Cyber Ghosts

The moon shone bright in the dark sky, light piercing through the clouds and casting a dull glow over the forest below.

I hid in the corner of an old stone building, half collapsed by time. I wasn't sure what I was doing here, hiding behind what was left of the old wall. Was I waiting for something? Running from something?

"Bring him here!" somebody yelled from the other side of the wall. "Bring me another animal, too. A sika deer should work."

Startled, I turned and pressed myself to the wall, leaning out a bit so I could just see them out of one eye.

There were about seven men in black clothes. Two of them had a younger man pinned to the ground. The moonlight shining on his pale skin gave me a clear view of his face and fashionable clothes.

"I heard you're a very disobedient young man," one of the figures said. "We've been asked to help you fix that."

The young man stared back stubbornly.

"I'm not disobedient. I just won't be part of their plans."

The man standing over him sneered.

"Oh? You're just a free thinker, I guess! I'm so sorry for the trouble. We'll just tell our employer we only accept jobs from upstanding citizens now," he said mockingly. He turned to his cohorts. "Let's begin."

As he finished speaking, another man pulled over a sika deer. The man who'd been speaking extended his hands, pressing one against the deer and one against the young man. As he pulled his hands away, a small light drifted from each body. Against the dark forest, I could see the shape of each light clearly. One hand held a prancing deer, the other a small replica of the man on the ground.

He showed the two lights to the young man.

"If your soul won't listen, we'll simply switch it out for a more compliant one."

He pushed the light of the deer into the young man, allowing the human soul to enter the body of the deer.

"Much better. From now on, you'll be an obedient young man," the man in black said with a laugh. He pointed to the young celebrity on the ground and turned to the crowd around him. "From now on, this man's name is Lu!"

"Alright," the man who'd brought the deer said. He knelt down, pulling a strange object from his bag, and wrote on the young man's forehead. Even far away, the strange light of the characters made them easy to read. The words 'Lu', written with the character for deer, held for a moment, then sunk beneath the skin. The young man writhed in pain.

As the he tried to struggle up, he saw me peeking out from behind the wall and met my eye.

"Help... me..."

His eyes were full of pain, but as he looked at me, there was a moment of hope.

From behind me, a hand closed over my throat and another stranger in black lifted me. Yet another walked forward with a white rabbit, smiling cruelly.

"We'll just switch you soul with an obedient little rabbit, alright?"

"No!" I screamed.

I rolled and hit the ground hard. When I opened my eyes, I was not in a forest. I was laying on the floor of a coworker's house. I must have fallen asleep at the desk.

My colleague Zhou Yuan looked over indifferently, still holding a book open in his hands. At least he didn't get mad that I'd fallen asleep.

My own feelings were more complicated. I'd had dreams like that every night this week.

"Hao Ning, come here," she said, pulling me into the next room. She lowered her voice. "What happened to my Zhou Yuan?"

I braced myself.

"What do you mean?"

"For the past few days, it seems like his mind is always wandering. He doesn't eat much. He'll take a bite or two, then go right back to bed. He won't even talk to me." Mrs. Zhou glanced at her son, but he didn't show any interest in listening in.

"Well... maybe something happened?" I said, scratching my head. I had no idea how to explain it to her. "Sorry to leave so soon, Mrs. Zhou, but I have an urgent matter at work."

Mrs. Zhou looked even more puzzled.

"Today's Sunday. Do you have overtime?"

"Uh... yeah," I smiled awkwardly. "It's a really important project."

The moment I was out the door, I ran home like my life depended on it. Nobody else was home. I gulped down a cup of ice water. It cooled me down a bit, but I was still so lost.

"He's still liked that?" asked a voice. It came from the mirror beside the TV.

I turned to face it. Inside the mirror was another man, handsome face devoid of color. I looked around, making sure I really was alone.

"That's right. And you're still in the mirror. You still can't get out?"

"I can't..." The man reached over to ruffle my reflection's hair. I ducked away without thinking and he smiled. "What are you trying to hide from?"

A week ago, seeing somebody in a mirror would have scared me out of my mind. After this week, I didn't even have the energy to lose my mind.

-

One Week Ago

It was Friday afternoon and I was sorting documents before I left for the week.

"Hao Ning," Zhou Yuan suddenly asked me, "do you have plans this weekend?"

I was the company's Internet Marketing Director. My primary work focused on how to advertise products. The title sounded grand, but my job mostly involved getting yelled at by my boss and resented by my colleagues.

Zhou Yuan was our company's graphic designer. People said eyes were the windows to the soul, and Zhou Yuan's most distinctive feature was his notably large eyes. His eyes, however, seemed mostly decorative, as his art was filled with mistakes. He couldn't even seem to tell if his work was aesthetically pleasing, and the director often mocked his work.

