I lost my job right after I graduated from college, so I found myself working as a night shift patrolman in my hometown's funeral parlor.
On my first day at work, Uncle Jiu, the old curator, handed me an old notebook. It was "Qingyuan Funeral Folk Customs Miscellaneous Records" left by grandma. There were three rules written on the title page: do not burn unknown corpses, do not burn corpses with resentment, and do not burn corpses without descendants.
Uncle Jiu said that if you keep these three rules, you will be fine for the rest of your life.
But I broke the rules on the first night. An unidentified corpse was brought in. At three o'clock in the morning, the refrigerator rang by itself. A woman in red was crying outside the door. The last three words on page 37 of grandma's notes were blacked out.
Since then, strange deaths have occurred one after another in Qingyuan City. Each incident corresponds to a broken funeral taboo, and the person behind all this is actually Uncle Jiu.
While I used the old methods in my grandma's notes to calm down the incident, I teamed up with forensic doctor Zhou Qin to uncover the dusty past. When the truth about thirty years ago came to light, Uncle Nine let go of his obsession, and I took over Grandma's mantle and joined a secret organization called "Night Watch."
From Qingyuan City to all over the country, from observing the rules alone to uniting all the night watchmen to fight against the "night breakers", I spent five years writing my grandma's dilapidated notebook into a real "Funeral Home Overnight Duty Manual".
Until another young man who had just graduated walked into the funeral parlor. I handed him the notebook and said the first words that Uncle Jiu said to me back then:
"Guard it well, you'll be fine if you stay here for the rest of your life."
