Chapter 1 (2/2)

Previous experience: 1-2 years of counter management

Address: 111 Harbour Rd

Monthly salary of one thousand seven hundred dollars? Just in case he read wrong, Feisha traced the digits with his fingers and looked for any decimal points. It was indeed one thousand seven hundred.

Holy shit, this is actually the epitome of a free lunch. Feisha excitedly hugged the newspaper and started giggling stupidly on the side of the road.

“Wait, where’s Harbour Road?” he realised after he finished giggling to himself. As a born and raised local, Feisha knows that the city is called Harbour City, but he’d never heard about a Harbour Road. Opening the newspaper, he found under the bold black letters a crisply rendered map. The directions on it were so clear that even a child could probably find their way there without getting lost.

“The crossroads at Midmount East Road?” Newspaper in hand, he turned around abruptly to find a tranquil little alleyway directly behind him.

“Hold on, was that alley there before?” How had he not noticed it this entire time? The idea sounded a little too out there for Feisha; had he finally gone insane from the recent job hunting frenzy? He entered the alleyway a little confused anyway.

The two sides of the alley were residential areas that he found vaguely familiar. Maybe he’s come to this place before and just forgot, he desperately comforted himself. However, the most eye-catching feature of this alley weren’t the residential buildings, but the mansion that stood next to it. No, it wasn’t a mansion; it was more like a castle. The castle, in all its 30-or-so floored glory, towered over him. Standing where he was, Feisha could see the bright neon lights– HOTEL NOAH.

He’d worked in hotels for two years now but somehow had never heard of this particular one. On account of the grandeur of the building in front of him though, Feisha decided to categorise this one as due to his own ignorance rather than the obscurity of the hotel itself.

Walking up quietly to the entrance, he found a suspicious lack of both staff and customers. This hotel is indeed in need of a brilliant counter manager like him, he thought. At the very least, he wouldn’t allow the footmen to slack off like this under his supervision.

The doors of the hotel was made of wood, stretched to about 3 floors high and was more than 10 metres wide. It immediately put the common glass revolving door to shame with sheer style and impact.

The doors were also wide open.

Feisha felt his own insignificance weighing him down as he walked through.

It almost felt like standing between two mirrors because the ceiling is nowhere to be seen, creating a surrounding that repeated itself over and over with no end in sight. The building itself as well was like a big chimney with a dizzying concentration of floors shooting through the clouds.

Feisha tried to remember if the building had seemed this big from the outside. It had only looked around thirty five floors tall at most, why was the interior so much larger? Was it an optical illusion?

“Hey, Feisha,” a voice came from his right. “How have you been?”

Feisha’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Tony! Where did you go? Your hotel said that you didn’t show up for a week.” Being classmates back in school, they’ve kept in contact.

Tony’s smile was a little forced. “Really?”

Feisha looked him over, taking in the suit and tie, “Don’t tell me, you work here?”

“I did,” Tony said. “But I resigned today.”

“What? Why?” Feisha was instantly suspicious. There was usually a reason for someone to quit their job.

Tony hesitated. “Because the contract was up.”

“So a week ago you were Hotel Kaise’s head counter manager, but now you’re saying that your contract with this hotel is up?” The doubt in Feisha’s tone was clear as day. “Does this place only do week-long contracts?”

Tony walked over slowly, seemingly wanting to say something but settled for patting Feisha on the shoulder.

“Good luck.” He left before Feisha could ask him any questions.

Maybe he should run after him for some answers, especially now that Feisha can feel that there’s something not quite right about this hotel. Just as he was about to move, however, a person approached him.

“Are you Feisha Shi?”

At the inquiry, Feisha had no choice but to give up on his pursuit of Tony and turned around to face the golden-brown haired young man beaming at him.

“I am, but how do you know my name?”

“Because I received your resume,” the young man said, pulling out a large envelope from under his arm. Feisha recognized his handwriting on the envelope as soon as he saw it.

“But I don’t remember submitting my resume to a place like this…” The more he thought about it, the more he felt as though something was off about this place. Despite how much he wanted this job, obviously his safety took priority. There has been a size-able influx of scammers lately, all of whom seem to be trying to one-up each other in terms of scumminess. He decided to go find a safe dishwashing job.

“This is such an obscure hotel. To tell the truth, I just swung by to have a look. Now that I’ve had my look, I’ll be taking my leave.”

“This is not an obscure hotel.”

The young man lazily spoke up as Feisha turned around to leave.

“This hotel is actually very famous, just overlooked by many,” he said with an indecipherable smile. “It could be called the oldest hotel in the world.”

“What?” Feisha whipped around. The man was still smiling.

“This hotel’s full name is Noah’s Ark.”

The heavy doors behind him slammed shut with a bang.

Translator’s notes

The Chinese title is入瓮. It’s the second half of the Chinese idiom, 请君入瓮 (lit. step into the vat of your own creation). This idiom basically means to be subjected to an ordeal you used on/thought up for somebody else. The ‘funeral’ in the title is in reference to the saying, invitation to your own funeral, which was what Feisha handed to himself when he decided to go to the hotel.

Feisha Shi

石飞侠 – using conventional pinyin, his name would be Shi Fei Xia

Jesus isn’t Buddha, so why do we only have vegetarian!?

What Feisha actually said wasn’t Buddha, but Guanyin.

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