I deliver food in a bizarre world

Chen Mo returned to his bedroom and picked up his phone to watch the live stream.

His phone was out of battery and had shut down. He then realized that he had gone to bed too hastily last night and forgotten to charge it.

After plugging in the charging cable, the device was immediately turned on, and countless private messages and comments from fans popped up on social media apps instantly.

However, most of them were concerned about and curious about the effect of last night's live broadcast.

He flipped through the pages quickly and casually, his gaze wandering. Suddenly, his fingers paused.

A private message from an unknown ID was mixed in with numerous fan comments.

The message was short, but it made his pupils suddenly contract and his whole body go cold!

[The next one is a mirror! Watch out behind you!]

The time that private message from the stranger was sent was just an hour ago!

Who is this person?!

He immediately clicked on the sender's avatar, but the sender's ID was just a string of gibberish and the avatar was completely black.

He wanted to view the other party's information, but the system indicated that the other party's account had been deleted...

He took a deep breath, suppressing the pounding in his heart. He opened his phone's map app, narrowed his search to the old western district, and entered "Mirror Hotel" and related landmarks.

As he had expected, there was no record on the map.

Those kinds of places are unlikely to appear on official navigation sites.

"Face... mirror... hotel..."

He repeated these keywords in a low voice.

He unplugged the charger after charging his phone a little, and carried it to the computer.

Switching to local lifestyle information websites, he also logged into several established local forums, searching using different combinations of keywords.

This time he searched more thoroughly, leaving no potentially relevant information unchecked.

He used every word he could think of, such as "Mirror Hotel," "Old Hotel in the West of the City," and "Mirror Legend."

Persistence pays off. After spending more than an hour, he found a post from five years ago in a corner of a niche forum that specializes in discussing urban ghost stories.

The title is: [A list of paranormal locations we've heard of over the years].

The post was quite long, and towards the end, he saw a mention of the Mirror Hotel:

[...Speaking of this Mirror Hotel, located in the old West Street area, I guess not many people know about it now.]

[It's said that the owner is an eccentric, particularly obsessed with mirrors. The entire hotel, from the lobby to the corridors and every room, is filled with all sorts of mirrors, supposedly to make the space appear larger.]

[The result... well, you know, with so many mirrors in those kinds of places, it's easy to see things that shouldn't be reflected.]

[Rumor has it that a guest woke up one night and saw another person standing behind him in the mirror, and went insane the next day.]

[There are also reports that the cleaning staff kept hearing voices coming from the empty rooms, specifically from the mirrors... Later, something terrible happened, and someone died...]

[I can't remember the specific poster, but it closed down not long after, and that building seems to have remained empty ever since; it's kind of creepy.]

The post included an extremely blurry black-and-white photo, seemingly a reproduction of an old photograph, showing the entrance of an old-fashioned building with a tattered sign hanging above the door.

The signboard is in the style of decades ago. Even when Chen Mo zooms in to the maximum size, he can only barely make out half of the two characters "mirror". The other half is damaged along with the signboard.

Chen Mo's spirits lifted; he knew where it was—Old West Street!

However, he had only heard about it and had never been there.

That area was older and more dilapidated than Huai'an Road, and was almost in a semi-abandoned state.

It is said that the area was once a demolition zone, but for some reason, the project was shelved.

I never expected the Mirror Hotel to be located in that area!

He zoomed in on the map and carefully examined the satellite images and street view pictures of Laoxi Street.

In a cluster of low, dilapidated buildings, he identified several old buildings that matched the description in the post.

One of the four-story buildings facing the street looked particularly dilapidated.

This building caught his attention.

Its location is somewhat similar to the background of the building in the post's photo; the building's surface is mottled, most of the windows are broken, and the entrance is piled with garbage and debris.

Several years have passed, and it seems that nothing has changed.

"Found you..." Chen Mo stared at the building on the screen.

Knowing the location in advance allows him to take the initiative.

At least, I don't have to wander around like a headless fly.

Just as he was preparing to search for more information about the building, his personal cell phone rang.

Caller ID: [Old Stubborn]

Chen Mo took a deep breath and answered the phone: "Grandpa."

"Hmm." Grandpa's voice was still deep, but it lacked the sudden seriousness of last night and instead sounded tired. "You're up? How are you feeling?"

"It's alright. It's just that my eyes aren't used to it yet; things look a bit hazy."

"That's the initial opening of your Yin Eyes. You'll gradually get used to it, but don't overuse it, or it will harm your spirit."

Grandpa gave a word of advice, then got to the point: "That thing on your phone... I looked up some old information about it."

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat, but he didn't rush to ask any questions. He just listened quietly.

Grandpa paused, then continued, "It's not some kind of dirty stuff; it's more like a... contract, a pact. Once you're tainted by it, it's hard to get rid of."

"A contract?" Chen Mo frowned. "Who did I sign a contract with?"

"It's not what you think," Grandpa said, his tone somewhat cryptic. "It's something much older..."

"As for its manifestations... in the past it was tattoos or branding, and even earlier it appeared directly in the mind."

"There's a reason it came to you. It might be your birth chart, your bloodline, or maybe... you were just unlucky to run into it."

That's as good as saying nothing at all...

Chen Mo muttered to himself.

However, this thing has actually kept up with the times and has now been updated into an app... which surprised him quite a bit.

"So what should I do now?" he asked.

"Toughing it out isn't the solution, but we can't just go along with it either," Grandpa's voice became serious.

"Be very careful with the rewards it gives you, especially those seemingly useful abilities! The more you use them, the more dependent you'll become, and the less human you'll be! Nobody can say for sure what you'll end up like!"

Chen Mo paused for a moment.

His grandfather's warning coincided with his own intuition.

Although the Spirit Eye was useful, it did leave him feeling mentally exhausted after each use, making it seem as if the normal world was seen through a layer of something.

Do you know about spirituality?

Chen Mo was startled. These weren't the attributes displayed on his profile panel?

"In our line of work, spirituality is fundamental. Take your grandfather and me, for example. As long as we deal with this kind of thing, we have to cultivate spirituality."

Chen Mo asked, "Then how do I use it?"

"Just focus your mind; you can think of it as your consciousness. The more focused your consciousness is, the more spiritual energy you infuse it with..."

"Furthermore, spirituality not only represents a state of being that improves with use and practice, but it also represents a consumable energy that diminishes with frequent use. Rest will naturally restore it. However, you must be careful not to deplete your spirituality once you've cultivated it!"

Chen Mo understood. It was the cultivation realm and one's own spiritual power from those cultivation novels. Spirituality directly combined these two terms into one!

He asked somewhat nervously, "What will happen if we run out of steam?"

Grandpa's tone was very serious: "Once your spirituality is exhausted... you will lose yourself and be assimilated by those things..."

assimilation?

Does that mean that after his spirituality is exhausted, he will also become an urban legend and a folk taboo?

"I understand," Chen Mo replied, shivering. "Grandpa, I might have a clue about the next mission."

"Oh?" Grandpa was a little surprised. "What clue?"

"It might be related to a place called Mirror Hotel, which is located on Laoxi Street."

Chen Mo didn't mention the mysterious private message, but only gave a brief overview of the information he found online based on the task keywords.

"Mirror Hotel..."

"Old West Street? Mirror Hotel?! How could it be there..."

At first, Grandpa didn't react, but when he heard "Old West Street," he clearly gasped.