In Luofeng Town, deep in the mountains of southern China, countless unwritten folk taboos have been passed down for generations:
Never walk the roads at night without a lantern. Never fish clothes out of the mountain pond. Never look back on Qingming. Never plant trees behind the house. Never set foot in an empty house…
These are no superstitions. They are rules passed down by the ancestors to suppress the wrongs done to the living, conceal old cases, and repay debts from the past.
The heroine’s grandmother is the town’s last folk ritualist. She does not catch ghosts or drive away evil spirits. She only explains folk customs, breaks taboos, and sets the balance of cause and effect right.
After her grandmother dies, the heroine, away at university, is forced to return home and take over an old family house and an incomplete copy of the Register of Local Customs.
Each time she solves a strange local mystery, she uncovers an old injustice the entire village has kept hidden.
