“Resident Li Cuiping of Corner Street, having violated too many taboos, became possessed by an evil spirit and summoned a massive, steel-slab forbidden item inscribed with foul words.
“The forbidden item constantly emanated a mind-polluting, twisted radiance, bearing the portrait of an evil god disguised as a kindly old man, alongside obscure runes spelling out ‘[KFC]’.
“The Law Enforcement Team first prudently performed an exorcism mass, then struck the runes with an evil-breaking iron hammer, yet provoked a violent backlash from the forbidden item. Sparks flew in all directions, and one team member died in the line of duty on the spot.
“All citizens are urged to take warning from this. — *Wancheng Daily*”
“The venerable Black Robes…”
Putting down the daily newspaper, Bai Zhou, dressed in a plain blue-and-white school uniform, handed a crumpled five-yuan note to the chubby store owner.
“The usual. A pack of Four Delicacies instant noodles, and two Jade-in-Jade ham sausages.”
“Packed it up for you already!”
The fat boss took the money and handed over a black plastic bag. “How come you didn't go bum a meal at Big Sister Li's? A wedding's so lively!”
Everyone in the alley knew Bai Zhou. They had taught him which stall in the wet market sold the tenderest cucumbers with blossoms still attached, and what time to queue at the boxed meal stands for the shortest lines.
The stitching on his school uniform trousers had been mended again and again; eighteen times the leaves on Corner Street had turned green and yellowed. An orphan, Bai Zhou had grown up on food shared by the whole neighborhood.
“Thanks, Uncle Xiang.”
Bai Zhou took the plastic bag and glanced at the alarm clock on the counter, with its thirty-six numbers circling the dial. He shook his head.
“Didn't have money for a wedding gift, so I passed.”
“I only just saw Big Sister Li the day before yesterday, and in the blink of an eye, she's gone,” the fat boss known to the neighbors as Uncle Xiang sighed wistfully.
“Still, you could call it a blessing in disguise. Lovers united in marriage with Old Wang at last.”
“Isn't that the truth?” Bai Zhou shook the newspaper in his hand.
The Li Cuiping in the paper was the very same Big Sister Li Uncle Xiang spoke of.
—Having broken too many taboos, she had been possessed by something unclean.
Babbling incomprehensible nonsense about “transmigration” this and “Marxist philosophy” that, she hadn't even retained common knowledge like a day having thirty-six hours.
The next day, on Thursday afternoon, the deranged Big Sister Li was dragged to Civic Square by the Black Robe Law Enforcement Team, tied to a cross, and burned to ash.
Yet turning into ashes really was a blessing in disguise: it allowed her to pass the Black Robes' vetting and finally wed Uncle Wang.
A cause for celebration, truly.
The two had been in love for a long time, had even had children together, but had never held a wedding.
After all, how could living people possibly get married?
“By the way, did the results from your Black Robe selection come out?” Uncle Xiang looked at Bai Zhou with an eager gaze.
“They did.” Bai Zhou curled his lip. “Didn't get picked.”
“What?” Uncle Xiang froze. “You're top of the Youth Training Corps! If you didn't get picked, who could?”
“In theory, yes. But the one chosen in the end was Li Wang.”
Uncle Xiang stared in disbelief. “That sly, rotten brat? On what grounds?”
Bai Zhou nodded. “On the grounds that the Lord Black Robe in charge of selection is Li Wang's dad.”
“There are vermin like that among the Black Robes?” Uncle Xiang grumbled and cursed.
“Don't let anyone hear you say that!” Bai Zhou waved his hands frantically.
“—But it's fine. In a few days when I graduate from the training corps, I'll be recommended straight into the Black Robes anyway.”
In Wancheng, the Black Robe Law Enforcement Team was heaven itself—the architects and guardians of order.
Everyone in Wancheng yearned to join the Black Robes, but they accepted only the finest elites.
Monsters from the wilderness beyond the city invaded from time to time; only through the diligence and sacrifice of the Black Robes could the residents within the walls live and work in peace.
