The Ninth Layer of the Mortal Realm

Synopsis of The Ninth Layer of the Mortal Realm Chi Ying, Kyoto’s most beautiful woman, has a secret no one knows: ever since she was three, she has been dragged once a month into a place of ghosts called the Nether Ruins of Zhan Sha. There, cinnabar fades and paper money flutters through the air. Embroidered shoes walk by themselves down empty corridors, bronze mirrors reflect someone else’s face, and an abandoned opera stage endlessly performs bloody plays no one understands. For nineteen years, she has steered a boat across the River of White Bones, subdued spirits in the Sea of Shadowy Sand, and slept to the wails of the Blood Fiend Abyss. In the real world, she is a freshman in the archaeology department at Yunjing University, born to a prestigious family and beautiful beyond compare. But when the midnight bell rings, she becomes a “Netherwalker,” roaming the gap between yin and yang. The faint glow of the talismans at her fingertips is the final despair in countless vicious ghosts’ eyes. Now, undercurrents churn in a modern city where spiritual energy is scarce. A deserted campus building echoes with the sound of an entire class reciting lessons at midnight, corridors in mirrors devour the living, and food in the cafeteria quietly steals memories… When an ancient being from the depths of the Nether Domain turns its gaze toward the human world, Chi Ying forms a hand seal with her left hand, and golden light flickers in her right eye. Smiling, she softly says to the distorted shadow before her, “Done scaring me? Now it’s my turn.” From eerie campus pacts to crises threatening the dragon veins, from Netherworld uprisings to interstellar expeditions, this is a path to enlightenment through the netherworld that belongs to her alone. Talismans become blades, formations become cages. Watch as the sole inheritor of modern Taoist mysticism vanquishes every demon and specter, restores order to yin and yang, and finally… ascends to immortality. Welcome to The Ninth Layer of the Mortal Realm.