A gambling debt took eight generations to repay. Zhao Jin, a rogue in the chaotic Five Dynasties era, wagered by candlelight against the Five Ghosts in a ruined temple and lost a written contract: his eighth-generation descendant would repay half the family fortune. He later became an emperor and unified the land, never knowing that the debt had been entered in the ledgers of the underworld and never erased. Three hundred years later, the Five Ghosts were reborn as the Jin dynasty, while the last ruler of Southern Tang was reborn as Emperor Huizong of Song. The eighth-generation descendant repaid the debt with half the empire. Cause and effect endure through the cycle of rebirth, and the candle flame never dies.
