I am a courier who delivers parcels between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Packages sent by the living to the dead, and by the dead to the living -- as long as the postage is paid and the address is written, the Yin-Yang Post Office delivers them all.

One day, a customer claimed he never received the parcel I had delivered. I checked our records, found no signature of receipt, and followed protocol by offering both an apology and compensation -- five notes of ghost money, printed by the Yin-Yang Post Office, offered strictly as collateral.

To my surprise, the man took the money, then turned around and filed a complaint against me.

"Losing our parcel is bad enough, but you dare pay me in ghost money! We just lost a child in this family, and you come here cursing us -- aren't you afraid of being struck by lightning?"

Patiently, over the phone, I tried to explain.

"Sir, the sender of this particular parcel is not an ordinary human being. The ghost money is not compensation, but collateral."

"Once the parcel is located, please return the ghost money to me in full -- not a single note may be missing."

He refused to listen. Not only did he refuse to return the money, but he also dragged me through an ugly scene at the depot that lasted half the afternoon, forcing me to pay him an additional five hundred yuan in real currency.

Later, when I located the parcel and delivered it to his door, he still stubbornly refused to give back the notes. He stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips, shouting so loudly that the entire floor could hear.

"I'm telling you, that five hundred was compensation for my mental distress! If you're so desperate, come and get it!"

I stood in the shadows of the corridor, watching him, and said nothing further.

Because he did not know.

The ghost money of the Yin-Yang Post Office is not something ordinary people can handle. Anyone who holds it for more than twenty-four hours --

Will die without fail.

"Mr. Ji, I will say this one last time: return those five notes of ghost money to me immediately, or you will bear the consequences yourself."

Having shouted this through the security door, I glanced down at the watch on my wrist.

It was half past ten in the evening.

Thirty minutes remained until the hour of Zi -- midnight.

If this man, Ji Hongjun, did not return the money within the next half hour, not even the King of Heaven could save him.

The security door creaked open a crack, and Ji Hongjun's face squeezed through the gap, his heavy features bunched together, every line of it radiating menace.

"Consequences? What consequences? They're just a few pieces of paper burned for the dead, and you come hounding me for them -- are you out of your mind?"

"If you don't get lost right now, don't blame me for hitting a woman!"

The commotion was loud enough to trigger the sound-activated lights in the corridor, one after another. Neighbors poked their heads out, pointing and whispering.

"A young girl like you, instead of delivering packages properly, what are you doing begging for funeral money at someone's door in the middle of the night? How unlucky!"

"The Ji family just lost a child, and you come here specifically asking for ghost money -- that's like rubbing salt in an open wound!"

I had no patience for their chatter. My eyes were fixed on the slender second hand of my watch, watching it creep, inch by inch, toward the number twelve.

"Mr. Ji," I said, "please return the money. Five notes of ghost money, that is all. Give them to me and I will leave immediately."

Ji Hongjun's eyes flared red, and his voice shot up an octave.

"Are you fucking insane! I already burned those notes for my daughter! Who keeps that filth around!"

My expression cooled, and my tone sharpened.

"Mr. Ji, I advise you not to lie. I know the ghost money is still inside your home."

He had reached his limit. He seized me by the collar, spittle flying from his lips.

"You just won't let this go, will you!"

Several neighbors hurried over to pull us apart. An elderly woman with silver hair -- Granny Zhou, who lived by the stairwell -- looked at me with pity.

"Miss, they're just a few funeral notes. I have some at home; if you want, I can give you mine, all right?"

"Today is the seventh-day memorial for Ji Qianqian. Have a heart -- stop making trouble here."

The words "seventh-day" struck me like a needle to the chest. I pulled free of Granny Zhou's grasp, my face pale, and shook my head.

"Grandmother, you don't understand. What I need is the ghost money that circulates in the underworld."

Granny Zhou looked me up and down, her expression shifting again and again. Then she lowered her voice and asked.

"Could it be... you are a courier from the Yin-Yang Post Office?"

I nodded.

Granny Zhou's face went white in an instant. She turned around, snapped at the neighbors to be quiet, and when she looked back at me, her expression was no longer that of a woman regarding a younger person -- it was the look of someone staring at an object that might explode at any moment.

"Hongjun, return those notes immediately!"

"The money of the Yin-Yang Post Office must not be touched! That is an old rule!"

The veins on Ji Hongjun's neck bulged as he ground his teeth.

"What damned rule! I've never heard of any such thing!"

"Keep talking this nonsense, and I'll call the police on all of you!"

Before the words had left his mouth, a woman appeared behind him.

She was wrapped from head to toe, only her eyes visible. Her voice was hoarse, as though seared by fire.

"You had better not do that. Others have called the police before, and nothing ever came of it -- the Yin-Yang Post Office was not affected in the slightest. If you keep making a scene, you might end up hurting Qianqian."

"After all, that parcel was sent to us by Qianqian."

At the sound of his daughter's name, Ji Hongjun's gaze wavered for an instant, then he roared even louder.

"Yin-Yang Post Office, my ass! Don't try to scare me with this superstitious garbage!"

Granny Zhou, standing beside me, could not hold back any longer and spoke up again.

"Xiao Ji, you had better believe it! Search the Yin-Yang Post Office online and you'll see. They say the people who work there... aren't even human... Anyway, if you want to live, you had better give that girl back her ghost money."

