Daily Life as an Innkeeper in the Underworld

Li Shuyu, the robust and healthy Grand Princess who guarded the nation, mysteriously died of a chill after the autumn hunt.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in a tomb, wrapped in talismans and buried with shoddy grave goods.

She dragged herself back to the capital in her tattered court robes. Instead of her father’s embrace, she was met by the guards’ clubs and wanted posters plastered across the city.

They insisted that the princess was already buried and that she was a demon.

At death’s door, she fled into Huai’an Inn, which stood at the foot of the imperial city and never closed.

The enchanting landlady, Meng Erniang, smiled as she told her, “Your Highness, you’re now half human and half ghost. Neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead will have you. Only my Huai’an Inn can take you in.”

From then on, the pampered princess took up a soul-guiding lantern that revealed the obsessions binding the living and the dead.

She ventured into deserted villages, entered ancient temples, and climbed embroidered towers.

Every world held resentments that people could not let go of. Amid those resentments, Li Shuyu pieced together the complete truth.

The soul-guiding lantern illuminated her path, and the lives she had lived in the past and present.