Chapter Nine: Crying Female Ghost “I"ll go too.” Zhao Zheng was full of excitement.
Tang Yuan said doubtfully, “What are you going to do? What if there"s a ghost, what if you get hurt?”
“No, no, I"ve paid ghost-jiejie to protect me.” Zhao Zheng wore a proud expression.
Tang Yuan shut his mouth. He wanted to say that, in fact, this female ghost was actually a spicy chicken1 and that if she met a powerful ghost, she wouldn"t be able to protect Zhao Zheng at all.
“Alright, if anything happens to you, I"m not responsible.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Zhao Zheng happily agreed. And then he added, “Rice Ball, do you know what the female ghost said last time as she strangled me?”
The impression from being strangled by the female ghost was too deep, so he dreamed every night, dreaming of being choked by the female ghost. The female ghost squeezed his neck and spoke in the ghost language so he just wanted to figure out what the female ghost had said.
Tang Yuan shifted his gaze away. “You didn"t ask Miao?”
“Miao won"t tell me,” Zhao Zheng said grievously, “I was only informing the female ghost that day that her lipstick was crooked, but she just strangled me and even yelled at me in the ghost language I can"t understand.”
“So that"s how it is.” Tang Yuan said, “The female ghost said ‘*your* lipstick is crooked, your whole family is crooked".”
Zhao Zheng: “……”
Tang Yuan was just trying to make him laugh, but when he heard that, he replied indignantly, “A person kindly informed her, but she was so unreasonable.”
Tang Yuan explained in honesty, “I don"t blame her at all. When she died, she was putting on her lipstick. As a result, when the person who killed her pulled her hand, her lipstick became crooked and then she died, so she couldn"t even wipe off the crooked lipstick. Don"t you know, people obsessed with beauty standards are crazy, so the same people dead can be even more crazy.”
Zhao Zheng paused for a moment. “I see.” He thought it over, “You just mentioned the person who killed the woman?”
The woman who became the female ghost had been going home in the evening and was killed on the road. The location was where Zhao Feng"s father had picked her up. After she was killed, she had been dragged to the woods and buried.
According to Tang Yuan"s understanding, this female ghost was a mistress of a wealthy man. Like many young mistresses, she dreamed of being higher up, but she was all beauty and no brains, so she had no clever tricks to employ. Every now and then she"d put a lipstick mark on that man, to remind the wife of her existence, basically marking the man as her territory.
So after she died, that"s also what she did to Zhao Feng, in order to cause another person"s family to break apart.
Although the female ghost had been evil, the Zhao family still reported her case after learning these things, hoping that her murder could one day be solved.
At lunchtime, Tang Yuan received a message from Xie Yu. It was a link. Tang Yuan trusted Xie Yu greatly, so he didn"t hesitate too much before clicking the link. The link pulled up a webpage, a site whose homepage was called Tianshi Administration.
He could guess what this was, but he still asked Xie Yu. Only after Xie Yu confirmed did he officially register. He registered using the category of tianshi. However, to register as a tianshi, there were a ton of questions to answer. These questions made his head ache and spin, but fortunately he finally registered successfully, otherwise he would have vomited to death.
After registering, he found that the website wasn"t simple. There were a lot of communication posts there and he learned quite a bit from reading just one post.
This website is divided into two sections, one was the Tianshi Section, the other was the Employer Section. The Tianshi Section was naturally all full of tianshi and the Employer Section was the area where people who needed the services of a tianshi could enter. Many tianshi were on there looking for a task to do.
Tang Yuan originally thought that there wouldn"t be many people who needed a tianshi, but after seeing the endless posts in the Employer Section, he realized that his previous thoughts were a bit ridiculous.
However, he found that there were a lot of listings here, but that it wasn"t easy to sign up for a task, because the contents of many posts were like this: Asking for an X-ranked tianshi, the price shall be based on the listing price.
Most of them were like this. The difference was that some required high grades and some required low grades. However, there wasn"t a single post that didn"t require a certain grade.
It seemed that rank was very important. He saw a post on the tianshi power leaderboard on the website, so he clicked to take a look. He found his name at the end. However, although his name was there, he didn"t have a ranking
He went to ask Xie Yu about it and Xie Yu told him that this leaderboard was actually a magic device, the strength of a person could be detected through a connection to the internet, so to have his power level tested, he could inject his spiritual power into that page.
