My psychiatric records are my ticket to hell

​​​

Frozen rain needled my face like cold steel filaments. I huddled behind a crumbling concrete pillar on the rooftop of Building 3 in the derelict complex—meager shelter from the wind—clutching the half-consumed instant noodles, long congealed into a greasy scum, and the bricks of stale bread that passed for sustenance. The spectral-navigation phone and the utterly inert paper trike lay against my chest; my teeth chattered violently against the cold.

A safehouse? Ye Xiaomu's navigation boasting 85% accuracy? Utter horseshit!

This skeletal refuge was all naked rebar spearing the ashen sky and cement slabs sprouting withered weeds trembling in the bitter wind. Wind-driven sleet penetrated from every angle, carrying the fetid, metallic reek of rust, dust, and decaying refuse unique to the city's fringes. The sole advantage was the bleak panorama: the distant urban core, now smothered beneath that ominous, burgundy-hued shroud labeled "Hyakki Yakō · Labyrinth of Lost Souls." Its bruised-mauve edges writhed, slowly expanding.

The phone screen still glowed. The spectral navigation fringe—a garland woven from ghost-light—pulsed faintly, etching the bleeding letters of "DANGER ZONE" into the gloom. The safehouse marker glowed a mockingly warm white, precisely beneath me. Yet the place offered nothing beyond minimal rain shelter (debatable in my current state) – not even a warped board to block the wind.

"Ye Xiaomu!" I hissed through chattering teeth, shaking the lifeless paper trike. "Navigation?! Your 85% led me to this godforsaken roof to sip arctic winds?! What now?! Food?! Cash?! I'm freezing! Starving!"

The trike remained inert trash. Only the blood-red icon promising the "HellNav Pro · Spirit Realms Live Map · VIP Beta" shimmered with seductive menace.

Press it? Download a spectral navigation app? Who knew what fresh abomination that might unleash? Yet staying meant freezing or starving.

I stared, finger trembling with cold and indecision before the crimson icon—

​​*Vrrrzzt… Crackle… Buzz…​​*

The phone screen flared violently! The ghost-light fringe surged, especially the seething, blood-pool darkness of the danger zone.

Then—

​​*Clang! Clang! Clang!​​*

Triple sirens—air-raid sharp—screeched! Three colossal, blood-red warnings blazed across the map interface:

​​WARNING! DETECTED: HIGH-YIELD SPIRIT-TIDE SURGE FRONTAL EDGE! IMPACT T-MINUS 3 MINUTES!​​

​​WARNING! DETECTED: 'LABYRINTH OF LOST SOULS' PERIPHERY BREACHING! EXPANSION RATE: +200%!​​

​​WARNING! SAFEHOUSE COORDINATE IMMINENT FAILURE! USER YE SHISAN: IMMEDIATE SPATIAL RELOCATION REQUIRED! RECALIBRATED TARGET: YE VILLAGE SOUTH ROAD · POLTERGEIST LANE · #77 · NETHELDOM FIELD OFFICE!​​

Relocated?! Netherworld Field Office?! The name screamed bad omens!

Before comprehension dawned—

The horizon shifted.

The mauve danger zone's border erupted. A towering wall of distorted light and viscous, oil-black fog—a tsunami of entropy—slammed upwards! Swallowing the sky, it surged towards the city's rim, towards me atop my rotting perch!

Daylight vanished. Wind howled into frenzy. Sleet hardened into hailstones, clattering like shrapnel on bare concrete. The air curdled with the stench of sulphur and decaying organs.

"FUCK!" Soul-deep terror obliterated deliberation. Instinct ruled. My desperate finger, driven by final reserves of strength and madness, stabbed the blood-red download icon!

​​*Chime!​​*

A sound like coin-on-stone.

The screen plunged into pure, soul-siphoning blackness. Only at its center, a progress bar coalesced from whirling, miniature bone-white skulls, ticking like an infernal hourglass:

1%… 5%… 15%…

Painfully slow. The devouring wave neared visibly. Gale-force wind, hail, and that gut-wrenching stench assaulted me.

"FASTER!" I roared at the sluggish bar, heart hammering against my ribs.

30%… 45%… 60%…

The wave's edge consumed the nearest apartment block. The building writhed, dissolving like sugar in boiling oil, swallowed by churning mist. A cacophony of shrieks, wails, and mad laughter fused into a physical sonic wave.

75%… 85%… 90%…

Hail pummeled my scalp. Stench choked me. Death's cold mantle settled.

99%…

A pause.

"BLOODY MOVE!" I shrieked.

​​*HUMMM—​​*

The screen flashed blindingly! Darkness vanished. A stark, imposing obsidian-gold icon dominated the center—an abstract, chain-bound demon skull!

Beneath it, antediluvian script etched itself in the same ominous gold:

​​"HellNav Pro · Spirit Realms Live Map · VIP Beta · Installation Complete!"​​

Simultaneously—

​​*WHUMMMM—!!!​​*

The phone emitted a basso profundo roar! The chassis vibrated violently! The spectral fringe ignited tenfold! Fiery coronas of red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet—shrieking shades—whirled and fused into a single molten scarlet beam!

