On Jiang Du’s first night shift after being transferred to the funeral home, an old coffin covered in talismans appeared in the morgue. Inside lay a female corpse dressed in a bright red wedding gown. Date of death: the third year of the Xianfeng reign.
After that, every night at midnight, the funeral home filled with the sound of weeping. Jiang Du discovered that in his dreams, he could “see” how certain people would die three days later. The previous night watchman had left behind seven brightly polished copper coins, each tied to an injustice spanning a hundred years.
Why had the woman been buried alive? What exactly had the quarry owner, Blind Meng, blown up? And whom were the eighteen villages submerged beneath the reservoir waiting to see again?
There were nine copper coins in all. Polish one, and you glimpse the final moments of a dead person’s life. When you polish the eighth, you see yourself.
This is a book of forbidden records, and an account for buying life with copper coins. Some polish the coins to seal a door; others do it to open one. When Jiang Du polished the seventh coin, he discovered that his surname was carved into the tenth.
Night wanderer, when the blue light in the crack beneath the door goes out, it’s time to pay your debt.
