I sat in the jolting minivan, watching the rain lash against the window. My mind felt as if a massive stone had been hurled into it—waves of turmoil spreading without end. My left hand, wrapped layer upon layer in gauze, sent up spasms of stabbing pain, each pulse tugging hard at my nerves.

　　Auntie Lin, sitting beside me, spoke softly, almost eerily. “Child, this is the adaptation period of the Ghost Hand. Your father passed down the Miao clan’s secret art to you on his deathbed. Maybe the timing was wrong, or maybe you were never meant to inherit it. It’s mutated. Every twelve hours, the poison eats away another inch of muscle. If you can’t reach Taiping Town and find the divine doctor within a week…” Her voice dropped lower and lower, as if afraid the wind itself might overhear. “You’ll be lying in the same coffin as your father.”

　　She looked frail enough to be blown over by a gust, and that only made her words heavier.

　　After a pause, she went on, “We’ve contacted the divine doctor. But she set a condition—you’ll have to work for her. She’ll pay you, yes, but the term is a full year.” With that, Auntie Lin fell into an uneasy silence again.

　　I didn’t know how much time passed before the van finally slowed to a stop. Auntie Lin gently patted my arm. “We’re here. Get out.”

　　The rain had stopped, but the wind still cut through the air with a chill. I looked up to see an old town before me. Stone walls encircled it, a banner fluttering atop the ramparts. Along the ancient-looking streets stood rows of wooden buildings, neatly arranged. There were hardly any people around—everything was unnervingly quiet. Mountains rose on all sides, wrapped tight in thick fog. The whole place felt hazy and unreal, like an ancient market town lifted straight out of a TV drama, giving me the strange sensation of having stepped through time.

　　As she helped me with my luggage, Auntie Lin reminded me in a low voice, “A year isn’t long, but it isn’t short either. You need to be prepared.”

　　I nodded silently, my emotions tangled beyond words.

　　The bearded driver pointed at a wooden building directly ahead. “That’s where the divine doctor lives. We won’t go up with you—her instructions. Once you’re settled, remember to call home and let them know you’re safe.” He stubbed out his cigarette. The sparks that fell onto the mossy stone steps burned into the shape of a human face, sending a chill straight down my spine.

　　I thanked him and Auntie Lin. After they left, I slowly climbed the damp stone steps and stopped in front of the wooden house.

　　The door stood open. Above it hung a sign reading Lu’s Paper Effigy Shop. I looked up. The faded plaque bearing the words “Lu’s” was cracked, splitting the character Lu into two parts. At a glance, it resembled some incomplete soul-sealing talisman, radiating an indescribable sense of unease.

　　This is the divine doctor’s place? Doubt filled my mind. After hesitating for a moment, I clenched my teeth and stepped inside.

　　The room was empty, its walls lined with funeral items—wreaths, paper figures, paper horses. The paper horses had real horsehair manes stuck into their eye sockets, unsettlingly lifelike. Beneath the veil of a paper bride protruded half a tongue carved from locust wood, its surface densely etched with tiny characters. Curious, I leaned closer. They were someone’s four pillars of destiny.

　　As I tried to look more carefully, the paper bride’s veil suddenly slipped off. Inside was a lining sewn from the fabric of my father’s burial clothes. The dark red bloodstains traced patterns identical to the lines of corpse poison spreading along my own arm. Cold sweat instantly soaked my back.

　　“Is anyone here?” I called out, forcing my courage. There was no reply. My first thought was that I must have come to the wrong place. Turning around, I prepared to leave.

　　Just then, a clear, lilting voice drifted over.

　　“Coming.”

　　The sound was light and ethereal, as though it had floated in from another world entirely.

　　I turned around instinctively. A woman in a long white dress stood before me. She looked young—strikingly so—beautiful, with an otherworldly poise about her.

　　Her sudden appearance felt unreal, like something out of a dream. For a split second, I even wondered if I’d wandered onto the set of a wuxia drama by mistake.

　　“And you are?” She looked me up and down, her eyes filled with curiosity.

　　“I… I’m here to see the divine doctor,” I said nervously, stumbling over my words.

　　“That would be me.” Her expression didn’t change. Her tone was calm, almost flat, with no unnecessary emotion on her face.

　　“Ah!” I blurted out in shock. It felt even more unbelievable now. This was no divine doctor—she was just a young woman, not much older than me.

　　“Y-you really are the divine doctor?” I asked again, suspicion written all over my face.

　　She nodded lightly, completely at ease. “The real deal.” As she spoke, she held out her hand. “My name is Lu Yaqi. You can call me Doctor Lu.”

　　I shook her hand briefly and pulled mine back at once. Her hand was ice-cold, like a block of frozen stone, making me shiver involuntarily.

　　Still full of doubts, I gathered my courage and blurted out everything on my mind. “If you really are a divine doctor, why do you live in a place like this—and run a paper effigy shop, of all things? This just feels…”

　　“What’s strange about that?” she said casually, as if stating an obvious fact. “I treat the dead, to begin with. Treating the living only makes you a doctor. In my book, only someone who can treat ghosts and spirits deserves to be called a divine doctor.”

　　“Ah!” I recoiled a step in fright, my heart sinking. Did I really come to the wrong place? I cursed Auntie Lin silently—how could she send me somewhere this creepy without making things clear?