A few other neighbors murmured in agreement.

"If it's the Yin-Yang Post Office, you really do have to return the money. I've heard those notes... can summon ghosts!"

A draft swept through the corridor, and everyone shivered in unison.

I watched Ji Hongjun coldly, not bothering to respond to any of them.

The old residents of the building took turns telling him every legend they knew -- ghost money summoning spirits, ghost money claiming lives -- until Ji Hongjun's face turned from red to white, and from white to green. Finally, he waved a hand in exasperation.

"Enough, enough! Five pieces of funeral paper! I'll return them, all right!"

"Fuck! A bunch of lunatics!"

He turned and went inside to look for the notes.

His wife, Chen Minhua, stood in the doorway. Her pitch-black eyes shifted mechanically until they settled on me.

After a long moment, she spoke in a raspy voice.

"Miss, the ghost money is hard to find. Would you like to come in and sit while you wait?"

With that, she stepped back half a pace, revealing the chaotic home behind her.

The wallpaper inside was blackened, as though licked by a great fire; the scorch marks climbed all the way to the ceiling.

From the doorway, I could see directly to the altar, where a black-and-white memorial portrait of Ji Qianqian sat.

Through the curling incense smoke, a pair of jet-black eyes stared straight at me from the photograph, brimming with an inexplicable malice.

I withdrew my gaze and nodded.

"Then I will trouble you."

Ten forty in the evening.

I stepped across the threshold of Ji Hongjun and Chen Minhua's home.

The instant the security door clicked shut behind me, Chen Minhua finally unwound the scarf that had been wrapped around her face.

I froze slightly.

A whole chunk of flesh was missing from the right side of her face. The eye and the brow were fused together, the skin stretched red and tight, as though something had melted it and let it set again.

When the light came on, she noticed my gaze and awkwardly turned her right cheek away, presenting only the left side to me.

That left side of her face was extraordinarily beautiful. Beautiful to the point of being almost uncanny.

"I'm sorry. Did I frighten you?"

I looked away. "No."

Working at the Yin-Yang Post Office, I had seen faces far more horrifying than Chen Minhua's. This was nothing.

Besides, I was just a lousy delivery girl. Who was I to pass judgment on a client's appearance?

Chen Minhua exhaled in relief, invited me to sit on a yellowed sofa, and poured me a cup of water in a strawberry-printed mug, setting it before me.

"I'm sorry, this is the only cup left in the house. Qianqian picked it out herself before she died."

"Don't worry, it's new. No one has used it."

"Thank you."

I took a symbolic sip and did not ask about her daughter.

Yet she began to chat with me of her own accord.

"I'm sorry. We never imagined Qianqian would actually send us a parcel. My husband insisted you people were scammers, which is why he took the ghost money and hid it somewhere else."

I nodded. "I understand."

The existence of the Yin-Yang Post Office was so extraordinary that, from an ordinary person's perspective, it did indeed look like a scam.

Chen Minhua gave a choking sob and covered her mouth.

"Because of Qianqian's death, my husband hasn't spoken a full sentence to me in a long time."

"He blames me, says I killed Qianqian. But Qianqian was the flesh of my flesh, the child I carried for ten months -- how could I not be in agony?"

"That's why, after I heard about the Yin-Yang Post Office, I tried to send things to Qianqian."

"At first it was just something to hold onto. Who knew... it was all real..."

I watched this woman's tears and had the distinct feeling she was not nearly as grieved as she pretended to be.

But every family had its own troubles.

Other people's domestic dramas had nothing to do with a small-time courier like me.

So I offered only the barest of consolations.

"My condolences."

"If Qianqian knew how much you grieve for her, she would not be happy either."

Chen Minhua's tears stopped abruptly. She looked up at me with a grateful smile.

"Thank you."

"There is one more thing I would like to ask of you -- it will only take five minutes, is that all right?"

From the inner room, the sounds of Ji Hongjun rummaging through drawers and cabinets had been going on for quite some time.

I checked the time.

Ten forty-five. There was still time.

So I nodded.

Chen Minhua rose quickly, hurried to the entryway, and dragged over a large black suitcase, huffing with the effort.

"These are the things Qianqian sent us."

She stood there awkwardly, fear in her eyes mixed with a flicker of irrepressible anticipation.

"Since you delivered it, we haven't dared open it. We have no idea what's inside."

"Since you're here, I was hoping I could trouble you to open it for us -- would you?"

Spreading the risk, I see.

This was not the first time I had encountered this.

Most customers who received parcels from the underworld reacted exactly as Chen Minhua did.

They were curious about the supernatural.

But even more than that, they were afraid, on a primal level.

Seeing me agree, a flicker of delight crossed Chen Minhua's eyes. She immediately handed me a box cutter.

Just as I was about to slice through the seal --

The rummaging sounds from the inner room stopped dead.

Ji Hongjun wrenched the door open and stormed out, his face contorted with rage, and seized Chen Minhua by the collar.

"Bitch! Where did you hide those damned notes!"

The ghost money was gone.

Ji Hongjun was furious, and I could feel my own irritation rising.

It was now ten fifty.

We had to find the notes within ten minutes, or the consequences would be unthinkable.

Images of past incidents when ghost money went missing flashed through my mind, and I silently cursed the leadership of the Yin-Yang Post Office.

