NOVEL WEB Chapter 5: Chapter 5: The Interviewer’s Judge-Pen, Preferred for Eyebrows
The concrete chamber exhaled damp and stale. Beneath the consumptive bulb's jaundiced glow, the scarred elementary school desk crouched like a relic. Air lay thick, saturated with cloying perfume and the ashen breath of ancient incense.
"'Quelling Unquiet Souls'?" My voice rasped, thin with hunger and lingering chill, directed at the qipao-clad 'Sister Meng' behind the desk, her lips a gash of crimson. "My role? Ghostly grief counseling? Urging specters to relinquish their blades and seek redemption?"
Sister Meng's phoenix eyes—drawn sharp as honed ice—narrowed. A smirk, nakedly derisive, touched her scarlet mouth. "Counseling? Pfah! Were spirits amenable to mortal reason, would the Netherworld subcontract its grunt work to this wretched outpost? Presumptuous whelp!"
Vermilion-tipped nails drummed impatiently on the coarse wood. The archaic stylus she'd used for her brows trembled faintly with each tap, its dark-gold nib glinting like a serpent's cold pupil in the sickly light.
"Observe, fledgling," she commanded, chin tilting towards a grotesquely incongruous object huddled in the corner. "Your theater lies there. Seeing spirits? Merely the admission token. Daring to grasp that apparatus? That marks your mettle!"
My gaze followed her gesture.
There, nestled against weeping mildew stains and damp patches on the wall, stood a solitary anachronism.
A hulking, antiquated… public telephone booth?!
Not sleek modernity, but a relic seemingly salvaged from an '80s film set. Sheet-metal shell flaked with long-faded forest-green paint, rust bleeding along its edges like scabbed wounds. The awning sagged precariously beneath decades of dust. Its double glass doors were shut, panes webbed with cracks and smeared with phantom handprints, barely revealing the yellowed, coin-operated apparatus within.
Most unnerving: it lacked any connection. No wires, no cables. It simply existed, squatting in the frigid corner like an abandoned iron sepulcher.
"Grasp that?" I faltered. "The thing weighs a ton! Am I to wield it as a bludgeon?"
"Imbecile!" Sister Meng slammed a palm on the desk, jolting the stylus. "The headset! Seize the headset within!"
Headset?
Squinting through the grimy glass, I discerned it: hanging beside the receiver, a headset steeped in decrepitude.
Its hue resembled grease eternally ingrained, a murky blend of umber and soot. Ear cushions had long rotted away, collapsing to expose skeletal wire frames and pathetic tufts of stuffing—like wounds revealing raw bone. The cable connecting it to the stand was encased in a thick, stratified accretion of some viscous black substance! Tar? Pitch? Or… palpable, solidified malice, distilled from epochs of accumulated grievance?
Beneath the semi-translucent, congealed black resin, minuscule, agonized faces seemed to writhe in silent torment. Merely glimpsing them sent a wave of cold, cloying vertigo crashing against my skull.
"Urk…" Nausea surged; I clapped a hand over my mouth.
"Ha! Cowed?" Sister Meng's mockery intensified. "Can't stomach the 'amuse-bouche'? Then scurry off! Cease squandering my time!" She snatched the archaic stylus, returning her scrutiny to the hand mirror, apparently dissatisfied with her brow's perfection.
I stared at the booth, the malice-sheathed headset, then this volatile woman wielding a Judge-Pen as a cosmetic tool. Hunger roared within me, a death knell against my fraying sanity. Flee? To freeze, starve, or be rent by the spectral tide?
"…I'll attempt it." The words scraped from my throat, raw with resignation.
Drawing a breath thick with strange odors, I edged towards the booth. An oppressive aura intensified with each step, icy tendrils needling my marrow.
*SCREEEECH—*
Rusted hinges shrieked protest as I hauled the metal door open. A wave of metallic decay and ancient dust assaulted me.
The interior was claustrophobic. The putrid-yellow phone leered before me, receiver heavy, plastic casing fissured. The headset, now up close, revealed its trapped souls writhing with renewed frenzy beneath the resin! A faint, metallic scritching emanated from within, like claws on tin.
Hand trembling uncontrollably, icy fingers extended towards the enshrouded device.
"Halt!" Sister Meng's voice cracked like ice behind me.
I froze.
She had set down the stylus, regarding me with withering contempt. "Fumbling in the dark, hoping for a belt? No key, yet you seek to unlock?"
