I inherited a paper funerary-goods shop on the verge of closing. On the surface, it sold paper effigies and joss paper. In truth, it was a waystation for souls between the worlds of yin and yang, sheltering lonely ghosts stranded in the human world and helping them fulfill their wishes before sending them on to the afterlife.
The first customer was a high school senior who had drowned. She wanted a paper set of mock college entrance exams. The second was a bride in a bloodstained wedding dress, come to collect a package that had never been delivered three years earlier. The third was a man in white with no memories. He had only a faded photograph, with “Qingliu Village” written on the back. It was the name of the place that had haunted my nightmares ever since I could remember.
Every soul I sent on its way left another mark of passage on my palm. My master said that when the ninety-ninth mark burned away, my life would go out with it.
Even stranger, every day a barefoot man sat on the stone steps outside the shop. He never came in. He only left a wild chrysanthemum by the threshold. When I asked who he was, he said nothing.
Then, on a stormy night, as I pursued the truth about Qingliu Village and was surrounded by evil spirits, he suddenly appeared before me and kicked a fierce ghost flying. The red cord around his ankle stood out in the lightning.
He said, “This time, I’ll protect you.”
He said, “I’ve been waiting for you on this street for thirty years.”
So pretty