I grew up at my grandfather's side.

He was a spirit medium known far and wide; whenever anything strange and unaccountable happened in the villages for miles around, people came to him, and he could always set it right.

Even after I graduated and moved to the city to work, he would still send me packets of incense ash and paper talismans from time to time.

He said my horoscope ran to pure yin—that I drew unclean things like a magnet—and that those packets would keep the things from seeing me.

When he was dying, he held on with his last breath just to wait for me, and he told me over and over: "Girl, never walk the streets during the hour of the Rat. Never go, after the sun goes down, to any place bearing the character for 'ghost.' And never, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, find yourself beneath the earth, in the Yellow Springs." He didn't explain—only stared at me with his dying eyes until I nodded, choking on tears.

Then, at peace, he let out his last breath.

I threw myself across his body and wailed.

But Grandfather's eyes snapped open, huge with terror, and he screamed: "Heaven's will! Heaven's will!" His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, and I fell backward onto the floor in fright.

He struggled, as if fighting something, and gasped: "The fifteenth of the seventh month—the hungry ghosts demand their name-offering—up… up… mmm…" Before he could finish, his mouth was stopped, as though an unseen hand had clapped over it; a single thick tear of blood slid down his face.

I had always been close to Grandfather.

I should not have been afraid.

But in that moment, my skin crawled.

Grandfather had never let me roll my eyes while he was alive.

He said: the black of the eye sees the world of the living; the white of the eye sees the world of the dead.

And in his last moments his eyes had shown nothing but white—so he must have been seeing something from the other side.

What was this "heaven's will" he spoke of, that could bear even Grandfather, weathered as he was, away in fear and despair?

I couldn't work it out.

But I did know about the name-offering of the hungry ghosts.

It means giving a ghost a person.

If the ghost is pleased, it will never trouble you again.

If it isn't, it will summon you down to explain yourself.

In the old days, when such a case came up, Grandfather would have the afflicted family make paper effigies—men, women, old, young—and burn them below.

There was always one the ghosts found pleasing.

To keep the ghosts from realizing the effigies weren't family, the family would dab them with fresh blood from their own hands.

More gold-and-silver spirit money and spells on top, and the ghosts were fooled; business settled.

Grandfather had done it for others countless times.

What, then, could have frightened him?

I couldn't understand it.

But then I thought again: the fifteenth of the seventh month comes but once a year—a single day.

As long as I broke none of the three taboos, what was so hard?

I had forgotten the old saying: all things are fate; not a hair's breadth lies in your own hands.

The first Ghost Festival after Grandfather died—the fifteenth of the seventh month—I went to work with unusual care, my heart tapping nervously.

On an impulse I tucked into my bag the two talismans he had given me at the very end.

The moment I set foot in the office I was summoned to the office of the project manager, Zhao Qiang. "The proposal for the new-district project. It has to be done today." I nodded and accepted.

I'd already done seventy or eighty percent of that proposal.

But I wasn't going to turn it in too early.

Turn it in early, and he'd make you redraw it three or four times, curse you out the same number, then end up going with the first draft anyway.

So I handed it in less than half an hour before quitting time and packed up, ready to go.

My plan was to stay shut inside my apartment all night—even if heaven rained gold, I wasn't setting a foot outside.

At six on the dot I shut down my computer and straightened up.

My phone screamed. "What kind of garbage did you hand me? A turd is better than this. Does the company pay you to coast along? Fix it now!" Zhao Qiang's hoarse voice nearly cracked.

This project's commission was fat—enough to pay off the last of my apartment.

I cursed "that dog Zhao" under my breath and sat back down, saved the first draft, and began revising to his demands.

The things he wanted changed were trifles; I figured an hour would do it.

By his usual style, he'd read it overnight and raise hell the next morning.

But tonight he seemed possessed—his correction messages kept coming, over and over.

Hours went by.

The moon dimmed, like a coin going dark.

Restlessness crept over me.

I remembered how, on every Ghost Festival in years past, Grandfather found some excuse to keep me home.

Back then I'd thought he simply enjoyed my company.

Now I understood: he'd been protecting me.

On his deathbed he'd given me three taboos and carried the secret to the grave.

The reason, I guessed, was backlash—speak of them and they'd turn back on him; which made the taboos all the less breakable.

It was almost ten o'clock.

If I finished by ten, I could still race home before the hour of the Rat.

I stared at the flickering cursor and hammered the keys.

"Lin Shen, where's the file?" Zhao Qiang's voice came from the office doorway, his suit collar open, tie crooked, phone wedged between shoulder and ear.

I typed the last character and hit Send. "Boss Zhao, it's coming to you now." He nodded at me, then smiled ingratiatingly into the phone: "Don't worry, Mr. Wang, I'm bringing it over myself… Right, Lin Shen's coming too—she knows the details."