Since childhood, Bai Zhou had loved adventure stories, always imagining himself as the protagonist. The more others kept strictly silent about the perilous wilderness, the more curious he became, longing for the world beyond the walls.
To that end, Bai Zhou had poured every ounce of effort into his routine training, earning the appreciation of the Law Enforcement Team's higher-ups. He needed only to graduate to join the Black Robes' Out-of-City Survey Corps, granting him clearance to pass through the city gates and explore the wilds.
“Good, you know what you're doing.” Uncle Xiang gave a sheepish chuckle, then turned his gaze toward the street outside. After glancing out, he froze.
“Bai Zhou? What's that over there?”
Uncle Xiang wasn't sure. “Do you think that looks like… a forbidden item?”
“A forbidden item?” Bai Zhou jolted and followed his gaze outside.
Dusk was falling.
A restless breeze, heavy with stifling heat, drifted across the intersection.
The pale sun sank beneath the horizon, and a crimson crescent moon rose, casting an air of peace and serenity.
Clouds drifted past, unveiling the red moon in the night sky. On the quiet bluestone street lay a piece of glowing glass.
Its strange light was starkly conspicuous against the gloom of night.
“It really is a forbidden item!” Bai Zhou looked at Uncle Xiang gravely. “Did you break a taboo too?”
In Wancheng, every broken taboo was a summons to forbidden items and evil spirits.
Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, carry an umbrella on sunny days, never comb your hair during daylight, stick chopsticks upright and neat into the bowl before eating…
These were fundamental truths that even children knew.
But what if one deliberately violated these basic rules?
That was breaking taboos.
Break enough of them, and evil spirits would come looking for you.
Milder cases were forced to drink holy water laced with “Sacred Ashes.”
For severe cases, like the deranged Big Sister Li, it could even cause forbidden items to descend…
Then there was nothing left but to face judgment under the iron fist of the Black Robes, finally purified in the blazing holy fire.
“That's impossible!” Uncle Xiang grew nervous. “Could it be that the evil spirit haunting Big Sister Li wasn't completely purged?”
Bai Zhou paused, his heart dropping. He struggled to maintain a grave, blank expression.
Because he suddenly realized: this forbidden item might really have nothing to do with Uncle Xiang—it might be coming for him.
Bai Zhou and Big Sister Li were next-door neighbors. On the night before the selection trials, they had crossed paths.
She had been cooling off in the courtyard, lining up four apples on a table, and asked him:
“Have you had any schooling? If so, let me test you… Do you know why an apple falls from a tree?”
Bai Zhou had never told anyone about that, nor did he dare.
With that thought, Bai Zhou crept cautiously toward the forbidden item.
The glowing glass was a thin, flat rectangle, its upward face radiating a piercing glare.
Trapped within the thin pane seemed to be some creature, emitting sounds that resembled cries for help.
Holding his breath, Bai Zhou leaned in for a closer look…
With just that single glance, he felt as though he had suffered some horrifying, twisted mental pollution.
For within was a terrifying entity that was neither human nor clearly identifiable as a living thing—
A slimy, dark-yellow square covered in hideous black spots, flailing twisted, spindly limbs, its cunning eyes rolling about.
It strolled inside the glass with strange creaking sounds, patting the shoulder of another foolish entity covered in repulsive tentacles, uttering mind-polluting, blasphemous, hair-raising shrieks:
“Oooooh—!”
“Patrick, let's go jellyfishing!”
The ear-splitting scream pierced Bai Zhou's eardrums, forcing him back several paces.
Now, Bai Zhou was one hundred percent certain that this was a forbidden item!
He had received professional training in the corps and knew this was likely a forbidden item akin to a wishing lamp, sealing within it unspeakable ancient evil gods.
Beyond a doubt, it was of the same nature as the steel slab Big Sister Li had summoned—the “totem of a mad evil god”!
“W-What do we do?!” The fat on Uncle Xiang's face quivered.
Bai Zhou stepped forward.
“Aard!” He immediately formed a hand seal, chanting the exorcism incantation he had learned in the Youth Training Corps.
