The rain in Binhai City fell with a chilling dampness.
It was two in the morning, and the sleepless city was finally showing signs of fatigue. The neon lights cast bizarre, garish reflections across the waterlogged pavement, resembling the entrails of some unknown creature.
Chen Mo pulled his second-hand car to the side of the road and lit a cigarette. The "TAXI" light on the roof flickered, emitting a faint, electric buzz. He was a night-shift cabbie, but he didn't pick up just anyone.
"Tsk, this damn weather. The Yin energy is so heavy you could wring water out of the air," Chen Mo muttered, exhaling a smoke ring as he glanced at the rearview mirror through his sunglasses.
In the mirror, the back seat appeared empty. But through his "Heavenly Eye," he saw a wet, black mass crouching on the roof, dripping viscous fluid down the windshield.
It was a "Road Specter," a malevolent spirit that lay in wait for solitary pedestrians on rainy nights.
Chen Mo ignored it and reached out to turn on the radio. With a crackle, the voice of a late-night relationship host—feigning a deep, sentimental tone—drifted out.
"...Listeners, if you are walking in the rain at night and hear someone calling your name from behind, whatever you do, don't look back..."
Ding-dong—
His phone chimed. It was a notification from the dispatch system.
Chen Mo glanced at the screen, his brow furrowing slightly. The pickup location was "The Unfinished Building, West District," and the destination was "The Crematorium."
"This order... is interesting."
The Unfinished Building was notorious in Binhai City as a haunted ground. Legend had it that three years ago, a collapse at the construction site had killed a group of migrant workers. When the compensation money never arrived, their bodies were hastily buried beneath the concrete. Since then, construction had halted, and will-o'-the-wisps were often seen drifting around the site at midnight.
Chen Mo took a final drag, crushing the cigarette butt into a soda can stained with old tea dregs. He floored the gas pedal, and his Jetta coughed like an old ox as it surged into the curtain of rain.
As the car approached the Unfinished Building, the rain intensified, mixed with pellets of hail. The headlights sliced through the darkness, illuminating the pitch-black structure—it looked like a gigantic, broken skeleton.
Sure enough, someone was standing by the roadside.
It was a woman wearing a red dress and holding a red umbrella. In the gloomy rain, the red was jarringly bright. Her head was lowered, her face obscured, her wet hair plastered to her shoulders.
Chen Mo coasted the car over and stopped beside her. He lowered the window halfway, and a gust of cold wind carrying the scent of rotting earth rushed in.
"Heading to the Crematorium?" Chen Mo's voice was perfectly calm, betraying no emotion.
The woman slowly raised her head. Her face was as white as paper, her lips as red as blood, and her skin was wrinkled, as if from long immersion in water. She looked at Chen Mo, the corners of her mouth curling into a rigid arc.
"Yes. Driver, I... I'm in a hurry."
"Get in." Chen Mo unlocked the doors.
The woman slid into the back seat. The instant the door clicked shut, the temperature in the cabin plummeted. It had been cool before, but now it felt as if they had fallen into an ice cellar. Chen Mo exhaled a puff of white breath and reached to turn up the heater.
"Driver, your car smells so nice." The woman's voice was ethereal, seeming to come from all directions at once.
"It's sandalwood for the Buddha. Repels evil spirits." Chen Mo lied casually. In reality, it was just cheap incense he'd lit earlier.
The car pulled away, heading toward the crematorium on the outskirts.
The journey was deathly silent, save for the windshield wipers going scrape, scrape—a sound like knives scraping against bone. Chen Mo observed the ghost in the backseat through the mirror. She was heavy with resentment, and her shadow was faint; she was clearly a fierce spirit who had died recently. Yet, she didn't seem intent on attacking immediately, staring blankly at the passing city lights instead.
"What's the matter? Can't bear to leave?" Chen Mo asked suddenly.
The woman froze, then turned her head. Those pitch-black eyes, devoid of whites, bored into the back of Chen Mo's skull. "Driver... tell me, do people really have souls after they die?"
Chen Mo smiled, revealing a set of white teeth. "What do you think? Aren't you 'alive' right now?"
"Alive..." The woman lowered her head, her fingers tightly clutching the hem of her skirt. "I haven't lived enough yet... That scumbag took my life-saving money and ran... I can't let this rest..."
"Every debt has its debtor. If you want revenge, go find him." Chen Mo pointed out the window. "Get out. Turn left two hundred meters ahead; that's the 'Midnight KTV.' Your heartless man is in there right now, singing with his new love."
The woman's body began to tremble violently. The black aura surrounding her surged, and her face, previously just eerie, became hideous and twisted.
"I want to kill him... I will kill him!!"
"If you kill him, you'll die too," Chen Mo said indifferently. "In your current state, you can at most scare him. The moment you act on that killing intent, you'll face Heaven's Wrath. Your soul will be scattered, and you'll never get the chance to reincarnate."
"Then teach me!" The woman lunged at the driver's seat, her hands clamping around Chen Mo's neck. They were bone-chillingly cold and reeked of corpse water.
Chen Mo kept one hand on the steering wheel, not even turning his head as his left hand snapped backward, accurately grasping the woman's wrist.
"Aaagh!" The woman shrieked.
Chen Mo was wearing an ancient copper ring; it now glowed with a faint golden light, searing her skin and causing it to emit smoke.
"Sit down." Chen Mo applied slight force and flung the woman back into the backseat like a bag of trash. "I'm a Taoist priest, not a cabbie. I won't charge you for this ride, but I'll see you off."
The crematorium was now faintly visible ahead, two red lanterns swaying in the rain like bloodshot eyes.
Chen Mo hit the brakes, stopping the car at the main gate. He turned around, removed his sunglasses, and revealed a pair of deep, profound eyes. A golden light flickered deep within his pupils.
"Go back now. Don't linger in the human realm, or I'll boil you down for corpse oil and use you to light a sky lantern."
Fear flashed through the woman's eyes as she looked at Chen Mo, finally realizing she had messed with the wrong person. Her figure swayed, gradually turning transparent until she dissolved into a wisp of green smoke, vanishing into the rainy night.
A single Hell Bank Note was left behind, resting quietly on the leather seat.
Chen Mo picked it up and shook his head helplessly. "Ghosts these days... even they pay with fake money. This is obviously that prop money supermarkets sell for people to burn to the dead."
He stuffed the note into his pocket and was preparing to make a U-turn.
Suddenly, his phone rang again. This time, it wasn't a dispatch; it was Su Qing.
"Chen Mo, get to the station, now!" Su Qing's voice was trembling. Even over the phone, Chen Mo could hear the terror in her tone.
"What is it? Officer Su, do you believe in ghosts now too?"
"Cut the crap! Something big has happened." Su Qing took a deep breath. "We found a floating corpse in the reservoir on the outskirts... The body... the body is covered in black hair. And... and it just sat up on the autopsy table!"
Chen Mo's gaze instantly turned cold.
"A hairy corpse? That's a 'Furred Fiend.' Looks like I'm working overtime tonight."
He restarted the engine, slammed the gas pedal to the floor, and the battered taxi let out a roar as it charged into the vast, rainy night.