What? What did he mean?!

I was a woman in her twenties, going to a desolate industrial zone in the middle of the night, to work shoulder to shoulder with a pack of men?

On this particular night, of all nights?

I shook my head hard. "Boss Zhao, not today." "What did you say?" He hung up, brow knotting. "The client's waiting. And you say no?"

"I have to get home before the hour of the Rat tonight." "There you go again." Zhao Qiang sneered. "That old hokum of your grandpa's, still poisoning you in this day and age? I'm telling you, Lin Shen—don't give me that."

Because Grandfather had once settled some spirit business for a colleague, the whole company knew he was a medium; everyone respected him.

Everyone but Zhao Qiang, who never failed to sniff at it.

What he didn't know was that my staying home tonight would be saving him, too.

My horoscope ran to pure yin; I drew ghosts.

And tonight the gate of the dead was thrown wide open.

Standing next to me, he'd make a far better name-offering than any paper effigy.

But I remembered Grandfather's teaching—never use the ghost business to harm a living soul.

So I declined as gently as I could. "I really do have to get back tonight. What if I come over first thing in the morning?"

"Fine. Then drop by HR tomorrow morning and quit. Skip this, and a hundred people are lining up for the project. A spoiled little beast of burden like you deserves an altar of burning incense at home—what are you doing at work?" He looked down at me from on high, and the abuse kept coming.

I sighed.

The last person he'd talked to that way really had been let go.

Then I thought of my mortgage—and the job market, where unemployment was no joke.

Not to mention the commission.

I'd fought this hard; I wasn't going to throw it away now.

I checked the clock.

Ten o'clock, exactly.

I did the math: forty minutes in Zhao Qiang's car to the new district; three or four hours of discussion and finalization.

Either way, I'd miss the midnight walk. "Boss Zhao," I said, "since the client's in such a hurry—let's get going, then." Zhao Qiang smirked, pleased. "Now you know whose word counts." Fine.

Yours counts. I hope you can make it count against a hungry ghost, too!

Grumbling inside, I gathered my things and headed with him down to the underground garage.

The moment the elevator reached level B1, the lights flickered violently.

My bad feeling surged back.

To make it worse, Zhao kept droning his little lecture beside me, and I grew more irritated by the second.

Then—something touched my face.

I couldn't help shrieking, and swung my hand at it hard. Smack!

The slap landed squarely on Zhao Qiang's face.

Enraged and humiliated, he roared: "Lin Shen, what the hell are you doing?!" I smoothed the strand of hair that had fallen across my cheek and said, guilty as sin: "Accident! Genuinely an accident! Boss Zhao, why don't you hit me back?" He gave me a dirty look and went to stand across from me.

Had it really just been a stray lock of hair?

I wasn't sure, and my heart turned over.

I kept feeling that someone was standing right behind me, pressed against the lift cabin.

I looked at Zhao Qiang and almost said: forget it, let's not go.

But he stood across from me, perfectly normal.

He hadn't seen anything, then.

Whatever I said now, he wouldn't believe a word—he'd think I was making up excuses to dodge overtime.

Better to say nothing and leave at once.

Fortunately, stung by my slap, Zhao quickened his own pace.

And when we hurried to his car, we both froze. "What the hell?! Which son of a bitch did this?" He cursed through gritted teeth.

Both front tires had gone flat.

And there was only one spare.

"Checking the security footage can wait till tomorrow," I said urgently. "The client's waiting. Let's just take a taxi." It was almost ten past ten; there was no time to waste.

We rode the elevator back up to street level—only to find the streets empty, the streetlamps dim, and not a single cab at either end of the road.

We'd have to order a ride-hailing car.

At least the app showed plenty of cars available nearby.

I was about to book one when a thought flashed through my mind: a street like this, empty as a grave—where did all those available cars come from?

Seeing me hesitate, Zhao Qiang barked: "Not booking? What are you waiting for—an egg to hatch?" This was his pet line of wordplay, a favorite way to humiliate his female staff while preening himself as funny.

But now wasn't the time to cross him.

I gritted my teeth, raised the fare, and picked a business sedan five minutes out.

Zhao Qiang nodded in approval at my choice. "So you've got a bit of sense after all."

We waited.

The car didn't come.

He started cursing again: "Never seen anyone as stupid as you. All those closer cars, and you pick the far one." I swallowed my irritation and listened.

Buzz—my phone vibrated hard.

A push notification from the app: "Vehicle dispatch is abnormal in your area. Please use public transit." The map zoomed in and out without stopping, like something trying to stop and failing.

This was a gift from heaven.

I showed it to him: "Boss Zhao, see? No cars. We can't get through."