If they knew how dangerous these notes were, they never should have handed them out as collateral!

Outside the window, the moonlight was dimming by degrees, like a lamp burning through its last drop of oil.

My instincts were screaming.

Something bad was about to happen.

Yet Ji Hongjun still had Chen Minhua by the throat, the muscles in his face twitching and twisting.

"Don't tell me you thought you could kill me this way and then divorce me?"

"I'm telling you, don't even think about it!"

"Never mind whether those rumors are true or false. Even if they are -- if I die, I'm dragging you down with me!"

"This is what you owe me!"

"You killed Qianqian, and you should be buried with her!"

Chen Minhua could not speak under his grip, her face congested with blood, veins standing out on her neck. Tears streamed silently down her face as she shook her head desperately.

"I... didn't..."

I pried at his fingers with all my strength, my voice harsh.

"Let go! Keep looking for the notes!"

"Or we're all going to die!"

Ji Hongjun kicked me aside with one foot, his expression terrifying.

"Bullshit! Don't you dare try to scare me with that garbage!"

"Get the hell out! I've had enough!"

Stars exploded before my eyes. Instinctively, I drew the weapon issued by the Yin-Yang Post Office.

"Let go of her, or I will not be held responsible for my actions!"

In truth, this weapon was only effective against non-human entities; it was useless against ordinary people.

But if it could scare him for even a moment, that was enough.

Ji Hongjun bared his teeth in a savage grin.

"Are you out of your fucking mind! This is a lawful society!"

"You think if you kill me, you'll walk out of this neighborhood alive?"

I wiped my face and smiled more darkly than he did.

"You can try me."

No one who worked at the Yin-Yang Post Office was an ordinary person.

Ji Hongjun met my gaze, shivered involuntarily, and flung Chen Minhua aside.

"Fuck. Today of all days, I run into you. Just my luck."

I quietly exhaled in relief and pulled the coughing Chen Minhua to her feet.

She had barely finished thanking me in a hoarse voice when Ji Hongjun kicked her again.

"Quit your acting! Get the hell in there and find those notes!"

I frowned and glanced at Ji Hongjun.

He ignored me, planted himself back on the sofa, and popped open a can of beer with a sharp crack.

Chen Minhua was clearly used to this. Cautiously, she tugged at the corner of my jacket and whispered beseechingly.

"Let's hurry and look. We don't want to waste your time."

I looked at her docile, resigned expression and sighed silently.

This was not a question of wasting my time.

It was a question of whether she, her husband, and I would all live to see the sun rise.

Chen Minhua led me into the bedroom, one hand pressed to her waist, searching everywhere.

It was then that I noticed her slightly swollen abdomen and was taken aback.

"You're pregnant?"

Chen Minhua paused, looked down at her own stomach, and a strained smile crossed her face.

"Yes. Before Qianqian died, I had been planning to divorce my husband. Then I found out I was pregnant."

"Now that Qianqian is gone, this child... is the only thing left between us."

Her voice drifted, as though she were standing somewhere far away, lost in thought.

Sweating, I shifted a cabinet aside, found nothing, and irritably pushed it back -- accidentally knocking loose a marriage certificate that had been torn in half.

In the photograph against the red background, Chen Minhua and Ji Hongjun made a handsome couple, smiling sweetly into the camera.

I was about to bend down to pick it up when I heard Chen Minhua cry out.

"Ah! Found it!"

My heart jolted and I spun around.

Chen Minhua held up a single waterlogged note of ghost money and offered it to me.

"This is it, isn't it?"

I took it quickly, my brow relaxing.

"Yes."

Although the note had been soaked in water, which weakened its power, it would be fine.

As long as it could be used, it could save a life.

I carefully wiped the moisture from it, tucked it safely against my body, then held out my hand to her.

"Where are the other four?"

Chen Minhua blinked, then turned to fish around in a plastic basin full of water behind her.

I leaned over to look.

The bottom of the basin was perfectly clear. There was nothing inside.

Chen Minhua bit her lip, looking at me in panic.

"I'm sorry, I only found this one."

"I think it must have fallen in the last time my husband... hit me."

"The others must be nearby. I'll look for them right now!"

I glanced at my watch, my brow tightening.

"There's no time."

It was ten fifty-eight.

I grabbed Chen Minhua by the arm and strode toward the door.

The instant we stepped out of the bedroom, the memorial portrait on the altar slapped straight onto the floor.

Chen Minhua cried out in distress, "Qianqian!"

Before I could stop her, she had already bent down to pick it up.

Ji Hongjun, sprawled drunk on the sofa, casually picked up a beer can and hurled it at her, snarling.

"Bitch! Did you knock Qianqian's portrait on the floor on purpose!"

"My mother and Weiwei were right -- you're a jinx!"

"Why couldn't it have been you who died!"

The moment he finished shouting.

The hour of Zi arrived.

Outside the window, the last trace of moonlight was swallowed by darkness. The dim overhead light flickered out in an instant.

Then came a knocking at the door.

Once. Then again.

Ji Qianqian's childish, innocent voice sounded gently through the wood.

"Daddy, Mommy, I'm home!"

"Come open the door for me!"

Inside the apartment, Ji Hongjun and Chen Minhua froze like chickens with their necks wrung, their spines arching, staring at the front door in shock and terror.

"...Is that an illusion?"

