On Shen Yuan’s eighteenth birthday, she receives two things.
One is an almost-expired sponge cake from the woman who runs the village convenience store. The other is a wooden box left behind by her adoptive father, Grandpa Jiang.
The box is made of elm. Before Grandpa Jiang passed away, he tucked it beneath the threshold of his paper effigy shop, wrapped in three layers of red cloth. As he lay dying, the old man clasped her hand. His lips moved for a long time before he managed to say just four words:
“Open it when you turn eighteen.”
Now she’s eighteen.