"Then what about the metro?" Zhao Qiang gave me the look of a man seeing through a trick. "Last train departs at 22:30, and in fifty minutes it gets you there. You've got ten minutes to catch it. Go." "The—the metro?" My tongue tripped over itself.

The fifteenth of the seventh month.

Night walking in the hour of the Rat.

Underground. And the new district's metro station was called Ghostwood!

The three taboos—every single one of them, all at once.

It was as if some unseen thread was drawing me—no, forcing me down that road.

I couldn't help shivering.

Zhao Qiang took off for the metro entrance at a run.

His talent for licking up to clients was famous company-wide; in the past I'd gone along with it.

But tonight my instincts were screaming.

Seeing me rooted to the spot, Zhao turned impatient. "What the hell's your dawdling for? Don't think that because you're a woman I wouldn't touch you. If this project falls through, I'll slap you around just the same!" His cursing fanned my temper.

I hadn't meant to hand any hungry ghost its name-offering.

But he was forcing me to hand him over, and I couldn't stop him.

I followed after him on foot.

It was the most regretted decision I'd ever made.

So much so that even now I don't know if what followed was illusion or real—life or death.

I followed Zhao down the escalator.

The platform stood empty—not a single staff member in sight.

That alone was wrong.

Raw-white fluorescent strips hung overhead, nothing you'd want to look at in the dark.

Zhao Qiang shot a glance around and announced, loud enough for no one: "Passengers yes, staff gone. All in a damn hurry to clock out—like they can't wait to be reborn!" That filthy mouth.

I wanted to stitch it shut.

At 22:30 the last train slid in on time, sweeping a gust of cold air up out of the tunnel—damp, and smelling of earth.

The doors opened, and a rank smell of rot rolled out. "What a piece of junk! It's been half a year—how's it still stinking?" Zhao cursed his way aboard.

This new Line 13 ran straight through an old graveyard.

The place had been an unmarked mass burial ground since antiquity—layer upon layer, from the Han dynasty down to the present.

At the time, archaeologists and builders had fought bitterly over preserving or developing.

In the end, bowing to economic growth and the people's need to travel, they'd gone with "protective development." The line had no choice anyway—water on both sides, this was the only road through.

And since graves still lay deep below, even with the fresh-air system, the trains couldn't always escape the smell.

What most people didn't know: rot comes in two kinds—stale and fresh.

Stale rot is the scent of the long dead, with nothing to do with men.

Fresh rot is the scent of the living dead—and they can mix with men.

And tonight, the rot was fresh.

Cold sweat was already beading on my back.

Inside, the car stood empty.

Zhao Qiang picked the seat by the door and sat.

I sat across from him.

He didn't so much as glance at me, just typed away on his phone, a look of contempt curling his mouth from time to time.

I looked down at my own phone to kill time.

The department group chat was running wild.

It was Zhao Qiang posting. "Don't think that being a woman means you get coddled. There's no gender in the office—we're all beasts of burden here. Nobody's your mommy and daddy, least of all so you can slack off with your tricks. I'm the one who cures spoiled workhorses." Past midnight, and the group was throwing a party.

"Well said, Boss Zhao! That sort needs setting straight!" "Honestly, Boss Zhao, you're the boss." "Boss Zhao, leave the blind ones to this old servant—don't dirty your hands!"… A stream of likes and comments poured in beneath.

On the surface they were just idle jokes from warm beds, flattery and chitchat.

Underneath, they were sneering at me—the one stuck at work, unable to go home.

They were green-eyed over the project commission.

They didn't care how many long nights I'd worked, how much I'd drunk, how many rounds of construction sites I'd toured with the client or shopping trips with his wife.

No—sneering at me, saying I'd landed the project by "paying my dues," made them feel better about themselves.

More hateful than any hungry ghost.

A lump of filth stuck in my chest, neither up nor down.

No wonder the character for "endure" is a knife above the heart—and the knife's edge turned toward you.

If hungry ghosts came now, they'd probably worship these people.

As I fumed, the next station came.

The doors opened.

An old man stepped in, soundless.

He swept a feather-light glance over the two of us and sat down beside me—so close it made me uneasy.

A strong scent of perfume rolled off him, filling the whole car.

Zhao Qiang looked up at him with distaste, then went back to posting chicken-soup aphorisms in the work group: "Whatever lessons your parents never taught you, society will!"

I clenched my fists.

Zhao Qiang's right eye had turned red.

Modern medicine calls it a broken capillary—nothing serious.

But those in the trade call it something else: you've seen something unclean.

And what he'd just looked at was the old man beside me.

Casually I stood, meaning to move over next to Zhao Qiang—he was certainly alive; the old man, well, it was hard to say whether he was dead or alive.

But the instant I stood, the old man grabbed my arm.

His fingers were ice-cold—cold enough that a chill seeped through my very bones.

