It has been five years since I began writing the Urban Tales of Monsters and Mysteries series. In these five years, both my writing state and my living environment have undergone significant changes, but thankfully, I have managed to persist all this time. The stories in Urban Tales of Monsters and Mysteries chronicle the ordinary lives—the joys, angers, sorrows, and happiness—of a group of yaoguai living in the modern city. Yet, tracing the origins of these tales, they still spring from the ancient biji novels I adored reading as a child. It was those stories of ghosts, foxes, and spirits that accompanied my upbringing, and it was those very narratives that opened a completely different window for me, leading directly to the creation of the current Urban Tales of Monsters and Mysteries.

However, deep within my heart, there remains a persistent yearning to draw closer to the narratives found in those classical stories, and so, these three tales were born.

These three stories have no connection to the submission call for Urban Tales of Monsters and Mysteries; they are simply the product of my desire to experiment with a new method of storytelling.

I cannot say whether these three stories ultimately succeeded or failed, but I truly struggled writing them... The difficulty arose because they were completed in the narrow gaps between writing the main body of Urban Tales of Monsters and Mysteries and the Ghost Catcher Intern series (it’s frankly a miracle I managed to finish them at all).

Because of this rushed schedule, these tales contain quite a few plot holes and typographical errors, but right now, there simply isn't time to revise them. I promise, once the New Year passes, I will reorganize everything from the start—I truly guarantee it this time!