Han Xiaotian graduated from Nanhua Medical College. When he returned to his hometown in a county in Northeast China for his grandmother's seventh-day memorial, he found a yellowed spirit altar document at the bottom of an old wooden chest.
He'd known since childhood that his grandmother believed in these things, but he'd never seen her set up an altar or perform readings.
His childhood friend Li Gang studied the document in silence for a long time before finally saying, "Xiaotian, your grandma wasn't an ordinary old woman. Now that this altar document has come into your hands, a spirit family has chosen you."
The next day, their neighbor, Auntie Wang, came to their door in tears. Her seven-year-old son, Doudou, had played at the graves behind the hill and returned with a high fever, repeatedly muttering, "The lady in white played with me."
A sudden, icy female voice rang in Han Xiaotian's mind: "Go to the west room and find the bundle of incense your grandma left behind. Light three sticks, put them in a bowl, then bow three times to the altar document."
He did as he was told.
After that, every night the woman in white appeared in his dreams. She would crouch down, pin the crescent-shaped mark he'd had on his wrist since childhood, make him grimace with pain, and then give him a thorough scolding.
Her name was Hu Baixue, the Hu family's guardian spirit. She had stayed with the Han family for five hundred years.
Proud and sharp-tongued, she never gave him a kind look, but protected him more fiercely than anyone.
Half-reluctantly, Han Xiaotian embarked on the path of a spirit medium.
Li Gang became his assistant medium. With the old drumstick passed down from Han Xiaotian's grandmother hanging around his neck, he beat it so loudly that he turned a county taxi driver and junior-high-school dropout into a proper ritual assistant.
Their guide was Master Hu Yuechan of the Hu altar on the outskirts of town. She was strict and principled, laying out clearly, point by point, which jobs they could take and which they couldn't.
The altar also had Huang Xiaotian, a nimble-footed, quick-tongued fellow,
