Hidden Lanterns in a Dry House

In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China (1928), the Northern Expedition came to an end, and the local situation was chaotic. The old rural patriarchal rules overrode the law, and evil customs such as dead people, sacrifices in ghost houses, substitutes for life, and paper figures to summon spirits were prevalent. Countless people died in the war, grievances accumulated, and the boundaries between Yin and Yang were blurred. Troubled times are the most prone to evil. In the troubled and famine years at the junction of the suburbs of Shanghai and Suzhou City, remnants of warlords took hold, refugees were everywhere, old customs were not dead, and evil spirits were rampant. From the perspective of Shen Yanqiu, a down-and-out scholar studying abroad, we unlock a series of supernatural events rooted in the folk customs of the Republic of China, the secrets of old houses, the evil nature of human nature, and the chaos of yin and yang.