I tried to pull free.

He lowered his voice until it was barely there: "That companion of yours—his forehead. Stay away from him."

I froze, and looked up at Zhao Qiang.

His forehead had gone black.

Very black.

Was he possessed?

All at once it struck me: Zhao had been off ever since the moment we entered the metro.

He'd always had a mouth that drew hate—sure.

But not this relentlessly.

Besides, in a few hours I'd be the one carrying the proposal revision; he had no reason to go out of his way to provoke me tonight.

I hesitated.

Zhao was cursing in the group chat again. "If you can't cut it, roll! The sun won't stop rising without one little pheasant like you." The moment I saw those words, I quietly got up and moved to the other side of the car.

In all my years of knowing Zhao Qiang, I'd heard him curse people with every name under the sun—wild chicken, pig, dog, and worse—nothing surprised me.

But "pheasant"?

That's what we called a wild chicken back in my hometown.

He wouldn't even know the word.

The rot was thickening in the car.

I checked the time: 22:40.

It wasn't even the hour of the Rat yet—not the peak of yin energy.

And the things were already stirring?

That meant a serious player.

I regretted walking into this metro on a whim.

Next station, I told myself, no matter what anyone says, I'm getting off.

As for the commission—hundreds, thousands, I'd need to be alive to spend it.

The three of us sat in a triangle, one car.

Now I could take a real look at the old man.

White cotton top, billowing black trousers, soft-soled black shoes with white soles.

Dressed like any old man you'd see at the market buying vegetables.

But a man like that—why the thick perfume?

My heart lurched.

Was he covering the smell of a corpse?

I breathed in carefully: moss, incense, dragon-musk… Childhood memory came back.

Mixed together, wasn't this the "smell of coffin wood"?

I looked at the old man again.

His face still carried a hint of smoke—as if he'd just been passed through burning paper ash.

He must have been buried only recently.

I couldn't quite stop myself from shivering.

I snuck a hand into my pocket and pinched my thigh hard to steady myself.

Three people in the car; two of them wrong.

But I couldn't let either of them see me knowing it.

Ghosts bully the weak.

Like a mean dog—if it sees you're afraid, it'll lunge.

Pretend you're not frightened, bend down and pick up a stone to throw, and it backs away.

One station on the metro takes five minutes.

Two, three more, and I'd be off.

I kept my head down, faking a look at my phone.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the old man edging closer.

I, too, rode the train's sway to shuffle "accidentally" apart from him, inching toward the doors on the opposite side.

Just as I was nearly there, Zhao Qiang suddenly looked up at me. "Lin Shen, why did you move over there?"

I started, but collected myself in an instant.

Say I want to get off, and it'd be walking into my death.

If he was still Zhao Qiang, he wouldn't let me off—not with the project at stake.

And if he wasn't Zhao Qiang, he'd spent too much effort luring me down into the metro to let me go easily.

I paused, then said: "The smell's too much. I wanted to sit by the door. Fresh air." Zhao sniffed: "God damn, it really stinks. Ten years dead couldn't smell this bad! What, we got a thousand-year-old stiff on board?" A sharp glint passed across the old man's eyes, then his lids dropped half-closed.

The metro announced our station.

Both of them were watching me.

I pretended not to notice, my eyes fixed on my phone.

I'd made my plan: at the last instant before the doors closed, I'd bolt.

Even if they wanted to stop me, they couldn't move fast enough.

And I'd wedge Grandfather's talismans into the door seam—even if the two were ghosts, they'd spend some time finding me through that.

Run fast enough, and I might make it to the surface.

Head down, I rehearsed the escape route in my mind a dozen times.

The train drew to a stop.

The doors slid open, slowly.

I didn't move.

Neither did they.

Dozens of long seconds passed.

Hiss—the doors began to close.

Still I didn't move.

They were still watching me.

Who was it that said you can fool ghosts?

Their guard was as high as it got.

The gap was half a foot wide and closing.

No more time.

I bolted up and out.

The old man and Zhao Qiang both reacted fast—they thrust out their arms, and those arms seemed to stretch forever, their fingertips nearly brushing my sleeve.

But I was faster by a hair.

One foot was already past the line, the talismans already in my hand.

And in that very instant, three blurry shadows on the platform came whirling at me like a cyclone, and slammed me back into the car.

The doors hissed shut behind me, cutting off my last road back.

"Goddamn, made it—just caught the last train!" "Fuck this hole of a place. The stink's there on every single run. Some wronged ghost won't let it go, keeps letting out poison gas?" "This looks off to me. The dead below all date to before the Tang dynasty—even wronged, they'd rot a thousand years?" It was three metro tunneling workers, in work gear, caps and masks.

My pounding heart steadied a little.

A moment ago I'd been so panicked—facing against the light, they'd come so fast—that I'd taken them for ghosts.

