Book 1 Chapter 1: The Ballad of the Aspiring Pharmacist and the Alleyway Justice
…
The vinyl chair Han Rowan occupied felt sticky beneath his worn jeans—a minor discomfort he barely registered, much like the relentless neon hum of the "Quick-Mart 24/7" sign above his head. He was perched on a small, round metal table outside the store, a flimsy plastic bowl of instant noodles clutched between his hands. The steam rising from the spicy broth was a fragrant shield against the chilly night air of Guan City.
It was over. Done. Finito.
He took a loud, slurping mouthful, the cheap, addictive flavor a perfect coda to the most stressful chapter of his young life. The national college examination—the gaokao—was behind him, and the results, released just hours ago, had been spectacular. Enough to secure him a spot at the prestigious university in the capital, paving the way for a bright future. A future where he wouldn't have to choose between a textbook and a bag of discount rice. A future where he could finally honor the memory of the two people who mattered most.
He leaned back, the plastic chair groaning in protest, and let his mind drift back, a tired, melancholy smile playing on his lips.
…
It always started the same way. The faint smell of antiseptic and burnt sugar. The screech of tires. The shattering glass.
Han Rowan was only ten when the car accident stole his parents. He survived with nothing more than a deep gash on his forehead—a jagged scar now hidden beneath his fringe—and a terrifying, gaping hole in his world. His mother, a kind, brilliant woman with perpetually flour-dusted hands from her part-time bakery job, had been an accomplished pharmacist before she chose to stay home with him. His father, a quiet, strong man, had worked two construction jobs to keep their tiny apartment. Their collective loss was a vacuum that had sucked all the light, laughter, and stability out of his existence.
The next eight years were a blur of gritty survival. There were no doting relatives, just a cold, impersonal legal system that declared him "emancipated minor with no next of kin able to take custody." He was a kid in a world built for adults, forced to grow up at warp speed.
High school was not a place of intellectual enlightenment; it was a gauntlet. He'd learned the cruel economics of time and energy. Study Hall meant working the graveyard shift, stocking shelves at a warehouse. Lunch money meant delivering newspapers at dawn. He'd perfected the art of strategic napping in the back row of history class and subsisting on ramen and sheer stubbornness.
It wasn't just the poverty that scarred him; it was the people. Kids, inherently pack animals, sniffed out weakness and vulnerability like a shark smells blood. Bullying started small: a tripped ankle in the hallway, a backpack emptied into a toilet, books stolen. It escalated into whispered threats, extortion attempts for his meager lunch money, and eventually, the brutal, physical shoves and punches in secluded corners of the schoolyard.
He remembered one afternoon vividly. Three older boys—all muscle and malice—had backed him against a fence. One had grabbed his hard-earned ramen money; another had spat on his mother's old, worn copy of a pharmaceutical textbook he treasured. That was the day something snapped.
He didn't fight back well that day. He fought back like a cornered wildcat—flailing, biting, driven by a blinding rage that came from a decade of suppressed grief and fear. He got a bloody nose and a cracked rib, but he also managed to land a lucky elbow to the jaw of the biggest bully. The sheer surprise of the act bought him an escape, but the lesson was stark: survival required strength.
He stopped using his precious few spare hours for rest and started using them for practice. He couldn't afford a gym or a coach, so he haunted the local parks. He watched martial arts videos on a borrowed computer, studied grainy, ancient combat manuals from the public library's dusty back shelves, and sparred with the shadows of his own loneliness. His inherent phlegmatic temperament, which usually made him slow to anger, became his greatest asset in a fight: he was calm, methodical, and dispassionate. He learned to conserve energy, study movement, and strike with cold, surgical precision.
He got good. Really good.
Soon, the tables turned. The old bullies gave him a wide berth. But the violence in the world, once a personal threat, had become a pattern he was intimately aware of. He saw other, weaker kids being victimized. The deep-seated disdain for bullies he harbored compelled him to act.
He started his own bizarre, secret vigilante service. He bought a cheap, anonymous black cloth mask from a street vendor. Whenever he saw a clear injustice—a strong group ganging up on a weak individual—he'd slip into the mask, a quick-change artist of the morally outraged. He was "The Night Janitor," or maybe "The Homework Helper," whatever ridiculous name a kid would give himself. He'd drop in, administer a swift, brutal, non-lethal lesson, and disappear back into the anonymity of his high school uniform. It was his catharsis, his silent, violent protest against the world's unfairness.
