The Lantern Theater Office

=Fake Ambitious Schemer VS Real Spirit Medium=

=Metaphysics | Mystery | Ghosts | Two Strong Leads | Substitute=

Thanks to the cover artist: Miss Jenny

Deputy Captain Jiang, ambitious and eager for a promotion, is sent to a remote village in the poor countryside of the northwest.

His assignment: pick up a film projectionist, a disheveled, gaunt, sallow woman, crunching sunflower seeds with her teeth bared.

The woman gets into the car reluctantly.

The first thing she does after returning to the Weibei City Public Security Bureau is barge into Director Luo's office and throw a crude tantrum. With nothing else to throw, she pelts him with the sunflower seeds in her pocket.

They rain down on Director Luo's face like scattered blossoms, leaving the entire homicide division stunned.

On Monday, at the new captain's inauguration, the uncouth woman stands miserably in the middle of the conference room wearing a police uniform.

Deputy Captain Jiang looks just as grim.

One doesn't want the job, the other wants it far too much... They're bound to become enemies.

Two days later, Jiang Yanwu discovers Yan Qingqing's secret.

The woman talks to herself, keeps odd hours, and breaks the rules by setting up a company like a lawyer. Following the trail, he finds a thriving Lantern Walk Office.

Just as he's about to report her to the disciplinary team, he makes another discovery: this woman seems to be able to see something.

Ghosts whirl around the Lantern Walk: The watchers were the ones who returned.

Later, one crosses into the underworld to light the lantern, while the other scours crime scenes in the world of the living.

The living provide clues, and he turns them into hard evidence. The dead have their say, and she switches off the light and clocks out.

Ghosts whirl around the Lantern Walk: It's not guiding the way, it's going home.

From then on, in Weibei, the living and the dead each have their path, and every wronged soul has someone to answer for it.

(12/12/2022)

Reader's guide:

1. Daily updates.

2. Modern alternate universe with lots of personal headcanons. Please don't nitpick the details. This novel is set in a modern alternate universe.

3. Please don't send perfect-character or writing advice.

4. Revised as I write. Only the official published version is guaranteed.

5. Mystery, ghosts, and a dark tone. Tough characters, realistic style, and somewhat graphic, but beneath the peeling back of the layers are both small and great acts of love, with heartfelt sincerity hidden within.

*

Next book preview: River of Life and Death

Yu Lin, captain of the criminal investigation team in the capital, is the white moonlight of screenwriter Lang Zhenzhen.

Her breakout work, The Pursuer, was written with him as its model.

One day, Lang Zhenzhen's soul returns to the Ming dynasty, and she becomes a man armed with a goose-feather saber, holding the power of life and death.

He takes in a frail, skinny girl who has been beaten half to death. She chews betel nut and drinks strong liquor. She's so taciturn that even three slaps won't get a word out of her, but she can track clues and hunt down criminals over a thousand miles away. Her name is Yu Lin too.

Lang Zhenzhen takes her under his wing, protecting and doting on her. They spend six years living as a married couple, and he never reveals why he loves and cherishes her so deeply, not even on his deathbed.

Yu Lin understands it all. After laying Lang Zhenzhen's body in its coffin, she enters it and dies with him.

After returning to the present, Lang Zhenzhen is invited by the publicity bureau to write another mystery story and is assigned to experience life with the city police bureau's criminal investigation team. This time, her host is Captain Yu Lin.

They aren't close; Yu Lin has never even met her. They're too close; 600 years ago, they were a devoted married couple.

Theme: You only get one life, so of course you should live it more passionately than anyone