Solid. Visceral. It erupted not skyward, but downward—blasting the coarse concrete at my feet!

​​*KRUNCHOOOM—!​​*

The impact wasn't explosion, but a titanic gate sundered!

Where the beam struck, the concrete rippled violently like dark red water. A vortex suction—black-hole intensity—exploded from the epicenter!

"Ghk—!" I choked on the cry. An unseen fist seized my ankle, yanking me bodily into the churning, blood-dark spatial maelstrom!

Vertigo. Weightlessness. Shattered light and tar-thick darkness blurred into incomprehensible streaks. Eardrums shredded by keening wind. My body tumbled like laundry in an industrial spin cycle.

Duration? An instant? An aeon?

​​*THUD.​​*

I hit unforgiving, frigid ground. Hard. Buttocks screamed. Lungs expelled dust and bile. Instant noodles, bread, phone, trike—scattered.

"Cough… Ugh…" I retched dryly on hands and knees, organs violently rearranged.

Slowly, the world steadied. I wiped mud-grit from my eyes.

The sleet-ravaged rooftop was gone.

Before me stretched a reeking alley, narrow, dripping with damp. Urine stench, rotting refuse, and… beneath it… a faint, ghostly tang of burnt spirit-money?

This… was Poltergeist Lane?

I scanned the gloom. The passage twisted into darkness, cold wind moaning down its throat, lifting debris.

Safe? For now?

Relief washed over me, instantly swamped by renewed hunger and exhaustion. I staggered up, eyeing the mud-slick bread.

Then—

​​*Fizz… Crackle…​​*

The phone screen glimmered back to life. Ghost-light fringe pulsed. My yellow arrow icon rested firmly on a marker: "Poltergeist Lane · #77".

77?

I looked up. The nearest building was decay incarnate, "DEMOLISH" sprayed in peeling red across cracked plaster. Ground-floor shutters hung rusted shut. One bore faded numbers: #75.

Next to it, #76? A corner choked with rubble and discarded toilets.

Then… #77?

Squinting under the distant, solitary streetlamp's sickly light—

#77 wasn't a shop. It was… a grotesquely narrow cleft between buildings, barely wider than a man's shoulders, choked by reeking black sacks! Darker gloom within reeked of mold and carrion.

This was 77? Netherworld Field Office?! Absurd!

Fury and despair surged. I lifted my boot to smash the damned phone.

"Crackle… Ye Xiaomu… Nav… Terminated… Power… Depleted… Standby…" A ghost-whisper leaked from the phone before it died.

BLOODY HELL!

Trembling with rage, I kicked a dented can. It clattered violently against the opposite wall.

Then—

​​*Plick.​​*

A soft sound. From the direction of the kicked can.

I turned.

On the wall beside the #76 trash heap, something new clung.

A pristine, plastic-sheathed… A4 printout? A… Help Wanted Ad?!

It hadn't been there.

Heart pounding, I edged closer through the stench. The streetlight barely illuminated the page.

Inky black paper, like a shred of nightfall. Blinding hot-pink characters glared:

​​NETHELDOM FIELD OFFICE · URGENT OPENING!​​

Below, same lurid pink:

​​Position:​​ Spectral Switchboard Operator (Station 24)

​​Requirements:​​

Must see spirits (NO FAKERS!) Fortitude essential (WEAKLINGS ABSTAIN!) High Stress Tolerance (OVERTIME GUARANTEED!) Sanity stable (EPISODIC BREAKS TOLERATED, CHRONIC COLLAPSE REJECTED!)

​​Compensation:​​ Room & Board (Netherworld Cuisine, Mortal Lodging. Palate Beware) Compulsory Nether Benefits (excl. Pension)¹ (Hazard Pay, Spectral-Life Policy, Ectoplasmic Disability, Mental Distress Coverage, Sudden Demise Assurance. Note: NO Housing Fund! NO Bonus!) Wage: Hazard-Weighted (Per Call Trauma Scale & Volume)

​​Interview Site:​​ HERE (#77 Poltergeist Lane)

​​Interview Time:​​ NOW! (Delay at Own Peril)

​​Contact:​​ Sister Meng (Volatile Temper, Engage at Risk)

At the bottom, in thicker, even more eye-searing pink:

​​WARNING! NO TIME-WASTERS! INTERVIEW HAZARDOUS! EMPLOYMENT PERILOUS! DECEASED APPLICANTS WAIVE LIABILITY!​​

¹ Compulsory Nether Benefits (excl. Pension): A dark bureaucratic pun translating "五险缺金" (Five Insurances Minus Gold/Housing Fund). The footnote lists the morbidly humorous "benefits" – Hazard Pay, Spectral-Life Policy (plays on life insurance), Ectoplasmic Disability, Mental Distress Coverage, Sudden Demise Assurance – mimicking the standard five social insurances but tailored for hellish employment, explicitly excluding pensions/bonuses. The tone captures bureaucratic absurdity in a supernatural HR nightmare.

