The gong had just struck three times at the hour of Yin, and Lin Mo was already crouching at the pawnshop door, clutching a brass incense burner.

"Are you playing it big?" He twitched his lips in self-mockery, the small mole at the corner of his eye faintly visible in the dim light of dawn. "Lin Mo, Lin Mo, when will you change your stubborn ways?"

In the incense burner sat three jet-black incense sticks. A closer look revealed dark red veins entwined around them, like dried blood. Lin Mo fetched his flint, and the instant a spark flew, the three sticks spontaneously ignited, sending up a strange, purple-blue smoke that twisted into snakelike shapes in mid-air.

A wild cat's shrill howl echoed from the corner of the street. Without even looking up, Lin Mo tossed out a copper coin. With a snap, the cat's meowing ceased abruptly. "It's quiet now." He clapped his hands and pulled out an oil-paper bag from his bosom. Inside were three items: a handful of grave soil, half a tortoise shell, and a bone wrapped in red string—it looked like a human pinky bone.

The temperature in the pawnshop suddenly dropped sharply.