Ghosts could affect human electronic devices, so tianshi naturally also could. So Tang Yuan had no doubt as he injected his spiritual power into the phone, then the page loaded, showing the notification: Rank Testing In Progress.
Tang Yuan was stunned, so convenient and fast, whoever made this magic tool was a genius.
It didn"t take long for the strength test results to come out. He was a first rank tianshi and his spiritual strength was 3 points, so he listed as 29896 in the first rank, the very last person.
Tang Yuan looked at his ranking with a cold expression, the person who made this magic tool must have something wrong with his brain. Why did you tianshi rank me so low?
He scrolled up and found that the first place in the ninth rank tianshi group turned out to be Xie Yu. The spiritual strength of Xie Yu was 144,236 points and nearly 90,000 points above the second place person.
Tang Yuan looked at Xie Yu"s ranking and spiritual strength. For a time, he felt that he wasn"t worthy of Xie Yu, because his strength wasn"t even 1% of Xie Yu"s. He wanted to cry.
Tang Yuan was struck dumb, feeling both joy and distress. He was happy that he had caught himself such a treasure, but he was distressed that it might take a long time to catch up with Xie Yu. But soon he would find that he was too inexperienced to recognize his own talent.
……
As soon as it got dark, Tang Yuan and Zhao Zheng went to the woods, planning to see if there really was a female ghost. When he got bored, Tang Yuan started to play on his phone. As he was playing, he got a message from Xie Yu.
Xie Yu: “When are you coming back today?”
Tang Yuan"s mood became very good, so he smiled and replied: “I don"t know, probably very late, don"t wait for me."
Xie Yu looked at his phone and felt that something was wrong, and then he didn"t know if he wanted to laugh or cry. Tang Yuan thought he was waiting for him to come back, but actually he had never come home so late, so he was a little worried.
This originally was like the feeling of being a parent, but why did he think that it felt very good?
He replied: “When you come back, pay attention and be safe.”
Tang Yuan: “Okay, Shushu.”
He wanted to add an expression pack, but as he was about to click one to send, he was shoved by Zhao Zeng and clicked the wrong expression pack and then dropped his phone to the ground.
As he was trying to pick up his phone, he heard Zhao Zheng said, “Rice Ball, listen.”
He didn"t speak, instead slowing down his breathing, and then he heard a weeping cry. The sound seemed to be far away from them, but also like it was right in their ears. The sound of it directly made a person"s scalp go numb.
Tang Yuan was sure that this was the cry of a ghost. After all, a human voice couldn"t have a surround sound effect like a ghost"s could. It seemed that this was the legendary crying female ghost.
He picked up his phone and then silently recited a spell in his heart. After he determined where the female ghost was, he walked further into the woods and, after a while, saw a girl crouching there crying. Tang Yuan knew that she was the female ghost, so he approached her.
His approach was noticed by the female ghost, so the female ghost looked up at him, preparing to continue to cry, but then she completely froze. She stared up at him and asked in uncertainty, “You can see me?”
Tang Yuan nodded. “Why are you crying here? Are you trying to harm people?”
The female ghost panicked and waved her hands vigorously. “No, no, I"m a normal female ghost with morals. How can I harm people?”
Tang Yuan: “……”
The female ghost explained, “I"m just died and I don"t know where to go for reincarnation, so I can only stay here and cry.”
Tang Yuan taunted her sarcastically, “Don"t try to lie to me. Why can"t you cry elsewhere? You just have to cry here?”
Guilty, the female ghost said, “I, I……”
Tang Yuan continued, “You clearly were trying to scare those couples, you"ve been a single dog for a million years, no, now you"ll be a single dog-ghost for a million years.”
“Wuwuwu,” the female ghost began to cry, “that"s so cruel.”
Tang Yuan sighed, “I"ll send you on to reincarnate.”
The female ghost stopped crying and asked happily, “Really?”
Tang Yuan nodded, then began to cast the spell. In the midst of the female ghost thanking him, he sent her on.
