What’s the most mortifying thing you’ve ever experienced? Getting caught sneaking a peek at study materials by the school beauty? Or getting caught, only for her to stay, blush, and kiss you, saying, “I’ve liked you for a long time”?
My name is Zhou Yubai. I’m the school heartthrob, a terrible student, and I’m spending the summer back in my village doing absolutely nothing. I thought my biggest problem this summer would be finishing my endless vacation homework. Then the school beauty, Liu Mengli, barged into my room and caught an unmentionable scene on my computer screen.
What happened next was even more outrageous: she didn’t scream or run away. Instead, her ears turned red as she stared at me for three seconds, and then…
Then my summer vacation went completely off the rails.
Dating, holding hands, kissing, and nearly going all the way… I thought this was the beginning of a school romance, until my grandfather suddenly took me to a dilapidated temple behind the village and saddled me with a greedy, lecherous, game-obsessed old man who never stopped spouting nonsense as my master.
“Your fate is unusual. You won’t live to see twenty. Either learn ghost hunting and feng shui from me, or wait to die.”
Me? Learn to hunt ghosts? I’m such a coward that I jump onto the table when I see a cockroach, and you want me to deal with those filthy things?
And to make matters worse, my master doesn’t know a thing. Whenever we run into something powerful, he always says, “You take care of it first, apprentice. I’ll go get help,” then runs off faster than a rabbit.
But I have no choice.
Because strange things have started appearing around Liu Mengli.
Not ghosts, but something even more terrifying: the human heart.
When the happiest folk traditions turn into the most sinister killing traps, and invisible taboos infest everyday school life, I finally realize that this world is far stranger than I ever imagined.
