The heavy thud of Qingwei Temple's rotten door slamming shut scraped away the final shred of self-deluded warmth. Clutching the clamoring box that vomited gaudy light pollution, I stood like a dazed survivor gripping an unspent technicolor bomb. Ice-laced wind knifed through the gap, knifing through thin cotton to skin. Snowflakes, thick as goose down, pasted themselves to my face, wormed into my collar, leaching all heat. The fury that had sustained me guttered, leaving only cold ash.
"Beep-beep… Young Ye walks down, down, down… Saves his hide all around! Trouble? No fear! Beep-beep…" The idiot jingle looped relentlessly from the vibrating square in my palm, its cheap rainbow strobe slashing through the gloom like a bankrupt nightclub marooned on a desolate mountain. The syncopated light show pulsed mockingly against the engulfing gray-white world.
"Shut… up!" I hissed through clenched teeth, juggling the frigid plastic wedge between frozen hands, desperate for an off switch that didn't exist. Its surface was cold and unnervingly seamless, polished smooth as river stone.
The blizzard intensified, burying the narrow, winding path beneath an undulating shroud. The universe compressed into heavy monochrome, punctuated solely by the box's garish, tasteless light and that infernally cheerful, insidious "beep-beep" echoing with cruel clarity across the empty slopes.
"Beep-beep… Master's Magic Speaker… Chants all alone… Beep-beep…" Each electronic chirp plucked a raw nerve.
"Master! Miser! Old bastard!" I finally bellowed into the storm swallowing the temple's last shadow. "Fob me off with fake relics? Fine! But cramming me with light vomit for a disco descent? Save my ass? Save your fucking soul—!"
The wind ripped the profanity from my lips, carrying it away unheard. Only the box answered, its beeps somehow louder, gleeful.
The bone-deep cold was winning. My stomach gave a cavernous, thunderous growl. Hunger gnawed – deep, primal. Last night's berating over bills had ended without supper; fear and adrenaline had masked the void until now. The world swam. Even the box's rainbow rays doubled in my vision.
Food. Need food.
Stopping knee-deep in snowdrift, I fought with stiff, clumsy fingers to peel away the sodden, yellowed newspaper swaddling the box. Ink had bled into abstract smears, glueing itself slickly to the plastic. I tore savagely.
As the last layer tore free, a smell hit me: stale temple incense, ancient dust, and… the faint, distinct acridity of burnt hellnotes. I flipped the cheap lid open with near-frozen digits.
No marvel of technology. No artifact of salvation. Only two objects nestled on flimsy felt padding.
A packet of hellnotes.
Three sticks of incense.
The notes were the crudest grade – cheap yellow paper, frayed edges, blotchy crimson symbols proclaiming "Yin Si Tong Yong" (Hell Treasury Universal) and "Yi Yuan" (One Billion Yuan), haphazardly bundled with a faded red thread.
The incense was barely more than brittle grass stems dipped in a thin brown coat, thinner and shabbier than the moldy candle stub on Qingwei's altar. They held no scent, only the dampness of cheap bamboo and dried grass.
The storm itself seemed to hesitate.
"Heh…" A sound escaped me, ghastlier than a sob. My final fragment of sanity crystallized and shattered into glittering, useless dust. Strength fled. Colossal exhaustion crashed over the dizzying hunger. My legs buckled, dumping me unceremoniously onto the ice-hard stone beneath the snow. Kneecaps flared with bright pain, utterly insignificant against the void within.
Trembling, I pulled out the bundled hellnotes, crushing the rough paper in my numb fist. My "parting gift"? My "severance"? This was the old bastard's "surprise"!?
"Fine… Fine…" I rasped, lifting my head. Blurred vision saw only the gray-white swirl and the garish yellow wad in my hand. "Qingxu… You bastard… You're a true master…" My throat sealed shut, jammed solid with jagged ice. Words failed.
A mountain gust wailed across the snow slope, stirring dancing veils of white powder, like ten thousand tiny, fluttering worms. The cursed box still beeped its idiotic tune. The exposed hellnotes fluttered pathetically in the frigid air. Profound absurdity and desolation drowned me utterly.
Exhausted. Starving. Frozen.
And officially fucking insane! Penniless!
No return to the temple. No shelter before nightfall in this desolate bowl.
What now?
The thought slithered like frost down my spine, carrying tendrils of fear, pure and disorienting. A night out here, and the headline wrote itself: Insane Youth Frozen on Mountainside, Funeral Money Found Among Effects?
No! Not here! Not like that!