Chen Minhua clapped a hand over her mouth, her pupils trembling violently. Great tears rolled down her cheeks.

"My Qianqian... my baby girl is still alive..."

Muttering to herself, she staggered toward the door, ready to open it.

I seized her desperately and whispered a warning.

"Don't! Your daughter is dead! Have you forgotten!"

"If you open that door, she will come in and kill every last one of us!"

Chen Minhua looked as though she had just woken from a dream. She stood stunned for a long moment, then collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Today is Qianqian's seventh day. She has come back for us... is it because... because she still resents us?"

She whimpered, her good half-face hidden in darkness, only the other half -- that demonic mask of scar tissue -- faintly visible.

At first glance, she looked more like the ghost than the thing outside.

I steadied my nerves and was about to tell her to be quiet.

Ji Hongjun had already grabbed Chen Minhua by the hair and slapped her hard across the face.

"Shut up, you crying bitch!"

"I knew Qianqian came back for revenge on you!"

"Are you still going to deny that you killed her?"

In the faint glow of a mobile phone, I could see the identical hatred blazing in both husband and wife's eyes.

The tears still wet on her cheeks, Chen Minhua glared back at Ji Hongjun, and all the emotions she had suppressed for so long exploded in that instant.

"I told you, I did not kill her!"

"You only ever blame me -- why don't you blame yourself!"

"If you hadn't been off carrying on with that Weiwei, if you had answered my calls, I would never have missed the chance to save Qianqian!"

Ji Hongjun raised his hand, his face livid, ready to strike her again.

I was about to intervene when the front door was struck a violent blow.

Ji Qianqian's piercing wail cut through the wood, sending a chill down every spine.

"Daddy, don't hit Mommy!"

"Mommy feels pain, and I feel pain too!"

"Daddy! I hate Daddy!!!"

"Mommy, come here, I'll protect you!"

"Mommy! Come out, Mommy!"

"Mommy, why won't you open the door?"

"OPEN THE DOOR!!"

That last shriek was sharp enough to pierce eardrums. The pounding on the door grew louder and louder, each blow landing not on the wood, but directly on the heart.

Ji Hongjun and Chen Minhua went white as sheets and dared not move.

They did not need me to tell them now -- they understood they must not answer whatever was outside.

But the racket it made was deafening. The whole building shook with every blow.

Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

Neighbors above and below turned on their lights and shouted curses.

"What the hell is the Ji family doing now? It's the middle of the night -- let people sleep!"

"Do I hear Qianqian's voice? What are you two doing in there!"

The pounding paused.

Ji Qianqian gave a little sob and spoke to herself.

"Daddy and Mommy are so mean! Fighting this late at night, and locking me outside so I can't come home."

"In that case, I'll just have to go stay with one of the other uncles and aunties for the night!"

My blood ran cold.

I could not let it go to another home!

If its reach spread, every person in this building would die!

I glanced at the husband and wife, both staring blankly, then bit the tip of my tongue hard enough to draw blood, using the pain to force myself to think clearly.

"I am asking you both: did Ji Qianqian die by accident?"

"Her death was not caused by a person, correct?"

They both snapped back to their senses and nodded frantically.

"Yes."

"Qianqian was home alone when the gas line leaked and exploded. That's why she..."

I considered this, my expression grave.

"Do you both swear you are telling the truth?"

Chen Minhua raised her hand in a panic. When she looked up at me, her eyes were clear.

"I swear it!"

"What mother in this world would kill her own daughter!"

Hearing this, Ji Hongjun sneered contemptuously.

"You may not have killed her with your own hands, but she died because of you -- that is a fact!"

I looked at him coldly.

"By your reasoning, you have evidence that she caused Ji Qianqian's death?"

Ji Hongjun's face darkened.

"...No."

I relaxed my frown.

"Since neither of you is the killer."

"I am going to open the door."

With that, I strode to the door and grasped the handle.

Ji Hongjun stumbled after me in panic and seized my shoulder, his voice vicious.

"That thing out there is clearly not human! You let her in, are you trying to get us killed!"

Chen Minhua stood behind him, her eyes glistening with terrified tears.

"Miss, didn't you just say that if Qianqian came in, we would all die?"

"Why are you opening the door now?"

"What will happen to us if she comes in?"

I quietly pressed the note of ghost money in my pocket and steadied myself.

"Ordinarily, if Ji Qianqian had been murdered, then once she came in, we would all die without question."

"But since you say her death was an accident, things are a little easier."

"If I let her in, I can try to deliver her soul and send her where she belongs."

Ji Hongjun still refused.

"And what if you can't deliver her! Then what!"

"Besides, if letting her in does no good, why open the door at all! Just let her go torment someone else!"

"As long as I survive, what do other people's lives matter to us!"

Chen Minhua looked down silently. Clearly, she agreed with him.

I knew this was the reaction of most people when faced with life and death.

If I had a choice, I would not let Ji Qianqian in and put myself in danger either.

But.

It was the hour of Zi -- eleven ten at night.

There were at least five hours until dawn.

I rubbed my temples and spoke as calmly as I could.

"This is the hour when Ji Qianqian's power is at its peak."

"If she goes to another home and starts killing, and everyone in this building dies, the whole building will become haunted by vengeful ghosts."

"At that point, we would be facing a night parade of a hundred demons."

