real, ancient haunted houses awoke, and ghosts and monsters appeared in this unprepared age at an exponential rate.

My “fraudster” business became the only place in the city that knew how to deal with them.

As I investigated, I discovered that it was all caused by turmoil in the Ghost Realm. The worlds of yin and yang were merging.

And I, a fake exorcist who’d used technology to swindle people, was actually the last “High Priest” of an ancient Wu Nuo lineage.