The cybercafé drowned in a tomb-like silence, broken only by the cadaverous tapping of keys. Neon light bled across Zhang Xiaonian's face like spectral warpaint, his fingers spasming over the keyboard in a digital exorcism. Then—the screen fractured.
An arctic needle of dread pierced his spine.
"Who... consumes the shadows here?" The whisper slithered from his own throat, yet the voice was not his own. His pupils dilated—reflecting the screen's new truth: A silhouette hung from the ceiling's void, limbs dangling like marionette strings cut by God's shears. Black sutures crisscrossed its neck where a noose should be.
He gasped, lungs filling with phantom silt. Above him, the ceiling lights curdled into weeping sores of luminescence, swallowing time itself. A scent of burnt talismans and childhood decay choked the air.
"Unstitch me..." The voice now echoed from the glossy surface of his cola can. He whirled—his chair stood empty, yet the leather seat bore a fresh depression, damp with tomb-dew.
The shadow convulsed. A bead of cinnabar blood swelled on its lip—drip—striking the keyboard with the finality of a funerary bell. Zhang Xiaonian's heart sundered its cage, ribs cracking like ancient oracle bones.
As he collapsed, his shirt tore open. The crimson tumor between his shoulder blades pulsed, etching a golden curse onto the flickering screen:
"魂去似尘落莫论大小多少,人死如灯灭不分贵贱高低."
（"Souls scatter like dust—ask not their weight; Death extinguishes lamps—heed not their rank."）
He knew: This night, he had become the ledger where Heaven tallied its debts.