The Opposite Direction

[Coming soon: The Ghost Toll Station. Blurb at the very bottom.]

[An earlier short story expanded into a full-length novel. The short version will be included in the extras after the main story is complete.]

[Not a strong female lead.]

Yang Qingshan was only fifteen the day she fled her village.

The village was isolated and backward. Men preyed on women, and women preyed on children.

With a few threadbare clothes tucked under her arm, she traveled through the night, holding on to a single vow: she would make something of herself.

She crossed mountain after mountain, walking until the soles of her feet bled, and finally reached Guangzhou.

The 1990s were a time of optimism and vitality, with spring in the air everywhere.

She stood at the crossroads of history and fate, at a loss.

Fate never favors an undernourished little bean sprout.

Especially one who had only finished middle school.

No education, no experience, and no connections.

She couldn't even find a job to support herself.

Crouched beneath a bridge, Yang Qingshan clenched her teeth.

Even if she died, she would die in Guangzhou.

After three days sleeping under the bridge, hungry and freezing, she was unexpectedly taken in by a kind older girl.

The woman told her:

Get registered, go to school, and make a life for yourself.

And so,

Yang Qingshan was added to her household registration, went to high school, and gained a brand-new, bright future.

The male lead's perspective:

Gao Yang had dropped out of school at seventeen and become the pillar of his family.

All he thought about was making money and paying off debts.

Until one day,

while delivering a case of beer to a dance hall, he spotted a newcomer.

She was timid and as skinny as a kitten.

But her eyes were especially bright and lively.

On an impulse, he bought her a bottle of the Coke he couldn't even bring himself to drink.

After that, the girl kept showing up where he worked, quietly watching him as he went about his business, her eyes shining.

Those days were among the few times in his life when he felt at ease.

He thought things were finally getting better.

Then his father, missing for years, suddenly came back.

In an instant, every last bit of hope was shattered.

He swallowed his pain in silence, not wanting anyone to see him at his lowest.

But the girl always seemed to see right through him. She took his hand and smiled, warm and sure. "Why not start your own business? Being your own boss is better than having someone else hold you in their grip every moment."

Gao Yang suddenly heard his heart give a hard thump.

It was deafening.

He thought, This girl is so beautiful.

So beautiful that she gave his hopeless life a reason to keep climbing.

[The characters' values and beliefs in this story are not the author's; they belong to the characters alone.]

[Coming soon below]

The Ghost Toll Station

The underworld's economy had been declining year after year, and the treasury was running dry. They were on the verge of being unable to pay even the salaries of Black and White Impermanence. The King of Hell paced in a panic, then slapped his forehead and issued a rule for the dead, so outrageous it beggared belief:

[Want to cross the River of Forgetfulness? Pay first.]

And so He Wei, a low-ranking ghost in the underworld, was forced into service as a toll collector for the dead.

But the job was thankless. Every day, ghosts pointed at him and cursed him, while his boss constantly chewed him out. He endured and held it in until he was about to get a lump in his throat.

At last, he slammed the table. "I'm done! I'm going to start my own business!"

Reality soon made him face the facts: he was just a low-ranking ghost with no money and no life to lose. He still had to drag himself back to work.

And that wasn't all. His heartless supervisor took the opportunity to make his life difficult, assigning him a second job as a counselor for troubled spirits. Every day, he had to talk sense into miserable ghosts who had lost the will to go on.

This job wasn't fit for any ghost. In just three days, he was completely drained.

He Wei went to his supervisor in tears. [Boss, could you assign me a counselor? I can't take this anymore!]

The bastard of a supervisor explained that the underworld was short-staffed, so everyone had to do several jobs. Meekly, He Wei accepted once more.

Then, on an utterly ordinary stormy night, a videotape appeared out of thin air at the toll station. It could play on an infinite loop.

He Wei was dragged into the cursed tape as a temporary actor. By chance, he discovered that every actor in it was someone he recognized.

The old woman who brewed soup by the River of Forgetfulness, the ghost officials who seized souls, the spirits waiting to be reborn, and more.

Here, he had to blend in and act as if everything were normal. If another actor discovered him, he would be assimilated and become part of the videotape.

Daring not to act rashly, He Wei could only hide among them for the time being, suppressing his doubts.

The first loop ended with blood trickling from beneath his neighbor's door.

In the second loop, his neighbor's door became a vast expanse of raw, red flesh.

In the third loop, the entire hallway seemed to transform into a mess of bloody organs.

Then he discovered that the videotape was one enormous lie. It used aesthetics to disguise death, and the more people watched, the more firmly the loop took hold. Without realizing it, everyone became an accomplice.

He Wei couldn't keep pretending. If he stayed in this hellhole another day, he would go mad.

He had to break the rules!

[It turned out that the most precious fare for crossing over had never been ghost money.]

[Our job is to help every soul with unfinished business write its final line.]

This is an unconventional underworld, with original worldbuilding.

Theme: Live well.