I dashed into the rental apartment in a few quick steps and found the metal box where I kept my money. When I opened the box and looked inside, I gasped sharply, my hand trembling violently, and the metal box fell to the ground with a loud “bang”...

The money inside the box scattered out, but it wasn’t real money at all—it had all turned into joss paper!

A chill ran through my whole body, and I shuddered hard. My first thought was that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but after a closer look, there was no mistake—it was all joss paper for the dead. Not only did the bills have “Bank of Heaven and Earth” printed on them, but their denominations were ten thousand, a hundred thousand, even a hundred million. If this wasn’t joss paper burned for the dead, what else could it be?

Seeing this, my eyes widened in shock, and I thought to myself, This is it, I’ve seen a ghost.

I was sure I had put the twenty thousand yuan I picked up last night in this metal box. How could it have turned into joss paper for no reason after just two days?

Could it be that I made a mistake when I picked up the money? Did I mistake joss paper for real money?

Am I really that stupid? Besides, I wasn’t the only one there at the time—Old Smith also checked the money, and we both confirmed it was real cash when we picked it up.

For a moment, I was so scared I couldn’t move, cold sweat pouring down my body.

After a while, I slowly calmed myself down, then mustered up the courage to start counting the joss paper scattered on the floor. Soon, I finished counting—there were exactly two hundred bills, the same number as the money I picked up before, not one more, not one less...

My mind raced, and I rushed out of my room and into Old Smith’s room, picking up all the joss paper scattered on his floor and started counting. The result was the same—two hundred bills of joss paper in his room too!

At this point, I had no choice but to believe it: the money we picked up last night was indeed money for the dead!

Just thinking about it gave me goosebumps all over—this was just too damn creepy.

Of course, what made me even more terrified was that I suddenly remembered an old saying from my hometown: if you mistake joss paper for real money, it’s a sign of impending death. Only those who are about to die will mistake joss paper for real money. And I had a childhood friend named Peter Stone who died this way.

His family ran a small convenience store, the kind that’s open 24 hours. Peter Stone often helped his parents watch the store at home.

One night, Peter Stone was watching the store for his parents. That night, business was unusually slow, and Peter Stone dozed off in the shop. Around one in the morning, a woman in green clothes walked into the store.

The woman in green bought an umbrella, handed Peter Stone a hundred yuan bill, didn’t ask for any change, and left right away.

At dawn, Peter Stone discovered that the money was fake—it was actually a piece of joss paper. He went to check the security footage, and what he saw scared him out of his wits.

The footage showed that the woman in green who entered the store wasn’t a living person at all, but a paper effigy.

Yes, a paper effigy! The whole person was made of thin, green paper. There was a hole in the paper on her body, and in the footage, you could clearly see the bamboo frame inside, because the paper effigy was actually supported by a bamboo skeleton.

In other words, the joss paper Peter Stone received was given to him by the paper effigy.

After watching the footage, Peter Stone was terrified, but thought the matter was over. Who could have guessed that just three days later, on his way home from school, Peter Stone was hit by a dump truck and killed on the spot.

The strange thing was, when Peter Stone was hit by the dump truck, he wasn’t even walking on the road—he was on the sidewalk, one or two meters away from the road. Even more bizarre, the dump truck driver said that he suddenly saw a woman in green dash out in front of the truck, got startled, and swerved sharply, which caused him to drive onto the sidewalk. But at the scene, there was no sign of any woman in green—only a paper effigy made of green paper lying quietly on the road...

Many people who knew about it said that Peter Stone mistaking joss paper for real money was a sign of death, and that only those about to die would mistake joss paper for real money. They believed that if Peter Stone had found a master to break the curse after receiving the joss paper, he might have avoided this tragedy.

This incident has always stuck with me, and even now, thinking about it sends chills down my spine.

Now that I’ve encountered the same thing as Peter Stone, does that mean I’m also someone who’s about to die?

Chapter 3: Omen of Death

I used to think all these things were just superstitions, but now isn’t Old Smith the best example? He picked up joss paper and then inexplicably hanged himself. If that’s not an omen of death, what is?

Old Smith and I picked up the joss paper together. Now Old Smith is dead, so obviously, the next ones will be me and Little Clark. Just thinking about this made my hair stand on end, as if I’d fallen into an ice cave, chilled from head to toe, my heart filled with dread.

Even though I’m still alive and well right now, I don’t think that means I’m safe. If mistaking joss paper for real money really is an omen of death, then it’s only a matter of time before something happens to me.