Before the Hour of the Rat

My name is Lin Luming, and I'm a folk-culture streamer with a million followers across the internet. Every penny I earn comes from viewers' curious fascination with the paranormal, their fear of it and their love of watching it.

That was until one night at the entrance to my hometown village, when I came across a red bridal veil lying in the middle of the road.

I didn't dare pick it up. But the next night, it appeared in my dream. A woman in a wedding gown stood amid candlelight. Her face was blurred, but the silver bracelet on her wrist, engraved with the character Lin, was crystal clear.

She said, “You owe me.”

A seven-hundred-year-old debt of cause and effect. At the end of the road was someone who had been waiting a very long time for him.