"One Ji Qianqian -- or a horde of ghosts. Which do you choose?"

Ji Hongjun opened his mouth, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably, unable to produce a single word.

Chen Minhua stepped forward, pulled his hand off my shoulder, and said softly.

"Then open the door."

"Qianqian is our most precious daughter. I believe she will not hurt us."

Ji Hongjun said nothing, his face darkening for an instant.

Then he reached out and tightly clasped Chen Minhua's hand, and did not let go.

I took a deep breath and spoke steadily.

"Do not worry."

"I will do everything in my power to protect you both."

With that, I turned the handle.

With a long creak.

The door opened. Ji Qianqian was sitting on her heels just outside, looking utterly harmless.

At the sound, she looked up.

Revealing a pair of jet-black eyes with no whites at all.

"Daddy! Mommy!"

"I knew you would open the door for me!"

So saying, she rushed toward Ji Hongjun and Chen Minhua and threw her arms around them.

A wave of icy cold swept past my neck.

I shivered, goosebumps rising all over my skin.

Ji Hongjun and Chen Minhua, who had looked so different moments before, now, the instant they saw Ji Qianqian, wore identical expressions of loving parents.

"Qianqian."

"Daddy and Mommy have missed you so much."

The moment they finished speaking.

The lights in the room suddenly blazed on.

The scorched, blackened wallpaper turned white and fresh, as if new.

I stood in the doorway, watching these changes in silence.

I could not help quietly squeezing the ghost money in my pocket again.

My scalp prickled as I thought.

This was going to be truly, truly bad...

"Daddy, Mommy, who is this sister?"

After the family had their tender reunion, Ji Qianqian turned and fixed me with those black-hole eyes.

From where I stood, I could see her memorial portrait on the altar in the distance behind her.

Two identical faces side by side, one alive and one dead -- it was indescribably eerie.

Chen Minhua smiled gently, the muscles on her scarred half twitching slightly, giving her a grotesque look.

She stroked Ji Qianqian's hair and explained.

"This is the sister who delivered your parcel. We don't know her name."

Ji Qianqian made a sound of acknowledgment and wrapped her arms tighter around Ji Hongjun's neck.

At this point, not a trace of the earlier fear remained on Ji Hongjun's face.

He turned with Ji Qianqian in his arms, his tone no longer violent but flat.

"What are you standing there for?"

"Don't you still have four notes of ghost money to find?"

"Come in, find them, and get out."

My fingertips, pressing against the note in my pocket, tingled. I drew a sharp breath.

The exact same words he had spoken less than an hour earlier.

"Then I will trouble you again."

Eleven thirty at night.

I stepped into the apartment for the second time and was hit by a wave of heat that made my head swim.

My nostrils filled with the stench of leaking natural gas. I frowned silently.

"Do you not smell something?"

The room went still for an instant.

All three of them -- father, mother, and child -- turned their heads in unison and stared directly at me.

"There's nothing to smell?"

"Is something wrong with your nose!"

Chen Minhua wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled awkwardly, dragging over an electric fan.

"It is a bit stuffy in here, though. Sister, sit down and cool off. I'll find those notes for you in no time."

As she spoke, she set a small bottle of mint oil in front of the fan.

A faint scent of peppermint drifted toward me on the breeze.

I narrowed my eyes slightly and stood up on my own initiative.

"Never mind. I will find the rest myself."

They said nothing more about Ji Qianqian, treating her exactly as though she were an ordinary child -- as though she had never died.

They had completely forgotten how terrified they had been before opening the door.

I was not surprised by their change, nor did I have any interest in reminding them.

Delivering Ji Qianqian's soul was never my job.

Recovering the ghost money was my only objective.

Ji Qianqian hopped down from Ji Hongjun's arms and pattered over to me, seizing my finger.

An icy chill climbed up from my fingertips. I tried to pull away, failed, and looked down at her.

She curved her eyes into crescents, her voice sweet.

"Sister, I'll help you!"

"I know where those notes are!"

"Mommy is so stupid, she could never find them!"

I noticed Chen Minhua's back stiffen slightly and calmly looked away.

"Is that so? Then I will trouble you."

Ji Qianqian giggled, pulled out a small knife, and slit open the black box Chen Minhua had dragged over earlier.

A mountain of ghost money -- the kind that circulated at the Yin-Yang Post Office -- exploded out of the case.

So far away, and yet right under my nose.

The notes I had been searching for had been inside the parcel Ji Qianqian sent to Chen Minhua all along.

And there were so many.

Ji Qianqian stood in front of the pile of money, looking at me with triumph.

"Sister, you don't seem curious why we have so much ghost money."

"Or why the notes you compensated my parents with ended up inside the parcel I sent them."

"Don't you have anything you want to ask?"

"Since you're about to die, I'll answer anything you want to know!"

At the same time.

Chen Minhua, who had supposedly been searching for the notes, walked toward me carrying a kitchen knife.

On the other side, Ji Hongjun picked up a spiked club he had hidden under the table and stared at me balefully.

I gripped the note in my pocket, drew my issued weapon, and asked calmly.

"Why?"

Ji Qianqian grinned.

"Because I have taken a liking to your body, of course!"

No one who worked at the Yin-Yang Post Office was ordinary.

There were ancient beasts that had survived since the dawn of time, and demons who had cultivated for centuries and taken human form.