I scrubbed my face hard with a wet sleeve, smearing snot, tears, and snow. Forcing myself up, limbs felt like poured lead. Knees locked with cold; I stumbled, nearly falling again. As I flailed for balance, the wad of hellnotes clutched in my fist—
Exploded.
Not wind-scattered. An eruption fueled by some invisible, arctic force!
Whoosh!
Dozens of grimy yellow bills, imprinted with clumsy "Hell Treasury" seals, burst free like panicked locusts! Released from the flimsy red thread, they surged upwards, caught by a sudden, vortexing, deeply unnatural gust!
They tumbled once in the fierce wind—then stopped dead, suspended mid-air as if crushed by a giant, invisible fist hovering above.
The next instant—
Phut-phut-phut-phut!
Spontaneous combustion!
No flame. No source. Nowhere near any heat!
Right above my head, every single hellnote ignited simultaneously! Ghostly blue-green flames—like corpse-eating phosphorescence—engulfed the cheap paper in an instant!
Fast! Silent! Shockingly, unnervingly wrong!
Snowflakes drifted straight through the conflagration and swirling sickly flames, extinguishing with sharp hisses at the edges, vanishing into white vapor! The air flooded with a nauseating stench—gravedirt coldness mixed with acrid burnt paper. Not heat. The bone-deep chill of an unfathomed abyss.
Within two gasps, the notes were utterly consumed. Not even ash remained.
Only a dense cloud of icy, lead-gray smoke coalesced and sank, hanging heavy like fog mere inches above my scalp. It radiated an absolute, profound… stillness? The stillness of death?
Then, under my stunned gaze, the smoke collapsed inwards, elongating!
Forming a hazy, ash-gray arrow!
Its hazy point aimed directly at my forehead, radiating core-chilling cold.
Its shaft stretched straight ahead—towards the wind-blasted descent, and a sharp, snow-obscured bend hidden just beyond!
"Beep-beep!!! Warning! Warning!"
Precisely as the arrow formed, the "Master's Magic Speaker" erupted! It convulsed violently in my grip! The childish beeps cut off, replaced by a metallic shriek—a woman's synthesized voice sharp as fingernails on steel!
"High-Yin Energy Field Detected! Navigation Engaged! Destination: Hades' Route Depot! User Ye Thirteen: IMMEDIATELY follow the vector! IMMEDIATE! ESTIMATED SURVIVAL PROBABILITY <7.8%! REPEAT: IMMEDIATE ACTION!"
The shriek pierced my skull like a spike of dry ice. Every nerve twanged like a plucked wire.
Simultaneously—
Unutterable dread, pure frigid terror, surged from soles to scalp! Hair stood on end! Spine like an icicle!
From beyond that snow-smothered bend targeted by the arrow… something stirred. A pure, viscous malignancy—a tide of foul blood-stench and crushing death-sentience—washed towards me!
RUN!
Instinct overrode shock, fear, even sarcasm. My body moved before my brain rebooted. I ignored the speaker's continuing shrieks. Like a beast spurred by a cattle prod, I threw everything I had into sprinting after the spectral arrow, floundering through the deep drifts!
Snow filled my boots and pants, blades of ice slicing. Lungs burned as each gasping breath drew razors. I dared not stop! Frigid, grasping hands seemed to claw at my back. The malevolent focus—that sense of being hunted—prickled skin.
The bend loomed. Thick snow buried the path; the slope was treacherous. Every upward step was a struggle.
Scrambling, clawing my way to the crest, panting, I had barely registered the scene beyond when—
A shriek of tortured brakes tore through the storm's howl!
Screeeeeeeech-CRUNCH!!
Tires sliding, heavy impact, shattering sounds!
I skidded to a halt, chest heaving, breath fogging thick before me.
Below the bend, where the wind abated slightly near the road, a scene unfolded: bizarrely mundane, chillingly absurd.
A rust-patched antique bus, design straight out of two decades past, rested crookedly. Its faded green paint peeled like diseased skin. The windshield was a shattered spiderweb, the hood crumpled upwards, trailing wisps of white vapor. A failed emergency stop had left it lodged against a jagged stone serving as an impromptu bus stop marker.
Strange: its door gaped open. It faced a dilapidated lean-to on the slope side—barely more than frozen straw mats over a skeletal frame—offering scant shelter.
Stranger still: the waiting passenger.
If it could be called one.
A hunched figure in a heavy indigo-flowered cotton coat shuffled with excruciating, unnatural slowness towards the open bus door. Movements stiff, fragmented, like a poorly animated puppet carved from glacial ice. Below her waist, her body faded to translucency! Through the ghostly thighs, I saw snow falling undisturbed behind her! Her semi-transparent half cast no shadow; only the upper body left a faint, fragmented trace on the snow.