Scared of my own shadow.

I leaned against the cold door and caught my breath.

The three workers slung arms over shoulders, walked to the other side of the car, and sat in a neat row.

Something about it was off—yes: their movements were faintly stiff.

Without thinking I dropped my eyes to their lower bodies.

A blade of cold shot up my spine.

The three sat in a row.

But below, there were only four legs.

Two trouser legs hung flat and empty.

Yes.

Clear as anything.

Three men.

Four feet.

My breath stopped cold.

My brain rang.

They weren't people. They weren't people at all!

I stood rooted. "What the hell! What were you running for? Trying to die? They came straight at you and you dashed into 'em!" Zhao Qiang lit into me, annoyed.

I forced my head around, stiffly, and looked at Zhao and the old man.

Their arms—perfectly normal.

My mind went foggy for a moment.

Had that been an illusion?

Not sure.

Not sure at all.

No—now was the time for a clear head.

I shook my head hard.

And the old man beside me let out a tiny, quiet laugh. "Heh… he's here."

"Who's here?" I stared at him, wooden.

Zhao Qiang came striding over and yanked me: "What are you standing there like an idiot for? Come here! Start thinking about what you'll say to Mr. Wang! And stop looking like you've seen a ghost!" Seen a ghost? I'd seen ghosts, alright—three of them, with four feet between them! How was that possible?!

My brain ground like it was going to jam.

I couldn't hear whatever Zhao was saying; all I could do was stare at the three workers.

Fear made my fingertips shake.

As if feeling my gaze, the middle one slowly raised his head.

The mask covered everything but his eyes—and those eyes carried a challenge.

I knew I should look away, but I was frozen.

Then the worker on the left stirred.

He bent down and, from one trouser leg, unclipped a thin metal prosthetic.

Clatter—he laid it beside him.

The one on the right did the same. "Damn, the decent jobs never come to us. Always the dirty, unclean work." "Stop whining. With bodies like ours, this job came through a hometown friend." "My body was never great anyway. Hours down there and the legs go stiff." The three kneaded their legs as they talked. They were… disabled!

"I—I'm sorry…" I stammered at the three workers without thinking.

They smiled at me—mocking.

And the man in the middle, slowly, so slowly, pulled down his mask.

What was beneath the mask was not a mouth.

It was a wound, crudely sewn shut with coarse black thread, angry as a centipede.

He raised his hand—somehow a pair of rusty little thread-clipping pliers had appeared in it—and reached toward the black thread over the seam.

The high-frequency terror, the truths stubbornly flipping, the sheer absurdity—my brain was on a screaming roller-coaster.

I felt disaster coming.

The three could read my mind.

I suspected they were ghosts, and they showed me people.

I suspected they were people, and they showed me ghosts.

Back and forth they tugged, until I drowned in fear and chaos.

I wanted to pull myself loose, but my body and mind were like a man sinking into quicksand—the harder I struggled, the deeper I went.

Until I couldn't move, couldn't think.

The string in my head was about to snap.

The man beckoned to me. "Come. You can clip it like this—the mouth, the eyes, the nose…" The man on the left pulled off his mask too.

That face was flat and white as paper, with two holes—the eyes.

I no longer knew what fear was.

I'd gone numb. "See? Isn't this better!" He held out the little pliers to me.

Blankly I rose and started toward him, reaching for the pliers.

Something slammed down hard on my head.

I whirled around—Zhao Qiang stood there with the proposal in his hand, ready to hit me again. "I've talked to you a hundred times and you don't react at all! Think I'm dead?!" He was furious. Smack!

Another blow, harder than the first.

My head felt like it had been cracked open.

The left side of my skull burned, raw and throbbing.

Blood ran into my eye.

I blinked hard—and came back to myself in a rush. Oh heaven! That was close! Too close!

A moment ago they'd almost caught my very soul.

The mediums always said: a ghost that wants your money, your food, your gold—even your life—isn't so terrible.

Because you can fight it, and you have a chance.

The worst are the fierce ghosts that want your heart.

You won't even think of resisting, and you'd become their slave—a ghost's thrall.

And what those fierce ghosts want is far more terrifying than your life.

Those three—that was exactly what they were.

If Zhao Qiang hadn't cracked me over the head, I'd have been finished for good.

Shaking, I went and sat beside Zhao Qiang.

For the first time, he didn't seem so bad.

Grandfather once told me: once a hungry ghost has its eye on you, running doesn't help.

You run on two legs; it floats.

Even a hundred-meter champion can't outrun a plane.

You can't outrun it.

The only way is to face it—to make it see you're stronger than it is.

With that, I forced courage up from the pit of my stomach, raised my head, and looked straight at the three "men."

Under the blinding lights, the three "men" had fallen asleep.

