Chapter 1

During an antiques-appraisal livestream, I happened to complain about a wealthy man in his twenties who had pursued my mother with extraordinary fervor.

She was over fifty, approaching menopause.

Then, on their honeymoon, she drowned.

To bring her home and lay her to rest, we hired a professional body retriever. He refused payment. All he wanted was one night alone with her corpse.

He said he needed to borrow the astrological configuration of her birth to avert a calamity.

My husband told me not to overthink it.

“He's filthy rich, and his wife is young and beautiful. What could he possibly want with an old woman?”

I hadn't expected my offhand complaint to catch the female appraiser's attention.

“What the body retriever wants is a flawless piece of an older woman's skin.”

I shook my head. It sounded absurd.

“Stop trying to frighten people. What skin? I've never heard of anything like that.”

Comments streamed across the screen.

“Never heard of it either. Is she making this up?”

“One night with an old woman's corpse? That's some taste.”

“Have a little decency. Didn't he say he was borrowing her birth chart to ward off trouble?”

The streamer's name was Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt. She claimed to be an heir to the Linh Quán Daoist tradition.

I'd watched her before. Mostly she appraised antiques. Occasionally, she talked about ghosts and spirits.

Other viewers said she had genuine abilities: she'd caught a human-faced bear, dealt with a human-faced coffin, and subdued an altar used to cultivate a mother-and-child pair of corpses.

No one knew whether any of it was true.

The retriever's request had been troubling me. On impulse, I'd joined her stream to complain.

And the moment I spoke, she'd come out with this fantastical nonsense.

An insult to my intelligence.

“Please respect the dead. Stop talking rubbish.”

She didn't rush to explain.

Instead, she spoke slowly, one word at a time.

“Flawless skin from an older woman is dried and ground into powder, then combined with special medicinal ingredients to make pills. Flick one onto a person, and their soul can be commanded.”

Her theatrical air of mystery made me laugh.

“All the young people there have gone away for work. The village is full of old people. If that's real, why target my mother?”

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt grew solemn.

“The preparation is extremely particular and not widely known. I've only read about it in a book of forbidden arts. It requires a woman born in the ancient village of Long Đường, in southern Hồ Tương, who has lived through four twelve-year cycles and was born at a yin hour, on a yin day, in a yin month and year.”

Four cycles meant forty-eight years.

My mother had just passed fifty.

The age was close. The details of her birth and the place where it happened were right, too.

I struggled to look calm.

“Then you've guessed wrong. It happened in Long Đường, but my mother's from the city. She was only there on holiday.”

The comments erupted.

“Talked herself right into a corner!”

“If the birthplace is wrong, the birth chart probably is too.”

“No spooky story? Watching the streamer embarrass herself is fun enough.”

“Strange. Her birth chart clearly shows a romantic calamity. She was definitely born in Long Đường. But she's over fifty. How could she still... No. You're lying.”

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt turned a set of Five Emperors coins between her fingers, frowning as though looking somewhere far away.

“She didn't go to Long Đường for an ordinary holiday.”

My thoughts tangled. Panic took hold.

It was awkward to admit.

My mother had gone there on honeymoon with a husband thirty years younger than her.

In her fifties, after years alone, she'd unexpectedly found true love at a public-square dance.

I didn't object to her finding companionship.

But the man was a wealthy young heir named Kỷ Quy Hoằng, barely into his twenties.

From the moment he appeared, he'd pursued her ardently.

Gentle. Thoughtful. Full of enthusiasm.

When she said their age gap was too large, he immediately dyed his hair silver and even hired someone to make him up as an old man.

He introduced her to his friends and openly announced that he was courting her.

Proudly, too.

My mother had never experienced anything like it.

She fell completely.

Suspecting ulterior motives, I hired a private investigator.

But he really was wealthy.

His parents had died young. He had no other relatives.

The villa and luxury cars were in his name.

No debt. No bad habits.

When he learned I'd investigated him, he put his property deeds and car keys before me.

“My parents died when I was young. Especially my mother... I was a child, determined to go and fight someone. She had an accident driving to collect me. My mother and Aunt Trác came from the same village. Whenever I see her, she feels like family...”

My husband, Thẩm Nghiêu, tugged my hand and smiled privately.

“It's just emotional transference. Nothing unusual.”

I still tried to stop it.

“He's using my mother to make up for the maternal affection he lost. That isn't love.”

Thẩm Nghiêu replied:

“He's alone in the world and that rich. He isn't worried your family will go after his money, yet you're afraid he'll deceive your mother?”

“Whether it's true love or transference doesn't matter. She's worked hard all her life and never enjoyed herself. You don't want her growing old with regrets, do you?”

It sounded reasonable.

Since meeting Kỷ Quy Hoằng, Mom smiled constantly, dressed up more, and looked ten years younger.

I couldn't very well oppose the marriage.

Still, a man young enough to be my little brother marrying my mother felt absurd.

Their honeymoon destination was an obscure village called Long Đường in southern Hồ Tương.

Only then did I learn my mother had been an orphan adopted from there.

“I thought they'd only be away for a few days. I never imagined... They went boating on the river. The boat capsized. Kỷ Quy Hoằng was young and strong, so he swam ashore.”

“But my mother...”

By then, I could barely speak through my sobs.

“She was underwater for three days before they recovered her. I failed her. I shouldn't have let her go alone with him...”

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt interrupted.

“After three days, the body should have been badly bloated, foul-smelling, and distorted. Did you recognize her immediately?”

I froze.

When they recovered my mother, her clothes had been intact.

Apart from her pale face and the absence of breath, there'd been no sign of decay.

