Elijah Zeng, an aspiring policeman, is kicked from the force for negligence because his heart is really in investigation. When he finds a case to pursue on his own, a murder in a dinky shop for death amenities in San Francisco's Chinatown, he pushes aside his distaste for the traditional aspects of his culture to investigate it. Upon arrival, he discovers that the shop spits him back out not into the streets of modern Chinatown, but 1800s Chinatown, inhabited by ghosts. The shopkeeper, who is the ghost of the murder victim, drags him into his case, and Elijah finally gets to become a detective like he always wanted-not for the living, but for the dead.