After sending the female ghost on, Tang Yuan felt like his body had become lighter and his mind more clear.
“Is that it?” Zhao Zheng wore an expression of disbelief.
Tang Yuan nodded, “Yeah, let"s go.”
“Oh, okay.” Zhao Zheng looked a little disappointed.
They had just taken a few steps when they heard a group of people talking.
“Didn"t you say that there was a ghost? I can"t feel anything.”
“Really, I sensed it yesterday, I just didn"t dare to go over there.”
“There was a ghost, but it"s been handled.”
“What? Who handled it?”
“I don"t know, probably someone who has the power.”
Listening to their conversation, Tang Yuan knows that they were also his kind of people. Tang Yuan was trying to decide if he wanted to meet them or just walk away when they collided with this group of people. So Tang Yuan was warmly invited by them to join a group called the Supernatural Society. Tang Yuan couldn"t understand why the school had actually approved such a society.
After separating from the Supernatural Society group, Tang Yuan planned to go home. But who could have guessed that when he got to the school gate, he would see a man with a black aura, an appearance that meant he was apparently being haunted by a ghost.
“Xiao ZhengZi, the person wearing black over there, do you know him?” Tang Yuan suddenly asked.
Zhao Zheng glanced over and said, “I don"t know him. What"s up?”
Tang Yuan said, “He"s haunted by a ghost.”
Zhao Zheng"s eyes lit up. "Really? Are you planning to catch the ghost?"
“Yeah,” Tang Yuan nodded. “But can you figure out what"s going on with him?”
Looking excited, Zhao Zheng replied, “I"ll go check it out tomorrow.”
The author has something to say:
I will bring the bun out tomorrow, heehee. Although the bun won"t be born right away, they will appear in front of everyone in another form.
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Footnotes:
1. Spicy chicken (辣鸡), internet slang, humorous, calling someone garbage or contemptible ↩
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[Jeb Bush voice] please comment
Chapter Ten: Intertwined with Xie Yu After saying goodbye to Zhao Zheng, Tang Yuan got on the bus to go home. He took out his phone and looked at the time. He found that it was already past 9pm, so he didn"t know what Xie Yu would be doing right now.
The bus soon arrived near the Xie family house. He got off the bus and walked for a while before reaching home. He chatted with Xie Yu about today"s business, but today he seemed to be a little absent-minded, not talking, not speaking much and zoning out.
“I"m sorry,” Xie Yu said apologetically after zoning out a few times.
“Are you feeling a little off today?” Tang Yuan said, because the normally peaceful Xie Yu was acting bit strange. “Do you feel unwell?”
Xie Yu shook his head, “No.”
Tang Yuan felt a bit uneasy. “Are you really okay?”
“Yes, I"m really okay.” Xie Yu had a gentle smile on his face, it seemed that his peaceful nature was no different than usual.
“That"s good.” Tang Yuan was relieved.
Xie Yu stared at his face and then lowered his eyes and said, “It"s late, you should go rest.”
“Yeah,” Tang Yuan smiled and responded, then returned to his room.
After washing up, Tang Yuan lay in bed and played around on his phone for a while. He received a WeChat message from Zhao Zheng. He took a look and suddenly felt admiration for Zhao Zheng, because Zhao Zheng had already found out about the ghost-haunted boy. He and Zhao Zheng agreed to go find the young man tomorrow to understand his situation and then ended their conversation.
When he finished, he thought about how he might have sent the wrong expression pack to Xie Yu, so he clicked into Xie Yu"s message history to look at it, and then the phone fell onto his face.
The wrong expression pack was a panda head with a line of words beneath it: Don"t scold me, I love you.
Internet-savvy boys and girls would know that this expression pack was a joke, so Tang Yuan didn"t think that Xie Yu would misunderstand, but Tang Yuan was still a little embarra.s.sed, as if he had used this expression pack to offer a confession.
Forget it, don"t think about it, go to sleep.
He started snoring as he fell asleep, but Xie Yu, on the other side, was continuously editing a message on his phone:
“I understand.” This was the nth message he had drafted, but soon he deleted it and drafted it again: “Is this a confession?”
This message was also eventually deleted. Xie Yu tossed and turned in the middle of the night but couldn"t edit the message properly. At the same time that he felt helpless inside, it was also mixed with a thread of joy.