But he had a goal. He wasn't going to be a street fighter or a self-appointed bouncer. He was going to college. He was going to get his degree. He was going to become a pharmacist, just like his mother wanted, making the world better with knowledge, not with his fists.
The fighting had been a means to an end, a detour. Now that the exams were done, the path was clear. His days of vigilante justice were officially over. The mask, a cheap piece of cloth, was tucked away deep in a forgotten shoebox in his basement room.
He crumpled the empty plastic noodle bowl, the sound snapping him back to the present. The cold soda he'd bought to wash it down was finished. The table was clear.
"Time to go, Han Rowan," he murmured to himself, standing up and stretching the stiff muscles in his back. "New life starts now."
…
He walked down the grimy street, the collar of his jacket pulled up against the breeze. His rented basement room—dank, moldy, and gloriously cheap—was just three blocks away. Every step was a step toward the future. No more fighting. No more masks. Just textbooks and chemistry labs.
He rounded the corner onto a narrower street, the kind lined with dumpsters and the back entrances of liquor stores. A familiar, sickening sound immediately put a stop to his optimistic gait: the wet, fleshy thud of a fist meeting a soft target, followed by a muffled yelp.
He hesitated, his body automatically tensing. Keep walking. It's not your problem. You're done.
But his feet, traitorous and deeply moralistic, slowed to a crawl. He peered down a narrow, shadowy alleyway. The harsh overhead fluorescent bulb of a discarded sign illuminated the scene with a sickly yellow glow.
Five men. They were all bulky—not lean, hardened fighting-fit, but the soft, over-muscled bulk of pub-bouncers who prefer donuts to exercise. They wore varying degrees of cheap leather and menacing tattoos that probably said "Mom" or "Lover Boy" in a different font. Gangsters, or close enough.
Their victim was a high school kid, easily identifiable by his school uniform—a crest with a broken wing on the breast pocket. He was already crumpled on the ground, protecting his head, his backpack scattered a few feet away, its contents spilling out. The five men were not just intimidating; they were enjoying themselves, aiming lazy but heavy kicks and punches at the boy's ribs.
"Come on, just tell us where you hid the money, you little punk!" one of them growled, delivering a slow, methodical kick to the boy's side.
The smell of fear and cheap cologne.
Han Rowan's jaw clenched. The memory of the fence, the spit on the textbook, the raw, burning helplessness—it all came flooding back. His rational mind screamed: Five against one. They're twice your size. You have a scholarship. You have a future. Walk. Away.
But the other part of him—the part forged in the crucible of poverty and injustice, the part that hated a cheat and a bully more than anything in the world—took over.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered, shaking his head.
He quickly scanned the immediate area. Empty street. No witnesses. Good.
With a practiced, fluid movement that spoke of months of clandestine training, he reached into his jacket pocket. It was a habit born of paranoia—he always carried a small, folded piece of dark cloth, not his old mask but something he used for emergencies, just in case.
He pulled out the dark cloth. It was ridiculously simple, covering only the bridge of his nose and his eyes, like a cheap Zorro costume, but when he tied the knot behind his head, Han Rowan ceased to be the aspiring pharmacist. He became something else… The Alleyway Arbiter… or something like that.
He took a deep breath, centered his weight, and stepped into the alley.
"Hey, gentlemen," Han Rowan's voice was calm, almost conversational, startlingly out of place in the brutal noise.
The five bullies paused, their heavy breaths fogging the air. They turned, looking at the slim, young man in the cheap jacket and the utterly ridiculous, low-budget mask.
The biggest of the five—a man with a neck thicker than Han Rowan's thigh, adorned with a fading tribal tattoo—bellowed a laugh that sounded like gravel in a blender. He was the leader, the biggest idiot.
"Well, looky here, boys. We got ourselves a midnight ninja! You lost, kid? This ain't a costume party."
Han Rowan didn't move. He kept his hands loose at his sides, his eyes darting between the five men, calculating angles, distance, and weight distribution.
"I suggest you all pick up your toys and go home," Han Rowan said, his voice flat. "The kid has nothing you want. And I have nothing to lose by making you regret this."
"Oh, you're a tough guy, huh?" the leader—let's call him Big Neck—took a menacing step forward. "We're five. You're one. I'm going to rip that little mask off and make you eat it."
