The rules of the carpentry trade are hidden in every mortise and tenon.
The tenon is the protrusion, the mortise the hollow. Fit them together, and a house stands firm, a coffin seals tight.
These rules have been passed down for over a thousand years. Break them, and disaster follows.
One man spent thirty years trying to overturn them.
Lu Jianzhang, born into a family of carpenters and gifted beyond compare, lost his wife and daughter in a car accident at twenty-eight. That was the price of being "missing one of the five trades." He refused to accept his fate. At seven nodes along the dragon veins, he set up a reversed curse to release all the earth energy that generations of carpenters had restrained with their lives.
He said, "I want Lu Ban's craft to come without a price."
I have to stop him.
Not because I'm especially noble, but because when those "costs" are passed on, ordinary people like Zhao Laoshuan, Zhou Shouzheng, and Zhao Xiaoyu are the first to die.
I'm no hero.
I just happen to have eyes that can see whether a mortise and tenon are properly made, an uncle who happens to have half a copy of the Lu Ban Manual hidden away, and the bad luck to get caught up in this.
Seven models of Buddhist halls, seven patterns of mourning joints, seven dragon veins.
A six-hundred-year legacy has been passed down to my generation. Now it's my turn to guard it.
In my left hand, I hold a ruler to suppress yin spirits. In my right, a chisel to break evil spells.
When the mortise and tenon fit together, the house stands firm.
Rules aren't written on paper. They're put into practice with your hands.
