Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yang and Ding Ling were trapped as the Opera Ghost’s Ghost Rhyme began turning Ding Ling into a paper figure, while Chang Dafeng used his singing to manipulate the Opera Ghost and Ghost Da Le. Chang Dafeng’s plan partially worked, but Ghost Da Le began changing its face into Zhong Kui’s mask and forming a third face resembling his senior brother.

• Zhou Yang reflected that reciting the Livestock Raising Scripture had shown him indistinct scenes, and Ding Ling asked whether he would befriend a principled ghost; he said he would.
• Chang Dafeng sensed the Opera Ghost’s arrival as it sang and placed an icy hand on Ding Ling, whose body began turning into a paper figure under its Ghost Rhyme.
• Ghost Da Le’s Ghost Rhyme clashed with the Opera Ghost’s, and Chang Dafeng saw the Opera Ghost’s face appear beside his senior brother’s on the sunshade paper.
• Chang Dafeng sang from Farewell My Concubine, drawing out the Opera Ghost’s Ghost Rhyme until it overwhelmed Ghost Da Le and changed both faces on the paper to resemble the Opera Ghost.
• Chang Dafeng sang Zhong Kui’s lines and changed his own face into Zhong Kui’s mask, but the Opera Ghost could not change its face; Ghost Da Le then began forming the mask and a third face resembling Chang Dafeng’s senior brother.

Chang Dafeng sacrificed his life to Ghost Da Le, freeing Ding Ling from the sunshade paper and allowing Zhou Yang to carry her out of Daliangzi Village. As they fled, Zhou Yang and Ding Ling found themselves surrounded by a crowd with the Opera Ghost’s face, demanding that they perform.

• Chang Dafeng realized Ding Ling was not his senior brother and died after deciding to use his remaining life to help her.
• Ghost Da Le used Chang Dafeng’s sacrifice to tear the sunshade paper from Ding Ling and hold off the Opera Ghost.
• Zhou Yang used Breathing of the Ghost and Supernatural Ripple to carry Ding Ling across the bridge and escape Daliangzi Village.
• Zhou Yang followed an angler toward an opera that seemed to lie ahead, then saw the same angler emerge from the darkness and point toward them.
• A crowd with identical rosy faces gathered around Zhou Yang and Ding Ling, clapping and urging Ding Ling to sing.

Zhou Yang and Ding Ling performed an opera to defeat the Opera Ghost, escaping its domain as it turned into a paper figure. Ding Ling asked Zhou Yang to tell her his full name and location, but he urged her to go, leaving her alone with her feelings and the opera’s final lines.

• Ding Ling washed off her makeup and played Wang Baochuan, while Zhou Yang used Mindfulness to make the Ghost Mouths sing as Xue Pinggui.
• Their performance moved the paper spectators to tears, and they became paper figures as the Opera Ghost repeated the opening lines.
• The Opera Ghost stiffened as its Ghost Rhyme returned to it, and warm light broke through the darkness, ending its domain.
• Ding Ling asked whether Wang Baochuan would reunite with Xue Pinggui and begged Zhou Yang to tell her his full name and whereabouts.
• Zhou Yang told Ding Ling to go without worry, and she wept as she recited the opera’s final lines alone.

After being expelled from Daliangzi Village, Zhou Yang returned to Guan Village and found that Ding Ling had become the Opera Lady and left him a debt of love. The chapter ended with Zhou Yang grieving for her and holding the paper cloak she had left behind until daybreak.

• Zhou Yang was swept out of Daliangzi Village as the Knife Credit Ledger recorded that he had disturbed the Zhan and that Ding Ling answered that she had no regrets.
• Zhou Yang awoke in Guan Village after only a little over two hours had passed and found the ledger’s second page stained with blood.
• The Knife Credit Ledger declared that Zhou Yang owed Ding Ling a debt of love and recorded that she had left him a paper garment.
• Zhou Yang wondered how Ding Ling had become the Opera Lady and reasoned that the role was connected to the Zhan but distinct from the Opera Ghost.
• Zhou Yang saw that Ding Ling had preserved her abilities in the ledger and read the blessings she had sewn into the paper cloak.
• Zhou Yang held the cloak and sat grieving for Ding Ling until daybreak.