Big Neck swung first. It was a classic bully punch: wide, slow, and aimed for maximum intimidation. It was exactly what Han Rowan wanted.
Han Rowan took a half-step back, letting the massive, clumsy fist whistle harmlessly past his ear. As Big Neck's weight committed to the miss, Han Rowan's right hand shot out—not a fist, but a rigid, open palm knife-hand strike—targeting the highly sensitive Vagus nerve bundle just under Big Neck's ear. The strike was precise and forceful, leveraging the momentum of the big man's own body.
CRACK!
The sound was less bone and more a thick, wet slap. Big Neck's eyes rolled back. He collapsed instantly, hitting the ground like a sack of damp concrete. Five became four.
The other two men on Big Neck's side, seeing their leader drop, lunged in a disorganized pincer movement. Gangster #2, a skinny man with an ugly sneer (Sneer), tried to grapple with Han Rowan's arms. Gangster #3 (Tatts), whose knuckles were scraped and permanently swollen, went for a haymaker to the head.
Han Rowan executed a quick, sharp pivot on his right foot, pulling his torso out of the path of Tatts's punch. Sneer, still grappling with his arms, now found himself directly between Han Rowan and Tatts. Han Rowan used Sneer's own body as a shield.
Before Sneer could react to his new, exposed position, Han Rowan secured a firm grip on his jacket lapel and wrist, executed a flawless O-soto gari (major outer reap) sweep, catching Sneer's supporting leg just as Tatts's punch whizzed past. Sneer went down hard, landing on his shoulder with a sharp thwump and a groan that was definitely not comedic. Four became three.
Tatts, momentarily unbalanced by his missed punch and the sight of his comrade folding, became Han Rowan's focus. Han Rowan stepped in, closing the distance instantly, denying Tatts the space to throw another wide punch. He pulled Tatts's shirt forward and drove a sharp, powerful knee directly into the man's solar plexus. The air rushed out of Tatts in a high-pitched wheeze, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. He stumbled back, clutching his chest, completely immobilized. Three became two—temporarily.
The remaining two men, who had been on the other side of the alley, were the only ones who hadn't engaged yet. They were also the two who looked slightly less idiotic: The Brawler (a man with a prominent scar over his brow) and The Runner (a twitchy, lean man who looked like he'd bolt at any moment). They were stunned into a moment of inaction. They had just seen their three friends dispatched by a masked kid in three seconds flat.
Han Rowan, breathing steadily, straightened his jacket. "Two left. Anyone want a discounted trip to the floor?"
The Runner, his eyes wide with genuine fear, made his decision. He did not charge. He spun on his heel and attempted to flee, scrambling over the fallen Big Neck.
Han Rowan, knowing full well he couldn't let one get away, took two casual steps and threw his leg out, catching The Runner's trailing ankle with his foot. The Runner pitched forward, landing in a tangled, undignified mess in a pile of garbage bags. He immediately started whining and crawling away, prioritizing distance over dignity.
Now it was just Han Rowan and The Brawler—the man who actually looked like he might know how to fight. The Brawler's fear was replaced by a cold, desperate rage. He dropped his shoulder, charging low and fast, aiming for a tackle, hoping to take the fight to the ground where size and brute force mattered most.
Han Rowan met the charge not with resistance, but with evasion. He sidestepped at the last moment, leaning into the charging Brawler and hooking his hand around the man's armpit.
Using the Brawler's own considerable momentum against him, Han Rowan executed a classic Seoi Nage (shoulder throw). He pulled the Brawler up and over his shoulder, spinning him mid-air. The Brawler slammed into the cold, unforgiving brick wall with a sickening WHOOSH of expelled air before sliding down into a heap, stunned and likely concussed.
Silence descended upon the alley.
Han Rowan lowered his fists. Five bulky, tattooed bullies—now a groaning, whimpering, and unconscious tableau of failed masculinity—were scattered around the alley floor like discarded action figures.
The high school kid, still curled up, slowly lifted his head. He stared at Han Rowan, then at the bodies, then back at Han Rowan's ridiculous mask.
Han Rowan walked over to the boy. "Are you hurt badly?" he asked, his voice softer now.
The boy just gaped, a mixture of dried snot and fear on his face. "Y-you... you just..."
