My name is Chen Xiaoman. I run a joss stick and candle shop called "A Single Lamp" in Suzhou's old town. My grandfather, Ninth Master Chen, was a well-known guardian of the wells around here. Three years ago, on Tomb-Sweeping Day, he sat in his wicker chair and passed away as if he'd simply nodded off.
Before he left, he taught me just one sentence: "The incense is about to go out."
Then, late one night, my childhood friend's cousin rode the last subway to the end of the line and got trapped at a station that didn't exist on any map. The station announcement played Suzhou pingtan, "The Jade Dragonfly." Somehow, a copper coin engraved with the character "well" had appeared on her wrist. I searched through all my grandfather's belongings and finally discovered that there are nine wells beneath the city. The wells are the city's bones, and also its locks. Whatever is locked away down there can learn to speak like people. It's learning to imitate my grandfather's voice, and getting more convincing all the time.
Now the nine wells are opening one by one. People from a secret organization have come to my door demanding my grandfather's belongings. On the memorial tablet in an abandoned theater, the name "Ninth Master Chen" is engraved in gold. And the voice calling me "Xiaoman" from the bottom of a well: is it my grandfather, or the thing that's learned to imitate him?
A debt must eventually be repaid. Above the wells lies the world of the living. What lies beneath them?