The frustrating thing was despite all the flaws pointed out in his work, part of the blame would also fall on me. 'Hao Ning, as marketing director, shouldn't you care about what the designers do? How could you allow him to bring me such a shoddy product?' and so on.

Still, whatever taste Zhou Yuan lacked in art he made up for in his taste for food. He knew every good spot in the city. Every weekend, he devoted himself to trying different types of food, so when he asked me if I had plans, my hopes were high.

"What can I do?" I asked. I'd just been berated over his work and was still angry with him. "The boss just said I have no sense of design and can't lead my team. I'm going to head to Nanshan Book City and find a few books to read up on design."

"Hey, don't talk like that. You've got a good sense for aesthetics. Besides, if you need help, I can teach you!" I rubbed my forehead and listened helplessly as he charged on. "Speaking of my taste, I was just making plans to go to Heaven's Eye Lake. The scenery is lovely, and there's a hot spring to relax the body and the mind. You could even use the scenery to hone your sense of aesthetics. You've been under so much pressure. Come relax with us. There's plenty of wild game, and we'll-"

"We'll eat wild game?" I looked at him with distain. "How will you catch it? Attack them with your basin sized face? Hunting needs good eyesight. You can't even match colors. Hey, don't beat me up! It was the director who said it! But still, can you even hunt?"

"Of course, I can't, but the locals can help us hunt and- what do you mean, my face is the size of a basin? I may eat a lot, but I don't gain much weight!" He totally ignored my dig at his work.

Still, the trip sounded nice. I had been under a lot of stress, especially since I'd been having nightmares. They featured some sort of devil, a heavenly book, and a divine seal. I had been spending too much time with my head buried in ancient legends, so I agreed to the trip.

Heaven's Eye Lake was a two-hour drive from S City. Zhou Yuan drove. In the backseat sat Liu Shuai, a coworker and friend of ours.

Liu Shuai was a bit of a bookworm. He was in the biomedical department and knew a great deal about human hair, but he'd lost all of his before graduation and been unable to coax it into regrowing. He was totally unable to make any of his theories work.

After that had failed, Liu Shuai had devoted himself to learning programming. Now people tended to assume it was the strain of IT that had stressed him bald.

"How much further?" I asked. The scenery was pleasant, but that could only stay interesting so long. "Zhou Yuan, how about you tell us a story?"

"Alright," Zhou Yuan said. "Then I'll tell a very long story that can last us until we get there."

"Okay, okay," I said, getting ready to listen.

"Once upon a time, there was a mountain. On the mountain, there was a temple. In the temple, there was an old monk telling a story. Do you know what that story was?" Zhou Yuan asked with a laugh. "Once upon a time, there was a mountain. On the mountain, there was a temple. In the temple, there was an old monk telling -"

"Stop!" Liu Shuai yelled. "Forget lasting until we reach our destination, that could go on until the end of the earth."

Zhou Yuan laughed again, taking a sharp turn.

"But I told the truth, didn't I? Here we are!"

Ahead of us, we could now see a verdant mountain forest filled with small villas overlooking the lake. Birds flew between the trees, cutting through the morning fog.

I got out of the car and took a deep breath of the cool air.

"The mountain feels so much further from the city when you hear the birds sing."

"Stop being melodramatic. Let's get inside," Zhou Yuan said, gesturing for us to take out our luggage.

In typical villa style, there was space to cook your own food, or you could ask the locals to cook. The 'wild game' was most likely a half-domesticated type the locals bred in the mountains for tourists to hunt, but not quite the type you'd find in a store.

I was about to enter when I heard a burst of laughter, light as silver bells.

"Mister Wang, you really are awesome! We have plenty to eat tonight!"

Three men and a woman walked towards us. One of the men carried the bodies of some wild rabbits while the other two carried bags. The woman looked at me and frowned a bit, but Zhou Yuan stepped forward to meet her.

"Miss Lan, it's you!" Seeing me hesitate, Zhou Yuan called me over. "Hao Ning, let me introduce you. This is Miss Lan. She's a fellow foodie. Miss Lan, this is Hao Ning. We work together. Who are these gentlemen with you?"

I looked more closely at the men. Miss Lan was hard to read, but they looked simple and honest, if a bit quiet.

"These are my friends. They also enjoy the mountain air and wild game. Look." She pointed at one of the rabbits. It didn't seem dead quite dead and kept twitching every once and a while. "Tonight, we'll have plenty of good food. Will you join us? We brought plenty of other things to eat too."

"I can't accept this," Zhou Yuan said with a laugh. "One shouldn't eat what they haven't earned."

"There's no need to be so polite. We'll go and clean up. This is your villa, right? We can talk about that other matter later." Miss Lan gave a polite smile and pointed next door. "This is our place, so you can come over later."

"Uh..." Zhou Yuan said with an unnatural laugh, "really?"

"Of course, silly boy. It's finally your lucky day," Miss Lan said cheerfully. She turned to leave.

