The protagonist, Lin Ming, minds a shabby incense and candle shop by day and puts makeup on the dead at a funeral home by night. His grandfather has been missing for three years, and he keeps watch over the shop, waiting for him to return. One day, a "smiling corpse" arrives at the funeral home: the dead woman's lips are curled into a smile, and everyone there is terrified. Recognizing it as a sign of a vengeful ghost described in his grandfather's notes, he recites a spirit-inviting incantation for the first time. Halfway through, a black cat jumps in and tramples the talisman... And so the story begins.
