My name is Chen Yang. After graduating from college, I went through nineteen jobs. The shortest lasted just three hours.
It was all because I blurted out to my supervisor, "Your forehead is dark. You'll suffer a bloody disaster within three days!"
They thought I was crazy, so I had no choice but to deliver takeout.
I'm not accepting my fate. I'm running for my life.
I was abandoned as a baby at a run-down Taoist temple. My master taught me to read qi, draw talismans, and catch ghosts, but on his deathbed, he warned me sternly:
"Touch the occult arts, and you'll suffer the Five Bane and Three Deficiencies: widowhood, loneliness, disability, illness, poverty, and an early death. You won't escape a single one!"
My master didn't believe it. In the end, he lost an eye, had no children, and lived his whole life in poverty.
I only want to be an ordinary person, but there's no escaping fate.
My first delivery took me straight to a funeral home.
In the dead of night, outside the cremated remains storage room, a transparent old woman gazed at the wontons in my hand and said softly:
"It's my birthday today. I want my son to taste something hot."
From that day on, my delivery bag carried more than food.
A devoted ghost keeping vigil over her husband, a young woman driven to suicide by predatory campus loans, a wronged spirit seeking a substitute on the highway...
Other delivery drivers earn money. I deliver food to help ghosts move on, build merit, and bear curses.
But every time I use my abilities, the curse grows stronger.
My eyesight blurs, my family faces danger, and the Five Bane and Three Deficiencies are coming true in my life.
I have a wife and child. I'll die before I accept my fate!
Then the seal on Mount Kunlun breaks, ancient ferocious beasts emerge, a thousand sorcerers die in battle, and half the city becomes a living hell.
It fixes its gaze on me and gives me one last choice:
"Hand over your merit and I'll leave. Refuse, and I'll devour your wife, your child, and the entire city!"
I take out the protective talisman my son drew and smile.
