Yin Yang Ghost Arts

I. Overview

Wu Jiu’s Yin Yang Ghost Arts is a benchmark of the supernatural suspense shelf on Qidian, a book that once topped the platform’s monthly mystery chart and set a record for monthly supernatural sales. The hero, Lin Xiaofeng, is born in Huangyu Village near Chongqing, a place that bore only daughters for decades until he arrives as the first boy in generations. A wandering priest reads his birth and declares a Purple Star Emperor fate, which makes every ghost and demon in the land hungry to devour him. At seven he is taken away by the ragged Taoist Mao Linlong to learn ghost arts; at seventeen he returns to Chongqing and tumbles straight into one strange case after another.

The opening cases wear the smell of everyday life. A night fight with a red-clad female fiend at a village mortuary lodge. A wronged soul sealed beneath a dry well. A hanged ghost and a rising corpse on campus. A river duel with a man-eating turtle. Lin Xiaofeng’s ghost arts are not lofty spells but flesh-and-blood folk tricks: biting his middle finger to flick blood and draw talismans, mixing black dog blood with cinnabar, using tongue-blood to drive away evil. At his side is the chubby Huang Qianyi, the friend who lured him into the mountains just to impress a girl, and later the Sage Sect’s holy maiden, Xiang Zhu.

The stage keeps widening. From the funeral-goods shop in Huangyu Village out to Chongqing’s urban hauntings, the open war between the Nether Hall and the Sage Sect, the ancient sites of Shennongjia and the Kunlun Mountains, and finally the demon realm and the Tower of Heaven beyond the sky. Lin’s opponents scale up too, from female ghosts and hopping corpses to his second senior Lu Yuanqing, who wields the First Demon Sword, the earthly supreme Liu Boqing, and behind every plot the Demon God himself, master of the Twelve Apostles and holder of the Canonization Scroll. Power climbs from the Earth Immortal realm through the Heaven Immortal realm to a threshold called the Other Shore.

What makes the book last is how it puts its motto, “mystery arts divide into yin and yang; yang is the Tao, yin is the ghost art,” into every choice the characters face. Ghost art is not evil art; in a steady hand it banishes evil and protects life. Wu Jiu even writes himself into the story as Director of the Demon-Catching Bureau, fighting beside Lin Xiaofeng, a trick that keeps the long haul human instead of hollow. The skeleton is supernatural detective work, the flesh is the running argument over whether a technique is good or wicked by its user’s heart, and the landing is always a hot meal and old friends at the table.

II. Highlights

The Mortuary Lodge Fiend

In a village lodge, the chubby friend wipes dust off a plaque and reveals the words “mortuary lodge.” Lin’s nerves tighten; a building that houses the dead is poison to the living. At night the friend runs to a dry well, cracks the stone slab with one stomp, and a red-clad female fiend drifts out toward the crowd. Lin bites his middle finger, flicks a drop of blood, and chants to trace her, the blood pooling into an arrow on the ground. That night he uses ghost art for the first time in earnest.

Feeding the Eternal Heaven

Deep in the Inner Mongolian grasslands, the Aodeng Sect secretly fattens a creature that devours other demons. Liu Boqing pores over ancient texts and his face pales: this is no ordinary monster but Eternal Heaven, the supreme sky god of the Mongols. Lin and Xiang Zhu together hold only a three-in-ten chance. The feeding is meant to wake a god, and the board behind it is far larger than it looks.

Mingyue Manor: the Author Joins In

The demon conclave opens at Mingyue Manor, every sect leader scrambling for a top seat. Suddenly nine hundred armored troops burst through the gate; Director Zhang Qingxin means to wipe out the demons in one sweep. Lin, Wu Jiu, and Zhang Xiu huddle in a side room watching through the window, and “Wu Jiu” is the bureau director himself. The author steps into his own world, and the scene turns absurd and electric at once.

The Other Shore, Hunting the Demon God

Before the Tower of Heaven, Lin Xiaofeng borrows his senior Lu Yuanqing’s strength to cross into the Other Shore realm, the First Demon Sword in his left hand and the Demon Saber in his right, a five-colored power leaking from his skin. Zhang Xiu stands at his side with a long spear; Zhuifeng, Bai Mingfeng, and Li Yuanfeng arrive pushing a wheelchair, and the masters ring the Demon God. The boy who started at a village funeral shop has finally marched to the face of fate itself.