I'd been too grief-stricken to notice.

Now it seemed wrong.

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt didn't sound surprised.

“Before she entered the water, her entire body was coated in a secret preservative called Lạc Thần Incense. It protects the skin and makes it separate from the flesh so it's easier to harvest.”

I couldn't stop trembling.

“The smell... Does it seem unbearably foul to everyone else, while the person using it thinks it's wonderfully fragrant?”

Solemnly, she nodded.

Before the honeymoon, Kỷ Quy Hoằng had given Mom a set of bath products and insisted she use them on schedule.

Afterward, she reeked.

One whiff made me want to vomit.

Her face immediately darkened.

“I raised you, changed your nappies, cleaned up after you. I never complained. Now I'm old, and you think I smell like an old person?”

I hurriedly explained that something was wrong with the bath products.

Thẩm Nghiêu covered his nose and pulled me away.

“Leave it. Who knows what young people are into these days? Maybe it's one of Kỷ Quy Hoằng's little preferences.”

And so my mother had coated herself in Lạc Thần Incense.

The livestream comments exploded.

“That rich boy definitely arranged the drowning!”

“A handsome man who drops into your lap is always trouble. If he isn't after your money, he's after your life!”

“Lust cuts both ways. Men and women alike.”

More and more viewers arrived, talking over one another.

I sat like stone.

I couldn't understand.

Had Kỷ Quy Hoằng gone to all that trouble just to trick my mother out of a flawless piece of older skin?

“Trác Văn. Go and see whether the skin is still on her body.”

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt called my name several times.

“Whether it is or not, bring her back here. I'll help you arrange the funeral.”

My mother's body had been kept in Long Đường.

Kỷ Quy Hoằng said it was her wish. She'd been born there. In death, she ought to return to her roots.

When I asked to see her again, his expression changed. He tried every possible way to stop me.

Thẩm Nghiêu backed him up.

“They registered their marriage. They're legally husband and wife. How he handles the body is his business. We shouldn't interfere.”

“She may have remarried, but she's still my mother.”

I gritted my teeth and pushed him aside.

“If you won't let me see her today, I'll take you and that retriever to court for desecrating a corpse!”

“I know you've always objected to my age and thought I had ulterior motives. Heaven knows my feelings for Aunt Trác were genuine.”

Kỷ Quy Hoằng looked worse.

“Her body's been washed, but she hasn't been dressed for burial. You can look, but no one else comes in. Not even your husband.”

Mom lay on a table.

The mortuary staff had cleaned her and prepared her face.

I stood before her.

Her body was whole. Her expression peaceful.

As though she were sleeping.

Tears poured down my face.

Kỷ Quy Hoằng stopped me.

“She's clean now. Don't touch her and dirty her again.”

What an odd choice of words.

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt's description of the skin preparation flashed through my mind.

My head seemed to explode.

“What do you mean? I can't even touch my own mother? Did you and that retriever kill her?”

The retriever suddenly spoke.

“Let her touch. As long as she doesn't regret it.”

I hadn't noticed him arrive.

He looked like a withered ghost, in a ragged camouflage uniform, his face deeply lined and his eyes dark and vicious.

“Find out what sort of place Long Đường is. They call it the village of death-bringing widows. Healthy men keep dying mysteriously, while the women are fine. The land's energy is intensely yin. Women born there are more yin still.”

He sounded perfectly serious.

“I was born in Long Đường. At my birth, my mother took a calamity in my place. Now I'm nearly sixty, and my final reckoning is coming. I need your mother's birth chart to take this calamity for me.”

“I haven't taken advantage for nothing. Did I charge for recovering her? I pulled her from the Water Ghosts' Lair outside the village. That alone cost me half my life. I'd normally charge at least three hundred and eighty thousand yuan.”

I said nothing, full of suspicion.

“For the ritual, I only need to share a coffin with her. It'll be over at dawn.”

His face disappeared into shadow.

Only his hollow eyes gleamed ominously.

“On the other hand, I've heard certain unscrupulous occultists love collecting souls like hers for dark magic. Don't let them deceive you.”

I frowned.

Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt didn't know me, yet she'd offered to arrange Mom's funeral.

Could she have an ulterior motive?

“Those occultists borrow skins to change their appearance. They particularly like the bodies of young women. Puts people off guard.”

The retriever continued.

“But there is a flaw. A borrowed body's chin will have a scar.”

I jolted.

My confusion deepened.

During the stream, Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt had indeed had an unhealed scar on her chin.

Quite a serious one.

But it hadn't bled or festered.

The retriever's voice hardened.

“Once she's made into an instrument of dark magic, the occultist will command her for decades. Centuries. Breaking into tombs in the mountains, committing all kinds of evil. That would be truly unfilial.”

He convinced me completely.

Kỷ Quy Hoằng wanted me to leave.

Uneasy, I stayed.

The retriever lit candles in the room's four corners and placed Mom in the coffin.

The little rural mortuary was already dim.

Expressionless staff drifted past like wandering spirits.

Everything became even more eerie.

I'd originally meant to follow Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt's advice and take Mom back to the city.

Now that I'd stayed, I could only feel dread.

The retriever climbed into the coffin.

Before I could warn him, Kỷ Quy Hoằng spoke.

“Behave yourself. Keep your hands to yourself. Aunt Trác is dead, but you will still respect her.”

I swallowed my words.

Had I misjudged the retriever?

Had I wronged Kỷ Quy Hoằng, too?

Before the lid closed, the retriever told us to lock it firmly.

Whatever happened outside, we must not open it.

The first half of the night passed peacefully.