Zhou Yang used the paper garment and his sincerity to soften Huang Shaozi, then learned more about Zhou Heigou’s routine in the fields. When he asked for another job, Huang Shaozi assigned him to guard the fire tower, a dangerous night duty linked to many deaths.

• Zhou Yang noticed that Zhou Laogou and Huang Shaozi treated him more warmly, likely because of Ding Ling’s paper garment.
• Zhou Yang shared Heigou’s meal with Huang Shaozi and questioned her about Heigou’s daily work in the fields.
• Huang Shaozi revealed that Zhou Heigou watched the fields every day and that Zhou Laogou sometimes joined him there.
• Zhou Yang asked Huang Shaozi to help him find another job so he could earn enough paper copper coins.
• Huang Shaozi arranged for Zhou Yang to guard the fire tower in three days, leaving him alarmed because the night job had been tied to many deaths.

Zhou Yang realized Guan Village might be correcting anyone who threatened its control, but accepted the dangerous fire-tower job to use it as a chance to learn about the village’s entrance. At A Fu’s smithy, he assessed his growing Mindfulness and wondered whether A Fu had condensed an Upright Heart.

• Zhou Yang refused Huang Shaozi’s order to guard the fire tower, testing her tolerance, but agreed after she insisted and asked that his big brother help him.
• Zhou Yang walked through the villagers’ welcoming facade and considered how he might escape Guan Village.
• Zhou Yang went to A Fu’s smithy, found A Fu absent, and began smelting scrap iron as instructed.
• Zhou Yang felt eight distinct strands of Mindfulness and considered how to condense an Upright Heart after passing nine.
• Zhou Yang saw no sign of A Fu and wondered whether A Fu had used an Upright Heart to tether a ghost.

Zhou Yang completed a step in the Gate of Opening Ritual for Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting while A Fu was away, after checking the smithy for Ghost Rhyme. A Fu returned unexpectedly and questioned Zhou Yang about wandering around his property, leaving Zhou Yang to deny it.

• Zhou Yang forged scrap iron, and Chang Dafeng’s remnant image filled in the opening paragraph of a new story in the Knife Credit Ledger.
• Zhou Yang prepared Cao Qing’s deathly earth and bloodstained name-strip, carefully following the ritual’s steps rather than rushing them.
• Zhou Yang used the Supernatural Ripple to check the shed for Ghost Rhyme but found none.
• Zhou Yang burned Cao Qing’s name-strip and mixed its ashes into the earth while A Fu was away.
• A Fu returned and asked why Zhou Yang was not working and had been wandering around his place; Zhou Yang denied wandering.

Zhou Yang concealed his independence from A Fu while learning about the ninth layer of Breathing of the Ghost and its possible supernatural abilities. After Zhou Yang left, the real A Fu returned to the shed and dealt with black hair growing from the flayed figure’s chest.

• A Fu questioned Zhou Yang about his morning work, but Zhou Yang recognized that the questioning was a bluff and decided to keep wearing Ding Ling’s paper clothes.
• While they forged iron, Zhou Yang pretended to remain under A Fu’s control as A Fu explained that the ninth layer of the Right Mindfulness Lock could produce either a Phantom-Grown Limb or a Supernatural Ripple.
• A Fu warned that further Breathing of the Ghost methods might let Zhou Yang use his skin to wrap a ghost, prompting Zhou Yang to wonder whether A Fu had already condensed an Upright Heart.
• A stiff, false version of A Fu waved Zhou Yang away from the gatehouse, then shriveled and vanished behind its doors after he left.
• The flayed figure burned the black hair growing from its chest with a red-hot iron, then put on its yellow skin and became a sagging, numb A Fu.

Zhou Yang investigated the fire tower and gathered the final words of dead people who had guarded it, learning how dangerous each night watch could be. He left for A Fu’s house considering the dead official slave’s account of Guan Village and the mysterious dawn that had killed him.

