Old Lanterns at Night Market

A short and medium-length novel that combines urban fireworks, suspense tracking and classical fantasy. The story is set on a night market street in a small southern town. It tells the story of Lu San, a fried rice stall owner, who was forced to glimpse a tragedy involving a craftsman that had been buried for thirty years because of a strange old lantern he received as a gift on a rainy night. The obsessive phantom illuminated by the lantern, the vague old records in the file, the secretive rumors from the old man's mouth, and the gloomy wood carving shop owner with a scorpion-shaped birthmark carved on the back of his hand are intertwined into a web of revenge and protection that spans time and space. Lu San, a little person who just wants to live a stable life, must decipher the secret words of the lantern within a limited time, before the full moon, under the old locust tree that swallowed the girl, face the "Seven Stars Life-borrowing Formation" set up by the evil craftsman, and complete a duel involving life and death, justice and soul liberation. The core of the work explores the dissolution of distorted desires caused by market sentiment, and the tenacity derived from life itself that ordinary people can burst out when facing extraordinary evil.