The Cheongsam

Every three years, a woman in a qipao appears on the flagstone road, sometimes by day, sometimes at night. Strange things happen whenever she appears. This time, it all began with a red bellyband that carried a woman’s scent. Then a qipao painting emerged, a picture so eerie it defied belief. It could be peeled back to reveal seven layers, each depicting a woman in a different style of qipao, with a different appearance. Every time one of these seven painted layers is uncovered, it reveals a woman in a different qipao and a different strange occurrence. The paintings belonged to the artist Feng Guizi, who lived to the age of ninety-nine and left behind five pictures, each eerier than the last. A painting must never pass through more than three hands or three households. If it does, the person who receives it at the third hand and in the third household must keep it, and strange events will continue to unfold around the painting.