The moment I pushed open the eastern attic door, a talisman slapped onto my face:
"Your aura’s full of bad luck today. Not suitable for romance."
"...Who said anything about romance?"
"Not you. The thing clinging to your back wants it." A cat with ink-stripe markings sat cross-legged on the tatami, its tail tracing intricate sigils in the air.
It called itself "Talisman Seventeen"—rumored to be a cat yokai raised by a Taoist priest using 700 yansheng curse-breaking talismans. Its body was plastered with shimmering paper charms, even its tail-tip tied with a red thread, like a walking talisman pouch.
A-Jin rolled his eyes. "He’s the inn’s senior ‘negative energy janitor,’ specializes in absorbing weird vibes drifting from human society. Overworked lately, a bit... unstable."
"Define ‘unstable.’"
"Last week he mistook a delivery guy’s stress aura for a monster and banished it two blocks away."
......
Ignoring us, Talisman Seventeen plucked a paper charm with its teeth and flicked it at me:
"Here. Let’s scan what’s stuck to you. Online toxicity, social media anxiety, parental marriage pressure, workplace exploitation—got some of each, right?"
"...I’m literally just a college grad."
"Wrong. You’re future corporate livestock waiting to be drained."
I winced.
"And you? Aren’t you working here too?"
The cat lowered its head to lick a paw, voice muffled:
"I’m not working. I’m atoning."
"Huh?"
"I was a troll army. Insults, misinformation, viral smear campaigns—enough posts to pave the Yellow Springs Road."
I never expected a yokai to feel so... contemporary. It raised a paw in a peace sign: "Took dirt-cheap jobs back then. Drove a high school girl to suicide. Got sealed for seven years by her grandma’s blood-written charms."
"And now you do... this?"
"Damage control."
It glanced outside where the sky darkened like a buffering webpage.
"Trying to peel off some stress-talismans before people crack. Or they’ll end up as another kind of guest here."
That night, I watched from the shadows.
Perched at the inn’s entrance, it pressed a paper charm onto a weary salaryman’s sleeve, whispering:
"No overtime tonight. Your boss suddenly gets hemorrhoids."
The charm flashed once. The man’s shoulders relaxed as he murmured, "Thanks."
In the ledger, under Talisman Seventeen, I wrote:
[Checked in.] Title: Emotional Purifier × Night Patrol Cat
Specialty: Defusing burnout society’s emotional landmines.
A-Jin says every time the inn brightens a little, another forgotten yokai finds a new name and purpose.
I unfolded the charm it gave me earlier. Four characters glowed faintly:
"You’ll be okay."
ns216.73.216.151da2
然後按「加至主畫面」