Jiang Xueming was a salaryman.
Male, and interested in women.
He was twenty-one, and had come to Hong Kong four years ago for work. He wanted to save up for his younger sister's tuition—so that, with their illiterate parents raising them, the whole family wouldn't end up with two generations of children who couldn't read.
He worked as a cashier at a braised-food shop in Hung Hom MTR station. Sometimes, he picked up shifts at a toy shop on Guanghua Street.
If you took this MTR line, you might have seen him at the little shop near the ticket gates.
He was a little over five feet seven, not particularly tall. He'd been malnourished as a child, with hardly any meat, eggs, or milk to eat, and had ended up short-limbed and stocky.
When dealing with customers, he sometimes managed to force a smile. Anyone could see the strained, on-the-job cheerfulness.
When there were no customers, he looked cold and stiff. His brows were tightly furrowed, as though he were thinking every waking moment—thinking about how to keep going. But today, just today, it seemed like he couldn't go on.
Jiang Xueming had received two counterfeit bills. More precisely, they were two tickets with a texture remarkably similar to banknotes. Their thickness and paper grain were almost exactly like thousand-dollar bills.
As night fell and the lights in the station gradually went out, only a few emergency lights cast their glow toward the exit.
He clutched the two tickets, his heart uneasy.
His nose picked up the salty, greasy stench from the stains on his apron.
His eyes saw the models on the advertising signs, now drained of color and light, painted up like monsters.
His footsteps echoed for a long time through the empty passageway.
He nervously swallowed, not daring to look directly at the tickets in his hand. He could only hope they would turn back into banknotes in the dim light.
"If the shop manager finds out I took fake money, he'll make me pay back every cent."
He muttered as though he were possessed.
"Who'd use a thousand dollars to buy beef offal? And two bills at once? How did I fall for that? How did I fall for it? I..."
"Bailu has a skin condition. She took three days off to see a doctor. She needs to keep studying."
"This kind of thing won't get better overnight. She has to see a doctor."
"I brought her away from home. I have to take good care of her."
People said adults often broke down in a single moment. But he didn't even have time to break down. He could only think carefully, ponder it over—figure out how to claw his way out of adversity.
He had two hours to get back to the pigeon-cage rental where he lived and prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for his younger sister, Jiang Bailu, for the next day.
Then he had to shower and brush his teeth, and be asleep by eleven. Otherwise, he might not make it to the morning shift the next day.
On the way home, he checked the balance in his mobile banking app over and over. It still held next month's rent and living expenses, but tomorrow, when the day's earnings were audited, he'd take a serious hit.
The old elevator's bell let out a piercing screech. The rusty lock, long past due for repairs, began to shriek. Inside the door were the kitchen and bathroom.
Jiang Xueming saw his younger sister standing beside the wooden bunk bed in the next room. She wore a T-shirt and shorts, just standing there, doing nothing and saying nothing. As if she'd been waiting for him to come home all along.
The dishes and table that hadn't been tidied away were crammed into the tiny room.
"Bro..." Jiang Bailu greeted him timidly. "I didn't wash the dishes. I'm sorry. I felt really tired today."
"Don't say that." Jiang Xueming quickly took off his apron and started clearing the dishes, getting ready to cook.
The kitchen was tiny. Bailu couldn't do much to help, so she could only watch, fretting and explaining herself over and over.
"Bro, I wasn't trying to slack off. I said I'd wash the dishes, but today I noticed spots growing on my hands, too." She held her hands behind her back, afraid to show them to him.
As he tidied the kitchen, Xueming casually asked, "Let me see."
"Maybe I should wait until tomorrow?" Bailu immediately changed her mind. Panic showed in her eyes. "Or maybe I should sleep? Maybe it'll get better after I sleep! Bro, I'm afraid I'll infect you. I..."
Jiang Xueming's voice softened. He smiled and said gently, "Let me see, Bailu."
Under the pale light, Jiang Bailu's eyes were dull, and dark circles showed clearly beneath them. Red spots covered half of her right cheek, spreading down her neck to her collarbone.
He held his sister's hands and saw clusters of red spots on her wrists and the fleshy mounds at the base of her thumbs. They ran up her forearms, and in many places they'd already swollen into raised patches.
He asked, "Does it hurt? Does it itch?"
Bailu only shook her head.
He went on, "What did the doctor say?"
Bailu glanced to the side and pressed her lips together. It took a long while before she spoke.
"They just said it was an allergy."
He turned back to tidying the room. "Then it's an allergy. Don't be scared."
Bailu asked anxiously, "Bro, will it cost a lot of money?"
He found a moment to answer. "It's fine. No problem."
Bailu was still tense. "Maybe... maybe we should go back?"
When she asked, Bailu felt a thousand kinds of reluctance. Their family was unusual—very unusual. Even if the two siblings starved to death outside, they had their reasons for being unable to go home.