• Zhou Yang went to the village entrance at dawn and examined the fire tower, where lingering shadows warned him about being eaten by patrols and other families.
• One shadow described how guards faced danger across four night watches, including a midnight feast and a sudden dawn that exposed its body after its soul hid.
• The shadow revealed that it had been an official slave who entered Guan Village as Third Cui, learned the Cui family’s Possession Method, and hoped to pass the Revelation Ceremony.
• Zhou Yang walked toward A Fu’s house, pondering the Fanhe Burial Ground, the families’ methods, and what caused the fourth watch’s deadly dawn.

Zhou Yang stayed home from A Fu’s closed smithy, sharpened tools while recording a ghost story in the Knife Credit Ledger, and prepared to open the gate to create a zhen. He used Ding Ling’s paper clothes to conceal his room, then cut open the false belly at the Wei hour, spilling blood and intestines as the ritual began.

• Zhou Yang found A Fu’s smithy shut, returned home, and noticed Huang Shaozi’s reaction to his unexpected arrival.
• Zhou Yang sharpened iron and household tools as lingering shadows entered the Knife Credit Ledger, which revealed a story about a golden pagoda that transformed and drew women to couple with it.
• Huang Shaozi left Zhou Yang alone at home, but he decided not to search the other rooms and instead prepared for his ritual.
• Zhou Yang discovered that Ding Ling’s paper clothes could expand to cover his room, then retrieved his paper money and false belly from beneath the water vat.
• At the Wei hour, Zhou Yang adopted Gongsun Yan’s righteous bearing, recited opera lines, and slashed open the false belly, spilling its bloody intestines.

Zhou Yang completed the Gate of Opening ritual and created the Ghost Head Averting God, then used its abilities to evade a surprise inspection by his family. The averting god revealed it could detect the dead and transform Zhou Yang into another living person, leaving him disguised as Zhou Heigou.

• Zhou Yang used Supernatural Ripples and his Ghost Mouths to trap the ghostly shadows in the fake belly, burned it, and drank the ashes to complete the Gate of Opening ritual.
• Zhou Yang created the Ghost Head Averting God, which could smell deathly auras and warn him when ghosts or gods watched him.
• The Ghost Head Averting God sensed the Zhou family approaching, so Zhou Yang hid it and pretended to have been resting when Huang Shaozi, Zhou Laogou, and Zhou Heigou entered his room.
• Huang Shaozi rebuked Zhou Heigou for suspecting Zhou Yang, while Zhou Laogou shielded Heigou and ordered him to apologize.
• After his family left, Zhou Yang discovered that the Ghost Head Averting God could copy a living person's appearance and used its power with his paper clothing to transform into Zhou Heigou.

Zhou Yang Imprinted Ding Ling’s Averting God ability and discovered that Huang Shaozi’s feelings toward him had changed after he showed her genuine emotion. Though Huang Shaozi could not cancel his fire-tower assignment, she gave him a wrapped object for protection, and Zhou Yang left disguised as Zhou Heigou to follow him to the fields.

• Zhou Yang used ten deeds of Good Karma to Imprint Ding Ling’s Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting ability onto his Ghost Head Averting God, then declined to Imprint her Right Mindfulness Lock.
• Zhou Heigou tried to turn Huang Shaozi against Zhou Yang, but she defended her son and later cursed Zhou Laogou while chopping in the woodshed.
• Zhou Yang spoke sincerely to Huang Shaozi, who embraced him and gave him a cloth-wrapped object to use while guarding the fire tower.
• Huang Shaozi refused to cancel Zhou Yang’s assignment but let him leave without breakfast, and he disguised himself as Zhou Heigou and followed his faint living qi toward the fields.

Zhou Yang secretly watched Zhou Heigou let Zhou Laogou eat viscera from a strange, regenerating stomach on his belly, then escaped notice and continued toward A Fu’s house. He carried Huang Shaozi’s bloodstained straw effigy and approached A Fu, intending to ask about guarding the fire tower.

