Chen Yifeng was restocking instant noodles when the sky cracked open.
Not metaphorically. The actual sky, the pale gray ceiling of reality that had hung over Beijing for twenty-five years of his utterly unremarkable life, split down the middle like someone had taken a knife to a canvas painting.
"Shit," he muttered, watching purple-black ooze drip from the fissure onto the parking lot outside. His manager would definitely blame him for this somehow.
The convenience store's fluorescent lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then steadied into a sickly yellow-green that made everything look like it belonged in a horror movie. Chen Yifeng glanced at his phone. 11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes left of his shift, and apparently the apocalypse couldn't wait until tomorrow.
The ooze was spreading now, creeping across asphalt like oil on water. Where it touched, reality seemed to... corrupt. The white lines of parking spaces turned crimson. A discarded soda can aged fifty years in three seconds, rusting into nothing. A stray cat that got too close simply unmade itself, there one moment and gone the next, not even leaving a corpse behind.
"Attention all citizens," a voice crackled from his phone, from every phone, from the emergency speakers mounted on telephone poles. "This is not a drill. Seek shelter immediately. Do not approach the anomalies. Do not look directly at—"
The broadcast cut to screaming.
Chen Yifeng locked the convenience store door. Not because he thought it would help, but because corporate policy said he had to secure the premises before leaving. Even during the apocalypse, he wasn't getting written up for protocol violations.
He turned around to grab his jacket and froze.
There was a woman standing in aisle three.
He hadn't heard the door chime. Hadn't heard footsteps. She was just... there, between the potato chips and the dried squid snacks, wearing a red qipao dress that looked like it cost more than his yearly salary. Her skin was pale, not pale like someone who didn't get enough sun, but pale like high-quality porcelain. Like expensive funeral makeup.
Her eyes were closed.
"We're closed," Chen Yifeng said, trying to keep his voice steady. "There's an emergency. You need to leave."
The woman didn't move. Didn't breathe. He wasn't sure she could.
"Miss, I'm serious. There's–" He gestured vaguely at the window, where reality was having a mental breakdown. "—all that happening outside."
Still nothing.
Chen Yifeng made an executive decision. Fuck this job. He moved toward the employee exit at the back of the store, giving the woman in the red dress a wide berth. Whatever she was, she wasn't his problem. He had exactly one priority: getting to his apartment, locking the door, and waiting for the government to fix whatever, But –
Pain exploded in his chest.
He looked down and saw bone-white fingers protruding from his sternum, having punched clean through his back and out the front. No blood. The fingers were too cold for blood to flow.
"Oh," he said intelligently.
The woman was behind him now, her hand literally inside his chest cavity. Her eyes were open, completely black, like someone had filled the sockets with ink.
"You can see me," she whispered, her voice like wind through a cemetery. "Most can't. Not until it's too late."
Chen Yifeng's vision was graying at the edges. Dying in a convenience store. His mother was going to be so disappointed. Not that he was dead, but at the location. "Should've... become a doctor..." he managed.
The woman tilted her head, curious. "You're not afraid."
"Too tired... for fear..."
Something chimed. Not the door. Something else. Something that resonated in his bones, in the hollow space where his heart should be working but probably wasn't anymore.
[SUITABLE HOST DETECTED]
[TERROR LEVEL: INSUFFICIENT]
[SURVIVAL INSTINCT: PRAGMATIC]
[MORAL FLEXIBILITY: OPTIMAL]
[INITIALIZING CALAMITY MERCHANT SYSTEM...]
The words appeared in glowing crimson text, floating in the air between him and certain death. The woman in red recoiled, her hand sliding out of his chest. The hole sealed instantly, like it had never been there.
Chen Yifeng collapsed against a shelf of instant coffee, gasping. His uniform was shredded where she'd impaled him, but the skin underneath was unmarked.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
[WELCOME, MERCHANT CANDIDATE #777]
[YOUR TRIAL PERIOD BEGINS NOW]
[FIRST TRANSACTION AVAILABLE]
A translucent blue screen materialized in front of his face, visible only to him. On it was a simple interface that looked like a mobile game from hell:
---
[ITEM FOR SALE]
- White Bone Ghost (E-Rank Specter)
- Current Status: Hostile
- Price: 1,000 Dread Coins (DC)
- Description: A vengeful spirit that died of starvation. Murders victims by consuming their life force. Has killed 47 people. Will kill you in approximately 30 seconds
[Special Offer: First purchase discounted to 100 DC! ]
[PURCHASE] [DECLINE]
---
Chen Yifeng stared at the screen. Then at the woman in red, who was advancing again, her fingers extending into claws. Then back at the screen.
"What the fuck is a Dread Coin?" he asked the universe.
[DREAD COINS ARE EARNED THROUGH FEAR, DEATH, AND DESPAIR]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 0 DC]
[HOWEVER, YOU ARE CURRENTLY TERRIFIED]
[FEAR DETECTED: +50 DC]
[WITNESS TO APOCALYPSE: +50 DC]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 100 DC]
The woman was three feet away now. Two feet now. Her mouth opened impossibly wide, revealing rows of needle teeth.
