Hong sipped his wine, once more at peace. The nice young cultivators who’d rushed in had departed, to have their date elsewhere… or so they said. Hong doubted they’d been telling him the truth, but so long as they weren’t harming noodle shops he really didn’t care.

He chuckled as he recalled the shifting looks that had passed across the girl’s face. She had been so terrified when he first stood up, then relaxed, then terrified again. Honestly he felt a little cruel about letting her terrify herself like that, but she deserved it for trying to pull one over on him with that ridiculous lie.

The boy had been just as funny. Hong had met Yuan Shi of the Candied Lampwick Sect… oh man, it must have been a few months ago now. The kid had been your usual arrogant Young Master, but Hong hadn’t sensed any particular malice in him and had let him off with no more than a warning. He was glad to see the boy was better behaved now - especially with the girl. They seemed like a lovely couple, if a little strange.

Having demonstrated the Sacred Dance of the Mystic Lima Bean Sect to her, Hong had carefully instructed Xian in the dance steps, then sent her and her ‘boyfriend’ to a bar on the other side of town that was supposed to be an excellent couples spot. That done, he returned to his simple pleasures.

Alas, pleasure is always short-lived, and misery inevitable. This time his peace was disturbed by a far more familiar figure - Magistrate Su. The portly magistrate was rubbing his hands as he walked towards Hong, his expression deceptively cheerful. The noodle shop repairman gazed at him warily.

“Why hello my good chap, fancy meeting you here,” he said, as if their meeting was a mistake and not something he’d meticulously planned. He certainly hadn’t been carefully waiting to execute this plan for the better part of half a chen, tapping his foot impatiently as Hong instructed some random female cultivator in a farmers’ dance.

“Yes, what unexpected and wonderful good fortune,” Hong deadpanned. “May I ask what troubles you today, your lordship?”

“Troubles? Whyever would you-” the magistrate started, and then saw Hong’s expression. He coughed, and cut the crap. His smile vanished from his face.

“I need to hire you.”

Hong went to say something, and the magistrate put up one hand for silence. “Yes, this is about noodle shops. Entirely about noodle shops - I’m seeking to hire you for a rather, er, idiosyncratic form of noodle shop repair. As you know, at the edge of town there’s a restaurant called Jurchen Wok.”

Hong nodded. He did indeed know of it, but that was all. He’d been asked to fix it a couple of times, but they had always cancelled at the last minute, their communications too terse to be effective. He’d never eaten there.

“Has it fallen victim to cultivators again?” They were always busy this time of year, off burning noodle shops and doing whatever it was that cultivators did.

“Ah, no. Not quite. It has fallen, but to monsters of an entirely different sort.” Magistrate Su steepled his hands.

“It was taken over this morning by a demon, and his servants: an army of mice.”

Hong blinked. “Well that’s not right. We can’t have that - mice don’t belong in a restaurant.”

And he motioned for the waitress, who came hurrying over.

“Yes sir, how may I help you?”

“The bill, please.”

The magistrate waited patiently for Hong to finish paying for his dinner, and the two were off. They walked down the streets of the small city, their casual stroll moving slightly faster than non-cultivators could run. The streets passed quickly until they reached the restaurant.

The restaurant owner was waiting outside, wringing his hands. His son stood nervously behind him.

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The owner perked up when he saw the magistrate, then became uncertain as he saw Hong. “Ah. I knew you’d said you’d find an expert, but I never expected that your idea of an expert was to pick the noodle shop repairman… I suppose this counts as repairing a noodle shop.”

Hong ignored the slight. “I heard you have a demon problem?”

The restaurant owner nodded. “Yes… a vile, horrifying brute. Manifested suddenly, scared me half to death, then chased me out of the noodle shop.”

Hong stroked his wisp of a beard. “But how’d he even get there? Demons don’t live here; somebody would have had to summon it.”

He examined the two men. The restaurant owner just seemed confused, but his son blanched.

Hong continued. “And another matter. I heard this demon has an army of mice? Where’d they come from? Mice shouldn’t be in a restaurant.”

He examined the two men. The son just seemed confused, but the restaurant owner blanched.

Hong’s face remained impassive. “Well, I suppose we’ll find out the answers in due time.”

The restaurant owner cleared his throat.

“I’d be very grateful if you’d clear out the demon, but without damaging the restaurant. It’s not just the building,” he hurriedly said as Hong went to say that of course he wouldn’t damage the restaurant, what a stupid thing to say, “it’s also the contents. My son is studying to be a scholar, and the loss of his books and notes would be a disaster.”

Hong looked at the prospective ‘scholar,’ who was busy pretending to be part of the background, and crooked one eyebrow. “Of course I’ll be careful. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

And he was about to head in, when he realised he was still holding his toolkit. Looking around he found the magistrate, who had gone quiet because he was trying to surreptitiously sneak back home, and called out to him.

“Good sir, please wait a moment. I need you to hold this: I can’t bring it in with me, but it must remain whole and undamaged.”

Sighing, Magistrate Su accepted the toolkit.

Hands liberated and free to fight, Hong headed towards the restaurant.

It was a squat building, not particularly nice to look upon. The paint was slightly less than fresh, and the design was unimpressive. The windows were blurry with dirt, and blacked out with the noxious energy of a demonic cultivator (or, in this case, a demon cultivating).

The magistrate and the two restaurateurs watched nervously as the noodle shop repairman went up to the restaurant’s door, knocked, and without waiting for a response proceeded to enter.

The door slammed shut, and Hong could be seen no more.

Hong could be seen no more, and Hong wished he could not see.

The restaurant was hardly the disaster zone one might expect if it was possessed by a demon and an army of mice. There was no refuse, garbage, litter, trash, or filth upon the floor; the dishes were in their proper places; the tables and chairs were clean.

The cause of this cleanliness was not hard to find. It was, strange to say, the mice, who were sweeping out the corners of the room with tiny brooms and dustpans and taking the garbage out back. They glanced at Hong out of the corner of their eyes and scuttled on, not letting one human interrupt their important work.

Hong examined the mice idly, impressed with their diligence and their neat appearance. Their fur was brushed and carefully styled, the wee little clothes they wore on their back well-kept. Their teensy weensy hanfus were the height of scholarly fashion, little robes fluttering about their bodies as they went back and forth, their hats tied onto their chins with adorable little straps.

They had formed teams, each unit operating in carefully formed unison with each other, tackling tasks one at a time. For those that were too big for any one mouse, the unit would work together to take on the task as a whole.

This was not what caused Hong to wish he lacked the capacity for sight (temporarily - full blindness would impact his ability to fix noodle shops in the future, and was therefore undesirable). Quite the contrary - it was absolutely adorable, and he would happily have watched it all day. No, what caused our noble main character to wish for blindness was the thing pulsating in the centre of the room.

It was black and viscid, its shadowy body spiderwebbing across the front hall and up into the ceiling. Limbs wove in and out of one another, the boundary between the creature and the background it moved across thin at best. It did, nonetheless, have some sort of ‘normal’ form, approximating a human being but far taller, its head knocking against the ceiling.

This body of shifting shadows was pockmarked with light, ethereal candles floating in an intangible darkness. At least a half dozen of these candles were arranged in what might charitably be called eyes, eyes which were presently staring at Hong.

A gash of pure candle flame opened in the bottom of the creature’s head, smiling at the young noodle shop repairman.

“Well well well, if it isn’t little Hong Yu. What brings you here?”

Hong closed his eyes in embarrassment, hand coming up to cover his face.

“Hello, Master.”