A Haunting? I Play Dirtier Than It Does

The old-book shop on Qingyan Alley is called Silent Words Studio. The characters for “Words” and “Studio” have fallen off the sign, leaving only “Silent.” Its owner, Gu Yan, carries a pocket watch left behind by his mother and keeps cola in his insulated cup, without goji berries.

He cannot communicate with spirits or exorcise demons. He believes only one thing: ghost stories run on rules, and rules have loopholes. If there’s a loophole, you can turn it against them, preferably with a touch of refinement.

So, on the last ghost bus of the night, he chats politely and files a complaint that gets the bus taken out of service. In Mistveil Town, the rules forbid asking “Who are you?” He brings his own sign-in sheet and goes door to door asking everyone to fill it out. When an S-rank “Bottle of Fear” demands fear as fuel, he has Wang Fatty hand out two thousand free skewers on the street. Everyone eats heartily and laughs, and the bottle shuts itself down.

The world gradually unfolds: secret records from the 1950s, the first Ghost Story War in 1995, and a purge order in 1999 that claimed even children. His mother’s codename was “Prophet.” She disappeared in 2004.

More and more guests come to Silent Words Studio: Su Wanqing from the Bureau, who first came to arrest him but later sat down and took a sip of the cola at the counter; Wang Fatty, the barbecue shop owner, who sees everything but never asks; the young hacker Ye Xiaoyu, who pushes up her glasses with a single remark; Qin Lan, the soldier who returned from overseas, saying, “I knew you’d refuse”; retired detective Chen, who pairs white tea with a coin; and Fang Zhiyuan, a young man who defected from the Old Days Society, codename “Kite.”

Seven volumes and 490 chapters later, all that remains is the thirteenth floor of the mirrored tower, and a room that appears in none of the official records.