　　Seeing my reaction, she suddenly let out a soft laugh, light as a spring breeze rippling across a lake. “Relax, I’m just messing with you. This shop was left to me by my grandfather. When there’s nothing urgent, I make paper figures and paper horses. On the first and fifteenth of each lunar month, I burn offerings for the spirits in town. But,” she added, “you do need to be treated here. When we shook hands just now, I sensed corpse poison in you. You must be Lin Miao from Guoluo Village, right?”

　　“Yes,” I nodded. I answered aloud, but inside my head, doubts were still piling up.

　　“Come in,” she said. “That aunt of yours who always looks like she’s at a funeral told me everything about you. Don’t worry—since you’re here, I won’t let anything happen to you.” With that, she turned and led the way inside.

　　I had barely stepped into the shop, before I even had time to look around, when she ushered me further in. It was only then that I truly realized—inside and outside were like two completely different worlds.

　　The copper mirror set into the wall looked smooth and perfectly polished, yet it seemed to possess some strange power that swallowed reflections whole. No matter how I tried to look, all I could see was a hazy halo of light, as if the person in the mirror had been erased entirely. It sent a chill straight into my gut.

　　On the display shelves stood porcelain vases, but the scenes painted on them were deeply unsettling—funeral processions turned upside down. Pale paper mourners, swaying spirit banners, all inverted, as if gravity had lost its meaning. They looked ready to crawl straight out of the porcelain at any moment, adding yet another layer of eeriness to the already gloomy room.

　　The strangest of all were the carved beams and pillars. The cloud motifs, usually symbols of auspiciousness rising upward, were all growing downward instead, as if dragged by some invisible force. The sight made it feel as though the entire house was meant to exist upside down—and standing inside it was like stepping into a world where everything was reversed and out of joint.

　　Unable to help myself, I blurted out, “Your place is like a tractor on the outside, but a Ferrari on the inside.”

　　She burst out laughing, eyes sparkling. “That’s quite a comparison. Come on, sit down first.”

　　I nodded and sat on a wooden stool, my gaze drifting back to her. Instead of asking about my injury right away, she turned to fetch a teapot and poured me a cup of hot tea. As she bent over, the collar at the back of her neck slipped down slightly, revealing a large patch of bluish-black markings. They twisted and overlapped, light and dark interwoven, like mysterious talismans inked directly into her skin.

　　As steam rose from the tea and slowly dispersed, something unbelievable happened. Those bluish-black markings seemed to come alive, writhing and shifting as if guided by unseen hands. They twisted together, rearranged themselves again and again, and finally froze into stark characters: “By Imperial Decree.” The sight was so uncanny that I stared wide-eyed, afraid I was imagining things.

　　Yet she seemed completely unaware that I had seen anything at all. Calm as ever, she said evenly, “Your hand is a bit troublesome. If you want to keep it, we’ll need to remove the poison first, then carefully nurse the injury. Fortunately, someone stitched your wound with ink thread soaked in corpse oil earlier. Thanks to that, it should heal in a few days.”

　　“Th-then… what do I need to do?” I asked quickly.

　　“Once the injury heals, you work here for a year,” she said bluntly. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay you for that year.”

　　I thought it over, then asked, “So what exactly will I be doing?”

　　She gestured at the paper figures and paper horses around us. “Take a look. When there’s nothing else going on, you make these. For every ten you finish, you pick one and burn it for the spirits in the mountains—consider it doing some good for the lonely souls who died here. And occasionally, if a client has special requests, you may have to travel with me.”

　　“So… it’s just you running this place?” I asked, puzzled.

　　She nodded lightly. “For now, yes.”

　　“Then once I’m here, won’t I be run off my feet?” I muttered.

　　She smiled reassuringly. “Relax. You won’t be working for nothing. Every paper figure you make will be properly recorded in the accounts. And if anything good comes along in the future, you’ll get your share.”

　　“What kind of ‘good things’?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

　　She gave me a mysterious smile. “Paper figures. Paper horses.”

　　As her words fell, she turned around, the hem of her dress brushing lightly against a nearby paper effigy. Without warning, the index finger of a paper girl twitched—then snapped straight out, pointing directly at me. At the same moment, a burst of suona music shrieked outside the window, piercing and mournful, jarringly loud in the silence. I spun around to look outside. The street was completely empty—not a single soul in sight.

　　Lu Yaqi, however, looked as though she had expected this all along. Calmly, she placed her cinnabar brush horizontally across an open almanac on the inkstone. I leaned in for a closer look. The date marked on the page was unmistakable—the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month1, thirty years ago.

　　I froze on the spot.

　　Lu Yaqi, as if nothing unusual had happened, continued tidying up and said casually, “Come on, let’s put some ointment on that injured hand of yours first. Oh—and one more thing. Don’t raise your voice tonight.”

　　“Why?” I asked, completely baffled.

　　Her expression turned serious as she lowered her voice. “Tonight, the Yin soldiers are passing through. I’ll take you along to see it later. I promise—it’ll be far more exciting than any horror movie you’ve ever watched.”

　　1In Chinese tradition, the “Ghost Festival” falls on the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar. It is commonly known as Seventh Month Half (Qiyue Ban), the Zhongyuan Festival, or the Yulanpen (Ullambana) Festival. The date mentioned in the text—the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month—refers to the day immediately preceding the Ghost Festival.