Yet the forbidden item remained entirely unmoved.
“As expected of a forbidden item sealing two ancient gods.” Bai Zhou nodded, not showing the slightest panic.
—The next second, he reached into his tunic, calmly pulled out a cylinder, and drew the cord.
*Pop!* A flare shot from the tube and burst in the sky—a distress signal exclusive to training corps cadets for summoning the Black Robes.
“Hold on, the Black Robes will be here soon!”
Bai Zhou pulled Uncle Xiang back step by step.
In truth, he wished he could turn and bolt, but he didn't dare take his eyes off that glowing pane of glass for an instant.
The law of forbidden items: once ensnared by one, running was useless unless it was sealed or destroyed.
“Oooooh—!”
The square ancient god dashed about as the forbidden item continued blasting its demonic sound. Bai Zhou and Uncle Xiang covered their ears, struggling to endure.
Fortunately, the Black Robes were always efficient.
“It's all right, lad. There's no need to worry anymore—”
A deep baritone rang out. Bai Zhou turned to see a cluster of tall figures.
Black robes billowed in the wind. Tall, imposing, and stalwart, every person striding forward radiated confidence and pride.
Giving Bai Zhou a thumbs-up, the leading middle-aged Black Robe flashed a grin of bright white teeth:
“Because we have arrived!”
“T-Teacher!” Seeing the man in the lead, Bai Zhou let out a long breath of relief, recognizing him as an instructor he had seen in the Youth Training Corps.
Instantly ushering the Black Robes in front of him to shield him, Bai Zhou felt an unmatched sense of security.
Thank goodness, they were saved!
Confronting gods with mere mortal bodies—such was the Black Robe Law Enforcement Team!
“You're the top cadet of the training corps?” The Black Robe officer turned and recognized Bai Zhou, gesturing for him to come over. “Perfect timing, come lend a hand!”
“…All right.” Bai Zhou blinked, but could only step forward in response, taking hold of a massive hammer.
Next, the Black Robes began their exorcism ritual.
First, they sealed off the street as if facing a mortal enemy. Then, several Black Robes donned ferocious masks, stripped to the waist, smeared fragrant oil across their bodies, hung bells upon themselves, and danced around the glowing glass, keeping time to a distinct rhythm.
A virgin among the Black Robes, face solemn with devotion, dipped her fingertips in salt water and sprinkled it over the upward-facing surface of the glass.
—Suddenly, as if stung by the salt water droplets, the two ancient gods vanished.
In their place appeared a twisted, mystical white rune—round like a whirlpool, yet reminiscent of a musical note, thought-provoking and ominous—flickering with pale light against a pitch-black background.
“Now!” the Black Robe shouted sharply, looking toward Bai Zhou.
Bai Zhou immediately hoisted the red-painted sledgehammer high.
At that moment, a synthesized female voice emanated from the white rune, attempting to bewitch Bai Zhou:
“Douyin: Record a beautiful life!”
Bai Zhou sneered, his gaze resolute. “A beautiful life has nothing to do with evil gods—it can only be created by the people!”
The next instant,
The sledgehammer crashed down!
Accompanied by a sharp crack, the glass shattered into a web of fractures and completely ceased glowing. The bewitching voice cut out abruptly.
…Was it over?
The street fell silent. Bai Zhou slowly lowered the hammer.
“Composed in the face of danger, protecting others… People like you are the true talent the Black Robes need!”
The Black Robe officer clapped Bai Zhou hard on the shoulder, giving a solemn promise:
“When you graduate from the Youth Training Corps, I'll personally write you a letter of recommendation!”
“It's only what I ought to do.” Bai Zhou scratched his head bashfully, his nerves gradually easing.
*Crack!*
In the quiet alley, a bizarre echo suddenly rang out once more.
Bai Zhou turned his head in shock. “Again?”
With a low boom, the ground—and even the sky—inexplicably shook.
The cracks on the glass forbidden item spread, creeping directly into the air, and continued upward, higher and higher…
“The sky!” a Black Robe suddenly cried out in horror.
