My name is Chen Jiangsheng, and I guard the gates of Fengdu.
Grandpa said my mother gave birth to me while doing laundry by the river, which was why I was such a strong swimmer and so hard to kill.
I believed him for twenty years.
Then, in 1997, during the old town’s demolition, the construction crew unearthed a seamless iron coffin on the Road to the Underworld, and the foreman mysteriously hanged himself.
Grandpa took me to open the coffin in the dead of night. That was when I discovered that in this ghost town, soon to sink beneath the river, there was a “door” that the living must never touch.
And I was born to guard it.
Before Grandpa died, an explosion buried him underground. His final act was to toss me a bronze fish talisman, then say with a bitter smile:
“Your mother didn’t give birth to you by the river... Don’t go looking for them.”
The old town is sinking. Something underground is waking up.
But I’m going to look anyway. For my missing parents, for the bastard who killed Grandpa, and for the truth about which dark river Chen Jiangsheng crawled out of.
