Xu Fei spoke, letting a heavy air of disappointment seep into his tone, then turned to leave. Just as he stepped out the door, he was called back.
“Hey, hold on, mate! Alright, alright, you’re a tough one to please. Since you’re set on it, I’ll do the cupping for you!”
For whatever reason, the dark-skinned foreign massage therapist with a thick accent finally gave in to Xu Fei’s request.
Xu Fei didn’t think much of it. He entered the shop, stripped off his shirt, and lay face-down on the small bed. The peculiar incense filling the room mingled with the occasional chatter from the boss, and somehow, Xu Fei drifted off to sleep.
While he was out cold, the shop’s boss crept stealthily to the entrance, glanced around, then locked the door. Hoisting Xu Fei over his shoulder, he carried him into a back room.
When Xu Fei came to, his body ached all over, and what greeted his eyes looked like a secret chamber.
The space was cramped. Xu Fei noticed one entire wall lined with glowing red candles, and at the centre stood a statue of a three-headed, six-armed deity.
His last memory was realising something was off with the shop’s incense, but by then it was too late, and he’d blacked out.
“Strange, have I been kidnapped?”
As the thought crossed his mind, Xu Fei faintly heard a low, cryptic chant drifting from nearby, laced with an exotic cadence.
Turning his head, he saw the same man who’d been massaging him, now sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, muttering the eerie incantations.
The man’s body was covered in tattoos of three-headed, six-armed divine figures. Before him sat several small dishes containing foul-smelling blood, a tuft of hair, and a grotesque ghost doll.
The scene before him clicked into place, and Xu Fei’s mind zeroed in on one possibility.
“Are you some kind of overseas voodoo master?”
Xu Fei ventured the question cautiously, as everything unfolding around him felt ripped straight from a foreign horror flick.
If there was anything different, it was the lack of a cinematic soundtrack to heighten the heart-pounding reality of it all.
“Hmph! Not bad, you’ve got a sharp eye. What’s with that look? You blaming me or something?”
The shop boss snapped his head around at the sound, his face smug and utterly unconcerned.
After all, Xu Fei was still under the effects of the sedative incense, and with his hands and feet bound, the boss saw no need for caution.
“I told you when you came in, didn’t I? No cupping. This shop’s cups are strictly for women!”
As he spoke, the boss grew visibly excited, pointing to another wall.
Xu Fei followed his gesture and saw a painting of a naked woman, her back covered in cupping jars. But instead of fire, each jar in the painting contained a terrifying ghostly face.
The boss kept jabbering, and Xu Fei pieced together the gist of it.
It seemed this guy was part of some sinister cult from a coastal country, luring young women to plant curses on them for the sake of his twisted rituals.
