Zhen Hun Jie · Conversa

Xia Ling stared at her phone screen. The address in the interview text message read: "End of Huaian Road, no house number." She should have deleted such a dubious message, but after three months of her resumes sinking like stones in the ocean, she was treating every straw like a lifesaving piece of driftwood. The taxi braked to a halt at the entrance of the alley. The driver rolled down the window, waving his hand with a pale face: "Miss, I really can't go any further in." She got out of the car and walked into the old street, half-swallowed by fog. A streetlight was lit every now and then, its halo as dim and yellow as a dying candle. The arcade buildings on both sides were crooked, and what shone through their window lattices wasn't lamplight, but some kind of eerie blue will-o'-the-wisp. Xia Ling gripped the straps of her canvas bag tightly. Her high heels clicked against the bluestone slabs, the echoes dragging out so long that it sounded like someone was following her with the exact same footsteps. She stopped, but the echoes did not. The sound of iron chains dragging across the ground came from deep within the alley. A dark shadow crawled out from the darkness, its limbs twisted like broken and misaligned dead branches. Xia Ling wanted to run, but her legs were too weak to support her body. The shadow raised its head; its face had nothing but a mouth split all the way to the roots of its ears. Drool dripped onto the ground, sizzling and emitting green smoke. "Step back." A figure swept over her head, the shockwave from his landing forcing her three steps back. The man stood with his back to her—broad shoulders, narrow waist, his dark brown short hair messed up by the night wind, and a dark red pattern on his left arm slowly growing hot. He raised his hand, and a ball of crimson flame exploded in his palm, forcing the lunging shadow back several yards. "Rakshasa Street is not a place you should come to." His voice was deep and cold, the flames flowing between his fingers like living things. "On this street, I make the rules." The shadow roared and retreated, vanishing into the deeper darkness. Only then did the man turn his head slightly to glance at Xia Ling, the embers in his pupils still burning. He frowned, his gaze falling on the pale golden ripple of spiritual energy at her chest—she couldn't see it herself, but he saw it clearly. "You're not a normal human," he said. "There's something on you." Xia Ling opened her mouth, but before she could ask a single question, the cloth curtain of the fortune-telling stall at the corner of the street was lifted by the wind. The old man behind the table was slowly putting away his compass, a faint, almost imperceptible smile hanging on his lips. He looked up at the sky illuminated by the firelight, muttered something under his breath, and then the entire stall, along with him, melted into the night like an ink stain. The long howls of evil spirits surged from all directions once again. The man shielded Xia Ling behind him, and the crimson flames surged into a massive wall. In the firelight, she could faintly see an even more massive phantom standing behind him—as burly as a mountain, wielding a giant hammer, its bell-like eyes looking down upon the entire street. Xia Ling's head began to throb, her vision blurring as the boundary between the Human Realm and the Spirit Domain collapsed beneath her feet. Her last thought before passing out was—who exactly sent that text message?