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The Sluice
The man who has kept the sluice for ten years hears his name called from the black water below on New Year's Eve.
The Sealed Stove
On a heating-less winter night, tiny footprints appear in the coal ash beside a stove that was sealed shut.
The Bee God
In a Miao mountain village of eastern Guizhou, aged beekeeper Long Laoyan mends a wounded wild queen bee and is repaid for years: her swarm guards his hives and warns him of floods. A greedy neighbor who raids the nest is driven by the bees over a terrace cliff. A tale of wild mercy and just return.
The Inkstone's Servant
A poor Suzhou scholar, Fang Shouzhuo, pawns his coat for a battered inkstone and finds within it a tiny ink-spirit, Xuan Nu, who writes only for the down-and-out with true talent. As Fang rises to office and his pen turns to flattery, the ink grows pale and the spirit departs—leaving a hollow stone and a man who has lost his own voice.
The Returning Swallow
An old woman's swallows return to her rafters each year. When her son moves her to a new city home, the swallows find no mistress and patch the old beam with mud, waiting. When she returns, one swallow has died among the rafters, leaving a fresh handful of mud like a nest just begun.
The Cricket
A mischievous boy saves a drowning cricket and keeps it in a bamboo cage. When plague comes, the cricket chirps wildly at midnight, driving the whole family outside just before the roof beam collapses. By morning the cricket lies dead.
The Ink Fox
A poor scholar in an abandoned house hears grinding in the night and sees a small ink-black fox licking his inkstone. His writing flourishes — yet what the fox rewards is not talent, but sincerity.
The Regular Guest at the Old Inn
The owner of a riverside inn notices that on the eve of Qingming each year, Room 301 is booked under the same handwriting, though the guest never shows his face. By morning the bed is untouched but for an old ferry ticket for a line that stopped running decades ago.