A wrongful death lies buried at the bottom of a well, while a solitary green lamp shines upon the mortal world.
Blurb:
A cool, aloof undertaker's assistant x an amnesiac, rebellious odd-jobber from the martial world
On the western outskirts of the capital stands a funeral home, with a white lantern hanging by its entrance.
The woman in charge is surnamed Si, with the given name Qi.
She can identify injuries the authorities cannot.
Cases the authorities dare not touch are brought to her for advice.
Few of the cases she takes are ordinary.
Case One: The Living Man in the Wall
While repairing the river embankment north of the city, workers tore down part of an old wall.
But halfway through the demolition, they discovered someone built into it, and the person was still alive.
His mouth was sealed with mud, bricks pinned his limbs, yet he was still breathing when they rescued him.
Asked how he got in there, he said he didn't know.
Asked his name, he gave them one. They searched the entire city and found no record of anyone by that name.
But the name he gave was that of the craftsman who had built that section of the wall.
The craftsman had died twenty years earlier, supposedly by drowning. His body had never been found.
The man rescued from the wall had exactly the same face as the craftsman who died twenty years ago.
Case Two: Changing Faces
The owner of a rouge shop in the south of the city had a round face the day before yesterday, but yesterday it suddenly became pointed.
The neighbors said she had lost weight. Si Qi often shopped there, and after one distant glance, she fell silent.
The next day, the face of the teahouse owner's wife in the eastern part of the city changed too.
The two women had looked nothing alike before, but after the change, they looked like sisters standing side by side.
After that, the tofu seller in the west of the city and the tailor's daughter in the north began changing one after another, their faces all taking on the same mold.
After half a month of investigation, the authorities discovered a shop selling face cream. The cream had something mixed into it, and after three months of use, it changed the shape of your face.
Who had made it?
A peddler who traveled from street to street. He had died three years earlier. Someone had dug up his grave, and all that remained in the coffin was a human skin, with every feature stripped from its face.
Case Three: No Shadow
The owner of a rice shop in the west of the city died atop his own pile of rice. He had no wounds, and his complexion looked normal.
Si Qi turned the corpse over three times, then suddenly looked up and asked, “What time is it outside?”
“Just past noon.”
She walked to the door and glanced at the sun. When she turned back to the corpse, there was nothing beneath its feet. It cast no shadow.
It's not unusual for a dead person to have no shadow. What's unusual is that he had none before he died, either.
The shop assistant said the owner took a nap on the rice pile every day at noon, just where the sunlight came in and cast a shadow.
But that day, there had only been a person on the rice pile, with no shadow.
The cases range from major to minor, and the dead come from all walks of life.
But if a case is brought to the funeral home's door, she takes it.
Someone asked her, “Lady Qi, aren't you afraid?”
She was crouched over an unidentified corpse, examining it, and didn't even look up. “Afraid of what?”
“Those cases...”
“Dead people can't hurt anyone.” Her hand paused. She looked up at him. “The living can.”
Theme: It's a good thing
