Liaozhai: The Maoshan Forbidden Arts

Zhou Yuan, a young Taoist and heir to a minor branch of the Maoshan lineage, is drawn into a forbidden secret his sect has buried for twenty years when he takes on a routine case of ancestral-grave backlash. He Rui, daughter of a wealthy merchant, watches her parents fall into a coma. Zhou Yuan uses virgin blood as a catalyst, hoping to dispel the yin energy, but on his night journey he encounters a hopping corpse, a red-veiled female ghost, and his own senior sister Qingni, sealed inside the He family tomb. The truth is brutal: twenty years ago, their master practiced forbidden dual cultivation with Qingni to extend his life, only to suffer the backlash himself. After the master's death, Qingni refused to wait for her own end. She hollowed out the He family tomb, laid herself in the coffin, and waits for the day someone opens it, so she can harvest men's essence and achieve ascension as a ghost immortal. The other red-veiled ghost also covets Zhou Yuan's yang essence. The sect's forbidden arts turn back on their practitioners, fellow disciples turn against one another, and both the living and the dead want to drain his essence. Zhou Yuan has no choice but to ally with He Rui, holding on with heterodox spells, a hopping corpse, and what remains of his cultivation, searching for a slim chance at survival between being drained dry and striking back. This is a tale of fellow disciples destroying each other, set off by forbidden dual cultivation—a lurid, eerie story of desire, survival, and backlash.