Everyone looked up at the sound, and what met their eyes made them forget how to breathe.
The blood moon that had hung eternally in the heavens had chipped a corner, and the scarlet night sky was torn open, revealing an incongruous patch of azure blue.
*Snap! Tear!*
It sounded like a curtain being ripped apart, or a mirror shattering.
Before Bai Zhou's dazed eyes,
The sky fell.
Yes, literally: fragments woven of red and black fluttered down from the sky.
*Did we cause a catastrophe this big?* Dazed, Bai Zhou felt his scalp tingle with dread.
“Chant with me, quickly!” trembling Black Robes began intoning hymns.
Large basins of black dog blood, ram blood, and salt water were frantically hurled toward the sky, only to be dragged back down by gravity, drenching the Black Robes themselves.
Beneath the showering debris of the shattering sky, they mechanically repeated their sacrificial dance like a frenzy of serpents or a revelry of Shiva, their ecstatic movements whirling like a tempest across the shuddering earth.
“Heaven is wrathful! We need a sacrifice!” Some of the Black Robes turned strange, savage gazes toward Bai Zhou.
All at once, a cool, slightly raspy woman's voice drifted from the glass forbidden item:
“Hey—”
“Come out!”
Flames ignited along the horizon.
The next moment came the tremor of something slamming into the ground.
Bearing staggering weight and momentum, a slender silhouette plummeted straight down, landing beside the glass forbidden item.
Immediately after, like a shower of falling meteors—
More silhouettes plunged from the sky one after another.
Before Bai Zhou could make sense of what was happening,
Hair fluttering, the first figure arrived before the dumbstruck Bai Zhou.
In a world on the brink of collapse, the haze cleared from his vision. Striving to keep his composure, Bai Zhou focused his gaze.
“…Who…?”
The shattered blood moon illuminated the sky.
Her back to the vault of heaven ablaze with fire, her shadow stretched long across the ground.
A mane of black hair whipped in the wind, cascading like a waterfall to frame ruby-like eyes that burned like fire.
A pitch-black greatcoat resembling a cape flapped loudly in the wind, its swirling edges billowing like clouds.
From the cuffs of the coat, slender, jade-pale fingers could be seen tightly gripping a long saber that was, for some reason, mottled with rust, exuding a violent and chilling beauty.
A liquid resembling molten steel flowed along the blade, shedding embers that drifted and danced like crimson butterflies.
—A girl like a god, like a demon, had thus torn through the sky, descending before the dumbstruck Bai Zhou.
A roasted fragrance akin to coffee lingered around her, drifting into Bai Zhou's sensitive nostrils.
“She is…”
With a thunderous boom,
Behind her, the crumbling blood moon finally shattered into dross.
A golden sun—something Bai Zhou had never seen before, suspended in the sky like a ball of fire—along with an expanse of blue sky, replaced everything he had ever known.
The blinding, alien sunlight made Bai Zhou reflexively squint, tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes.
At the same time,
Figures clad in black trench coats, bearing a style completely unlike anything in Wancheng, launched ground operations across the area.
Black “great birds” swept across the sky with the deafening roar of rotors.
Fully armed, masked soldiers marched in step with combat boots, an overwhelming torrent of steel threatening to completely engulf this fragile little city.
…On that day, at that very moment,
Before the alley not far from his home,
The peaceful everyday life that Bai Zhou had taken for granted for eighteen years was shattered—
Cut entirely to pieces by that woman holding a rusted long saber.
“One hundred and thirty-eighth expedition to the Reflected Ruin Realm. Coordinates (1999, 2333, 7051): position secured.”
A slightly raspy whisper came from the slender figure holding the fire-trailing saber.
Bai Zhou recognized it—it was identical to the cool voice he had heard moments ago.
“Blue Star Eastern Federation time: August 17, 2030 AD, 09:24 AM.
“Successfully located the ruins of Wancheng.”
The girl who had trampled the celestial light, overturned the world, and descended upon Wancheng like a god looked down upon everything with knife-sharp eyes, her irises cold and haughty.
“The missing children have been found.”