Tales from the Cyber Underworld

The Alliance of Victims of Scientific Fortune-Telling

When a half-immortal is laid off and needs a new job, he tells fortunes with a horoscope app and uses Baidu Baike for feng shui. With a thermos of goji berry tea in one hand and a knockoff compass in the other, Zhou Xiaoyi sets up shop at the antiques market, offering “a load of nonsense, buy one get one free.” He never in a million years expects that...

A burly client's fist will prove more accurate than his compass, a beauty in a qipao will give him a silver coin that knocks out half a tooth, and the haunted house he barges into while evading the urban management officers will turn out to require a dance party on the spot. Worst of all, after his phone dies, he blindly recites an ancestral incantation and summons a whole crowd of Republican-era ghosts to demand an update...

Modern-day bluffology vs. traditional mysticism: the ultimate showdown. A friendly warning: this story is far too scientific. Materialists are advised to read it in the company of superstition.