Chapter 1All Souls’ Zoo

I’m a travel vlogger.

On that sweltering All Souls’ Eve, the zoo’s "Hungry Ghost Gate" (a rusted Victorian arch) creaked open by itself.

The fortune-teller—a defrocked Jesuit who studied Taoism—warned me:

"That macaque’s yang lifespan is draining. It is kowtowing to you to borrow your life."

So I knelt like a confessing sinner and headbutted the ground until the cobblestones wept blood.

Forty-seven strikes. A Catholic-Asian exorcism.

* * *

I’m a travel vlogger.

On a sweltering All Souls’ Eve, while the rest of the city was shuttered in, I was still live-streaming from the Blackwood Zoo, grinding to leave my competition in the dust. The sun bled across the horizon, painting the empty pathways in shades of orange and blood.

I was in the primate house, pointing my front-facing camera at a lone macaque, when I connected with the biggest paranormal streamer on the web. He went by "Master Shanyuan," a name he’d adopted after his time studying Taoism. Rumor had it he was a defrocked Jesuit, which only added to his mystique.

On screen, he was the spitting image of an ancient sage—a young man with long, dark hair tied back in a scholar's knot, clad in flowing silken robes. He looked the part, and then some.

"Master Shanyuan, hey! It's Chloe," I said, forcing a cheerful grin. "Tonight, we're checking out the monkeys."

I panned the camera back to the macaque. Shanyuan’s serene expression tightened. His brow furrowed, his face turning grim.

"That's one of the Old Ones," he said, his voice a low hum. "A relic from a forgotten time. Long ago, the Monkey King himself stormed the underworld and struck its name from the Ledger of Souls. It lives, but its yang lifespan has run dry."

My chat lit up.

【what is this, a halloween special??】

I glanced back at the monkey. Its fur was sleek, but its back was hunched, its movements ancient and weary. Its eyes, cold and dark, were locked onto me.

And then it began to bow.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound echoed unnervingly in the silent enclosure. It was prostrating itself, its forehead hitting the concrete floor with a sickening rhythm.

"It's kowtowing to you," Shanyuan said, his voice flat, like a newscaster reporting a tragedy. "Begging to borrow your life."

"One year. Two years."

I spun around, dropped to my knees, and started kowtowing right back at it.

"GIVE ME MY YEARS BACK, YOU FURRY LITTLE DEMON! GIVE THEM BACK!"

I slammed my forehead into the ground—fast, hard, precise. The ghostly monkey froze mid-kowtow, its jaw slack with astonishment.

Shanyuan deadpanned, "I... don't think that's how this is supposed to work." He continued his emotionless countdown. "Negative one year. Negative two years."

The monkey snapped out of its stupor.

We stared each other down, a bizarre duel of frantic prostration. But it was old, its movements stiff. It couldn't keep up with the raw, desperate energy of a vlogger fighting for her life. Smoke seemed to curl from its wrinkled brow as it struggled to match my pace.

【lmao a vlogger and a monkey in a kowtow battle, is this real life??】

【i'm not even paying for this content, i feel like i'm stealing】

"If you haven't followed yet, now's the time, people!" I yelled between headbutts, my voice strained. "Hit that button and power up your girl!"

I was young, I was fit, and I was terrified. I out-bowed that monkey by a full forty-seven strikes. With one final, wheezing gasp, it collapsed, its borrowed time exhausted. I had reverse-uno'd death itself.

Shanyuan’s gaze drifted to the dying sun behind me. "The park is closing. You need to leave before the last light fades."

"The parrots here... only one of them tells the truth."

"And whatever you do," he added, his voice dropping an octave, "do not make eye contact with the pythons."

He paused, cleared his throat, and his entire demeanor shifted into a slick, commercial drone. "And hey, if you run into any... 'technical difficulties,' head on over to the Azure Sky Priory's online shop. We've got talismans, wards, the whole shebang. Group discounts as low as $9.99 a pop, folks."