Shen Yuanqing, a low-profile chuma shaman from northeast China, runs a small exorcism hall in a country town with his two disciples Fang Zhi and Qian Mancang. Barely back from freeing a boy possessed at a mass grave, they receive an invitation from the Chen family, wealthy merchants in Nanyang. To settle a karmic debt incurred twenty years earlier, the three head south despite the household spirits' objections and the warning of a broken incense stick. The Chen house is already in turmoil: the ailing patriarch Chen Jinfa has summoned masters from every quarter, and one Zheng Tianfu, who styles himself a Dato, clashes with Shen's party from the sea crossing onward. That night each faction sets its own methods against the evil.

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