An outcast waiting to die in a labor reform farm in the 1980s.
In his previous life, he became a disciple of Qin Sanye, a revered master of the mystic arts, and learned techniques powerful enough to reach the heavens. But during the decade of turmoil, his own junior fellow disciple betrayed him. Unable to clear his name, he was left to die in the wilderness.
In this life, fate gave him a chance to start over. He borrowed a corpse to return to life in the mass grave behind Old Zhao’s home in a neighboring village. The moment he opened his eyes, all he could hear was the last roar of his master, Qin Sanye:
“Xiao Shen! In this world, evil spirits devour people, and the human heart is more venomous than any ghost! I pass on to you a breath of True Qi from the Great Void. From now on, when I deal with these things, I kill. I do not save!”
From then on, amid the storms of a turbulent age, there was a madman in an old military overcoat, carrying a bottle of black-dog blood.
When he encountered a vengeful ghost, he drew a talisman and sealed its throat. When he subdued a resentful spirit, he burned it to ashes.
When people urged him to do good and accumulate virtue, he answered coldly, “Compassion is for the living. Ghosts and monsters deserve to howl in purgatory!”
If the King of Hell says someone must die at the third watch, Shen Wanshan can make that evil ghost perish at the fifth!
When terror descends and all bow before it, he alone shatters the boundary between yin and yang and defies heaven to change his fate!
The plot is not too tight and the writing is good.