"The Pact of Embers"
In the fifteenth year of the burning of civilization, the earth has cracked into a cobweb, and crawling out of the ashes are not only deformed beasts, but also strange things that eat obsessions - withered vines turned into ghosts of starvation will entangle the shadows of living people, the mist condensed by those who died in love can induce regret in the heart, and the unfinished contracts of the old era are quietly forging new bonds in the ruins.
The half-sheet of deed in Shen Yan's arms is the old covenant between his ancestors and the "Shanze Monster". After the end of the world, this yellowed piece of paper became his life-saving talisman: water ghosts would separate and open water paths for those who held the contract, mandrills would bow their heads and retreat when they saw the contract lines, and even the shadow monsters that gnawed on memories were afraid of the contract book in his hand.
But the price of the "deed" is hidden in the skin, flesh, and blood. After borrowing the power of the water ghost to cross the river for the first time, his ankles developed fine green scales, which glowed coldly when they touched the water. The second time he asked the mandrill to fight off the enemy, there was a light red line behind his left ear, and he felt slightly hot at night, as if there was something on his skin. Until one time when he was besieged by a shadow monster, he bit his fingertips and pressed the deed. When he woke up, he found that his pupils turned into vertical pupils in the dark, and the world he saw was covered with a layer of reddish fog - that was the color in the eyes of the monster.
"The formation of a contract between humans and spirits is like dropping ink into clear water," the old Taoist guarding the dilapidated City God's Temple once poked his scales with a withered finger. "When you drop the first drop, you say, 'It's okay, you can still see clearly.' But by the tenth drop, the water has already turned into ink. Do you still think you are water?"
Shen Yan began to be afraid of mirrors.
