Live from the Haunted Realm: The Forbidden Folkways Zone

Lin Qingyan only touched a Warring States jade tablet among her mentor's belongings, but it dragged her into the “Haunted Realm Livestream,” a death game where Chinese folk taboos serve as its levels, living people are its actors, and viewers around the world are its fuel.

Each level begins once five to seven people have gathered. The rules are written in black and white, crystal clear:

On the shadow-puppet stage, don't cross the red line, or you'll become part of the show.

In the old house full of paper figures, your paper double will imitate everything you do, even your breathing.

A weasel stands upright and asks, “Do I look like a human or a god?” Answer wrong and die.

Transactions at the ghost market are perfectly fair, so fair that even your name might be used as change.

Lin Qingyan uses her wits to find a way through, treating folk legends as testimony and working backward from the traps in the rules to find a way out.

Lu Lin uses his fists to clear a path. His potent yang energy makes evil spirits retreat the moment they approach, and he's the one who handles the dirty work of “doing what the rules forbid but the living have to do.”

One is a beautiful, ice-cold rationalist. The other is a ruthless man with “protection” etched into his instincts.

Nine levels, nine kinds of distinctly Chinese horror. They have to make it out alive.

But the ninth level has no rules. That's because its boss is waiting for him to come home.