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The Ghost-Marriage Ledger
Zhou Mubai inherits the House of Joy, a county shop that arranges ghost-marriages, and its century-old Ghost-Marriage Ledger. On taking over, his own name and death-date surface on the book's blank last page, the wedding-date marked 'this evening.' As the town's young vanish and die to be secretly matched, he uncovers the truth: the ledger feeds on the shopkeeper's own life. Tonight the date approaches.
The Temple of a Hundred Bones
Shen Jiu, a wandering collector of the dead, is asked to lodge a nameless corpse at the mountain shrine of Compassionate Bones. He finds a finger-bone showing through the clay Bodhisattva and, in the bone-vault, a row of nameless tablets—the last slot carved 'The One Who Comes.' The priest says the god needs a hundred bones made whole and keeps the final bone for the bearer. Shen Jiu realizes he is that one. The ending is left trembling.
The Nuo King Does Not Appear
In Lock-Dragon Hollow the Nuo King mask kept plague away for generations. When old master Chou dies, his city grandson A-Yan inherits it. Soon mask-wearers dance at midnight, the guardian coin vanishes, travelers loop back home. Inside the mask A-Yan reads Chou's last words: the 'plague' was no plague but a family of three healers buried alive—and the mask is their grievance made solid. He must choose: wear it and stay forever, or remove it and let the village face its old sin.
The Reviving Incense
When her husband dies suddenly, Zhou lights a 'revive' incense in his coffin. He wakes—speaks, walks—yet his hands stay well-water cold, his pulse reversed, his breath smells of grave-ash. The coroner warns the shell is not her man. One night his 'I have woken' issues from her own throat. She falls ill; in her own coffin, a half-burnt stick appears.
The Opera Chest
In a derelict temple, the trunk of a dead opera master opens by itself on certain nights: sleeves hang themselves, a mask floats, a bowed fiddle plays his haunting bridge-song—backwards, luring the living down. His orphaned apprentice finds her dead mother's shoes inside, and a seat still warm. The stage calls; she no longer dares open the door twice.
The Ferry of Souls
At the unmanned Death Ferry on the Gourd River, the boat rows itself across each night. When a young man rides it to bury his grandfather, he finds a jawless boatman in the mist steering for him—and wakes on the far shore before a nameless wet grave carved with his own name. He lives, yet each night the oar-knock sounds from under his bed.
The Soul-Nail
At Luoyan Village an old coffin is sealed with seven soul-nailing iron spikes to pin a wronged woman's ghost. When a carpenter pries three out for a fertility charm, black water weeps from the empty holes and his pregnant wife dreams of a dripping woman reaching for her womb. The old grave-keeper hammers six back—but the seventh is gone, and the wet footprint at the bed's foot never dries.
The Lamp-Wick Man
For three hundred years an eternal lamp burns at a mountain temple. Its keeper, once a headsman who spared one village infant and raised him as Lantern, is stabbed in the snow by an avenger — but a red man-shape bursts from the wick and takes the blade. The lamp dies; yet on snowy nights a warm glow still lights the old monk's steps, as Lantern keeps his watch.