“Night of Return? But - they haven’t notified us at all!?” Marcus shot up, almost ready to take out his phone to call the landlord. But Elvin grabbed his hand and stopped him.

“Don’t, son. From what I heard from them, it’s not like they meant it.” His father sighed, shaking his head, weary and somewhat helpless: “At least according to that daughter of the old man, he went missing six days ago.”

“And only today or yesterday did they find out that he was dead?”

“Yes. She told me the coroner told them the estimated time of death was the first day. So either today, or tomorrow will be his day of return.” Elvin checked the corners close to the main door: “So, come back earlier tomorrow. If you have to work late, then find a place to crash. For I don’t want you to be put into a place of danger.”

“Understood, Dad. ” Marcus rushed into his room to find an incense burner, three incense sticks and some talismans: “But do you know what the cause of death was? And how the body looks?”

“No - not really. They just knocked and told me about it, and gave me a red packet. She said it’s a token of - of their apologies.” Elvin shrugged: “I put it on our wooden altar there, I didn’t want to open it till you get back.”

“Good. That’s cautious.” Marcus went to the small wooden altar they recently bought, where they would simply place their blessed items, especially a wooden Buddha statue.

The red packet contains three single bills, totaling only 3 dollars. And with a small paper coin made with yellow talisman paper. It's a very small amount of money for a late notification of a Night of Return, but given the number of neighbors to give these red packets to, it would have still cost them a fair amount of money, especially for someone living in this part of town.

The paper coin had red symbols drawn with typical red ink used on talismans to make it look like a real copper coin. With his Qi concentrated on his eyes, he could not see anything wrong with it. It was just that - it was still somewhat strange, and he was wondering if he should just burn it.

“So - anything wrong?” Elvin asked.

“It’s uh - not a lot of money. I can understand that everyone’s having a tough time, but - ” Marcus sighed and handed the three bills to his father, shaking his head: “Do we know them?”

“I bumped into them a few times. So you may recognize them. They’re doing - okay, I guess.” Elvin ticked his tongue: “Definitely not better off than us. So - I wouldn’t expect any kind of leave-the-city money from them.”

Marcus chuckled, then looked at his father: “Dad, have you thought about leaving? I mean the city.”

“Well, to be honest, EVERYDAY!” Elvin responded without even a moment of doubt: “But how can one afford it right now, unless you’re super rich?”

“Yeah, yeah, the relocation tax is just getting more and more ridiculous every year.” Marcus shook his head again, then put up three newer incense sticks in the burner: “Alright, let’s eat. The food is getting cold.”

“Sure, sure.” Elvin laughed, and headed back to the side of the table.

“Wait, Dad.” Marcus paused, with his chopsticks hovering over a plate of thinly sliced beef marinated with chili oil: “When you work in that shop, you don’t have to work night shifts, right?”

“Well - uh …” Elvin seemed hesitant to answer and began to stammer: “I - I - didn’t - ”

“You do? What the hell!” Marcus retrieved his chopsticks, staring at his father: “You know it’s not safe! Why’d you do that?”

“I know, I know. I’m terribly sorry, my son.” Elvin sighed and bowed gently to Marcus: “It’s really difficult out there. Not many places are hiring, sounds like they’d rather have less people than hire new hands, especially OLD new hands. This is the only place that I could find, and they promise me they’re not gonna assign night shifts too frequently.”

“... okay.” Marcus thought for a while, sighed, then picked up a slice of beef.

“Okay?”

“I - I can’t - I don’t want to force you to do anything. But - you will need to bring talismans to work everyday. Okay? I’ll ask around to see if I can find some good ones. And blessed items as well. ”

“Okay, okay of course - I’ll definitely.”

“And I will go to your store to check on you during night shifts. If I find anything wrong with your workplace, you’ll need to quit, deal?”

“Okay, son - deal.”

Marcus took a deep breath, still worried but less than a few seconds ago: “Thank you Dad, you know I worry about these things.”

“I know - I know.”

“And - I’ll try to get you some pepper sprays, you know, because the dangers at night are not limited to unclean beings. There are terrible people everywhere, at all times - ”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know, son. I understand. Which is why I already put in my orders for - ”

Just when Elvin was in the middle of his sentence, a chilling sensation struck Marcus, and seemingly Elvin as well. Both of them shivered, and stopped what they were doing to look around. The lights flickered, became dim but did not go completely dark.

“Stay near the altar, Dad, and have some talismans in your hand. ” Marcus said to his father, as he approached the window, hesitating whether he should look through the edge of or the gap between the curtains.

“Don’t look, Marcus, it’s dangerous!” Elvin cautioned from the side with a lowered voice as he found a small pouch of talismans from a small drawer on the side of the altar.

“Something isn’t right. We’ve been through this several times, it’s never like this.” Marcus hopped to the left side of the door, then to the right, trying to gauge if there’s any difference in the intensity of the aura. There was an easily missed difference after several tries - the right side appeared to be more intense.

Marcus rushed to the wall on his side, one they shared with their neighbor and put his ear on it.

It was nothing at first, but all of a sudden, something started scratching the wall. Like claws, like sharp metal objects, like human nails.