Masks off.

Nose, eyes, mouth—all present.

I looked at their legs: disabled, sure enough.

All three slept with drool at the corners of their mouths, as if nothing had ever happened.

I turned back to Zhao Qiang.

He was flipping through the proposal, as if nothing had happened either.

I looked at the old man.

His eyes had been closed; now he cracked them open, and without a word rolled them this way and that, signing me to come sit by him.

Zhao spoke up again. "Don't just sit there. Go over the proposal again. What's wrong with you tonight, it's like you lost your brains? If you go in front of Mr. Wang looking like that, what the hell are we supposed to do?" I looked at him blankly for a long moment.

Same monkey face.

Same comb-over that made him look like a traitor.

And yet—I could see the tears.

The train kept on.

Stops.

Doors.

Closures.

Departures.

Eleven o'clock, on the dot.

The train gave a violent shudder, and all the lights went out in a blink.

We were in the tunnel under the river now.

Outside the windows: darkness without bottom.

Long and silent.

How long passed, I couldn't say—no station light appeared. "Shit! What's going on? Why are we under the river so long?" Zhao Qiang pounded the window in a sweat.

The air grew thinner and thinner. "What's happening?! Is it broken?!" he bellowed, hammering uselessly at the glass; outside stood the tunnel wall, concrete, hard and set. "Not broken," said the old man, who'd been silent all along. "It's a ghost-wall. The train's been circling at the very bottom of the river."

Before he finished, the three seated workers rose at once, as one, and came at the two of us. Zhao Qiang's eyes burned red, the black smoke on his forehead thicker than ever.

He seized my wrist—his strength shocking—and dragged me toward the door. "To hell with ghost-walls. Get out!" He reached the door and tried to claw it open.

But the three "workers" had already drifted there first. "Heh, we went to all that trouble to bring you two down here—you think we'd let you go that easy?" "That girl dies today, no question. She'd have come with us unknowing and unpained, but you—you had to come ruin our business!" The four of them tangled into one.

The old man just watched.

My mind raced.

In the pitch dark, hearing grows sharp.

Across the whole car, I could count three heartbeats.

Me.

Zhao Qiang.

The old man.

Three hearts: so the three of us were human, no doubt.

I couldn't tell good from evil yet.

But if it came down to only the three of us, fighting people, I'd have a better chance.

I called to the old man: "The air's almost gone! They don't need air—but don't you? You think watching the battle from the shore will win it?" If you were human, you'd be suffocating by now.

The old man's face had gone purple.

He rose, a talisman in his hand.

"Girl, I'd meant to let those three finish him off, and step in at the last moment to save you. But you're right. They won't settle this any time soon. And I can't wait that long." He chanted under his breath.

The three "men" were clearly panicking.

The leader rushed over. "Old man, think it through. If he wins, you get nothing. If we win—I don't mind cutting you in for half."

"That's a fine plan too." The old man nodded, and in the same motion, closing in step by step, he slammed the talisman onto the "man's" forehead.

The "man" stumbled. "The Great Elder Huang's!" he cried out in alarm.

His two accomplices clearly jumped.

The Great Elder Huang the Second was the strongest at the spirit shrine after the Great Elder Hu the Third.

Show that shrine's name, and the run-of-the-mill spooks and imps would have scattered long ago.

But these three weren't about to give up so easily. "We waited a thousand years to get a Lin here. You'd have us let her go? Even the Great Elder Huang's name—we'll take it as an insult."

I looked at them, half believing, half doubting. "What do you mean, waiting a thousand years for a Lin?" "Your Lin ancestors drove soul-pinning nails through our Guo family. We've been down here under the earth a thousand years—no rebirth, no reincarnation, this black nail biting our bones day and night. All thanks to the Lin family's fine work! But heaven has eyes: it made you yin to the bone, and if we snatch your spirit, the nails come loose… And heaven had eyes again when it put an underworld right here, to bring you down to us. Tell us that isn't fate? Fate says the Guo family sheds these nails, and no one—no one—stops us!"

They got more excited with every word and closed around me.

But the old man stepped in front of me first.

His billowing trousers flapped; talisman papers drifted through the air at the three ghosts.

The ghosts howled and strained to dodge, but the papers lit up like white phosphorus clinging to the skin—hide where they would, there was no escaping.

Their screaming grew worse and worse.

Little by little their bodies turned transparent.

At last they dissolved into wisps of smoke. "You thought you could run?" Even as they scattered, they went unwilling.

The car went quiet for a moment.

Zhao Qiang turned and clawed at the door. "This god-forsaken place—we have to get out." His fingernails tore off and he didn't even seem to feel it.

The door creaked open a crack.

