On a bone-chilling night at the filthy, dilapidated construction site, after negotiating the specific fee for this job with Li Mao, Xiao Nanzhu had him clear all the workers out. Now the site contained only construction materials scattered across the ground, vague gray shadows, and the howling north wind whistling in their ears, giving the place an eerie and sinister feeling. Of course, these were only things that ordinary people could see, as the truth was often more terrifying. After casually picking up a dirty safety helmet from the ground and putting it on his head, Xiao Nanzhu narrowed his eyes, surveying the graveyard-like construction site, raising his eyebrows as if seeing something new.

For today’s business worth one hundred thousand yuan, Xiao Nanzhu’s offer to Li Mao was: pay in full upfront, and you can start work tomorrow; pay in three installments, and you must rest every Saturday and Sunday; pay on credit with settlement later, then you can work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during daylight hours, with no work allowed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Upon hearing these seemingly extortionate terms, Li Mao’s face immediately fell. Seeing Xiao Nanzhu’s expression that clearly said “the decision is yours, do as you please,” he could only grit his teeth and bleed himself financially.

Having received payment, it was time to work. After tucking the check Li Mao had personally written into his pocket, Xiao Nanzhu smiled, patted Li Mao’s shoulder, and decisively entered the construction site that resembled the gates of hell. Once inside, he discovered that the situation was perhaps even more serious than he had imagined. Evil spirits were running rampant everywhere he looked—workers’ resentment from heavy labor, former residents’ dissatisfaction with forced demolition, the violence left behind by the demolition office during forced evictions, and countless other indistinguishable grievances, angers, and despairs from various times and causes.

These evil spirits, emitting various foul odors and strange sounds, had gathered together and gained vitality by attaching themselves to the workers’ physical bodies. Perhaps this vitality wasn’t enough to give them the full power to reshape their own bodies, so when Xiao Nanzhu slowly walked in, what he saw were numerous disembodied heads—male and female, old and young—all with distorted faces and a bluish-white complexion, wailing and wandering throughout the construction site.

This scene would be excessively terrifying for any normal person. Fortunately, Xiao Nanzhu wasn’t someone who easily showed fear. His past experiences had shaped his mindset, and although his heart tightened momentarily at the sight, he remembered what Twenty-Five had told him and quietly steadied his nerves. When he turned his head, he couldn’t help but secretly whistle in his mind upon seeing Twenty-Nine, who had somehow reverted to his appearance from the calendar realm.

As the Calendar God guarding the second-to-last day of the year, Twenty-Nine was the most outstanding in ability besides New Year’s Eve, whom Xiao Nanzhu had yet to meet. This was evident in that he wasn’t dressed in simple cloth garments like other Calendar Gods, but instead wore dark clothes that almost merged with the night, covered by beautiful silver armor. Now, with his black hair completely tied up, revealing his lean, chiseled features, he didn’t have an immediately striking appearance, but his ordinary looks were infused with a murderous aura. This was basically consistent with his usual appearance in the calendar, except for the long sword he often held. After sensing Xiao Nanzhu’s examining gaze, Twenty-Nine’s eyes focused, and with a casual flourish of his sleeve, a plain black ancient sword, as steady and unadorned as himself, appeared in his hand.

“Calendar Master, how do you plan to deal with these evil spirits?”

Twenty-Nine looked at Xiao Nanzhu with a pondering expression, appearing to await his instructions, even bowing respectfully with lowered eyes. Perhaps the current working environment had given him more respect for Xiao Nanzhu as his boss, making his tone more reverent. Seeing him like this made Xiao Nanzhu somewhat uncomfortable, as he had only been in this position for a few days and was accustomed to joking around with the previous Calendar Gods. Now facing such formal behavior made him feel awkward. Since Twenty-Nine had asked, Xiao Nanzhu pulled out a folded calendar paper from his wallet, held it between his fingers and shook it, while putting on leather gloves and explaining to Twenty-Nine:

“The night before last, I wanted to play Fight the Landlord with Twenty-Seven, but we were short one person, so I called his buddy Army Day to join. The guy lost all his money and had no choice but to give me some things instead. An impatient person like me can’t handle your swords well—I prefer hot-tempered girls…”

As Xiao Nanzhu’s words fell, a black gun that should have been military-issued weaponry appeared in his hand without warning. From its appearance, it was a domestically produced QSG92 from 1998, exactly the one he had used most comfortably before. Five years ago during a mission, Xiao Nanzhu had personally used such an unremarkable weapon to shoot dead the heads of three armed violent criminals. Now, although he hadn’t practiced for a long time, after smoothly loading the magazine and the crisp sound of chambering a round, Xiao Nanzhu gently traced the rough exterior with his fingers through the black leather gloves. Then, his eyes suddenly turned cold as he raised the gun and shattered the skull of a head that had been trying to bite his neck from behind.

