Puppet Shadow Play

In a mountain village in western Fujian, a yin opera is performed every year at the Autumn Jiao Festival.

I was born at the end of the Hai hour, just as the Zi hour began. With my birth chart's yin and yang in conflict, I was destined to be the groom left to the ancient opera stage by generations of the Chen family.

At the Autumn Jiao Festival when I was seventeen, I was forcibly bound by a red marriage thread and became the seventeenth Overlord.

An opera stage a thousand years old, sixteen missing boys, and a red invitation from the underworld.

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, I must either take the stage and enter the play or uncover the apology buried for a thousand years.

Note: This story is fictional. Do not take feudal superstitions seriously.