Did Tang Yuan really like him or was it a joke?
He had grown to such an age and had experienced so many things, but this was the first time he had encountered this kind of emotional situation. What the h.e.l.l was he supposed to do?
He struggled all night, but Tang Yuan, on the other hand, slept very well and had a sweet dream. There was a fat baby in his dream, lying on a small bed made of clouds, extending his hands to Tang Yuan and asking him to hug him. This baby was white and tender and his eyes were big and round, altogether cuter than a doll.
“Little fatty, do you want gege to hold you?” he asked.
The baby couldn"t speak yet and could only wave his little hand, but he seemed to be answering Tang Yuan.
Tang Yuan didn"t like children very much, but this little baby was so cute, so he couldn"t hold himself back and picked him up to hug. Who could have guessed that the baby"s body would be so soft, so comfortable to hold. Tang Yuan also felt a sense of closeness from him.
Happy, Tang Yuan eagerly kissed the baby. He saw the baby was smiling at him with his little toothless mouth, so…… Tang Yuan got the urge to make mischief. He picked the baby up and turned him upside down, making the baby so scared that he cried, and then Tang Yuan woke up.
This dream hadn"t yet faded from his mind, so Tang Yuan thought, the little baby was so fun, I actually had more tricks to play on him, but unfortunately I already woke up.
He thought of how he was carrying a little cub. Would it possible to play with him after he was born? Should he start planning what to play now? Suddenly, he no longer hated the idea of having his own child and even felt a little antic.i.p.ation.
But thinking about it, the baby seemed very fragile, so if he played in his own household, he couldn"t do anything to hurt the child.
He went to the kitchen in good spirits to have breakfast. When he saw Xie Yu, he immediately greeted him and then told him about his dream. After he finished, Xie Yu"s expression got a bit strange, “The baby from your dream, it might be the spiritual fetus you"re carrying.”
Tang Yuan shot Xie Yu a hard look, feeling that this was too unbelievable.
Xie Yu said with a smile, “A spiritual fetus is unlike any other fetus. He has the intelligence of a child of three or four years old. He knows that you"re his family, so he wants to be close to you.”
“But I scared him to the point of tears. Isn"t that bad?” Tang Yuan asked.
Xie Yu nodded. “It might be bad. Although the spiritual fetus has the IQ of a child of three or four years old, he"s still a child. He"ll be scared and then……”
“And then what?” Tang Yuan interrupted and asked.
Xie Yu didn"t know if he wanted to laugh or cry as he said, “Then he may be too afraid to be born.”
“Huh?” Tang Yuan did not understand, “Say it clearly.”
“That is to say, if he"s afraid of you and afraid to be born, then you may have to be pregnant for a long time.” He added, “Like a kind of Nezha1.”
Tang Yuan"s jaw dropped. It turned out that he could do such a stupid thing in a dream. He admired himself a bit.
“What should I do? I don"t want to always be a pregnant man.” Although he carried a spiritual fetus and neither felt uncomfortable or would gain a big belly, as a man, he just didn"t like being pregnant.
His gaze was fixed on Xie Yu and he looked pitiful, so Xie Yu said as his heart softened, “Don"t worry, when you"re strong in the future, you can just try to communicate with him. If it doesn"t work, I"ll help you.”
Tang Yuan"s eyes lit up. "Then I thank you in advance."
Xie Yu smiled a little helplessly. “No thanks needed.” He was also the father of the child, although they only had a child because they kissed.
His eyes casually swept over Tang Yuan"s lips inadvertently. His eyes darkened for a moment and then returned to normal.
After Tang Yuan finished breakfast, he went to school. Today, they only had one long lecture in the morning. When he finished, he and Zhao Zheng went to find the ghost-haunted man. The young man was called Wu Chi, a soph.o.m.ore in a different department.
They wanted to help Wu Chi, but they couldn"t rush to tell the guy that he was being haunted by a ghost, in case he thought they were lying and beat them up! So they decided to secretly help Wu Chi and so, in order to achieve that, they began to spy on Wu Chi.
