Rule Horror: The Seventh Customer

[Rule-Based Horror] [Urban Weirdness] [Night-Shift Shopkeeper] [Imaginative Puzzles] [Satisfying Comeback] [Case-by-Case Stories] [Long-Running Mystery] [Human Schemes] [No System, Hard-Core Rule-Breaking]

Deep in debt and with nowhere else to turn, Chen Shi takes a job at a late-night convenience store no one else dares to run. He hopes the high salary will help him pay off his debts, but instead stumbles upon the terrifying taboos of the city after dark.

Every day from 2:47 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., the store's eerie night-counter opens for a mere 73 minutes. During that time, the worlds of the living and the dead connect, and all things fall silent. The ordinary shelves become precious currency in the underworld, and the customers who come in during the night are never alive.

Seven years ago, his father vanished under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind only six ironclad rules for keeping the books. They are Chen Shi's sole means of staying alive: Always greet customers respectfully. Always accept payment. Never leave the first coin when giving change. Settle the books by daybreak. Those who follow the rules hold sway over the ledger of life and death; those who break them are reduced to bones.

Every eerie banknote conceals a secret of the dead, and every transaction is a battle for life or death. Chen Shi unlocks the bookkeeper's privileges, learns to identify the strange by touch, borrow life on credit, and set rules of his own, making a steady comeback in the perilous night-counter.

Most bizarre of all is the seventh customer, who arrives punctually every night at 3:33. Silent and wordless, he buys only small odds and ends, paying each time with a new ten-yuan note bearing the same serial number. He never misses a night.

At last, Chen Shi uncovers the truth: His father did not vanish seven years ago. He left behind a colossal debt to the worlds of the living and the dead. And this mysterious customer has been coming every night to repay it on his father's behalf!

The City Appearance Office is waiting for a chance to revoke Chen Shi's bookkeeper status, while suppliers from the underworld plot in secret. A son must repay his father's debts, and Chen Shi has nowhere left to run.

As the last banknote is entered into the ledger, a cold voice suddenly echoes through the empty convenience store: "The debt is paid. Now, it's my turn to make a request."