My name is Zhao Changchun. When I was six, I survived at a paper effigy shop beside Lijing Gate in Luoyang.
I was raised by Zhao Laonian, a taciturn paper effigy maker whom the neighbors all knew. The figures he made looked so lifelike that they seemed one breath away from coming alive. He warned me again and again: a paper effigy must never be given that breath of life, or yin and yang will be thrown into chaos and disaster will follow. I thought my days would pass quietly, shaving bamboo, pasting paper, and boiling glue. But one eerie incident after another soon came my way.
Zombies crawling out of ancient tombs on Mount Mang, harmful witchcraft from the southern frontier, tales of corpse-driving passed down through the wilds, sorcery hidden behind folk customs, and the elusive legendary corpse-liberated immortals and the ancient secrets of Dizang all entered my life.
With paper, I can make anything; with paper, I can reach between yin and yang. I rely on my paper-crafting skills to make my way through the world, traveling across the mountains and rivers of China. I brave the snows of the Kunlun Mountains, climb to the cloud peaks of Wudang, encounter the strange creatures recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and uncover the folk mysteries buried deep beneath the earth in every region.
Life and death, fortune and calamity, love and hate, and choices I cannot control are forever entangled. I have witnessed the cruelty of ghosts and gods, and the warmth and coldness of human nature. This road has never promised a perfect ending. Burdened by debts to both yin and yang, I can only keep moving forward, searching for the truth of my origins.
