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The Ferry Lantern
An old ferry-woman lights a lantern each night to guide returning boats; after she dies without illness, the lantern lights itself and boats still find their way. A youth lost in mist is saved by the light and finds only her grave at dawn.
The Jade Fish
A drowned merchant is found with a jade fish that grows warm each night, keeping his body from rotting until he returns to life, who tells of a red carp that led him from the whirlpool. Later a carp with a jade-like mark is caught and released.
The Night Freight Yard
Lao Zheng has worked night dispatch at the suburban marshaling yard for thirty years. Every night at 2:07, a dark green train with no number sits at the end of track three; he later learns it is an old slow train that crashed in the tunnel and never reached its station.
The Returning Crane
A solitary old man frees a wounded young crane and sets it loose. In drought only his field stays moist, watered by night by the freed crane; when he falls ill the crane brings herbs, and at his death two cranes circle the coffin.
The Last Metro Platform
Lao Zhou cleans the terminal platform after the last train. Once the shutters fall, a station attendant in an old dark-blue uniform paces the empty platform in the camera's blind spot. He later learns of a young attendant who died saving a passenger who fell.
Codex of the Eight Wildernesses · The Withered Infant
In the eastern wood of No-Return lives the Withered Infant, an eyeless infant-shaped beast whose laughing cry feeds on the road itself and befools travelers. The woodcutter Li San followed its cry and circled one tree till dawn.
The Painting Crone
At the entrance of the south-city market, an old woman sells crude paintings. Those who buy one dream that night of what she drew, alive and real.
The Ink Immortal
A poor scholar studying in an abandoned temple finds his inkstone refilling itself each night. He stays awake to discover the source.