And there were those like me -- a thousand years old, ageless and undying --

A living corpse.

My body was, indeed, the perfect vessel coveted by countless vengeful spirits.

Having delivered packages in these neighborhoods for so long, it was no surprise that I had been targeted.

Ji Qianqian leaned close to me and inhaled rapturously.

"For the seven days after I died, I rushed to make my plans, and now I am finally about to succeed."

"And thanks to my two idiot parents being so obedient, I actually managed to lure you in."

My body swayed. My strength was draining from my limbs by the second. I glanced sideways at the bottle of mint oil by the fan.

If I was not mistaken, it had been mixed with a substantial amount of corpse oil.

It was a substance specifically designed to suppress my kind.

Chen Minhua carefully picked up the bottle, looking at me with an apologetic expression.

"I am sorry, Miss Lai. We had no choice."

"If we didn't do as Qianqian said, she would have killed us for sure!"

"I'm carrying a child. For the sake of this child, I cannot die..."

She covered her mouth, weeping miserably.

I collapsed to the floor, not a flicker of emotion in my heart.

I simply looked at Chen Minhua.

"You conspired to kill Ji Qianqian so you could divorce Ji Hongjun -- did you really think they would spare you?"

The room went abruptly silent.

Chen Minhua lowered her hands and looked up at me with innocent eyes.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

I opened my mouth, about to lay bare every sordid detail of this family's secrets.

Ji Qianqian had already waved a hand, forcing Chen Minhua to her knees before her.

"This sister is right, Mommy."

She grinned as she leaned in to Chen Minhua, her cold little hand resting on Chen Minhua's swollen abdomen, heavy with implication.

"You and I still have scores to settle!"

"For example, my death."

"And why you would rather have a child whose sex you don't even know than keep me?"

"After all, every time Daddy hit you, it was me who protected you, wasn't it?"

"Was I not good enough to you, Mommy?"

"Why on earth did you want me dead?"

"Why, that day, did I beg you from inside the room to save me, and you not only refused to open the door, but deliberately tossed in a lighter and let me burn alive?"

Chen Minhua's slender neck rested in the child's palm, trembling like something fragile about to snap.

"No... Qianqian, let me explain."

Great tears rolled down Chen Minhua's face.

She could barely choke out the words, that beautiful half of her face contorted with unspeakable anguish.

"I don't know what Ji Hongjun has told you behind my back, but please believe me -- I truly did not kill you!"

"The person who threw the lighter was your father's mistress, that Auntie Weiwei you liked so much!"

"Ji Hongjun has been deliberately smearing me to protect her!"

Before Chen Minhua had finished speaking, Ji Hongjun lunged at her, looking ready to strangle her.

"You bitch! What nonsense are you spouting!"

"You were the one who ruthlessly killed Qianqian! Why drag Weiwei into this! What evidence do you have!"

Chen Minhua was knocked to the floor by his slap, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

Her ruined face turned toward us, looking like a vengeful ghost crawled up from hell.

"Evidence?"

She laughed, a low sound that echoed through the room, impossibly eerie.

"Isn't this face of mine evidence enough!"

Chen Minhua pointed at her own burned, disfigured cheek, her expression wild with resentment.

"If your little mistress hadn't set the fire to kill Qianqian so she could be with you, would I have been burned like this trying to save her?"

"Ji Hongjun! Everything -- every last bit of this -- is because you cheated! Because you betrayed me!"

"If not for you, this family would never have become what it is!"

"My Qianqian would never have died! I would never have been forced to resign from the theater troupe!"

"It is all because of you!"

She screamed this at the top of her lungs, then collapsed to the floor, drained, as if all hope had left her.

Ji Hongjun seemed stunned by her outburst. After a long silence, he spoke sullenly.

"But Weiwei was right beside me when the fire started."

"Chen Minhua, from the very beginning, it has been you twisting the truth."

Chen Minhua covered her face and smiled wearily, her voice hoarse.

"Have it your way."

"I'm tired."

She dried her tears, bit by bit, then turned to look at me with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry you had to see that."

"To tell you the truth -- everything that happened tonight was a trap set by Ji Hongjun specifically for you."

My fingertips moved. I pulled the note of ghost money I had been clutching in my pocket all along fully into my palm.

What followed was Chen Minhua's earnest confession.

After Ji Qianqian died, she had not reported to the underworld immediately. Instead, she had remained in the mortal realm and met with Ji Hongjun.

She had originally intended to confront him about why he had not come to save her.

But Ji Hongjun told her he knew a way to bring her back to life, provided she agreed to one condition --

On the night of her seventh-day return, she must find a way to kill Chen Minhua.

So Ji Qianqian spared Ji Hongjun and went after Chen Minhua instead, threatening her into helping set the trap for me, so that I could become the vessel for Ji Qianqian's resurrection.

"At first, I just didn't want to die..."

As she spoke, Chen Minhua dropped the knife she had been holding, pressed one hand to her abdomen, and leaned exhaustedly against the wall as if resigned to her fate.

"But it doesn't matter now."

She turned to look at Qianqian with a loving, tender smile.

"I'm sorry, Qianqian. In the beginning, it really was Mommy who failed to protect you."

"If you truly hate Mommy, then come kill me. It's all right."

"Just the thought that, in dying, I will get to be with you again... makes me happy..."

"Come."

