The air on Mott Street hung thick with the acrid sweetness of smoldering joss paper and the earthy warmth of sandalwood. It was the seventh lunar month—the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Zhongyuan, as the elders called it—and New York's Chinatown had wrapped itself in a haze of ritual. Red lanterns flickered from storefront awnings, their glow painting the sidewalks in streaks of crimson, while the faint rustle of burning "hell money" mingled with the distant clatter of a dim sum cart's wheels.
At 7:30 p.m., Mr. Li knelt beside his laundromat, his 78-year-old knees creaking as he lowered himself onto a folded newspaper. In front of him, an iron basin glowed with embers, its edges blackened and pitted from decades of use. He held a stack of joss paper in his gnarled hands—thin, yellow sheets printed with fake currency and gold foil—and fed them into the fire one by one. The paper curled instantly, turning to ash that floated upward like gray butterflies.
"Mei-mei," he whispered, his voice trembling not from the evening chill, but from the ache of loss. His wife had died three years prior, a quiet passing in their tiny apartment upstairs, and he'd kept this ritual every Zhongyuan since. "Take this money. Buy something nice in the underworld. Don't wear that old sweater—you always complained it was too thin." He brushed a strand of white hair from his forehead, his eyes fixed on the flames as if he might catch a glimpse of her in the firelight.
A wind cut through the alley then, sudden and cold, sharp enough to make Mr. Li's eyes water. He looked up, squinting into the mist that had rolled in from the East River, and froze. Ten feet away, a figure stood. She wore a white burial shroud, its fabric tattered and stiff, as if it had been buried and dug up again. Her hair hung in matted black curtains, obscuring her face, and her bare feet hovered an inch above the ground—no shoes, no socks, just pale skin that seemed to glow in the dim light.
Mr. Li's throat went dry. "Who… who are you?" he stammered, scrambling to his feet. The stack of unburned joss paper slipped from his lap, scattering across the concrete.
The figure didn't answer. She glided forward, her movements smooth as water, and her translucent fingers reached down to grab the loose joss paper. Her touch seemed to suck the warmth from the air; Mr. Li felt a coldness wrap around his ankles, like stepping into ice water.
"Hey! That's for my wife!" he shouted, lunging forward. But before his fingers could brush her shroud, she vanished—dissolving into the mist like smoke, the joss paper clutched in her hand. The wind died down, leaving only the smell of ash and the distant hum of a taxi. Mr. Li collapsed onto the sidewalk, his heart pounding, and stared at the empty space where she'd stood.
By dawn, three more elders were bedridden. Mrs. Wong, who ran the dim sum shop on Elizabeth Street, had been found unconscious beside her altar, her lips blue and her forehead clammy. Mr. Chen, the grocer, was delirious in his apartment, muttering about "cold hands around my neck" as his daughter held a cool cloth to his forehead. Grandpa Zhang, the watchmaker, had been carried to the hospital by neighbors, his body wracked with fever, his eyes wide and unseeing.
Rui Lengyu's phone blared at 6:15 a.m., jolting her awake. She fumbled for it on her nightstand, her Brooklyn apartment still dark, and squinted at the screen: "SPU Emergency." The Special Paranormal Unit—her team—handled cases science couldn't explain, and the urgency in the ringtone made her pulse quicken.
"Rui, it's Mike," her partner's voice crackled through the line, strained and tired. "Chinatown. Four cases, all same MO. Elderly, all had joss paper out last night. Now they're in the hospital with 104 fevers, blue lips, and they won't stop talking about a woman in white." He paused, and Rui could hear the rustle of papers in the background. "The old folks are calling her the Yin Debt Collector. Say she's here to collect what's owed."
Rui swung her legs over the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. At 24, she was the youngest consultant in the SPU's history—a legacy of Irish mediums on her mother's side, Chinese immigrants on her father's. She could hear ghosts' whispers if they lingered long enough, trace the sickly cold of Yin energy like a fingerprint, but she'd always dismissed Chinese ghost tales as nostalgia and fear. Folklore, she told herself. Nothing more.
