At Station Twelve outside the east plaza, a man in a greasy grey robe was slamming his fist on the marble desk.
It was Sect Master Yin Gui of the Ghost-Abacus Sect. His nose was hooked like a vulture’s beak, his eyes were beady and bloodshot, and two long goat-whiskers twitched on his sharp chin.
[Sect Master Yin Gui. Ghost-Abacus Sect. Goodness Score: -71 / 100.]
Behind the reception counter sat Bai Xiaoxiao, wearing a crisp navy uniform with a gold Taichu pin. She held a thick leather-bound notebook with dog-eared, yellowed parchment pages, inspecting the shaky calligraphy inside.
“Miss Bai, you have been staring at that ledger for ten whole minutes!” Yin Gui barked, spraying flecks of spit across the counter. “Every single entry in that diary was written by my own hand! For twenty long years, while other masters practiced the dark arts, I spent my cold nights feeding three hundred starving stray star-hounds in the back alleys of the Ghost-Abacus compound!”
Bai Xiaoxiao flipped through the worn pages.
The handwriting was uneven, childish, and smudged with soot and grease. On every page were crude drawings of fluffy little dogs wagging their tails, accompanied by simple notes: ‘Gave grey pup three spirit-steamed buns today. He licked my hand. He has a warm nose.’