Those last two words acted like a switch.

Ji Qianqian snapped back to herself, looking at Chen Minhua with a complicated expression, her lips moving.

"...Lunatic!"

"I don't like you. I don't want you to be my mommy!"

"I even pushed you down the stairs once and killed the baby in your belly!"

"Even after all that, you don't hate me? You actually tried your hardest to save me?"

"What kind of joke is this!"

Chen Minhua's expression did not change by so much as a flicker.

From beginning to end, she was simply a mother who loved her daughter.

Even as Ji Qianqian stared at her with distrust, she only smiled gently and whispered.

"But you are my daughter..."

"Even if everyone says you were born evil, you are still my daughter."

I had heard colleagues say before that there are people in this world who are born evil.

They seem to come into this world for the sole purpose of causing harm, as if specifically to defy the old saying that "man is born good."

Ji Qianqian was one such child.

I had seen her file.

While still in Chen Minhua's womb, she had absorbed her twin brother.

For that reason, Ji Qianqian's birth had never been welcomed by her parents.

Even so, she was their flesh and blood.

Chen Minhua and Ji Hongjun had raised her as patiently as they could.

But evil was evil.

Ji Qianqian's cruelty was etched into her genes from the start; there was no changing it.

When she was three, she lured Chen Minhua's favorite dog out of the house and chased it into the middle of the road, where it was crushed by a car.

The police later checked surveillance footage and found Ji Qianqian laughing and laughing at the dog's corpse.

At five, because she disliked a little girl from the neighborhood, she took the child and sold her to human traffickers when no one was looking.

In exchange for a pack of spicy tofu strips.

When the little girl's parents came to confront her afterward, she played innocent, claiming she did not know what traffickers were.

Protected by the law, Ji Qianqian faced no consequences whatsoever.

She was a born criminal.

Which was why I found it hard to believe.

That there could truly exist a mother who did not care that her own child was a criminal.

Chen Minhua closed her eyes serenely, waiting for death.

Yet Ji Qianqian did nothing.

She brandished the knife, waved it back and forth across Chen Minhua's throat a few times.

Then she spun abruptly around and drove the knife into Ji Hongjun's thigh.

"AAH!!"

Ji Hongjun screamed, collapsing to the floor, convulsing, staring at Ji Qianqian in shock.

"You little monster! Have you lost your mind!"

Ji Qianqian giggled. "Sorry, Daddy, I don't want to do this either."

"But I think Mommy is a little more fun than you. So I'm going to let her live a bit longer."

"Which means you have to die!"

In the gap while they were talking, I quickly pulled out my weapon and drove it into the back of Ji Qianqian's skull.

She cried out in pain and twisted her head around to glare at me.

"You can still move!"

I smiled and drove a second nail into her head.

Only when she was completely immobilized did I hold up the note of ghost money I had been clutching the entire time.

"I told you from the start: this is not ordinary ghost money. It is the universal currency of the Yin-Yang Post Office."

It protects life, bars death, and dissolves ten thousand evils.

It was said to have been originally drawn as a talisman by a great onmyoji of old.

Even soaked in water, its power diminished, it was more than enough to break the corpse oil's hold on me.

Ji Qianqian opened her mouth, looking desperately at Chen Minhua.

"Mommy! Help me kill this woman!"

"I want her body!"

"I want to live!"

Chen Minhua nodded repeatedly and hurried over in a panic.

"Don't worry, Mommy will help you..."

The next instant, she seized the soul-devouring nail planted in Ji Qianqian's skull and drove it deeper.

She smiled softly and said.

"What a fool."

Ji Qianqian stared at her in disbelief.

"Mommy worked so hard to make them kill you -- why would Mommy ever let you live?"

"My dear daughter, people like you were born to rot in hell..."

Amidst unwillingness and resentment, Ji Qianqian slowly dissolved away.

I checked the time.

Exactly midnight. The dead center of the hour of Zi.

The mission was finally over, for now.

I glanced at Ji Hongjun, groaning in agony on the floor, and kindly took out my phone to call an ambulance for him.

Chen Minhua snatched the phone from my hand and smashed it on the ground.

"He must die today."

I lifted my eyes. I was not surprised by her sudden change of face.

It said so in the file.

Before her disfigurement, Chen Minhua had been the finest actress in the city's theater troupe.

In the end, because of one man and one born monster, she had destroyed the career she was proudest of.

I sighed.

"If you hate him, you can file for divorce right now. Why does he have to die?"

"Taking a human life is not worth it."

Chen Minhua laughed sarcastically, bending to pick up the knife from the floor.

"So what?"

"If he doesn't die, how am I supposed to collect on that life insurance policy?"

The corner of my mouth twitched.

So husband and wife had been scheming against each other all along.

Ji Hongjun had indeed bought insurance, plotting to kill his wife and collect -- that much was true.

But Chen Minhua had bought an identical policy on him.

In fact, she had bought it the moment she discovered Ji Hongjun was cheating.

"In the beginning, he promised he would treat me well forever, that he would love me always."

"Then just because his mother looked down on me for not bearing him a son, he went off and seduced that whore Weiwei!"

"When I found out, he even had the gall to tell me he was only using her to have a son, that he didn't truly love her, that his heart still belonged to me."

"Ridiculous! Did he take me for a fool!"