Key? What key?
Before comprehension dawned, she flicked her wrist with dismissive grace.
*SWOOSH—!*
A streak of obsidian darkness—a striking viper—lanced from her fingers!
*THWOCK!*
A sound like thick vellum sundered.
The darkness struck… my chest?!
No!
Embedded in the screen protector of the Pineapple handset nestled against my chest!
It was—
The stylus!
That archaic, black-bodied stylus with its dark-gold nib!
Now, it pierced the phone like a cold rivet, transfixing screen and fabric, its tip protruding slightly from the back! A spiderweb of cracks exploded across the glass!
"You lunat—!" My enraged cry died unborn—
*HUMMMMMM—!!!*
The dark-gold tip embedded in the screen erupted! A conflagration a thousandfold fiercer than before—a captive sun unleashed! Pure, primordial, suffused with the crushing weight of cosmic judgment, exploded outward!
The concrete chamber convulsed! Plaster cascaded like rotten scales! The consumptive bulb shrieked its death throes, light strobing madly! The desk groaned! Sister Meng's mirror fissured instantly!
Simultaneously—
Bathed in this golden inferno and dread aura, the viscous, oil-slick malevolence encasing the headset—
Met its nemesis!
*HISSSSS—CRACKLE-SPUTTER!*
Like fat on a griddle! A cacophony of sizzling, spitting dissolution!
The writhing, tormented faces within the resin screamed silently as the golden flames scoured them, flaking away, evaporating, reduced to drifting ash!
Within heartbeats!
The headset, moments ago a vessel of abyssal rancor—
Stood revealed—
A deep-gray, antiquated, brutally utilitarian headset.
Stripped of its spectral shroud, it looked… appallingly mundane. The decayed foam gaps and exposed rusted wires were starkly visible.
The stylus's apocalyptic radiance receded as swiftly as it came, leaving only the cold dark-gold point. The crushing pressure vanished, leaving only drifting plaster dust and the bulb's erratic flicker as proof.
I stood paralyzed, back drenched in cold sweat. The phone pinned to my chest dug painfully, its metallic chill seeping through fabric. Those seconds felt like being cast into Laozi's alchemical crucible.
Sister Meng, utterly unperturbed, sauntered over. With fastidious distaste, pinching the stylus's end between two crimson-nailed fingers.
"Tsk. Nearly ruined another case." She frowned, extracting it with a slight tug.
*POP.*
A soft sound. The stylus slid free, screen-piercing ordeal ended.
Its golden light extinguished, it resumed its innocuous guise. Yet, from its tip, a minuscule smear of grayish, particulate residue clung—snagged from the phone's silicone protector…
Sister Meng wrinkled her nose in profound disgust. Holding the stylus like contaminated waste, she swiped its tip—once, twice—against a thick, greasy accumulation of grime crusting the desk's edge.
*Scritch. Scritch.*
The motion was fluid, practiced… like sharpening a pencil lead?!
"There!" She declared, jabbing the now-"cleansed" stylus haphazardly into her immaculate coiffure beside the jade hairpin! The elegant knot now sported a stark, dark protrusion tipped in dark gold—a dissonant, grotesque ornament.
She dusted her hands, the gesture dismissing a trivial chore, then speared me with a gaze brimming with malicious amusement:
"Enough gawking! Sanctified. Rookie Ye Thirteen, seize your headset! Don it! Prepare for operational verification! My schedule tolerates no dawdling!" She nudged the obstructive rubber duck slipper with her foot.
Operational… verification?!
Grasp this artifact just scoured by nuclear-level forces? Wear it?
I stared at the Pineapple phone—screen shattered yet logo defiantly lit—then the now-benign gray headset in the booth, finally at this volatile employer wielding a Judge-Pen as a nail file. A wave of absurd, bone-deep dread washed over me.
But… Room & Board…
The phrase hammered against my starved nerves like a maniacal drumbeat.
Damn it all!
Death comes regardless!
With the grim resolve of mounting the scaffold, I reached out and seized the deep-gray, antiquated headset.
Its weight was astonishing—a block of chilled iron. The material, some unyielding polymer, leached cold into my bones. Crucially, the instant my fingers made contact—
An indescribable, violently complex torrent of data erupted through my fingertips, flooding my mind!
Instantaneous sensory overload!
