Chapter 17: The Paperwork Exorcism
The Department of Heavenly Bureaucracy had seen strange things before—floating scrolls, haunted quills, even the occasional cursed abacus—but nothing prepared them for today's incident.
Ne Job was late again.
He didn't mean to be. He had even set four alarm charms the night before, each chanting "Intern, rise and shine!" at different pitches. Unfortunately, one malfunctioned, one exploded, one began reciting Buddhist sutras instead, and the last one joined a worker union and refused to wake him out of protest.
By the time Ne Job stumbled into the office, hair singed and robe half-tucked, Assistant Yue was already in crisis mode.
"Ne Job! The Archive Room is haunted again!" she shouted, clutching her clipboard like a holy relic.
He blinked. "Haunted? As in, boo haunted, or bureaucratically haunted?"
"The latter," Yue said grimly. "Every rejected report from the last three centuries just resubmitted itself."
Ne Job stared. "You mean they came back for… revenge?"
"No," Yue corrected. "They came back for approval."
A stack of papers flew past them, screaming, "APPROVE ME, YOU COWARDS!" before slamming into the wall and bursting into confetti.
Ne Job ducked. "Okay, okay—don't panic. We'll handle this rationally. Step one, identify the source. Step two, panic later."
From the far end of the corridor came a low groan. The lights flickered. Ghostly paper trails swirled like storm clouds, coalescing into a monstrous shape—a massive wad of crumpled documents, hundreds of rejected forms compressed into one vengeful entity.
Its voice echoed like shredded parchment.
"YOU LOST MY APPLICATION… FOR THREE HUNDRED YEARS!"
Assistant Yue sighed. "It's back. The Phantom of Form 13-B."
---
Scene 2: The Audit Trap
Lord Bureaucrat Xian burst into the hallway, clutching his tea mug and looking two seconds away from cardiac arrest.
"Do you have any idea what this means?!" he barked. "If the Audit Team finds out our files are literally possessing themselves, we'll be demoted to the Department of Mortal Internships!"
Ne Job raised a hand. "Uh, sir, that doesn't sound that bad—"
"It's located in Purgatory!" Xian snapped.
"Ah," said Ne Job. "Bad."
Ao Bing, the Audit Inspector, appeared behind them, pristine and unflappable as always. His icy aura clashed sharply with the chaos around him.
"Lord Xian," Ao Bing said calmly, "I was informed of… paranormal discrepancies?"
Before Xian could stammer an excuse, a paper hand snatched his hat and devoured it.
Ao Bing adjusted his monocle. "I see."
Ne Job quickly stepped forward. "I'll fix it! Totally under control! I've… uh… exorcised paperwork before."
Yue whispered, "You spilled coffee on a cursed memo once."
"Exactly!" Ne Job said. "And it stopped haunting us afterward!"
"Because you burned it!"
He ignored her and rolled up his sleeves. "Stand back. I'm initiating a Paperwork Exorcism Protocol."
---
Scene 3: The Ritual
From under his desk emergency kit, Ne Job pulled out a brush, a jar of ink, and a manual titled 'Beginner's Guide to Bureaucratic Cleansing (Do Not Attempt Without Supervisor)'.
"Step one," he read aloud, "identify the cursed document."
The ghost wailed and hurled another barrage of angry forms.
"Too many candidates. Step two, offer apology letter to appease the spirit."
Ne Job grabbed the nearest scroll and scribbled furiously:
> Dear Form 13-B, sorry for losing you for three centuries. Please rest in peace, not pieces.
He stamped it with an official red seal.
Nothing happened.
The ghost's eyes—made of puncture holes—narrowed. "That apology used the wrong font!"
"Yue!" Ne Job yelled, "What's the approved font for spectral complaints?!"
"Formal Haunting Sans!" she shouted back.
Ne Job corrected it. "There! Now please depart in bureaucratic harmony!"
The ghost paused, inspected the form, then shrieked louder.
"You FORGOT the carbon copy!"
"Why do ghosts care about carbon copies?!" Ne Job shouted over the gale of flying pages.
"Regulations!" Yue screamed. "Spirits of Unprocessed Forms can't ascend unless they're filed in triplicate!"
Ao Bing folded his arms, silently watching the chaos. "Fascinating. Continue."
---
Scene 4: Desk War
As the storm intensified, desks toppled, pens took flight, and filing cabinets opened like jaws. Ne Job sprinted between them, dodging staplers that fired like crossbows.
He tripped over a fallen drawer and landed face-first into a pile of rejected memos.
"'Reason for Rejection: handwriting resembles chicken scratch,'" he read aloud. "Harsh but fair."
Yue was clinging to a ceiling beam, waving her clipboard like a holy talisman.
"Ne Job, the core document's behind the central cabinet—it's glowing!"
Sure enough, a blinding beam of light pulsed from a single crumpled form labeled 'FORM 13-B: Application for Ascension Review (Pending Since Tang Dynasty)'.
Ne Job crawled toward it, shielding his face from the paperstorm. "Okay… easy now… I just have to sign it and—"
The ghost's massive hand slammed down. "TOO LATE FOR APPROVAL!"
But Ne Job grinned. "Then how about… expedited approval?"
He yanked out the Emergency Heavenly Stamp of Provisional Authorization, a seal only interns weren't supposed to touch.
"NE JOB, NO—" Yue shouted.
He slammed it down.
A blinding flash. The ground shook. The ghost shrieked, dissolving into a thousand tiny forms that fluttered peacefully to the ground.
Silence.
Ao Bing raised an eyebrow. "Effective… if highly irregular."
Lord Xian peeked from behind a file cabinet. "Highly illegal, you mean."
---
Scene 5: The Aftermath
When the dust settled, the archive room was a wreck—but at least no one was being strangled by red tape anymore (literally).
Yue sighed, brushing confetti from her hair. "That's going to take weeks to refile."
Ne Job beamed. "See? Crisis averted. The Audit Team will never know."
Ao Bing was still there. "Oh, I know."
Ne Job froze. "...You won't report this, right?"
Ao Bing smirked faintly. "That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether you can handle the next haunting. The one in the Department of Immortal Licensing."
Ne Job's face fell. "There's another one?!"
Ao Bing nodded. "They call it the Phantom of Unrenewed Permits."
Ne Job turned pale. "Assistant Yue…"
"Yes?"
"Do we… get hazard pay?"
"No," she said flatly. "We get overtime."
Ne Job groaned. "Of course we do."
From somewhere in the ruins, a lonely form fluttered down and whispered:
> Pending approval… pending… pending…
And just like that, the lights flickered again.
To be continued…