Knife in hand, Chen Minhua carved slowly across Ji Hongjun's face, leaving one bleeding gash after another.

No matter how he begged for mercy, she did not relent.

"You owe me this, Ji Hongjun!"

I checked the time again.

Good. It was twelve ten.

A little early, but it would do.

So I decided to move things along.

"If he dies, I'm not supposed to leave alive either, am I?"

"That way you can walk away clean, take the child in your belly, and fly off with your lover -- is that it?"

Chen Minhua looked at me, narrowing her eyes.

"You know a great deal."

I shrugged. "More than that. I also know that you were the one who deliberately called Weiwei that day and asked her to come to the house to look after Ji Qianqian."

"After all, she was Ji Qianqian's tutor. The excuse was perfect."

"What you didn't expect was that Weiwei would lose her nerve at the critical moment and refuse to throw the lighter to kill Ji Qianqian."

"So you gave fate a push and tossed that lighter in yourself."

Chen Minhua stared at me, uncertain and afraid.

"Who are you exactly!"

I smiled faintly and snapped my fingers.

Twelve fifteen in the morning.

A squad of police officers burst through the door, their weapons trained squarely on Chen Minhua.

She stumbled backward two steps and collapsed to the floor.

I looked down at her and spoke.

"I am courier number 001 of the Yin-Yang Post Office."

"And also, the captain of the Special Cases Division of the A City Public Security Bureau."

"A Lai."

About five days earlier, I had received my assignment from the Yin-Yang Post Office.

I was to cooperate with the municipal Special Cases Division to track down a living soul who had stolen an entire case of ghost money without authorization.

With the help of various specialists, tracing the culprit to Ji Qianqian was not difficult.

The hard part was figuring out how to make her show herself.

My subordinates and I had debated through the night, finally deciding that I would personally serve as bait, letting Ji Qianqian come to me.

That was why Ji Hongjun "happened" to learn of the method to resurrect Ji Qianqian, and why he was so confident in setting his trap for me.

When I finished explaining, as Chen Minhua's face drained of color, I shut off the gas valve and had the officers open the windows to ventilate the apartment.

The acrid smell that had filled the room slowly dissipated.

"If we had not learned of your plan in advance, and the full sequence of your crimes -- I'm afraid this whole building would have been blown sky-high tonight."

Her face twisted for a moment, then returned to normal.

"Hmph. Without evidence, I will never confess!"

I shook my head.

"You will not relent until you see the coffin, I see."

"Aren't you curious who betrayed you?"

So saying, I stepped aside, revealing a plainly dressed man standing behind me.

Chen Minhua's expression changed instantly.

This man was the lover she had taken up with after Ji Hongjun cheated on her.

He was also the father of the child now in her belly.

In Chen Minhua's view, Ji Hongjun had betrayed her by carrying on with Weiwei.

Therefore she owed him no wifely loyalty; she might as well find a tender man to keep her happy.

What she had not expected was that this man who had given her happiness would betray her just as Ji Hongjun had, casting her into the deepest hell.

Seeing her tears, the man panicked slightly.

"Minhua, don't cry!"

"I asked the officers -- if you turn yourself in and cooperate, there's a chance for a reduced sentence!"

"Besides, Ji Hongjun beat you regularly throughout your marriage; that was his fault to begin with!"

"As for Qianqian... her death was ultimately Weiwei's fault. The police reviewed the surveillance footage -- you did throw the lighter inside, but you didn't ignite it. It was Weiwei who tossed in a match and caused the explosion!"

"We all saw it. She tied you up, threw you into the fire, and that's how you were disfigured."

"Her crime is unforgivable, but you're different!"

"Minhua, please confess. No matter what happens, I will stay with you!"

Chen Minhua cried, then suddenly began to laugh.

"Fool!"

She lifted her chin with a beautiful, bitter smile.

"I am innocent! The only guilty ones are that little monster and that bastard of a husband!"

"Ji Hongjun made me fall, and my own flesh and blood Ji Qianqian strangled my last hope one bit at a time!"

"They both deserved to die! And I will never, ever apologize for their deaths!"

With that, she tightened her grip on the knife and drew it hard across her own throat!

Blood sprayed in a sharp, bright arc through the air.

What followed was the man's agonized cry.

Naturally, Ji Hongjun died too.

After Chen Minhua's death, he let out a single anguished roar, then breathed his last, his eyes wide open.

The doctors who examined him later called it broken-heart syndrome.

I thought again of that wedding photo, discarded in the corner.

I had the feeling that, right up until he died, Ji Hongjun had loved Chen Minhua.

But the love he gave her was a vile thing, full of violence and disrespect.

That was why this whole chain of tragedies had been set in motion.

Not long after the case closed, the court handed down its verdict.

The woman named Weiwei was sentenced to death, to be carried out immediately.

After filing away the case files, I took off my uniform and, once more, became the nondescript delivery girl cycling through the neighborhoods.

This time, however, for safety reasons, my superiors assigned me a young assistant.

As I was making deliveries on my bike one day, the wind tugged several notes of ghost money from my pocket.

The assistant picked them up, raised an eyebrow, and asked.

"Captain Lai... these wouldn't happen to be..."

I took the notes back, tucked them carefully into my pocket, and smiled casually.

"Yes."

"These are the four notes Chen Minhua could never find."

In fact, they had been on me the whole time.

（The End）