Northeast China's Metaphysics Livestream: I Went Viral Thanks to a Weasel Spirit

“Check this out, folks! How’d this statue at Changchun Temple start posting on Douyin all by itself?” Li Yanjie’s hand trembled as he held up his selfie stick. His livestream had suddenly shot to the top of the trending list. This street hustler, who dealt in fake antiques at Shenyang’s antique market, had no idea that the “consecrated Pixiu” in his camera frame was actually the final seal holding down the dragon vein of Changbai Mountain. A line of bloody text suddenly drifted across the comments: “The contract between immortals and mortals expires in 2049. The first one to die is definitely Uncle Wang next door, the guy who sells grilled cold noodles!” Li Yanjie’s hand jerked, and a sausage fell into his lap, scalding him so badly he started hopping around. In the background, blood tears seeped from the stone lion’s eyes. He’d been able to see people’s auras since he was a kid. Now he was so busy he barely had time to breathe: performing “bro-style exorcisms” for possessed internet celebrities, arguing in Northeastern dialect with a southern feng shui dream team on livestream, and watching out for his ninety-year-old shaman grandpa, who might tie him up and drag him off to perform a ritual in the middle of the night. The wildest thing was bargaining with a fox spirit seeking a title. Squatting on the toilet, he haggled with the talking yellow weasel: “How about I make you head of security for the Shenyang Metro? We’ll throw in benefits and housing!” When the ice sculptures at Harbin Ice and Snow World started having a dance party in the middle of the night, Li Yanjie grabbed his shaman drum and went live. “Family, send those rockets! Tonight I’ll show you what it means to ‘dance the hand-swing in an Immortal-Slaying Formation’!” But he never imagined that behind all this farce lay a shocking plot by southern feng shui masters to sever the Northeast’s dragon vein. And his eyes, which could see through people’s fortunes, were the final trump card that could rewrite the contract between immortals and mortals.