Eerie Customs: The Paper Effigy Maker

I finished the paper figure with one last stroke of cinnabar, and the brush snapped.

The paper figure turned to look at me. On the threshold, incense ash revealed a row of footprints made by no one.

My master died three years ago. But the bride outside was calling his name.

The night watchman handed me a business card. A line of writing seeped onto its back: “Your master is not your master.”

A bronze token, a train ticket, a shadow double, a living corpse thirty meters beneath a well. At a wedding thirty years ago, all twelve people vanished. Only my master came out alive.

They say that well isn't a well. It's a mouth.

Lin Zhi, heir to the paper effigy craft, is swept into an eerie folk ritual mystery spanning thirty years. Night watchmen, scapegoats, corpse-rearing grounds, the Liu family of Hexi: people are more terrifying than ghosts.

Rules are meant to protect people, not sacrifice them. Breaking the cycle of raising Gu takes more courage than following the rules.