A maelstrom of fragmented, hyperkinetic images and information:
Icy blue interfaces scrolling digital cataracts…
"…Crackle… Urgent… Crackle… Corridor breach!… Crackle… Sector B-17 Spirit-Pressure Alert!… Crackle…"
"…Help… someone… save… me… Hate… so much hate…"
"…Joss sticks… thread end… Crackle… Coordinates… Sanshengshi Intersection… Lost… lost…"
"…Order… Soul Reaping… Crackle… Client #7747… Unfulfilled…"
…Chaotic data streams interlaced with shrieking static, desolate wails, maniacal howls, emotionless system alerts…
A cacophony of noise and visual shrapnel inundated every corner of my consciousness! Skull-splitting agony!
*THUD!*
My legs buckled. I collapsed onto the frigid concrete, fingers clawing the heavy headset, temples pounding as if a demolition crew raged within my mind!
"Dregs!" Sister Meng's voice lashed like a whip. She bent, her painted face looming, impatience radiating. "Overwhelmed by a 'foundational firmware upload'? Useless refuse dares dream of field duty?"
Foundational firmware upload?! That neural assault was the headset's drivers?!
Gasping, awareness trickled back, the informational shrapnel still buzzing within my skull.
Sister Meng straightened, strode to the desk, and yanked open a drawer missing its handle. Inside, empty save for a thick, ancient ledger-sized calendar bound in oil-stained, tea-crusted kraft paper.
"Fix your eyes!" she barked, seizing a thick corner of the calendar with her unadorned, crimson-nailed hand.
*RRRRIIIIIP—!!!*
An excruciating, paper-rending shriek tore the air!
She didn't turn pages—she violently tore a massive wad of calendar sheets (inches thick!) clean from the binding! A thick sheaf of date-stamped paper crumpled in her grasp, treated with the disdain of discarded newsprint.
Then—
The truly horrifying act!
Holding the thick stack, Sister Meng flicked her wrist—a dealer flinging cards!
*WHOOSH—!!*
A blizzard of paper!
Torn calendar sheets erupted like startled white moths, a paper tornado engulfing me where I sat!
Cold, dusty pages slapped my face, clung to my clothes.
Yet—upon contact with my skin—
The seething, chaotic data stream in my mind…
The shrieking static, desolate wails, system alerts, maniacal howls…
Froze! Solidified!
A profound, abyssal silence descended—deeper than any ocean trench. Only my own ragged breath and Sister Meng's crisp, impatient command pierced the paper flurry:
"Don the headset! Secure your 'Operations Manual'!" (She gestured dismissively at the calendar sheets). "Assume station! Three seconds! Fail to achieve readiness? Expulsion!"
Operations Manual?!
I stared dumbly at the white pages littering my lap.
Each bore printed dates, not in Gregorian numerals, but in intricate, ancient Yin-script that seemed to writhe and flow like living patterns. Below, vast blank spaces were filled with a savage, crimson scrawl—characters twisted like tormented specters:
"NO ORDERS POST-MIDNIGHT! DISTURBING SPECTRAL SLUMBER RISKS BACKLASH!"
"SPIRAL INTERSECTIONS: RISING SOUL-LOSS INCIDENTS! NOCTURNAL TRAVEL DISCOURAGED!"
"SOUTHEAST GHOST-GATE UNSTABLE! MALIGNANT EMANATIONS LEAKING! AVOID VICINITY!!"
"NAIHE BRIDGE ADMIN (MORTAL BRANCH) COMPLAINT LINE: PERPETUALLY ENGAGED! GRIEVANCES? BURN PAPER!!"
"CATASTROPHIC PORTENTS TODAY (BLOOD MOON SYMBOL - GIANT X)! SOUL REAPING FORBIDDEN! WATERFRONT HAZARDOUS! ALL MORTALS EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION!"
"OFFICE INSTANT NOODLE STOCK DEPLETED! EXPEDITE LOGISTICS REQUEST!!"
"MONTHLY PERFORMANCE DEDUCTION: AGENT-INDUCED SPIRIT STRANDING EXCEEDED 4H 7M 19S…"
The script screamed silently; the content careened from bureaucratic mundanity to eldritch taboo—a deranged fusion of corporate memo and Netherworld edict! Every character radiated maniacal warning and implacable decree!
This… was the manual?!
Clutching the icy headset, staring at the scattered pages of lunatic directives, then at the iron sepulcher of the booth…
"Three!"
Sister Meng's countdown began, glacial.
Her phoenix eyes, glinting like frozen daggers in the strobing light, brooked no hesitation.
