My Years Drawing Talismans at the Police Station

Li Fugui, a petty police officer with no great ambitions, selfish and slick, dug an ancestral dark-green jade pendant out of a dilapidated house in his hometown that was about to be demolished. He thought it might fetch a little extra on top of his demolition compensation. He never expected that a drop of blood would pull him into a bizarre stone chamber, three square meters in size and eternally lonely. A skeleton that had crushed its own breastbone. A forbidden manual written in blood on pages made of skin. An “ancestor” expelled by Maoshan who had died sitting in meditation, caught between madness and regret. And a “legacy” that forcibly fused the occult sect's talisman arts with demonic soul-devouring techniques... Baleful energy entered his body like ice knives scraping his bones, and drawing talismans consumed his mind and lifespan. When Li Fugui collapsed on the cold concrete floor of his rental apartment, vomiting until the world spun, all he wanted to do was curse. But when he held that first crooked yet truly soul-shaking “Soul-Suppressing Talisman,” and watched through the one-way glass of the interrogation room as the brazen criminal who had once left him helpless broke down in invisible terror, weeping and spilling every last secret The rush of controlling another person's life and death, a nauseating, dizzying thrill, made his whole body tremble. To hell with precepts and rules. To hell with procedural justice. This power may be dirty, but damn, it's useful. From then on, the police force had a new “lucky charm.” He always found unexpected “clues” in cold cases and mysteries, and stubborn criminals inexplicably suffered mental breakdowns in his presence. The achievements on his record grew ever more impressive, and the insignia on his shoulders quietly changed. Flowers, applause, reverent gazes, and the skirts of women of every kind of charm, drawn to him either willingly or against their better judgment.