I turned to Zhou Yuan. Something felt off.

"What is it you two need to talk about?" I asked.

"It's fine," Zhou Tuan said, but I thought I heard him mutter, "Maybe I will be lucky."

We spent the afternoon chatting and playing cards. Midafternoon, Zhou Yuan said he needed to talk to Miss Lan about something. He came back calm, telling us he'd confirmed plans for dinner, and he blushed when we asked if he and Miss Lan had really just 'talked'.

"Hao Ning," he said, subtly showing me his phone, "what do you think of this map?"

"It's the weekend and you're still trying to make me work? I thought I was supposed to rest," I snapped, but I took his phone anyway.

The second I looked at it, I couldn't look away. Everything about it was beautiful. The colors were carefully chosen, the layout clean and readable, and each detail had been attended to. It was genuinely perfect, but I worried that I wasn't the best judge and handed it to Liu Shuai.

"Alright, you ass," I said fondly, passing the phone back to Zhou Yuan, "if you can find a map this beautiful, it's proof of your taste. If you copy it well, the director will love it!"

"Yes!" Liu Shuai said, nodding in agreement. "Study this design. If you had this skill, no, a third of this skill, nobody would laugh at you. Look, I don't mean to gossip, but your pictures are just really not up to our team's standards. It can be frustrating."

"Hey, go to hell," Zhou Yuan said. "I drew this map myself, okay?"

Liu Shuai laughed, putting a hand to his head.

"Have you lost your mind? Or are you some great designer in a Zhou Yaun mask? We know what your work looks like. Do you remember how the other night your drawing was so horrible that my team couldn't accept it and you had to work overnight to fix it?"

My heart sank. Why did he have to keep going on about this on the weekend?

Zhou Yuan's lack of aesthetic sense often delayed launches, but saying his art was too horrible to use was going too far. This was going to be an awkward start to the weekend.

Surprisingly, Zhou Yuan didn't seem bothered.

"That's the Zhou Yuan of the past. This is the new me. From now on, my designs will touch the hearts of all who see them."

There was no fight, but, when time for dinner came, Liu Shuai seemed to have lost his appetite. He ate a few vegetables without even touching the meat. We joked that he was already bald as a monk, now he ate like one.

It was already dark when we finished eating. Everyone else went to the hot springs to bathe, but I had work to do and went back to my room to catch up.

All the site data looked standard and I was thinking of shutting my computer when the lights flickered. I looked up and saw a man sitting in front of me. He was handsome, but his face was eerily pale, and he sat like he'd been staring at me for a long time. Worse, he was smiling.

Chills ran down my spine and my heart started to race. I'd heard some people robbed hotel rooms while the occupants slept, but I didn't expect anyone here, especially not while I was still awake.

"Who are you?! What do you want?"

I picked my laptop, ready to throw it at him if he tried to get closer.

"Don't you remember me? Did you forget the story you wrote about our conversation that night?"

"Ah? A story I posted?" I stared at him. "You mean 'A Visit from the Devil'? That was just a dream I had. Are... are you a demon?"

"A demon? What a joke. I am the person in charge of guiding souls in the region of Greater China. My name is Yan."

He pulled out a name card and was about to stand up and hand it to me but stopped when he saw my expression.

"Don't mess with me. Just tell me what you want?" I stared at him. "I don't plan to sell anything, lend money, or buy insurance. I'm only carrying 500 yuan. Do you want my computer? You have to let me back it up first but... oh, and my phone-"

"Calm down. I don't want your things. I was here to collect a soul, and since you were nearby, I thought I'd visit."

He stood up and fumbled around in his pockets, then pulled out a small, glowing bottle. The light was bright, but I couldn't see the source.

"This is a soul."

He waved it at me, and I stared back in distain.

"If you don't learn to lie better, you'll die a broke man," I told him. "Your scams are on par with Master Wang. Are you going to summon some snakes now? *"

He smiled awkwardly.

"Ah, I forgot you can't see this yet."

He took another step towards me.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled, holding my laptop, ready to strike at any moment.

"You're much more stubborn when you're awake. I really don't know why you're the one..." He frowned and snapped his fingers. Suddenly I couldn't move.

He took my hand and placed it on my forehead.

"Say this – 'Lend Me Your Mana!'" he said impersonally.

"Lend Me Your Mana?" I asked, realizing I could still speak. "What in the world are you talking about?"

As I said it, the whole room was flooded with strange colors. The light from the bottle in his hand gradually shrank and took form until I could see the outline of a person.

As the details became clearer, the room seemed to grow cold until my teeth were chattering. The tiny figure in the bottle was weeping. Looking closer, I realized the tiny figure was Zhou Yuan.

*Wang Lin was a popular spiritual advisor among the Chinese elite. He made a good deal of money until two documentaries came out framing him as a stage magician and fraud. He was sentenced to prison for fraud and fled the country.