After work, just as Harry stepped into the front yard, he saw the director coming down from the office building.
"Come on, an old friend of mine has been transferred to End City, the neighboring city. We might have some business dealings in the future. Let's go welcome him."
"Director…" Harry started to think of an excuse not to go.
"This restaurant's dishes have the effect of nourishing yang energy and dispelling evil. It'll help you recover. By the way, did you sweat while sunbathing these past few days?"
Harry had no words.
Over the past three days, he had done almost nothing productive, just hanging around, getting acquainted with his colleagues, or sitting in the yard sunbathing.
While soaking up the sun, he did feel warm and comfortable, but not even a bit hot.
He knew that wasn't normal, especially in August.
The director climbed into an old manual car, inspecting it carefully, walking around it three times, gently patting the rear as if it needed some encouragement.
———
On the road, the car maintained a steady speed between 40 and 60 kilometers per hour.
"I think you won't leave in the near future so let me tell you something."
"At our workplace, you're currently the only one who can enter the old cold storage. If there's ever a need, only you can go in. But honestly, you might not need to go there for another year or two."
"When you're more familiar with the place, you can choose which department you'd like to work in. If you don't want to stay at the facility all the time, you can join the fieldwork team."
"Whatever the director thinks is best," Harry replied, though he didn't take it too seriously. He had just started and didn't even know the place that well yet.
"Hmm, be a bit cautious for the time being. We've nearly figured out what happened—turns out that thing sneaked in during a gap about a year ago and had been hiding in the old office building for over a year.
"But we still haven't figured out how it got in."
"There's a uniform in the backseat for you. It's brand new, just made. You can wear it during work hours. Consider it an employee benefit."
Harry thanked him but didn't feel comfortable opening it up just yet. By the looks of it, it was the same style as the uniforms worn by his colleagues.
They drove from the outskirts into the city and parked outside a small, private restaurant.
Harry glanced up at the sign, noticing a faint glow surrounding it. Looking closely, he realized the glowing lights had combined to form the shape of a talisman.
"Come on, my old friend's already here. Just relax and enjoy the food. We're all old acquaintances, and there's no need to follow drinking customs—times have changed. Take it easy."
The director smiled warmly, reassuring Harry before walking into the restaurant.
Harry had barely taken two steps when he felt a chill down his spine, a coldness that felt all too familiar—like the sensation he had when the dried corpse's phantom had passed through him a few days ago.
He glanced behind him. The road was sparsely populated, with cars occasionally driving by. There was no one on the opposite sidewalk.
He scanned the area, his gaze landing on an advertisement at the bus stop across the street. As he stared at the face on the ad, it suddenly began to smile—an eerie, exaggerated grin. The corners of its mouth stretched all the way to its ears, splitting its cheeks open.
In the blink of an eye, everything was back to normal.
Harry stood still for a moment before quickly catching up to the director.
"Director…"
He lowered his voice and quickly recounted what he had just seen.
"Director, was that a hallucination?"
The director's face turned serious as he approached the restaurant's entrance, looking across the street at the advertisement. He pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Yeah, at the north end of End City, across from the old restaurant, at the bus stop."
After hanging up, the director patted Harry on the shoulder, clearly impressed.
"You did great. Always report things like that right away. Don't brush them off as hallucinations."
"Most of the time, those who think it's just a trick of the eye don't end up well."
"Remember, when you encounter something like this, it's never a hallucination."
"Come on, let's go eat. You've been a bit low on yang energy lately—you need to replenish it."
They went upstairs to a private room, where a middle-aged man was already seated inside.
The two older men exchanged pleasantries typical of their age before the director introduced them.
"This is Harry, our new hire."
He then introduced the man to Harry.
"And this is Kai Qiyan, newly transferred to our county as the head of the Scorching Sun Department."
"We work with the Scorching Sun Department on occasion, usually helping with some cleanup after incidents."
After some small talk, the dishes started to arrive. But just as they were about to begin eating, there was a loud thud from outside, followed by a burst of flames.
The three men immediately stood up and rushed to the window.
Across the street, a small car had crashed into the bus stop advertisement, and flames were rapidly spreading.
Harry turned to the director in shock, overwhelmed by how fast they had dealt with the situation—and in such a straightforward, brutal manner.
However, the director's face remained stoic as he quickly explained the situation to Kai Qiyan.
"Idiots courting death," Kai Qiyan scoffed before leaping out of the second-story window and landing beside the burning car in just a few steps. He smashed the driver's side window with a single punch and pulled the unconscious driver from the car with one hand.
A few minutes later, the fire truck arrived, putting out the flames, and an ambulance took the driver away.
Kai Qiyan returned to the restaurant.
"Probably just an accident. Someone else will handle the rest. Don't worry about it."
"Hah…" The director chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, let's eat. If we don't start soon, the food will get cold."
Harry wanted to ask more, but by now, he wasn't naive. He understood that this wasn't just some department handling things.
He felt uneasy, like he had boarded a pirate ship. His thoughts wandered back to the phantom of the dried corpse he had encountered a few days ago.
The director had mentioned that the corpse had wanted to retrieve its own body from the old cold storage, and now Harry was the only one who could access that storage.
Connecting the dots, the director had said they hadn't yet figured out how that thing had sneaked in. Then, today, Harry had encountered the smiling face on the advertisement.
'Are there other ghosts that want something from the old cold storage?'
'Could it be that some creatures already knew I can access the storage?'
These thoughts swirled in his mind, to the point that he barely noticed how delicious the food was. After the meal, his body felt slightly warm, and he even broke a bit of a sweat.
The director dropped him off at home afterward.
Once home, Harry opened the plastic bag containing his new uniform. It was a black vest and jacket. As he touched the fabric, he felt a familiar sensation.
He turned the vest inside out and shone a flashlight on the lining. He could faintly see the outline of old banknotes sewn inside.
Harry thought for a moment, then immediately put on the tacky-looking vest.
The director hadn't been lying. This really was a benefit.
Wearing the uniform gave him a sense of security. After all, he had seen firsthand what the director's jacket could do.
A few hours later, after quitting his game and shutting off his computer, Harry was about to shower and go to bed when he noticed his goldfish floating near the water's surface, blowing bubbles.
He tossed in some fish food. But just as he was about to set the food down, he heard a voice.
"Is that it? I've been starving all day."
Harry froze, staring at the fish tank. The goldfish was still near the surface, blowing bubbles.
"What are you looking at? I'm still not full."
The goldfish complained again.
'No way...'
Without hesitation, Harry grabbed a net, scooped up the fish, and threw it onto the floor—
'Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!...'
Sweat started to drop from his forehead and he stomped on it until it was dead.
He was someone who listened to advice carefully. Today's lesson from the director had been clear—anything you think is a hallucination, you'd better not treat it as one. If you can kill it, it's definitely not an illusion.
Looking at the squished goldfish lying motionless on the floor, Harry let out a sigh of relief.
At that moment, his phone rang. It was the director.
"Hello, Director."
"Harry, are you feeling okay? Any hallucinations? You'd better come to the hospital. Turns out the mushrooms we ate earlier weren't fully cooked—they're poisonous."
"Huh?"
"Huh, what? Nobody expected this. That chef has been cooking mushrooms for thirty years without an issue, and now he messed it up. The guy's still stubborn, saying he's been doing it the same way for three decades and that it's not his fault. He says we must have eaten something else and got poisoned from that."
After hanging up the phone, Harry stood there in shock. He looked down at the flattened goldfish on the floor. Despite being squished, the goldfish stubbornly lifted its half-crushed head and, with a crooked mouth, sneered:
"Well, bro, how were the mushrooms?"