I delivered food for four years, crashed seven times, and still have bone fragments lodged in my right knee.
When Zhao Jinbiao slapped the fine notice against my face, I stared at the zero on my pay stub and refused to sign a thing.
He said if I couldn't even deliver food properly, I might as well go beg for a living.
I turned and walked into the downpour. Suddenly, a new delivery zone appeared on my phone, gray-green, like an interface dug out of a grave mound.
The first order: Third Street, Seventh Alley, the back entrance of the City God Temple. The note had just four words: Deliver it, that's all.
The delivery fee was enough to cover three months' rent.
I accepted.
Then I stopped by an incense and candle shop. When Song Sanniang saw my phone screen, her face turned deathly pale.
She tossed me a stack of yellow paper and said to burn one sheet before delivering the order. Don't look back. Don't speak.
I did as she said.
The money that appeared in my account was enough to buy out the day's takings from the entire street.
But no one told me the price of this delivery was my life span.
Being eight minutes late meant an even harsher deduction.
Zhao Jinbiao was still calling me useless back at the station.
He had no idea I was delivering this order to the City God.
He had even less idea that the seven old scars on my right knee were all burning when the gray-green interface lit up.
No living person dared accept deliveries in Third Street, Seventh Alley. I could.
That one-eyed fellow from Chen's Paper Offerings shop stared at me with a grin and said the ink mark had chosen its master. I couldn't get away.
Song Sanniang cursed me for courting death, yet left the door open for me at night.