"I'll be there in an hour," she said, pulling on a tailored black blazer. She checked the hidden holster sewn into the lining—her Glock 19, loaded and ready—and slipped on a pair of dark jeans. Next, she grabbed her leather notebook, its pages filled with sketches of Irish runes: Sowilo, for repelling darkness; Algiz, for calling on ancestor's protection. Her grandmother had taught her to draw them when she was 12, back when she'd first started hearing the whispers. "Send me the addresses."
By 7:15 a.m., she was driving her unmarked SUV through the quiet streets of Brooklyn, heading toward Manhattan. The sun was just peeking over the skyline, painting the clouds pink, but Chinatown was already stirring—delivery trucks idling outside restaurants, shopkeepers unlocking doors, the faint smell of soy milk and fried dough drifting from a breakfast cart.
She parked on Mott Street, a few doors down from Mr. Li's laundromat, and walked to the alley where he'd seen the woman. The iron basin was still there, its embers cold, and a few scraps of joss paper lay scattered on the ground. Rui knelt, her gloved fingers brushing the concrete. Instantly, a cold tingle ran up her arm—Yin energy, thick and cloying, like rotting moss. She closed her eyes, focusing, and the whispers started: faint, high-pitched, overlapping. He owes me… Mine… The cross…
She opened her eyes, her jaw tight. This wasn't a coincidence. This was a spirit, and it was angry. She pulled out her phone, snapping photos of the basin, the scattered joss paper, the spot where the woman had stood. Then she walked to the hospital, where Mike was waiting outside the emergency room.
"The docs say their plasma is gray," he said, handing her a folder of medical records. "Never seen anything like it. No bacteria, no virus—just… cold. Their core temperatures are 95, even with blankets." He nodded toward the entrance. "Mr. Li's awake. He's the only one who can talk coherently."
Rui followed him into the hospital room. Mr. Li lay in a bed, an IV in his arm, his face pale but alert. When he saw Rui's SPU badge, his eyes widened. "You're here about the woman in white?" he said, his voice weak.
Rui pulled up a chair. "Tell me what you saw, Mr. Li. Everything."
He recounted the evening: the joss paper, the wind, the woman in the shroud. "Her hands," he said, shivering. "They were like ice. Translucent. When she took the paper… I felt like she was taking something from me, too. Like a piece of my warmth." He paused, tears welling in his eyes. "Do you think she'll come back? For Mei-mei?"
Rui squeezed his hand. "We won't let that happen." She stood, thanking him, and walked back to the hallway with Mike. "It's a vengeful spirit," she said, flipping through the medical records. "Yin energy contamination. The fever's her way of draining their life force—collecting that 'debt' the elders talk about."
Mike frowned. "Any idea what debt? Or who she is?"
Rui shook her head. "Not yet. But she's tied to the festival. She'll strike again tonight—when the ghosts are strongest. We need to find anyone who knew her, anyone who might owe her something." She pulled out her notebook, flipping to a blank page. "I'll talk to the elders at the ancestral hall. They might know more about the Yin Debt Collector."
As she walked back to her SUV, the morning sun was higher now, casting long shadows down Mott Street. She passed a storefront with a faded sign: "Xuanqing Antiques—Est. 1998." Through the window, she saw shelves lined with porcelain vases, old scrolls, and a small statue of Guan Yin. For a second, she thought she saw a figure in a gray robe standing behind the counter, holding a wooden sword—but when she blinked, the figure was gone.
She shrugged it off, climbing into her car. Folklore, she told herself again. But as she drove toward the ancestral hall, the cold tingle of Yin energy lingered on her arm, a quiet reminder that some stories were more than just tales.
That night, the moon would be full. The ghosts would be hungry. And the woman in white would be looking for her next debt. Rui gripped the steering wheel, her notebook open on the passenger seat. She was ready. Or so she thought.