A specter?! A ghostly granny catching the bus?!
But what froze my spine solid was the figure inside the doorway.
He wore a crisp, unnervingly new… deep blue-black old-style bus driver's uniform. Peaked cap. Golden epaulets. Textbook driver. One hand gripped the door frame's upright bar; the other extended slightly forward, hinting at a courteous hand-up. He stood rigidly upright, like a tailored uniform on a department store mannequin.
It was his face.
Waxen. Perfectly symmetrical. Eyes wide open, fixed, holding a professional, plastered-on smile. The curve of his lips was unnervingly precise. But no life animated it. Hard. Glazed. In the gray light and the bus's pallid internal glow, the skin held the sallow luster of uncured pork fat!
As I stared, the shuffling phantom paused. Her ancient, creased head turned. Slowly. Impossibly slowly. Her gaze traversed the empty expanse of the ramshackle shelter, fixing unerringly on my face!
Her eyelids drooped low, but within their deep sockets, clouded yellowish eyes tracked me with unnerving clarity. No ghostly fury radiated from them. Only… a deep, ancient stasis. Pure, unfiltered apathy. The stare one gives an insect about to be crushed beneath a boot.
This gaze chilled deeper than any raging demon's.
Blood seemed to freeze solid. My spine liquefied with terror. I felt plunged into an arctic void. Every instinct screamed alarm!
Simultaneously—
"Beep-beep! Target Acquired! Non-Standard Spiritual Entity: 'Banshee Widow'! Yin-Karma Level: -189! Threat Level: HIGH!"
"Detected High-Risk Target: 'Yin Crossing Ferryman Unit 137'! Spirit-Energy Reading: Off Scale! Threat Level: FATAL!"
"Survival Protocol Initiated: 1. IMMEDIATE HIGH-SPEED EVASIVE ACTION! 2. Attempt countermeasure utilizing standard Warding Artifact! 3. WARNING! Detected Host Item: 'Restful Spirit Incense' x 3! IGNITION PARAMOUNT! IGNITE! GENERATE OBFUSCATING PSI-FIELD! EXPEDITE!!! EXPEDITE!!!"
The speaker screamed its digital commands, the triple "IGNITE" reverberating as if the plastic casing would fracture.
The incense! The three pathetic sticks were still jammed in my coat!
Body outpacing thought, survival instinct paramount, under the dual pressure of the waxy face and those dead eyes, I fumbled the fragile incense into the air. My frantic eyes scanned for fire—in a blizzard?!
Shiiiiink—!
A sound like tearing canvas!
The translucent granny wavered—a glitchy TV image! In the next heartbeat, her hunched form dissolved! Gone like dust motes on the wind!
Reappearing—!
A mere pace away in the snow!
Silent! Utterly!
No hint of displaced air!
Dual orbs of muddy yellow and white, soulless, fixed, glared up at me from knee-height! The reek of grave-cold decay washed over me.
"Gggggkh…" A low, guttural sound gurgled from her sunken mouth—thick, viscous, utterly inhuman. A claw-hand, skin like desiccated leather blotched with dark purplish stains, lanced forward with viper speed! Puncture-cold emanated from its needle-sharp fingertips aimed at my chest!
This is it!
The thought barely formed.
Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!
All three incense sticks clenched in my frozen fist simultaneously ignited!
Three thin threads of smoke, nearly invisible, wispy as breath on the coldest air, spiralled up. No scent of herbs; more like a faint, stony warmth—sun-heated jade—radiated from them.
"Wu-hhhh—!!!"
As the smoke rose!
The death-strike faltered! Those stagnant eyes flared with visceral, soul-deep terror! The entire spectral form recoiled violently! An unseen, immense force hurled her backwards! She crashed hard, flailing insubstantially, directly onto the dented flank of the steaming bus!
Simultaneously—
"Hnn!"
A low, heavy snort, thick with suppressed fury, slammed out from the open bus door like a forge hammer!
The driver moved!
His head turned. A tiny fraction. Maybe fifteen degrees. The movement was stiff, unnervingly mechanical. The glassy, smiling eyes slid sluggishly within their sockets, fixing sideways on the three smoking incense sticks!
The wax-like face maintained its perfect, rigid smile.
But within those glassy orbs—deep within—twin points of crimson light ignited! Minuscule, fierce as superheated pinheads!
Like a primordial beast jolted awake, its core savagery kindled!