Chen Yifeng's finger jabbed the [PURCHASE] button.
[TRANSACTION COMPLETE]
[WHITE BONE GHOST NOW BELONGS TO: CHEN YIFENG]
[NEW BALANCE: 0 DC]
The woman in red froze mid-lunge. Her black eyes widened in what might have been shock, or horror, or recognition. The air around her shimmered, and golden chains materialized out of nothing, wrapping around her wrists, ankles, and throat.
"What... what have you done?" she whispered.
A contract appeared in Chen Yifeng's hands. Actual paper, smelling of incense and grave dirt. The characters were written in something dark and dried that definitely wasn't ink.
[EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT]
- EMPLOYER: Chen Yifeng, Calamity Merchant (Rank: Street Vendor)
- EMPLOYEE: Bai Ling, White Bone Ghost (E-Rank Specter)
- TERMS: Employee will serve Employer faithfully until contract dissolution or permanent death. Employee will not harm Employer or act against Employer's interests. Employee will perform duties as assigned.
- COMPENSATION: Spiritual energy stipend, protection from exorcism, one (1) revenge upon contract completion.
- SIGNED: [Two signatures appeared simultaneously; his in shaky ballpoint pen, hers in that same dark substance]
The chains dissolved into her skin like water into sand. Bai Ling, apparently that was her name, stumbled backward, touching her throat where the collar had been.
"You... bought me?" Her voice was different now. Still ethereal, but less murder-y. More confused.
"Apparently," Chen Yifeng said, still trying to process the fact that he'd just purchased a ghost with currency generated from his own fear. "So, uh. Do you still want to kill me, or...?"
She looked at him like he was the incomprehensible horror. "I can't. The contract..." She tested it, raising one hand toward him with clear murderous intent. The golden chains reappeared instantly, burning against her skin. She hissed and lowered her hand. "I literally cannot harm you now."
"Great." Chen Yifeng stood up, brushing instant coffee packets off his pants. Outside, the screaming had intensified. The purple-black ooze had spread across most of the visible street. Something with too many legs was crawling out of the crack in the sky. "So since you work for me now, got any idea what the hell is happening?"
Bai Ling stared at him. "The Rupture. The barrier between the living world and the realm of nightmares has collapsed. Everything humanity has ever feared, every ghost story, every urban legend, every monster under the bed, they're all coming through. The world as you know it is ending."
"Huh." Chen Yifeng walked to the register, grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the display, and lit one. He'd quit three years ago, but fuck it. Apocalypse. "And how long do we have?"
"Most of humanity will be dead within a week."
"Efficient." He took a long drag, considering his options. The system interface was still floating at the edge of his vision, showing new notifications:
[CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR FIRST PURCHASE!]
[NEW FEATURES UNLOCKED]
[SHOP INTERFACE AVAILABLE]
[INVENTORY: 1/10 SLOTS USED]
[CURRENT STOCK: White Bone Ghost (E-Rank) x1]
[TIP: Acquire more supernatural entities to expand your business!]
Chen Yifeng looked at Bai Ling, who was examining her contract with the air of someone reading a terms of service agreement they hadn't bothered to check before accepting.
"Question," he said. "If I own you now, and you're a ghost that kills people... can you kill OTHER things? Like, I don't know, whatever that is?" He pointed at the centipede-thing that was now completely emerged from the sky-crack, the size of a bus, dripping corrosive nightmare-ooze.
Bai Ling followed his gaze. "Yes. Easily."
"And if you kill it, do I get Dread Coins?"
She blinked. "What?"
Chen Yifeng pulled up the system interface, reading quickly. "Says here I earn DC from 'fear, death, and despair within my sphere of influence.' You're in my sphere of influence now. Technically my employee. So..."
Understanding dawned on her porcelain features. "You want to profit from the apocalypse."
"I mean." He gestured at the burning world outside. "Someone's going to. Might as well be me."
For the first time since meeting her, Bai Ling smiled. It was a terrible smile, full of needle teeth and centuries of hunger.
"I think," she said slowly, "this is going to be an interesting employment."
[MISSION GENERATED]
[FIRST BLOOD]
- Objective: Kill 10 Nightmare Entities
- Reward: 5,000 DC, Shop Upgrade, Mystery Box
- Failure Penalty: Death (obviously)
Chen Yifeng crushed out his cigarette on the counter, ignoring the burn mark it left.
"Alright then," he said, walking toward the door. "Let's go shopping."
Behind him, his first employee laughed like breaking glass.
The apocalypse had just become very, very profitable.
---
[CURRENT STATUS]
- Dread Coins: 0
- Rank: Street Vendor
- Employees: 1
- Humans Saved: 0
- Humans Killed: 0
- Reputation: Unknown