The spiritual rice sticks between the fingers, with a sweet smell of putrefaction. Lin Mo stared at the few grains of rice in his palm that should have been as white as jade, but now they seemed to be soaked in ink, with the edges curled and blackened. He rubbed it vigorously, and the black stain was stubbornly embedded in the rice grains, but the water used to wash the rice had an unsettling oily sheen.
