Xiao Jun couldn't enjoy his summer vacation. His uncle called him over to the neighboring town to help out. His uncle ran a funeral paper goods shop there and had recently expanded into providing a full range of funeral services. Short on staff, he asked Xiao Jun to help over the summer, offering him five hundred yuan for the month. Xiao Jun had planned to spend the vacation organizing his novel and making time to submit it for publication. He usually squeezed in time to write, but hadn't managed to get it organized yet.
Xiao Jun figured he could help during the day and still have time to sort things out at night.
Who knew he'd be making funeral paper offerings by day and posing as a Taoist priest at night? He had beautiful brush calligraphy, after all, better than what most funeral masters could manage. He wrote things like travel passes to the underworld, spirit tablets, and soul-summoning banners in the prescribed format, filling in the deceased's name, birth date, and so on. As for the rituals, he just followed along and muttered a bunch of nonsense. The bereaved family paid separately for this priest act, usually one or two hundred yuan. For the money, Xiao Jun didn't mind. He figured he was just putting on a show for ghosts, and what did the living know about any of it? He had no idea how dangerous it really was.