Netherworld… Switchboard Operator?

Must see spirits?

Compulsory Nether Benefits (excl. Pension)?

Deceased Applicants Waive Liability?!

Madness! Was this a mass hallucination or the sick jest of a lunatic asylum?

Yet the paper was unnaturally pristine, its plastic sleeve gleaming slick. The cheap ink and plastic scent hung palpable in the freezing damp.

​​*Grrrrroooowl…​​* My stomach roared its ultimatum.

Hunger and cold were twin vipers crushing me. Mud-sodden bread… or this ominous portal to possible food?

Room & Board…

For those three words!

Sod it! Madman or not! Better than starving and freezing! Switchboard it is! So I answer calls from the dead? Childhood training!

Defiant recklessness flooded me. Holding my breath against the trash miasma, I approached the sack-choked crevice.

77… Enter here?

Tentatively, I reached for the outermost bloated sack.

My fingertip touched plastic—

​​*Splortch!​​*

It burst. A geyser of indescribable rot—spoiled fruit, rancid slop, decaying offal—engulfed me. Eyes watered; bile surged.

Yet—

As the stench erupted—

The entire barricade… shifted.

​​*Slurp…​​*

​​*Schluuurrpp…​​*

Every sack, every piece of refuse… retracted. Sucked backward into the rough brick walls like sinking into tar. No trace remained but the lingering stench.

A passage just wide enough to sidle through gaped before me. Utter blackness within, save a distant, sickly green flicker.

A current of damp, ancient air, tasting of dust and spent joss sticks, sighed from the depths.

My pulse hammered thunderously. Sweat slicked my palms. I glanced back at the alley's faint light, then touched my aching, hollow stomach.

Bugger it all! Death comes anyway!

Steeling myself, I stepped into the murk.

Instantly—

A membrane of cold slime enveloped me. Air grew thick, oppressive. Total blackness reigned, save that unsteady green glow ahead.

The passage forced me sideways, walls rough and clammy with moss. Uneven stones underfoot. The joss stick smell intensified.

A dozen steps later—space opened.

An utterly bizarre "room" materialized.

Small, square. Crude, unpainted gray concrete walls. A single, grime-encrusted incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling, its anemic, jaundiced light barely denting the gloom.

Centered in the room: a desk.

A battered, mustard-yellow wooden school desk. Rust ate its legs. Surface gouged and scratched, defaced with crude carvings of "早" (Early).

Behind it sat a woman.

She wore a screamingly bright, high-slit qipao patterned with gold peonies. Hair meticulously pinned, adorned with a jade hairpin. Her face was a mask of theatrical cosmetics: carmine lips, sharply raven-winged eyebrows, heavy, elongated kohl liner tipped with sparkling shards.

She lounged, one leg crossed over the other. On one foot: a ratty, scarlet plastic slide, missing rhinestones. On the other: a fluffy yellow rubber duck slipper. Crimson lacquer gleamed on her toenails.

This chaotically attired "Sister Meng" was leaning low, holding a… disturbingly ancient-looking implement? A stylus of somber wood, its nib gleaming with an edge of dark gold.

She was absorbed in a solemn stylus ritual – delicately tracing the curve of her brow before a small, hand-held mirror.

I stared.

Silence reigned. Only the faint scritch-scratch of nib on skin and my own ragged breath.

She didn't pause. The only movement: a faint, precise arching of one meticulously drawn brow. Still gazing into the mirror, her lips parted. The voice that emerged was languid, detached, yet razor-sharp:

"Oh. Arrived?"

Finally, she lowered the stylus. Lifted her head.

Those kohl-rimmed, phoenix eyes – colder than frozen steel – impaled my face. A smile, treacherous and faintly mocking, curved the crimson mouth.

"See spirits?" Her quiet voice struck like a tuning fork against bone.

I swallowed dryness, nodding mutely.

"Afraid?" The smile deepened, glinting with amusement.

I hesitated. Memory served: the spectral widow, the corpselike bus driver, the tide of darkness… "Yes," I confessed.

"Good." A dismissive snort. She tossed the stylus carelessly onto the desk. It landed with a soft tock, the dark-gold tip glinting once. Leaning forward on her elbows, chin propped in hand, those glacial eyes dissected me – appraising livestock. Opulent perfume warred with the underlying tang of ancient incense ash.

"Nerves frayed… psyche precarious…" she drawled, gaze flitting over my mud-splattered legs and frost-bitten pallor. "…But…"

A predatory pause. Her scarlet lips stretched into something sharper:

"See spirits?" Her smile widened, pure, cold purpose flaring. "Perfect."

"Effective immediately," the blood-tipped finger jabbed imperiously at my chest across the space, "you are reassigned to Station 24."

"Quelling Unquiet Souls."