The Yin-Yang Guide

[Folk Supernatural Horror + Paper Effigy Crafting and Eye-Dotting + Guiding Souls and Leveling Up + Order of the Underworld] The day I was born, a red moon hung overhead, and a hundred ghosts wailed through the night. The midwife said I stared at her with my eyes open, neither crying nor smiling, the blood moon reflected in my pupils. The villagers called me a jinx: I killed my mother, frightened my father away, and brought bad luck to anyone who came near me. When I was nine, I trespassed into a forbidden place and came across a red-clad female ghost combing her hair. She turned and smiled, her mouth splitting to her ears, her teeth filed to sharp points. “A child born under the red moon. I’ve waited ninety-nine years for you.” She possessed me. The old Daoist Xu Laosan came to save me, swinging his whisk from his bald head: “Two choices. One, I forcibly exorcise her, costing you twenty years of your life. Two, learn paper effigy crafting from me and guide her onward.” I chose the second. After downing the spirit-seeing wine, I saw another world: gray mist churned, the dead stood in line, and the female ghost’s figure overlapped my shadow. I crafted paper effigies, dotted their eyes, painted their souls, and guided the dead onward. Dot the left eye and say, “Open to the light.” Dot the right eye and say, “Breathe life.” Your hands shaking? That means you have the proper reverence. The little back-yard door connects to the crevice between yin and yang. Every night, the dead come in a line: Got money? Any descendants? Any unfinished business? A veteran has a hole in his chest, and his dying wish is, “Did we win the war?” An old woman’s unfinished business is her cat at home. A middle-aged man’s is eight years of mortgage payments. “The underworld doesn’t collect mortgages. You’re dead, so your mortgage is dead too.” There are thirty-seven ghosts. I haven’t remembered a single name. Xu Laosan says, “If you can’t remember, you get punished. Punishment helps you remember.” I close my eyes and ask the female ghost inside me, “What’s your name?” “Su Huaijin.” I write in the ledger: “Guided Su Huaijin onward, age twenty-one, unfinished business: waiting for someone. Paper money: countless.”