After carefully observing Wu Chi, Tang Yuan discovered the black qi aura on Wu Chi"s body had purple mixed in with black. When Zhao Zheng"s father was haunted, it was a little different, but he hadn"t learned much yet, so he couldn"t tell what was going on.
He couldn"t help but think of how, in the future, he had to memorize everything in the “Demon, Ghost, and Supernatural Knowledge Encyclopedia” that Xie Yu had given him.
Although he didn"t know what the aura was all about right now, he suspected that it might be a problem with the ghost haunting Wu Chi.
According to Wu Chi"s situation, Tang Yuan judged that Wu Chi had been haunted by a ghost for five or six days and he guessed that he would be killed soon.
Wu Chi"s life was very ordinary. Every day he went to school, ate, and slept. It didn"t seem that there was any reason he had been targeted by a ghost. And yet, he was being haunted.
Moreover, what made Tang Yuan feel strange was that in the scope of Wu Chi"s activities, no ghost made an appearance. Was the ghost using a trick and deceiving his eyes?
As time went by, Tang Yuan felt that it was impossible to find the reason using secret observation, so they came up with an idea and approached a person who was closer to Wu Chi.
They specifically asked the person about Wu Chi"s situation five or six days ago and, with this question, Tang Yuan"s thoughts suddenly became clear. Wu Chi had gone out with his girlfriend seven days ago, in order for the two of them to break up. When he came across his girlfriend, she had been killed by the car.
Tang Yuan thought that the ghost haunting Wu Chi was probably Wu Chi"s girlfriend. Some ghosts would die with an unfinished obsession from their life, so they would want to complete this obsession after death. His girlfriend had been looking for him before she died, so she was also looking for him after death, so he had a black aura on his body. When his girlfriend found him, she would probably move on to the next world.
After making this speculation, they asked about the location of the accident. For this kind of ghost killed by an accident, it usually became a location-bound ghost, so they went to the crash site to have the best chance of finding her.
Since they had no cla.s.ses in the afternoon, they ran to the location of the previously-occurred accident. Although there were a few pedestrians in the place, the site was quite secluded. They had heard that the driver who killed the girlfriend hadn"t been caught because there were no cameras in this area. And it really was quite remote, so like this, there was little chance to figure out the girlfriend"s killer.
When the two arrived at the place, Tang Yuan strongly felt the trace of a ghost"s presence. However, there was no ghost in this place. Was his guess wrong and that ghost hadn"t become a location-bound spirit?
The two could only return without success. They took another route on their way back. However, Tang Yuan felt more and more off as they went along this road and then he found there was black qi on the road. After he confirmed it to himself a few timers, he said to Zhao Zheng, “Xiao ZhengZi, a ghost has walked down this road.”
"Uh?" Zhao Zheng wore a blank expression. "Is the path of a ghost very special?"
Tang Yuan explained, “The path a ghost walks isn"t special, but for the ghost to leave such a heavy trace on the road is special.”
Zhao Zheng was speechless. “How could I know about traces or whatever?”
Although he said that, he began to curiously ask what happened. Tang Yuan also explained that a common ghost would only leave a faint trace on a path it walked. For the traces to be so strong, the ghost must be one with strong spiritual power. He realized it was special because it had left this kind of black qi.
What was the ghost"s intention? Was it trying to deliberately attract the attention of someone like Tang Yuan?
He continued on. It didn"t take long to see where the black aura disappeared and the place where the black qi disappeared happened to be right at the school gate.
He remembered that when he and Zhao Zheng left the school, there had been no trace yet, so that"s to say, after they left, the ghost came to the school gate, but then it disappeared again.
This trace led from the accident site to here, so the ghost who came here might be Wu Chi"s girlfriend.
“Wu Chi"s girlfriend was really truly in love with Wu Chi,” Tang Yuan suddenly said.
“Excuse me? You saw Wu Chi girlfriend?”
Tang Yuan shook his head, “No.” He paused and then said, “I"ll take you to see something exciting tonight.”
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Footnotes:
1. Nezha (哪吒): hopefully you"ve watch the Nezha movie already!! jk - Nezha is a deity who remained in his mother"s womb for 3 years and 6 months ↩
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so there"s our little bun for the first time! say h.e.l.lo to the bun ❤