The Nanyang Curse: A 1990s Record

In 1995, Tang Nan, a university student from Xiangnan, spends his summer vacation sailing south across the seas with his uncle, who works on a cargo ship. He only wants to earn enough for tuition. One torrential night in the Strait of Malacca, the two accidentally haul up an unidentified woman's corpse, and misfortune clings to them from then on. After returning home, one strange illness follows another. Eerie red marks spread over Tang Nan's body, and every night he hears the ghostly sound of a woman combing her hair beside his ear. His normally mild-mannered uncle undergoes a drastic change in temperament and develops a horrifying taste for raw meat. After finding no answers from doctors, Tang Nan, on the brink of death, discovers a fragmentary book left behind by his grandfather in the attic of their old home: The Nanyang Compendium of Ten Thousand Gu. Only then does he realize that both of them have fallen victim to the extremely sinister Love Flower Curse.

To stay alive, he keeps it secret from his family and takes the ancient book and his gravely ill uncle south once more. In the Nanyang of the 1990s, rainforests abound and evil spirits run rampant. Flying-head ghosts, banana-tree demons, corpse-wrapping ghosts, pontianaks... All manner of monstrous beings and sinister sorcery appear in turn, with deadly danger lurking at every step. He has no magic arts to rely on and knows nothing of exorcism. He is just an ordinary scholar. Armed with only half of a damaged ancient book, courage, and a little quick thinking, he walks the line between yin and yang, breaking curses and defeating witchcraft as he fights to survive in this eerie foreign land.

"I'm no celestial master. I have no supernatural powers. I'm just an ordinary person who doesn't want to die."