August is Ghost Month in Taiwan a time to commemorate the dead: burn incense, visit shrines, honor ancestors, and avoid unlucky situations, large purchases, and bodies of water. Jing-nan, a young man who runs a food stand in a bustling Taipei night market, doesnand#39;t consider himself superstitious, but this August is going to haunt him no matter what he does. He is shocked to the core when he learns his ex-girlfriend from high school has been murdered. She was found scantily clad and shot on the side of a highway where she was selling betel nuts to passing truck drivers. Beyond his harrowing grief for his lost love, Jing-nan is confused by the news. andquot;Betel nut beautiesandquot; are usually women in the most desperate of circumstances; the job is almost as taboo as prostitution. But Julia Huang had been the valedictorian of their high school, and the last time Jing-nan spoke to her she was enrolled in NYUand#39;s honor program, far away in New York. The facts donand#39;t add up. Juliaand#39;s parents donand#39;t think so, either, and the police seem to have closed the case without asking any questions. The Huangs beg Jing-nan to do some investigating on his own reconnect with old classmates, see if he can learn anything about Juliaand#39;s life that she might have kept from them. Reluctantly, he agrees, for Juliaand#39;s sake. But nothing can prepare him for what he learns, or how it will change his life.
