When I was five, my father arranged a ghost marriage for me on the night of the Ghost Festival. He left behind an ugly piece of jade and a black dog, then vanished from our home. From then on, I, Dongfang Ben, depended on the old dog for survival, muddling through life until I was eighteen.
After the old dog died, one strange thing followed another. First, a fox spirit disguised as a stunningly beautiful woman set her sights on me, forcing me to perform a wedding ceremony with her night after night. Then a band of paper soldiers came to my rescue, revealing the origin of the snake-shaped ring on my hand. Hidden inside it was a wisp of the soul of a female ghost named Qiu Yue. She claimed to be my master, saying I would have died eight hundred times over without her protection.
Soon after, a one-legged troupe leader came to the village and set up a stage to perform a play called The Dragon Man, about a forbidden love between a human and a dragon, and repaying kindness with betrayal. Halfway through the performance, spirits possessed the entire audience and yellow talismans flew everywhere. Qiu Yue held off the ghosts and ordered me to run east all night.
At daybreak, a lecherous old man who called himself the Virtuous Immortal picked me up. He said I was wrapped in sinister energy and had an uncanny fate, and that Heaven had sent me to become his disciple.
