Chen Xiaoman, a Meituan crowdsourced delivery rider, was twenty-five, had dropped out of college, and spent every day chased by late-delivery fines and his younger sister's tuition bills.
After a bottle of "expired mineral water" on a stormy night, he discovered that strange numbers appeared whenever he looked at his phone screen. The more diligently he made deliveries, the faster the numbers climbed. Once he had enough, he could trade them for things: keen eyesight, agility, or the fighting skills stored in a stranger's memory.
The city concealed "fortune nodes": wet markets, old apartment blocks, repair shops, and alleys behind funeral homes. Some people were digging them up; others were guarding them. Old Zhou was one of the guardians. He had repaired bicycles for thirty years, waiting for the "right person."
Zhao Mingyuan was one of the diggers. He was very polite, never lost his temper, and his smile was colder than his unsmiling face.
Chen Xiaoman wanted nothing to do with any of it. He just wanted to earn enough for his sister's tuition and stay far away from these lunatics.
But his fortune points were running low. His next delivery had to go to a funeral home.
