Under the River

Under the River is a choice-driven story set in the Ming Dynasty, adapted from Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. You play as Shuisheng, an opera performer whose troupe travels to the ancient city of Sui'an to perform at a ritual sacrifice to the River God. After falling into a river and becoming gravely ill, he is saved by Qingqing, a drowned ghost, and becomes half-human and half-ghost beneath a sinister demonic skin.

The choice of survival

Shuisheng's body is gradually decaying, and his life is running out. Qingqing says he can prolong it only by consuming her spectral form, while his junior apprentice sister Huang Cuicui urges him to pray for divine mercy. As Shuisheng investigates the secrets behind the solemn ceremony, he finds himself caught in a plot linking humans, ghosts and gods. You uncover the truth in Sui'an, choose between Qingqing and Cuicui, and determine Shuisheng's path to redemption.

The characters

Li Qingqing is a drowned girl who refused reincarnation and became a water ghost, lingering in Sui'an's rivers. Huang Cuicui is the daughter of an opera troupe leader and Shuisheng's junior fellow apprentice.

Choices and endings

The game contains 150,000 words of text, 1,500 lines of fully voiced dialogue and 11 unique endings. Your choices shape the story and its outcome.

Folklore and source tales

The story draws on The Painted Skin, Old Master Zhang, The Fox's Daughter and Wang Liulang, among other tales from Pu Songling's collection.