Healing Ghosts with a Gourd

In the chaos of the Republican era, medicine bridges the realms of yin and yang.

Chen Shian is the grandson of a physician in Luozhen, a stillborn child brought back to life by a life-borrowing ritual: "He shouldn't have lived, yet he did." Even the underworld's ledger of life and death has no record of him. On the day his grandfather's coffin was carried to the grave, there was no body inside, only a prescription: "Patient: Chen Shian. Condition: Should not be alive. Deadline: See reverse."

He possesses the Ghost Diagnosis: with each volume, he unlocks another skill in inspection, listening, questioning, and pulse-taking. He can see the blue-black aura of ghosts and hear the last words of the dead. But every step comes at a price. Save a ghost, ask a question, or simply let a day pass, and one percent of his remaining lifespan is taken away.

A little girl who drowned three days ago comes dripping at his door. A theater troupe that died suddenly sings every night. Beneath the warlord's mansion's medicine storehouse lie row upon row of jars containing souls. He treats ghostly illnesses by healing the soul, and human illnesses by spending his lifespan. With a ledger of prescriptions in one hand, he treats the living by day and diagnoses the dead by night. Meanwhile, Huichuntang, which captures souls to refine medicine, closes in on him at every turn. His uncle-master, Chen Shouyi, is waiting for just one thing: the medicine catalyst must be given willingly, and Chen Shian must walk to the medicine furnace of his own accord.

As yin and yang flood into each other and a ghost plague threatens to wipe out the city, his grandfather's lingering soul hands him a blank prescription before vanishing. Chen Shian picks up his brush and writes his own answer: There is a cure that requires no sacrifice. Condition: Immortality. Prescription: A solution. Condition: Should not be alive. Prescription: Make it yourself.

Treat the living, and they pay a consultation fee. Treat the dead, and it is your own life that gets spent.