• Zhou Yang avoided haunted Guo Family Alley and crossed Guan Village’s strange crop fields, where green rice stood upright despite the approaching harvest.
• Using Zhou Heigou’s life aura to disguise himself, Zhou Yang hid near the fields and watched Zhou Heigou feed Zhou Laogou from a gash in his abdomen.
• Zhou Yang realized a purplish patch on Zhou Heigou’s belly concealed a stomach that could produce viscera, possibly as preparation for the Revelation Ceremony.
• When Zhou Heigou falsely pointed out a supposed intruder, Zhou Yang stayed hidden, and Zhou Laogou searched elsewhere without finding him.
• Zhou Yang opened Huang Shaozi’s bundle, inspected the bloodstained straw effigy bearing his name, and put it away again.
• Zhou Yang saw A Fu watching him from his courtyard and approached, planning to ask about guarding the fire tower.

Zhou Yang worked for A Fu while probing him about the danger of guarding the fire tower, which he was scheduled to do the following night. A Fu warned him that the first day would be deadly and gave him a white paper banner, leaving Zhou Yang outwardly grateful but wary of A Fu’s motives.

• Zhou Yang visited A Fu and learned that only nine days remained before the Revelation Ceremony, while A Fu urged him to work longer so he could afford grease.
• Zhou Yang refused A Fu’s request for extra hours by claiming his mother would not let him return home late.
• While working, Zhou Yang told A Fu he would guard the fire tower the next night and asked about the danger; A Fu hinted that living people like Zhou Yang might not return.
• A Fu warned Zhou Yang that the night and the first day afterward would be dangerous, then gave him a white paper banner to wear and told him to call A Fu’s name in his heart.
• Zhou Yang recognized that A Fu had deliberately made him anxious before offering help, but he pretended to be grateful and left with the banner.

Zhou Yang accompanied Zhou Baigou to the fire tower and discovered that the villagers’ introductions restored a web of old relationships among the ghosts wearing their identities. After confronting Cui He over a past grudge, Zhou Yang arranged to meet him at Old Zhang’s ruined houses the next day.

• Huang Shaozi warned Zhou Yang to return home if he faced danger, while Zhou Heigou urged him to stay near the fire tower and come back safely.
• Zhou Yang and Zhou Baigou reached the fire tower, where Wang Guiren, Cui Zhu, Cui He, and the other watchmen introduced themselves and resumed old connections.
• Zhou Yang realized the villagers were ghosts whose assumed names unlocked fixed histories of friendships, promises, and disputes.
• Cui He confronted Zhou Yang over a missed fight at Old Zhang’s ruined houses, and Zhou Yang challenged him to meet there the next day.
• Zhou Baigou rushed to defend Zhou Yang, with Xiao Fei following, and Cui He backed off before accepting the challenge.
• Zhou Yang used the Ghost Head Averting God to identify the living people among the ghosts and considered fishing as a way to grow closer to Zhou Baigou.

Zhou Yang faced the deadly second watch at Guan Village’s fire tower, where fire burned holes in the villagers’ human skins and threatened to expose the ghosts beneath. He kept Zhou Baigou from attacking him and then distracted him with offal, leaving Zhou Yang still surrounded by danger as the night continued.

• Baigou explained that the tower keepers had to feed the fire during the second watch and stay within its shrinking light, while Xiao Fei warned that the darkness would keep closing in.
• The firelight burned holes into Xiao Fei’s and Baigou’s human skins, and Xiao Fei attacked Zhou Yang before Baigou struck him and nearly lost control himself.
• Zhou Yang reminded Baigou that they were brothers, restoring Baigou’s human skin and prompting him to shield Zhou Yang from the other villagers.
• Wang Si’er tried to remind Wang Guiren that he was his son, but Wang Guiren declared him an impostor, stabbed him, and joined the ghosts as they swarmed to devour him.
• Zhou Yang stopped Baigou from rushing toward Wang Si’er’s body by stuffing offal into his mouth, keeping Baigou beside him until the ghosts finished their meal.