I was about to squeeze through when the old man caught me: "Don't! Out there is death! He's possessed—he's one of them, in league with those three! They'll trick you out, drown you as a water ghost to loose the nails! The water's about to flood the tunnel—only this car is safe!"

"Old bastard, don't you spout your lies!" Zhao Qiang's face contorted, the baleful black across his temple almost bleeding.

I remembered how the old man had saved me just now, hesitated, and drew my foot back.

Maybe he was right.

Seeing me stop, the old man's face flickered with an ominous smile.

My mind jolted.

Grandfather's dying words came echoing back.

The three taboos—and that final "up"—they were all telling me one thing: get up to the surface.

But this old man had been stopping me from leaving all along.

I couldn't tell in time which of them to trust.

But Grandfather's word could never steer me wrong.

I had to get out.

The surface was the only life.

The thought was barely finished before my foot went out.

Zhao Qiang came after.

The car door slammed shut behind us. Muddy river water came pouring down the tunnel in a fury, and in an instant it was over my ankles.

The current surged.

I couldn't stand; I couldn't swim.

I could only cling to the platform screen-frame and hold on.

The water rose too fast—it was at my neck before I knew it.

Air and room were running out; my lungs were on fire.

Here, in the metro tunnel: no light anywhere, no road out.

I didn't know how many meters under the earth I was.

Only one desperate phrase kept circling in my head: There is no escape.

So Zhao Qiang had meant to kill me after all.

In the car, the old man, his face straining red, finally clawed the door open.

The water surged in. "Come in! This is the last chance to live! I can't hold the river out for long!" he shouted.

I did the math.

With the flow of the water, if I let go now, I'd be carried right into the car.

This—this was truly the last chance.

I let go and swam with the current toward the door.

Just as I was about to reach it, something seized my back foot, holding me fast.

I looked back: Zhao Qiang.

I turned and kicked at him with the other foot—when I heard him shout: "Girl! Up—go up!" That was Grandfather's voice.

In the space of a lightning stroke, every fragment reassembled itself in my head and clicked together.

Ever since we came down to the metro, Zhao Qiang had been provoking me—deliberately—to make me leave the metro at once.

The first time I'd tried to flee the car, the old man and Zhao had both reached for me—but the old man wanted to stop me, and Zhao wanted to stop the old man. "Pheasant"—that was what we called it back home. "Hokey fool"—that was Grandfather's favorite way of teasing me.

What else was there to understand now?

But what good was understanding? I couldn't get out!

Life and death were a blink away.

The car door slammed shut again.

The old man, treading water, planted himself in front of Zhao Qiang. "Hahaha! Lin Hu—you can't hide any longer! Didn't you swear never to break the shrine's rules? Then why take over a living man's body for your family's sake? Tonight—for once—I beat you!" "Junior brother, you've wandered too far off the road. You used the girl's soul as a name-offering, trading with that pack of hungry ghosts from the Gao family. What shrine would still have you after this?" "Lies! I made no bargain with the Gao ghosts!" "Hah. That smoke-and-coffin-wood stink on you—isn't that what you got by burning offerings at the grave and colluding with those three ghosts? The girl's horoscope is a rare one, sure. But you won't take her. Not even with that pack of hungry ghosts' help. You took up the spirit path—why must you always lord it over everyone?" "Enough talk! Her being here is fate. I'm only doing what fate wills. Her—I will have her!" "Then it never occurred to you that my being here might be fate as well?"

The two of them clashed.

In an instant I remembered: Grandfather'd once told me about his great rival.

Grandfather'd risen from the shrine of the Great Elder Hu the Third, the strongest—he'd been called the greatest medium alive.

That man had been his junior disciple.

He could never best Grandfather, however hard he tried, till one day, fuming, he'd switched to the shrine of the Great Elder Huang the Second.

The Great Elder Huang was the finest at snatching hearts and spirits, and the man had thought that once he'd learned it, he'd surely outdo Grandfather.

But he never won—not once.

Grandfather had told me these old tales for laughs while he lived.

Little did I think that with Grandfather in the grave, the man still couldn't let it go.

No wonder the three ghosts had vanished a little too easily.

All of it had been stage-managed, step by step.

The three ghosts reaching for my spirit had been a feint, nothing more—to buy the old man my trust.

The moment I stepped back into the car, he'd have had me.

He'd calculated everything—everything except Grandfather showing up, and never dreaming Grandfather would cry out to save me.

The two fought on, fiercely.

The water's surface churned violently; the surge stripped me of any strength to fight back.

There was no room left to breathe. "Grandfather… wait for me. I'm—I'm coming to you." My voice was a mosquito's hum.

I closed my eyes and waited quietly for that unknown world.

Grandfather fought his junior disciple with all he had; he hadn't noticed I was failing.

I didn't call out, afraid to split his attention.

But as I watched, something began to feel wrong.

