Night's grip strangled the campus into mercury silence. Streetlight halos drowned in arsenic-laced fog, their blurred glow birthing thousand-eyed watchers in the mist.
Zhang Xiaonian moved through the tree-shrouded path, the tumor between his shoulders stinging with debt-alarms. Each glance backward revealed only hollowed shadows—hungry, waiting.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
Footfalls hammered the earth like ledger-stamps sealing fate, rhythmic as a debt-collector's heartbeat.
"Who's there?" Zhang's whisper cracked, teeth grinding bone-dust.
A glacial wind uncoiled. Fallen leaves scraped karmic sigils on the pavement as the figure materialized:
Blood-crusted robes clung to limbs sharp as abacus rods, her face a moldering rice paper mask. Hollow eyes swallowed light; lips split into a usury-smile.
"Running accrues interest." Her voice vibrated with drowned creditors' sighs. "Your contract matures at midnight."
Zhang's spine iced over. The tumor blazed indigo, its light etching "子時刑" (Midnight Punishment) across the fog.
Seven bone-spurs erupted from his back, piercing his shirt into a debt-ledger scroll.
*Crack!*
Her jaw unhinged like a sacrificial altar, revealing rows of rotating gold teeth engraved with names:
Lin Xue ■ 003.00g
Drowned Victim ■ 000.00g
"See your balance?" Gold teeth chattered. "Her soul-weight bought you three hours."
The tumor screamed through Zhang's marrow—but he stood erect, bone-spurs aiming at her throat.
"Then let's renegotiate the principal."