Coffin Lantern Guide

At midnight in Xiangxi, when the mist spread over the wooden railings of the stilted building, Shen Yan was squatting in a mass grave to add oil to the Paulownia coffin lamp. The sparks from the wick splashed on the back of the hand, and the word "coffin" was burned out in green and black - this was the "craft" left behind by my grandfather, and it was also a talisman for death. Three days ago, the youngest son of the county's richest man was worshiping his ancestors in the ancestral hall. He was dragged into a century-old coffin. The next day, his body was hung on a beam, with the seven orifices stuffed with grave soil, and a sly smile on his face. The government had no choice but to ask him, the last "coffin lantern maker", to come out. Shen Yan walked at night with a lantern, and there were always strange things in the shadow of the lamp: the flower girl's paper flowers were bleeding, the watchman's hair was tangled in a bang, and even the shadow in the river was carrying a coffin. In the cellar of the richest man, he dug out half of the "Yin Lamp Spectrum" and remembered how to tie seven "living lamps" that required the essence and blood of living people to ignite. They would attract not the Yang soul but the "Earth-bound Immortal". On the tear mark on the last page, cinnabar writes: "The coffin lamp attracts the soul, and the soul returns to the lamp and is extinguished. Only the one who holds the lamp will be a candle forever." There is a faded photo in the spectrum. The man in a long gown from the Republic of China has the same facial features as him, and the coffin lamp in his hand is exactly the same as his. When the seventh living lamp was lit in the City God's Temple, Shen Yan could clearly see the scene in the shadow of the lamp - countless "selves" crawled out of the coffin, each carrying a lamp, and the wick burned the memories of his first half of life. The old man said that the coffin lantern maker was the ferryman between yin and yang, but Shen Yan touched the gradually deepening word "coffin" on his arm and suddenly understood: the so-called ferry was just a substitute for the obsession trapped by trickery. What his grandfather left to him was never craftsmanship, but a "lantern festival" spanning three generations. Tonight, when the fog was thickest, he had to light his own lamp with his own hands.