"I brought you here to get away from Mom and Dad, so you could study properly and grow up to be someone useful to society. You're supposed to seize happiness with your own hands. What would we go back for? So they can arrange your marriage and earn a dowry? Tie you to a bridal sedan and send you off to some family?" Xueming finally helped his sister back into bed. "Rest and get better."
"Mm." Bailu pulled the curtain closed, peeking out through the gap with her bright, dark eyes. Watching her big brother bustle around put her at ease.
She heard the ingredients bubbling away in the pot, and smelled chicken breast bought on sale and macaroni cooking in plain water.
She saw her brother briskly clean the cutting board, then carefully and meticulously tidy his appearance.
Her head was full of little thoughts. Her big brother was so handsome, he ought to find himself a rich woman. Then they could live a good life. He just needed to smile more—after all, her big brother didn't like smiling. He'd always been like a block of ice.
She called out, "Bro, I'll tell you a joke. One of my classmates told it to me today."
Xueming was still trimming his beard in front of the mirror. He glanced at the tickets on the dresser but didn't think much of them. "Go ahead. I'm listening. I'll go to sleep after you do."
Bailu continued, "My classmate said, 'You're such a strange person.'"
"They don't like me? Are they teasing you about your beef-offal-selling brother?" Xueming held the razor and lifted his chin, looking at himself in the mirror. It showed a salaryman long since worn smooth and neat by life.
"No, no, they like you. When we saw you by the MTR entrance, we all said you didn't look like someone who sold beef offal. You looked like a celebrity." Bailu's tone turned playful. "What kind of beef-offal vendor reads books and newspapers whenever he has a spare moment? You don't charm the customers or put on a smile for them. When you hand over the braised food, you move like you're pouring red wine. You're like a firefly in the dark, like..."
The razor in Jiang Xueming's hand seemed to understand his sister was teasing him. At last, it grew sharp. "Should I pair it with a martini? Add an olive and a slice of lemon? Then finish it off with a butcher's knife?"
Bailu kept describing him. "Like a hitman, yes! Hahahahaha! A hitman disguised as a cashier."
"Mm," Jiang Xueming replied.
"That's no fun! I tried so hard! And all you said was 'Mm'?" Bailu grumbled and rolled over.
Xueming solemnly spouted nonsense. "How many times should I go 'hahahahaha,' then?"
Before long, Jiang Bailu couldn't take his overly elegant deadpan humor anymore and fell asleep.
Once he heard her faint snoring, Xueming finally finished tidying himself up from head to toe. He carried a bucket of clothes to the laundry room, and when he returned, he stood beneath the clothesline in the corridor, staring at the stars.
At last, the salaryman had a little time to break down. People weren't made of steel, after all.
He covered his face and rubbed his forehead, murmuring under his breath as if reciting a prayer.
He tried to keep his voice low, so he wouldn't disturb his salaryman neighbors.
"I'm sorry. I'm a bad person. I promised something I can't deliver. What am I supposed to do? What the hell am I supposed to do?"
A long, long time passed—but a salaryman still had to get on with life.
Under the starlight, he stared at the two tickets. He could just barely make out the words printed on them.
[Nine Realms Station]
[HK → SW]
[Platform 3, Car 13, Seat 15B]
The other ticket was for the return trip.
Nine Realms Station? The unfamiliar place name left him completely baffled.
"They made these look so much like banknotes. They must be for a scam, right? They couldn't even be bothered to write the departure time? What a bunch of damn geniuses! I should fucking kill those bastards! Counterfeiting banknotes and forging tickets don't carry the same sentence. These criminals will do anything to exploit loopholes so they can live the good life."
He casually tore both tickets into pieces and threw them away.
But that was only the beginning.
The moment his morning alarm went off.
Xueming's thumb was already resting on his phone, as if he'd known it was coming and had silenced the screen in advance.
He rolled out of bed, got dressed, and put on his shoes. Quietly and calmly, he muffled the sound of his feet hitting the floor, so he wouldn't disturb Bailu's sleep.
He finished everything in a matter of seconds, as precisely as the gears of a clock.
He moved like a robot, his mechanical routine coming to an abrupt halt when he felt his work ID.
There were two tickets in his shirt pocket. They were clearly the ones he'd torn to pieces with his own hands last night. Their familiar texture made him suspicious.
This time, the tickets had an extra line printed on them.
[Nine Realms Station]
[HK → SW]
[Platform 3, Car 13, Seat 15B]
[July 7, 2024, 16:11–23:55]
The bright red printed text was impossible to miss. If he sniffed closely, he could even smell the ink.
The other ticket was the same, except it had no return time.
He stared at the two tickets in confusion. No matter how many times he thought it over, he remembered clearly that he'd been wide awake last night. Anxiety hadn't beaten him. Exhaustion hadn't crushed him. The sudden pressure hadn't shattered his mind.