"Doesn't matter," Han Rowan cut him off gently. He picked up the boy's scattered books and put them back into the backpack, zipping it up. "Go home. Call the police from a safe distance if you want, but you didn't see me. I was never here."
The boy scrambled to his feet, grabbed his backpack, and with a final, wide-eyed stare at his masked savior, bolted out of the alley.
Han Rowan watched him go, then surveyed the damage. Big Neck was snoring. Tatts was still hyperventilating. The Runner was halfway down the street, whimpering about his sprained ankle.
A wave of intense, ridiculous satisfaction washed over him. The old, familiar rush. He had done it one last time. Justice. Clean, fast, and satisfyingly brutal. The world was slightly less unbalanced than it had been five minutes ago.
He threw his head back and let out a sound he hadn't made in years—a purely joyous, slightly manic, utterly foolish laugh.
"HA! YES! Take that, you low-life gutter trash! Justice is served!" he roared into the empty night, pumping a fist into the air. He laughed again, louder this time, a high-pitched, triumphant cackle that echoed off the brick walls. "The Janitor cleans up one last time! The Janitor is retiring! Woohoo!"
He spun around, still basking in his glorious, fleeting endeavor, a goofy grin splitting his face beneath the mask.
It was exactly at that moment of supreme, unjustified hubris that the fabric of reality decided to protest.
Directly behind Han Rowan, right in the spot where the charging Brawler had just slammed into the wall, a distortion appeared.
It started as a shimmer, like heat rising from asphalt, then it rapidly condensed into a black, swirling disc—a perfect sphere of absolute, light-devouring black hole. It was silent, smooth, and entirely unconcerned with the laws of physics or the timing of its dramatic entrance. It was no bigger than a large man, but it was spinning, its event horizon sucking the air and any stray particles into its abyss.
Han Rowan, still laughing and celebrating his win, never saw it. His back was to the cosmic anomaly.
"Man, that felt so good!" he crowed, taking a satisfied, cleansing breath. He reached a hand up to untie his mask—the final, ceremonial act of his retirement.
Before his fingers could find the knot, the black hole, with the speed of an impatient cosmic vacuum cleaner, reached out with its gravitational pull.
Han Rowan felt a strange, sudden tug—not a shove, but a pull from his center of mass. He stumbled backward, his triumphant roar turning into a startled, high-pitched Eep!
He whirled around, finally seeing the terrifying, swirling vortex. His eyes, seconds ago alight with victory, now ballooned in confusion and terminal alarm.
"What in the... Worm hole?!" he shrieked, recalling the only scientific term that even remotely fit the impossible object.
He tried to brace himself, to push off the ground, but the pull was already too strong. His feet slipped on the grimy concrete, and he tumbled backward, his hands grasping frantically at the air.
With a whoosh that stole the remaining air from the alley, Han Rowan—the high school graduate, the future pharmacist, the part-time vigilante—was completely and instantaneously swallowed up by the swirling darkness.
The black hole, having fulfilled its arbitrary, interdimensional mandate, vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind only the cold, still air.
On the ground, the high school victim and the recovering bullies—Big Neck, Tatts, and The Brawler, who had all managed to lift their heads at the noise—stared at the empty spot. They saw the masked vigilante celebrating, and then, in the blink of an eye and a strange light distortion, he was gone. Vanished. Poof.
The silence this time was truly absolute.
Tatts, his chest still heaving, was the first to speak, his voice a terrified whisper.
"W... was he a ghost?"
The high school student, his face pale, slowly nodded. "A vigilante ghost... that just did a really good hip throw..."
Big Neck, struggling to sit up, rubbed his throbbing temple and stared at the empty space with a look of dawning, bone-deep fear.
"I-I'm never bullying anyone ever again!" he stuttered, scrambling backward on his hands and knees. "It was the Ghost of Justice! He just came... and then he returned to the spirit realm! We're all cursed!"
The five bulky men, now completely sobered and terrified out of their wits, did not wait for each other. They clambered up and scattered in five different directions, scrambling over the groaning body of the Runner, desperate to escape the place where a masked maniac had literally been blinked out of existence.
The alley was finally empty, save for the scattering of garbage, a few stray papers, and a profound, lingering sense of utter cosmic confusion. The legend of the Guan City Ghost of Justice had just begun. And Han Rowan was now a long, long way from his acceptance letter.