Born with a Spirit Pact: A Record of Yin Deities and Taoist Arts

My name is Long'er. I was born in Ningchuan Village on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2004, when the moon was full. The night I was born, the wind chimes on Mingxia Pagoda west of the village rang with no wind. Moonlight gathered on my swaddling clothes in a fleeting silver glow. My grandmother said it was a sign of an inborn spiritual pact. From the time I was old enough to remember, I lived amid eerie events beyond ordinary people's understanding. At seven, I encountered a downpour at a temple fair, fell asleep for three days, and left my body in spirit. Only after the spirit medium saved me did I learn I was a tower-sweeping child. Later, the Fox Immortal Grandmother took me under her protection, and I returned to my body. At ten, I wandered into an ancient shrine on the back mountain and stumbled upon a ghost runner claiming souls. Thanks to an inexplicable instinct, I narrowly escaped. At fifteen, I encountered a painted-skin ghost at night and was saved by a wandering Daoist priest. My spiritual pact had long since bound me to the world of the Yin Gods. This is the memoir of my first half of life, as well as a practical record of cultivating Yin God sorcery. From a country child to an heir of the Yin Gods, from stumbling upon strange happenings in a graveyard to learning spells to ward off evil, from joining a master's sect to study the Daoist scriptures of the Yin Gods to wielding magical artifacts against vengeful ghosts and evil spirits, the demons lurking in the night, the immortal encounters hidden in folk customs, and the fate entwined in my very bones all unfold over time.

An inborn spiritual pact is no gift. It is a weighty karmic burden. When the Yin Gods whisper in my ear and eerie mists shroud the road ahead, all I can do is wield Yin God sorcery as my blade and use the sincerity of half a lifetime as my shield, carving out a path of cultivation of my own along the border between the human and spirit worlds. It all began on that Mid-Autumn night when the moon was full and the chimes rang.