Zhou Yang watched the ghosts kill people around the fire tower while searching for a way to survive the long night. After he concealed his living aura with Zhou Baigou’s Ghost Rhyme, the Gu Family Ghost dragged Xiao Fei and a river floater into the darkness, terrifying the ghosts beneath the tower.

• Zhou Yang noticed Cui Zhu and Cui He had disappeared as ghosts closed in on Lian Dafu and Zhang Erheng.
• Lian Dafu stabbed Zhang Erheng in a desperate attempt to distract the ghosts, but both men were killed.
• Zhou Yang reflected on the fire tower’s damage to ghosts’ human skin and wondered how Guan Village villagers kept theirs intact.
• A black arm tore Xiao Fei’s human skin away, revealing a river floater that spread black water toward Zhou Yang.
• Zhou Yang used Zhou Baigou’s Ghost Rhyme to hide his living aura, and the river floater turned away from him.
• The Gu Family Ghost caught Xiao Fei and the river floater with a noose of arm skin, causing the ghosts beneath the fire tower to cower.

Zhou Yang discovered that Ding Ling’s paper clothes could help him imitate a villager’s aura as the Patrol Team arrived to take over the fire tower shift. During the team’s routine inspection, they identified two living people as ghosts and pulled Cui Zhu from the line.

• A skinless ghost seized Xiao Fei’s human skin and dragged away the river floater beneath it, while Zhou Yang realized his paper clothes had helped conceal him.
• The villagers feared the Guo family’s ghosts until the Patrol Team arrived with glowing white paper lanterns for the shift change.
• Zhou Yang recognized a donkey-hide spaniel shadow puppet hanging from the Patrol Team leader’s rusty chain and wondered whether it was the Zhou family’s chain and Ren family dog.
• The Patrol Team began checking villagers’ identities, and Zhou Yang blended his ripples with his paper clothes to imitate Guan Village’s human-skin ghosts.
• Two Patrol Team members pulled two living people from the line as ghosts, including Cui Zhu, the second son of the Cui family.

Zhou Yang disguised himself as a ghost while a runner dog searched the villagers, and he watched the patrol kill one living man and prepare to execute Cui Zhu. Cui He stepped forward to stop the execution, leaving his disguise exposed as Li Fangzhong’s Ghost Rhyme fell away.

• A patrol ghost beheaded a living man and the villagers watched as the patrol sawed up his body.
• A runner dog charged past Zhou Yang without detecting him because he masked his living scent with Ghost Mouths and paper clothes.
• The patrol dragged Cui Zhu to the table, and Zhou Yang realized Cui He was hiding among the villagers and might have revealed Zhou Yang’s secret.
• Cui Zhu looked toward Zhou Yang but chose not to expose him, then lowered his eyelids as the patrol raised an axe.
• Cui He stepped out and shouted for the patrol to wait, while Li Fangzhong’s Ghost Rhyme began peeling away from him.

Zhou Yang watched Sun San expose Cui He and Cui Zhu as ghosts and uncover Cui He's attempt to hide them with borrowed Ghost Rhyme. When Cui Zhu cried out for an escort, Zhou Yang shoved Zhou Baigou forward and intervened to protect the brothers.

• Cui He tried to hide Cui Zhu's living aura with Ghost Rhyme, but Sun San's greyhound singled Cui Zhu out and revealed that it could detect living people.
• The greyhound transformed into radiating strands that reached toward Cui Zhu, but Sun San restrained it with chains and explained how it identified ghosts hiding among people.
• Sun San recognized that Cui He, Cui Zhu, and Li Fangzhong shared the same bearing, exposing Cui He's use of Li Fangzhong's Ghost Rhyme to conceal himself and Cui Zhu.
• As Sun San approached the brothers, Cui He collapsed, and Cui Zhu cried out for an escort from the Deliverance from Suffering Escort Agency.
• Zhou Yang shoved Zhou Baigou forward and claimed that he and Zhou Baigou knew the brothers and could vouch that they were not ghosts.