I Found a Spirit Medium's Shrine in the Bathhouse

After graduating from college, Ji Chuan goes to the bathhouse for a celebratory scrub.

Just as he’s soaking in comfort, his stomach suddenly feels cold.

A little emerald-green snake is coiled on his belly, head raised as it speaks like a person:

“Young man, you have extraordinary bone structure. You’re born to become a spirit medium.”

Ji Chuan screams and bolts naked out of the bathhouse, becoming the laughingstock of the entire street.

He thinks that’s the end of it?

No, it’s only the beginning.

His takeout gets eaten, someone cracks sunflower seeds beside his ear in the middle of the night, and a weasel nobody else can see squats in his classroom.

The hospital finds nothing wrong. The monk shuts the door on him, and the Taoist temple turns him away.

The immortals have spoken: he was a virtuous man in ten lifetimes, this destiny is written in the stars, and he’s going to establish an altar whether he wants to or not.

Ji Chuan breaks down. “I just want to be a good-for-nothing. Why are you forcing me to work?!”

Years later, someone asks how the greatest shaman in the Northeast got his start.

Ji Chuan smokes and gazes up at the sky.

“It all started with a snake.”