Chang’an Beneath the Moon

[Folklore × Mystery × Case-Solving × Anthology]

Under the moon, Chang’an sleeps. The worlds of the living and the dead walk the same road. She can see the dead, and she can speak on their behalf.

Deep in Chang’an’s Eastern Market stands a spice shop with a white paper lantern hanging above its door. Only those whose families have just lost someone, or who are being haunted by ghosts, can see its light.

The shopkeeper, Shuyue, lost both her parents as a child and bears a crescent-shaped birthmark on her palm. She can cross between yin and yang and see the dead. Adopted by a merchant from the Western Regions, she returns to Chang’an alone after her foster father dies. She makes a living selling spices while guiding wronged spirits to justice. From the weeping that echoes from a dry well after thirty years to a fallen soldier’s fifty-three-year obsession with finding his wife, she gives voice to the dead who cannot speak for themselves.

As Shuyue pursues justice for the dead, she inches closer to the mystery of her own origins. Her ability to see the dead was not innate: someone “planted” it in her, and behind it lies a palace witchcraft case erased from the history books. A junior official from the Court of Judicial Review, a monk from Qinglong Temple, the daughter of a military governor... The living and the dead alike push her toward the darkest whirlpool in Chang’an.

When she finally uncovers the truth, the curse of the Yin-Yang Seal cannot be undone, and most of her life force has already been spent.

Still, she sits on the threshold of her spice shop, gazing at the moon over Chang’an and waiting for the next spirit to knock at her door.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” she says.

Under the moon, Chang’an glows with the lights of countless homes. The living and the dead share the same road, and each has their share of sorrow and joy.