Midnight.
The oil lamp on the second floor of the old bookstore had long gone out.
Jeming lay on the bed upstairs, eyes closed, fingers lightly resting on his abdomen, his breath steady like a still pond.
Anyone witnessing this scene would think this was merely a young man in a harmless sleep, dreaming amidst a room of old books.
Suddenly, the walls of the bookstore trembled slightly, and something in the air was torn open.
The thing that was approaching seeped silently towards this place, following the fine thread-like connection between it and Jeming.
In an instant, all the gaps inside the bookstore welcomed it.
The gap widened by years at the bottom of the door frame, the barely two millimeter crack where the wooden floor meets the corner wall, the dark compartment between the drawer and the tabletop...
All the narrow spaces unnoticed by ordinary people seemed to come alive, trembling slightly, as if whispering to its kind.
