Morning sunlight splintered like broken jade across the classroom. Tree shadows twitched like hanged men's legs outside the window—useless against the tomb-chill seeping from Zhang Xiaonian's desk.
Laughter surged around him, waves crashing against a cursed shore. With each classmate entering, the tumor between his shoulder blades throbbed darker, veins pulsing with cobalt script that read:
"业秤倾覆 子时收债"
(The karmic scale tilts—debt collects at midnight)
When he sat, the fleshy mass unfurled like a rotten lotus. Ghost-blue luminescence seeped through his shirt, casting hungry ghost shadows that licked Lin Xue's ankles.
"Do you… smell their ledger burning?"
Her voice cut through the din. Zhang lifted his head to meet her gaze—pupils dilated into bottomless wellsprings, reflecting his tumor's sickly glow.
He recoiled, but Lin Xue leaned closer. A cinnabar mole at her temple bled black ink, tracing characters down her neck:
"通幽"
Spirit Channeler.
"That stench…" She inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring like a corpse-fed hound. "It's the interest on borrowed time."
Above them, fluorescent lights fractured into shivering sutures. The digital clock froze at 08:06—the exact minute Zhang Xiaonian's grandmother had signed his soul-mortgage.
Rot bloomed in the air—sweet as decaying lychees, thick as funeral incense.
CLOSE UP: Lin Xue's face
Moon-pale skin cracking like celadon glaze. Lips trembling around unspoken verdicts:
"You carry a debt even Hell wouldn't touch."
CUT TO: Zhang's back tumor
Flesh-stitched runes now swarming like maggots, tearing through fabric. Sweat dripped from his jaw, sizzling where it struck the desk—etching debtor's marks into the wood.
"This…" Zhang gasped as bone-spurs erupted from his spine, "is just the first compound interest."
Outside, sunlight crumbled into ash.