A Dog, and a Dog's Story

In the twelfth lunar month of 1997, deep in the mountains of northern Jiangxi, in Shenxi Village.

Everyone in the village had the surname Hua, except for the outsider family named Liu, who lived at the far end of the village.

The night Liu Fu was born, a bitter wind cut across the village. It lay in utter silence, broken only by an old black dog barking beneath the window. It barked until the baby was born, then dropped dead on the spot.

Just before it died, it gave birth to a little puppy, black from head to tail.

From then on, wherever Liu Fu went, the black dog followed.

Floods, droughts, sobbing in the middle of the night, strange noises in the old house, a foul smell from the well... Every eerie incident came after him.

Most of the villagers were kind. They were simply afraid of the strange things that had really happened, and never meant to make things difficult for him.

It was never the whole village that wanted him harmed, only a few people hidden among the good ones.

No one knew that the black dog who had followed him since childhood would risk everything to protect him.

And the dog's fate...