Sleeves twisting like that—they weren't wet.

The waves before my eyes raged on—yet there was no sound of water at all.

I understood in a flash.

The Great Elder Huang the Second excelled at dazzling hearts with illusions; people had been frightened to death by his tricks before—no wonder.

What the eye sees, the heart believes.

For someone like me, with no cultivation at all, the only way not to be fooled was not to see.

At once I shut my eyes.

I was betting that this raging river was all illusion.

It was the only way to explain Grandfather not noticing my danger.

And indeed—after a while, I wasn't dead.

Not only not dead: the suffocating river was gone too.

I opened my eyes, startled and glad.

The scene around me was utterly different.

No one else—only me.

Not a single drop of water on the floor. I'd won the bet!

But where had the two of them gone?

No time for that.

I had to get to the surface. Yes—get up!

That, too, had been Grandfather's dying wish.

Staying down here would only weigh him down.

I took off at a run toward the metro exit.

Behind me, an old, old voice rose as if from the deeps of the earth: "The Lin family owes us… Come… come… Give us what's owed, and it's over…" The voice was thick with seduction.

But I would not be seduced again.

My head was full of Grandfather's voice instead: "Up! Up!" Up.

Up.

And up.

I ran, ran, ran.

Suddenly the pressure all around me lifted.

I stumbled—and stood at the entrance of the metro station.

The clock said 01:01.

The streetlamps were dim yellow, the air cool.

The breath filled my lungs; ease spread through every limb.

So this—this is what the world of the living feels like. How beautiful it was!

I'd hardly settled my mind when Zhao Qiang's voice came roaring from behind me. "Lin Shen! What the hell are you staring at!" I turned.

He had a cigarette in his mouth.

His face was deathly white, his expression strange.

But the forehead—the black was gone.

He drew a long drag, then flicked the cigarette away.

After a few deep breaths, his color slowly returned to normal. "What took you so long in the bathroom? A lazy donkey turns and shits on its own grindstone. Were you really trying to miss the last train? Lin Shen, I'm telling you, if the client—" He never got to finish the threat: a metro staff member came running out in a hurry.

"Get away! There's been an accident on the metro! An unknown gas is spreading!" Zhao Qiang's face went white as ash again. "God damn! Good thing you're so troublesome—or we'd be in trouble ourselves." He was off like a rabbit.

I took one long, reluctant look at the metro, then ran after him.

Early the next morning, the news alerts came. "At 23:00 last night, high-concentration butane mixed with low-concentration hydrogen sulfide was detected in Line 13's tunnel under the river. Initial assessment suggests two possible sources: gases released by ancient corpses below ground, or rich petroleum deposits. Geological survey teams and archaeological teams have both arrived at the scene. We especially warn that these two gases can cause hallucinations, and in some cases death. We urge all citizens to—"

Hallucinations?

I stood stunned.

I looked at the sun outside the window.

Then at my own feet.

Just then Zhao Qiang came in, all smiles. "You're in luck—the client isn't holding it against us. Get the proposal polished; we'll go over it together in a bit." "Okay." I packed my things, and asked in my most casual voice: "Boss Zhao, did you go down to the platform yesterday?" "Did you lose your head? Didn't we go down together? You said you had to use the bathroom, so I waited a while, then went up for a cigarette." "It was the last train—weren't you afraid of missing it? Why did you leave the station?" Zhao scratched his head. "How was I supposed to know my nicotine fit would hit then? It was unbearable, so I went up to smoke."

I let out a long breath.

Everything under the earth—all of it had been hallucinations from breathing the butane.

And that stench—must have been the hydrogen sulfide.

Yes.

It all held together.

That's how it was.

Of course it was.

The moment Zhao Qiang stepped out, the girl at the desk next to me leaned over, curious: "Sis Lin, why is Boss Zhao so friendly today? A client-bootlicker like him should be hopping and cursing, shouldn't he?" I smiled, a little wryly. "Maybe he's thanking me for saving his life." The girl mumbled: "That's… still weird."

Time passed; Mid-Autumn came around.

The project finally wrapped.

Zhao Qiang, miracle of miracles, gave me an extra day off.

To reward myself, I decided to get my hair done.

New hair, new mood.

The Tony who knew me well worked my hair and chatted. "Heard the news? Last month Line 13 was haunted. Some old man died. They're keeping it hush-hush." I stiffened. "Haunted?" "You don't believe it either? Plenty of people saw it with their own eyes. Old man in a white top and black pants, black shoes with white soles. How could that be fake? Though some say that with getup like that, he was already a ghost—one of the dead from the graves under Line 13." I went cold.

Then Tony's hands paused, and he gave a puzzled "eh?" "Miss Lin, this scar on the left side of the top of your head—when did you get such a long one?"

（The End）