The sound and feel of tearing up the tickets had been so real. It hadn't felt like a dream.
At that moment, the salaryman didn't have much time to dwell on it. He had to go to work. Figuring out what to do with the tickets wasn't something he needed to worry about right now. He had to earn money—so he casually put the tickets back on the table.
As soon as he reached the elevator, he ran into a delivery guy.
"Are you Mr. Jiang Xueming? You have a delivery."
Xueming answered casually, "Leave it outside. I'm in a hurry."
The delivery guy quickly said, "It's your tickets. The package says they're valuable, and they've been insured for over thirty thousand. I have to hand them to you in person."
Xueming froze for a moment. Then a strange chill rose inside him, as if his whole body had turned to ice.
The delivery guy put an envelope in Xueming's hand and hurried off to deliver the next one.
At that moment, work didn't seem so important anymore.
The return address on the envelope was also Nine Realms Station. When he called the phone number, it was disconnected.
He opened the envelope. The tickets inside were exactly like the ones he'd just touched.
They had no ticket numbers, only a departure point and destination, the station name, and the departure and arrival times.
The ticket was orange, almost exactly like a thousand-dollar bill, but it had no official seal. Instead, there was an inverted pentagram emblem and a pattern of barley ears. There was no indication of any organization that had printed the tickets.
When Jiang Xueming moved his thumb, he saw a little brown ink staining his fingertip, like dried blood.
It just felt eerie, as though some invisible, untouchable person had sent him an invitation.
But there was one problem. The salaryman glared at the tickets and cursed in exasperation and disbelief—
"—Where the fuck is Nine Realms, anyway!?"
He immediately forgot about work, as if he'd found a way to get through this difficult time.
But he wasn't going to some damn Nine Realms Station. Instead, he immediately called the local police.
He could only pin his hopes on the police officer, hoping they could help him recover the money or provide some clues. After all, in Hong Kong, there was such a thing as a reward for assisting in an investigation.
That morning, Xueming went to the Hung Hom Police Station and explained the situation to the police. He gave them a complete account of the details.
When he showed the officer the tickets in his hand.
Something even more unbelievable happened.
"Mr. Jiang Xueming, the tickets you said looked like counterfeit bills—are these the ones you're holding?" The officer seemed puzzled, his expression full of confusion.
At that moment, Xueming looked at the tickets in his hand, not quite understanding what the officer was asking.
"Yes, these tickets. They're tickets. It even says..."
"It says 'Payable to bearer: one thousand dollars,'" the officer interrupted. "By order of the Board of Directors, printed on September 1, 2003. Serial number AK887411. Is that the version? I can read, you know. It's currency, not a ticket."
"Currency?" Jiang Xueming froze.
The officer asked dismissively, "Where are you from? You don't even recognize money? You thought it was a ticket?"
"Oh..." Jiang Xueming still hadn't quite grasped it. He wondered to himself if, to other people, these strange tickets simply looked like banknotes.
"Hand it over. I'll take it to the next office and check if it's counterfeit." The officer took the tickets from Xueming and left.
As he waited, Xueming felt uneasy. The strange things that had happened over the last two days, along with his sister's skin condition, left him anxious and unsettled.
After a long while, he heard a disappointed sigh from the next office.
The officer finally came back.
"Hey! Take your money! Don't make false reports if there's nothing wrong! Are you under too much pressure from life? Want me to call an ambulance and get you to a psychiatric ward? You think you can fool me? Want to get yourself thrown in jail?"
"This is real money?" Xueming stood up at once, unable to believe what was happening.
"Of course. I thought we had a major counterfeit-money case on our hands!" The officer eyed Jiang Xueming suspiciously. "It's real money. The counterfeit detector doesn't lie. Did you pick it up somewhere?"
"No, no. It's not that I'm under too much pressure. I've been seeing things lately. I'll be more careful next time. Thanks for your trouble, officer. Thank you!" Jiang Xueming thanked him as he backed away.
The officer waved him off. "Go on, get out of here. Stay safe on the way. I've got the contact information for a psychiatrist, too, if you need it. 'Next time'! You're planning to be more careful next time? You should bring ghost money in for the Hungry Ghost Festival next time! What a waste of time!"
Jiang Xueming kept forcing a smile, hurriedly shuffling backward out the door. "Thank you. Thank you."
A few seconds later, he came back.
Xueming asked politely, "Um, officer, do you know a place called Nine Realms?"
"I know Kowloon and the New Territories. What the hell is Nine Realms? Why don't you ask Siri on your map app and let it tell you? And don't call me 'officer.' Call me 'sir.'"
"All right, sir."
After leaving the police station, he glanced thoughtfully at the tickets in his hand. He'd come up with a bold idea.
A salaryman still had to get on with life.
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