Damn it!
No retreat remained!
Primal survival instinct crushed burgeoning dread. I surged upwards! Scrabbling for the scattered "Operations Manual" pages, clutching the headset like a frozen brick, I lunged through the open metal door!
*CLANG!*
The door slammed shut behind me.
Absolute darkness and biting cold swallowed the cramped space. Only the headset now glowed faintly, a single emerald LED winking like a watchful specter's eye.
I fumbled onto the frigid metal stool; cold pierced thin fabric instantly.
A deep breath drew in rust-flavored air, doing nothing for the tension coiling within.
Don the headset?
I stared at the heavy, gray relic in my hands, its LED pulsing impatiently.
Outside, Sister Meng's glacial voice delivered the final syllable:
"One!"
Sod it all!
Trembling, I lifted the cold-wrought, historically burdened headset and slowly lowered it onto my head.
Heavy metal encased my ears.
Instant, glacial immersion! A plunge into permafrost!
Yet—
The moment the earcups sealed—
*OOOMMMM—!!!*
A deep, resonant, sub-bass thrum—as if from the planet's molten core—detonated within the ear chambers! Direct cranial assault!
The world plunged into silence!
Not mere noise cancellation!
Absolute! Pure! Vacuum-dead stillness!
The silence lasted half a heartbeat.
*Crackle… Fizz… Hiss…*
A microcosm of discordant radio static exploded in my auditory canals! Ten thousand insects gnawing my hearing nerves!
The noise wasn't external—it hammered my auditory cortex!
Instantly—
A deluge of vast, cold, chaotic, nonsensical "data fragments" and "sound shards" poured into my consciousness, riding the hissing static!
Unlike the earlier "Judge-Pen"-purged, "Operations Manual"-suppressed data flood—
This!
Was a live, torrential cascade of unfiltered Yin-Yang boundary signals!
They breached my psychic barriers, funneled through the cursed headset, unfiltered!
My vision fragmented into kaleidoscopic shards:
Festering ankles dragging through alley slime…
Phantom figures shrieking down neon skyscraper facades…
Blood-soaked women endlessly searching rain-slicked crossroads…
Desiccated fingers tracing names by guttering lamplight in ruins…
My ears flooded with sonic debris:
Hysterical shrieks: "Save… me… I… refuse… death…"
Gelid whispers: "Three… more… only three…"
Demented cackles: "Hehehe… all… come… with me…"
Warped system tones: "…Spirit-pressure overload… Crackle… Coordinates… Crackle… Error…"
Even… a fragment of tinny, hellish KTV muzak?! "Back then… you wanted out… out meant out…"
Cold! Chaos! Malignancy! Madness! Negative shrapnel pummeled my psyche! My mind spun in a centrifuge; my soul threatened dissolution!
"Aaaagh!!"
Agony and vertigo tore a strangled cry from me! Hands flew to rip off the headset!
Then—
*BANG!*
The booth's heavy metal door was wrenched open!
Jaundiced light speared the absolute dark, illuminating my contorted face!
Sister Meng's painted mask filled the doorway! She glared down, brows arched like drawn blades, crimson lips tight, eyes twin vials of venom!
"Cease that caterwauling! Mourn your incompetence elsewhere!"
"Lift the receiver!" Her blood-tipped finger stabbed towards the sickly-yellow phone glowing like a terminal patient. Her voice, imbued with glacial command, momentarily pierced the informational cacophony in my ears!
"Donning it permits call reception! Not indulgence in spectral lamentations or infernal karaoke!"
Lift… the receiver? Receive… calls?
My mind swam, visuals and noise still warring, but her glacial words pierced the chaos like an ice pick.
Receive calls?
Not monitor broadcasts?
To… converse?
Before my fingers could twitch.
Buzz… Buzz… Buzz…
The receiver itself—the heavy, grease-smudged black plastic handpiece—began… vibrating?!
No ringtone!
The handpiece trembled violently, humming, shaking its cradle!
Simultaneously—
The cacophonous static in the headset… vanished! Filtered away! Leaving only one sound—crystal clear, intimate, chillingly close, carrying a faint, icy breath against my ear canal…
A voice. Rasping. Labored. Like bellows torn by rusted blades, syllables forced past a throat shredded by corrosion:
"…Hea…r… me…?"
"Nether…world… Customer… Service… at… your… disposal…"
The rasping voice, the broken cadence…
Was unmistakably…
My own!!!