Tonghuai Guanyue Temple in Quanzhou, a thousand-year-old ancestral temple, is always filled with the smoke of incense.
The temple keeper, Gao Fei, doesn't worship clay idols. He honors twenty-four real generals, each spirit tablet representing an elder in the family. Zhang Fei is hot-tempered, Zhao Yun is steady, and Niu Gao is a simple soul. In the side hall, Grandpa Yue keeps a close eye on his calligraphy practice every day.
A fake master swindling people out of their funeral savings, a ghost trapped in a mirror, an eighty-year-old injustice buried beneath a hotel, a nineteen-year-old officer who goes viral by accident during a livestream, a sorcerer who sails across the South Seas... One strange case after another.
By day, he mingles with the bustle of the streets. By night, he calls on the gods to settle things.
Until Chen Ye, a lawyer with a Hunan accent, barges in: “Using superstition to commit fraud? I'll call the police.”
Later, she saw Zhang Fei split a ghostly barrier with a single spear thrust and quietly deleted the number 110 from her phone.
When Zhang Yide lets out a roar, every dog on Tumen Street tucks its tail between its legs.
Later, people asked me if I could keep a lower profile.
I said, “Sure.” Then I pulled out my phone: “Uncle Zhao, could you come by?”
Before long, everyone in the city knew: Better to offend the King of Hell than Gao, the temple keeper. He's got a lot of family, and every one of them is real.
