The night my grandfather died, the paper figure he had made opened its eyes.
My name is Shen Du, the last paper effigy maker in Jichuan Prefecture.
The craft passed down in my family isn't about making ordinary paper figures and horses.
Draw eyes on a paper figure, and it can see things on the other side. Give it a face, and it can make the journey for you.
But there's a price: every time I use it, I lose a memory.
I've already forgotten what my mother's cooking tasted like, and what the first paper figure my grandfather taught me to fold looked like. Later, I even forgot my mother herself.
My grandfather spent his whole life guarding a secret beneath the canal. He left me a faceless paper figure and a copper key.
He said the door must not be opened.
But the thing behind it has already caught my scent.