The penetrated head let out an ear-piercing scream. There was no blood splatter, nor were any remains left. Those clustered, eerie heads seemed to sense the threat from Xiao Nanzhu’s strength, so they no longer dared to approach him and Twenty-Nine, but only stared at them with hollow eye sockets, their gaze terrifyingly venomous. Seeing this, Twenty-Nine looked at Xiao Nanzhu very seriously, his opinion of this rebellious new boss changing somewhat. But being naturally taciturn, he was destined not to say much, and directly raised his sword to begin slaying those seemingly impossible-to-eradicate evil spirits. Meanwhile, after efficiently disposing of the eager evil spirits around him, Xiao Nanzhu casually lit a cigarette and strode deeper into the construction site to continue this troublesome and tedious cleansing.

The deeper they went, the more evil spirits gathered. Those heads, born of pure malice, naturally harbored no goodwill toward living people. Because they lacked complete bodies, their thinking and actions were rather sluggish. Xiao Nanzhu and Twenty-Nine cooperated seamlessly along the way, not suffering even a slight injury. However, their bodies somewhat resembled humans, and those sticky substances similar to flesh and blood sometimes completely disappeared, sometimes stuck to their hands like filth. This groundlessly made Xiao Nanzhu feel disgusted, but he couldn’t clock out without finishing off these things. But as the moon rose to the middle of the sky and time slowly passed, Twenty-Nine, who had been entangled with those evil spirits, suddenly seemed to remember something, raised his head, furrowed his brows, and shouted at Xiao Nanzhu.

“Calendar Master! What time is it now?”

This question nearly made Xiao Nanzhu stumble. He had been properly eliminating evil spirits and thought Twenty-Nine was eager to get off work, which made him extremely displeased. After blasting the head of an evil spirit, Xiao Nanzhu frowned, took out his phone to check, and replied:

“You still have nine minutes before you clock out. What’s the rush? Ask again and I’ll dock your pay, you hear me…”

“I… I’m not in a rush!”

Hearing Xiao Nanzhu’s words, it was clear he had misunderstood. Separated by a mass of dark evil spirits, Twenty-Nine had to frown while explaining to Xiao Nanzhu. Being poor with words, it took him several attempts to clarify. Once Xiao Nanzhu understood his meaning, his expression immediately became complicated.

After Twenty-Nine came the thirtieth day of the year. As the last day of the year, New Year’s Eve in ancient times meant guarding the year’s end and welcoming the new year. Modern people naturally couldn’t understand what it meant to guard the year’s end, but this transition was precisely the key to determining the coming year’s fortune. If guarded well, everything would go smoothly in the coming year; if not guarded well, nothing would go smoothly. Perhaps because this was the last day evil spirits could wreak havoc in the year, they would seize every opportunity to do evil, gaining much more vitality. Therefore, on New Year’s Eve, evil spirits would be more numerous and more dangerous than usual. This severely aggravated situation obviously couldn’t be handled by just Xiao Nanzhu and Twenty-Nine. Most terrifying of all, as they were speaking, Twenty-Nine had only half a minute left before clocking out.

“New Year’s Eve has an unpredictable temperament. Sometimes when he’s in a mood, he might only appear at the very last moment of the day! The situation is dangerous now. Calendar Master, when I disappear, you must immediately…”

Speaking urgently while raising his blood-stained sword, Twenty-Nine loudly instructed Xiao Nanzhu one last time before disappearing. Unfortunately, he didn’t finish his sentence before midnight passed. As the golden light dissipated, a swarm of dark evil spirits suddenly emerged from the horizon. Accompanied by sharp, distorted screams and the excruciating pain of flesh being torn open, Xiao Nanzhu, in self-defense, first used his gun to kill more than a dozen heads rushing at him, then could only use his hands to repeatedly tear apart the shells of those screaming evil spirits.

The splashing crimson sprayed onto his cheeks, and the human-like distorted faces and torn shells made his breathing heavy. The blood before his eyes blurred his vision. When a head bit onto his entire arm, he simply shot his own arm. The feeling of being wrapped in flesh was indescribably disgusting. Perhaps because he had just killed so many creatures that resembled living people, his heart grew ice-cold. This intense sense of guilt made Xiao Nanzhu close his eyes involuntarily, while simultaneously experiencing a strange, familiar feeling in his heart. In this environment that had almost pushed him to the edge, he suddenly heard sounds resembling tiger and leopard roars from the horizon, followed by a dazzling golden light.

In that instant, the evil spirits entangled around him all let out sharp screams. With his eyes covered in filth, Xiao Nanzhu could only kneel on one knee, biting his glove and using his clean hand to wipe his eyes. Now at a moment of extreme mental tension, he knew that something even more arrogant than those evil spirits had arrived, causing them to flee in panic. But in this particularly miserable state, he suddenly felt someone slowly walking toward him. Then, Xiao Nanzhu suddenly felt a cold hand grip his chin and lift it, slowly rubbing his dry lips in a somewhat sensual manner, before saying:

“Very good.”