His peripheral gaze—just brushing past me—felt like an icy iron claw seizing my heart! Blood froze. Marrow chilled. The speaker in my hand fell abruptly, completely silent, like a strangled chicken.
*Thump!*
The banshee granny landed heavily on the ground. Without a glance my way, she scrabbled with unnatural panic, crawling on spectral limbs, hauling herself frantically through the open bus door, vanishing into the gloom inside.
The driver at the door slowly retracted his peripheral gaze. The crimson pinpoints winked out, reverting to fixed glass marbles. His posture reset: left hand on the bar, right hand outstretched in the ghostly semblance of assistance. His head swiveled back with audible tiny creaks until it stared rigidly ahead at the steering wheel.
Whoosh… The bus door hissed shut with a final, locking clunk.
In the fraction before it sealed—
That rigid, doll-like face.
That perfect, unnatural smile.
It… stretched. Wider. Harder.
Into a grin—utterly inhuman—that radiated chilling greed and bottomless cruelty!
*Clang!*
Door locked. Sealed.
Cloying diesel fumes mixed with a metallic, almost coppery tang spewed from its tailpipe. The decrepit green bus shuddered violently, belching thick black smoke. Then, with a grating roar, it reversed off the stone as though the obstacle didn't exist. Swaying precariously, it merged back into the snow-choked road like a phantom vessel sailing fog, vanishing into the gray-white oblivion. Only faint scrapes on the stone and the lingering, unsettling scent remained.
And I remained.
Frozen statue. Knee-deep in snow. Still clutching the three thin sticks, reduced now to stubs, releasing wisps of faint smoke.
The smoke was ethereal, yet it wove a fragile bubble of slightly warmer air around me, pushing back the knife-edge cold and the lingering terror.
*Flump.*
I collapsed backwards onto the snow-slick stone. My heart battered my ribs. Sweat, cold and clammy, plastered my hair to my forehead. My cotton jacket clung ice-cold and sweat-drenched to my back. The wind sliced through it.
"Beep… beep… Temporary Safe Zone Established…" The wretched box managed a few weak chirps, reverting to the brain-dead lilt: "…Master's Magic Speaker… Auto-Enchantment Online… User Ye Thirteen… Livelihood Temporarily Extended… beep-beep…"
I looked down. At the cold plastic box. At the three smouldering sticks.
A packet of hellnotes that immolated itself into a ghostly arrow.
Three sticks of incense that bartered their substance for a moment's breath.
And the screaming plastic panic-button.
My worldly wealth.
Icy wetness seeped through the seat of my pants, shocking me back. This was the "Hades' Route Depot"? Barely survived the arrival desk? Qingxu, you fossilized con-artist… just wait…
Wait nothing! My stomach roared a protest. If I didn't find warmth and food, I would die here. Wilderness stretched forever in all directions…
My gaze drifted absently. Near where the ghost-bus vanished, something caught the failing light—a faint disturbance in the snow cover? A patch moving?
Groaning, I hauled myself up and stumbled forward.
There, amidst the tire-torn, footprint-scoured snow at the roadside…
A tiny, paper… tricycle?
Palm-sized. Crudely folded from stiff cardboard. Rough wheels. The 'bed' a painted matchbox. Slightly lopsided. Beside it, etched shallowly into the shallow snow by a finger dipped in something thick, viscous, and dark red—congealed at the edges—were jagged, hurried words:
"A job, boss! Move it! Late = ashes!"
That dark red substance… I leaned closer. Inhaled.
A wave of raw, heavy iron scent and… the faint, sickly-sweet taint of decay slammed into my nostrils.
"Urrgh…" My stomach lurched violently. Bile scorched my throat.
A paper tricycle?
Blood-written assignment?
Collecting payment… for hell?
Dazed, I scanned the empty slopes. Wind howled over rock, sounding like faint, malicious laughter. Who was the boss? Where was the job?
As I stared at the paper contraption and the bloody script, hunger and exhaustion warping my senses…
*Shhhhk!*
A fine, laser-thin thread of pure heat lanced out from a hairline crack in the metal base of the cursed speaker clutched in my hand!
It struck the bed of the paper tricycle.
Vvvvrrrrrrr…
The tiny model jerked. Its nose lifted fractionally. A frantic, high-frequency vibration buzzed within it, a sound like an electric razor pushed to its limits. The crude cardboard wheels spun futilely in the snow, kicking up a small spray.
Then, it rotated sharply.
Pointing its makeshift nose dead ahead—
Into the deepening storm!
Straight at the dim, lowering, leaden disk of the dying winter sun!