Chapter One: The Ancient Book

When Shen Changan returned to his hometown, Old Man Li had already passed away.

In the end, he hadn’t made it in time to see his grandfather for the last time. All he could do was burn some paper money with the others, kneel respectfully before the elder’s coffin, and bow his head three times in solemn tribute.

The old man had many descendants, but Shen Changan was his only grandson on his daughter’s side. Now that the elder was gone, everything left behind was divided up, and as a relative from the mother’s side, there was little left that concerned him according to local custom.

Moreover, Shen Changan had lost his mother in childhood and wasn’t especially close to the Li family. By rights, he would not have had to return. Yet his grandfather had always doted on him, and so Shen Changan made the journey home to send the old man off one last time.

After the paper offerings were burned, Shen Changan stayed to keep vigil in the mourning hall.

A Taoist priest had chosen the burial date, and it would be three more days before Old Man Li would be laid to rest. Each night, someone needed to keep watch, ensuring that incense burned without interruption.

Shen Changan, being among the younger generation and the eldest of them, naturally took the first night’s vigil.

There were few people keeping watch that night, and Shen Changan recognized even fewer. The others passed the time playing cards, cracking sunflower seeds, and chatting in small groups, while he sat alone, lost in thought.

As the night wore on, the watchers became drowsy, yawning and nodding off, their eyelids heavy. Only Shen Changan remained fully awake.

Having napped for half a day on the train, he was wide awake after arriving and felt no trace of fatigue. He read novels on his phone, occasionally glancing up to check the incense; whenever it sputtered low, he replaced it with fresh sticks.

Around three or four in the morning, everyone else was deep in sleep. Shen Changan looked up to find the three sticks of incense had burned out.

He shook his head to dispel the creeping sleepiness, fished three new sticks from the pile of sundries, and lit them in the brazier. In a few seconds, they were burning.

With the incense in hand, Shen Changan bowed deeply to his grandfather, then placed the sticks upright in the censer.

Just as he finished, a familiar voice suddenly whispered beside his ear, “Changan.”

Startled, Shen Changan turned his head, but saw no one; the others were still lost in drowsiness.

It must have been an illusion, he thought. Though he’d slept, fatigue must still be clouding his mind, giving rise to hallucinations.

“Changan.”

The voice came again. This time, Shen Changan’s hair stood on end, and a jolt ran up his spine, shaking him fully awake.

The voice had come from the coffin before him.

He frowned, gazing at the coffin. His grandfather’s body still lay inside, the lid left open so relatives could pay their respects over these few days.

Mustering his courage, he stepped closer and studied the old man’s form.

In life, his grandfather had been stubborn, with stern brows and a commanding presence; now, in death, his face seemed gentle and kind.

Shen Changan stared for a long moment, but heard no third call. He let out a sigh of relief.

It must have been a trick of the mind.

He bent over, straightening the old man’s clothing and brushing away the dust that had gathered during the day, murmuring softly, “Grandpa, if you have something to say, just say it.”

He waited a while, but no response came.

Shen Changan chuckled at himself. He must have missed his grandfather too much, to imagine hearing him speak.

He finished tidying the clothes and stood up to leave when suddenly, a black, shriveled hand shot out and seized his arm!

Every muscle in Shen Changan’s body tensed. He tried to jerk away, but that withered hand gripped his wrist like an iron clamp—no matter how he struggled, he could not break free.

In his shock, the hand quickly pressed something into his chest, then withdrew.

Shen Changan looked back and saw his grandfather lying peacefully in the coffin, his clothing exactly as he’d just arranged it, with no sign of movement.

He reached into his jacket and found something soft and thick—a square, solid object. It felt like a book.

Exhaling sharply, Shen Changan’s eyes flickered with uncertainty. After a moment, he shook his head, bowed once more to the old man, and went in search of an empty room where he could lie down.

He drew the book from inside his jacket. It was old, bound in animal hide, its cover and pages yellowed with age, stitched together with thread. There was no title.

Steeling himself, Shen Changan opened the front cover. The words on the first page sent a jolt through his heart.

“Shen Changan, age 26, male, allotted lifespan: thirty-six…”

Every detail of Shen Changan’s life was written there, from his birth to his current place of employment—nothing omitted.

But what truly chilled him was the line about his lifespan.

He couldn’t tell if it meant he had thirty-six years remaining, or if he would only live to the age of thirty-six.

Quickly, he turned to the second page, but this had nothing to do with him. It was densely covered in Taoist terminology.

Shen Changan read carefully; it began with phrases like “turning heaven and earth,” “reversing yin and yang,” “moving stars and shifting constellations,” “returning the sun to the sky.” There were thirty-six such entries in all.

“Heavenly Gang’s Thirty-Six Transformations?”

A fan of miscellaneous books, Shen Changan immediately recognized the reference: the Thirty-Six Transformations of the Heavenly Spirits, a legendary set of Daoist supernatural arts.

He turned to the third page, which listed skills like “communicating with spirits, driving away gods, carrying mountains, commanding water”—the Seventy-Two Transformations of the Earthly Fiends.

He flipped again, and on the fourth page were illustrations of the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise, each marked with seven bold dots—four times seven, the twenty-eight lunar mansions.

Further on were the seven stars of the Northern Dipper, the six of the Southern Dipper, and then diagrams of golden elixirs, talismans, medicinal formulas, breathing techniques, and other secret arts.

But as before, these were only titles—there was no further content.

The booklet was thin, and Shen Changan quickly leafed through it all. He frowned; the book was exceedingly strange. Could his grandfather’s death have something to do with it?

A sense of unease crept over him. Perhaps Old Man Li’s passing wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Yet, no matter how he pondered, he found no answers.

“Ah, I’ll ask around in the morning and see if anyone else has seen this book.”

He was just about to close it when, without warning, the pages began to flutter on their own. With each turn, the words vanished, leaving the pages blank.

Before he could react, the flipping stopped on the second page, where a shimmering, multicolored world appeared—an illusory landscape, like a hologram, floating and wavering before his eyes.

Shen Changan froze, reaching out instinctively, and his hand brushed the edge of the vision.

In an instant, the vision expanded, engulfing everything around him.

A wave of dizziness crashed over him. The world twisted and blurred, images whirled together in a spiral, and his ears filled with whispers that seemed to rise from the depths of the underworld, clawing at his soul, as if to drag him down to hell.

His stomach churned violently. Pale-faced, Shen Changan was about to vomit when his foot caught on something, as if he’d stumbled over a table. His body collapsed, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

The pain jolted him awake, banishing the nausea. Gritting his teeth, he pressed a hand to what felt like a table and slowly pushed himself upright.

He tried to move toward the bed to rest, but was shocked to find it gone.

Looking around in confusion, he realized he was no longer in the room at all. All around him were yellow, earthen walls—crumbling, made of packed dirt with bamboo laths showing through, nothing like modern construction.

Could it be…?

Panic thrummed in his heart. He took out the booklet, and in the faint moonlight streaming through a crack in the wall, he could just make out the cover.

The vision on the second page was gone, but on the animal-hide cover, a single phrase remained:

“Yaksha demons, devourers of men, must be executed at once!”