"Then, tianshi, what should I do to change my fortune?" Xia Jin asked nervously.
"The disciples of Maoshan specialize in removing demons and expelling ghosts. We don"t practice changing fortunes." Ning Tiance appeared apologetic. "But heaven rewards virtue. As long as your heart is kind and your deeds are good, your fortune will naturally improve."
He looked at me and said, "Like Mr. Shen, for example."
Hearing Ning Tiance say that I was lucky, Xia Jin rolled his eyes. The whole school of Ideological and Political Sciences had known that Shen Jianguo was famous for his bad luck. If I ever skipped a cla.s.s, the teacher was sure to take a roll call. Anything I didn"t study was sure to appear on a test. If my cla.s.smates wanted to skip cla.s.s, they would ask me if I was planning to attend. If they were studying for a test, they would ask what parts of the curriculum I wasn"t planning to review.
What could I do? I could only struggle on, being as conscientious as I could to do right by myself. I didn"t dare to trust to luck, didn"t dare to miss a single part of the curriculum if I wanted to graduate. But there were benefits, too: because I had a solid foundation in my courses, I pa.s.sed the examinations easily.
This shows that in living a correct life, we can"t be careless. We can only reap the benefits of what we sow. You can"t plant sesame seeds and expect to harvest a watermelon. Being thoughtful and realistic will always lead to the best results.
Hearing Ning Tiance say that my luck was good had made Xia Jin lose some faith in the celestial master. But he still said to Xiao Ning, "Now that the mall is closed and all the customers are gone, tianshi, why don"t you come with me to see the elevator and the women"s restroom?"
"Very well." Xiao Ning nodded slightly. "The mall is a place where people gather. It"s full of vitality. Any ghost that can survive here must be extremely violent. In the long run, it will cause harm to humanity and must be eliminated."
Hearing this, I was very worried. As Xia Jin wasn"t an outsider, I grabbed Xiao Ning"s clothes and said, "You aren"t going to pee in the elevator and the women"s toilet, are you?"
Xiao Ning looked at me with a stiff expression. "Mr. Shen, although a virgin"s urine dispels evil, it"s only an emergency measure for ordinary people. How can our disciples use such inefficient methods?"
I felt relieved and nodded. "OK, as long as you"re not going to pee anywhere in public."
Xia Jin pulled me aside and whispered, "What"s going on? Do you know him?"
In order to keep Xia Jin from falling into the whirlpool of feudal superst.i.tion, I told him about the message I had sent on WeChat when I couldn"t get a phone call out, and also mentioned the solution Ning-tianshi had suggested. My main purpose was to get Xia Jin to see that superst.i.tion wasn"t the way to go.
But instead Xia Jin slapped his thigh and said, "Even a call to the police couldn"t get through, but you could still get a message through to him. Doesn"t that go to show he"s really an expert!"
Then he went to Ning Tiance, took his hand and asked him to go to the women"s toilet.
What could I do? I had to follow them. So three grown men went together to the women"s restroom at the mall.
Li Yuanyuan having gone back to her hometown to look for a job, naturally there was no one trying to stay the night in the women"s restroom. Xia Jin didn"t see anything this time. Ning Tiance also shook his head after an inspection. "There"s a trace of Yin energy. A ghost may have pa.s.sed by, but it hasn"t lingered. Let"s go to the elevator to have a look."
Xia Jin relaxed and said, "It seems that your roommate really isn"t a ghost. But room 404 is still cursed. How many residents have died? You have to move out as soon as you can afford it."
I despised the superst.i.tious thought but appreciated the concern of an old schoolmate, so I could only nod vaguely. As for moving… If I could have bought an apartment in H City, I definitely would have moved. Before I could buy an apartment… living in a free dormitory was good enough.
The three of us left the restroom and walked to the elevator. Ning Tiance stopped us in front of the elevator door. He said with a serious face, "The Yin energy is very dense. Was there an accident during the installation of this elevator?"
"There was," said Xia Jin, "I started investigating as soon as I got to work today, and indeed I found that when the elevators were being installed in this building, the equipment broke down and a worker fell and died. The family members came to make trouble, but the developers ran out on their debts, leaving the window and orphan without a pension. It"s a sad story."
"So that"s how it is." Ning Tiance took out an old wooden disc engraved with symbols. "He became a demon out of concern for his family. His resentment is very strong. It will be hard to deal with."
I stared at the pointer on the wooden disc in his hands and said, "Xiao Ning, this compa.s.s of yours isn"t very useful. The hand keeps spinning around."
Xia Jin smacked me on the back of my head and said, "Are you stupid? That"s called a compa.s.s of evil. It points out ghosts. The hand reacts to the surrounding Yin energy. Because there are ghosts around, the hands are spinning."
I sighed deeply. Xia Jin was too deeply taken in to be rescued.
Xiao Ning didn"t respond to my words, but his expression became more and more serious. He frowned and said, "This won"t be an easy matter."
"What"s wrong?" Xia Jin asked.
"At this ghost"s death, his blood flowed into the elevator. You must have cleaned it, but this kind of thing is hard to clean away entirely. His blood remained in the crevices in the corners of the elevator, and the ghost merged with the body of the elevator. You could say that he is the elevator, and the elevator is him. Unless the elevator is removed and destroyed, the ghost can"t be removed, " Ning Tiance explained.
"That"s..." Xia Jin looked troubled. "If there"s no fault in the elevator, we wouldn"t expend the effort to change it. Tianshi, isn"t there another way?"
"Yes, but..." Ning Tiance hesitated. "It would be necessary to enter the tiger"s lair. Go into the elevator, lure out the ghost, and fight it. But the ghost controls the elevator. If it dodges me while I"m fighting it and drops the elevator from a height... Well, I am only flesh and blood, after all. So it"s safer to dismantle the elevator."
Xia Jin, that opportunist, looked suspicious. Seeing his expression, Ning Tiance agreed to take the risk.
"I"ll go into the elevator to expel the ghost. You wait outside," Xiao Ning said.
I couldn"t bear watching him going off so bravely to face death. "Wait, there"s something wrong with the elevator. What if something happens while you"re in there on your own? How about this, I"ll go with you. We"ll call the elevator to the second subfloor. Xia Jin, if you stay outside and turn off the power, I don"t believe it will be able to rise again."
I didn"t believe in evil. There wouldn"t be a problem if the power was shut off.
"If you aren"t involved in cultivation. You shouldn"t enter." Ning Tiance looked disapproving. "I"m worried I won"t be able to protect you while doing battle."
"I don"t need protecting." I waved my hand. "I"ll come with you into the elevator today and use facts to prove to you that there"s no such thing as ghosts."
Xia Jin was very happy to hear that he didn"t need to dismantle the elevator or go in himself. He cooperated with me to lower the elevator to the second subfloor. Ning Tiance said that we had to wait until the door was closed and the elevator ghost thought that we were entirely in its power. Only then would it appear. That would be the time to cut off the electricity supply. He had no faith in the efficacy of cutting off the power; the ghost had integrated with the elevator, so even if the power was cut off, the ghost could still control it.
Towards this statement, I only said, "How did you do in senior middle school physics?"
Ning Tiance said, "I grew up in the Maoshan Sect…"
"Enough, I know you didn"t attend senior middle." I sighed. "Feudal superst.i.tion really can kill. Come on, let me, a liberal arts student who hasn"t studied any physics since my second year of senior middle, explain it to you. The elevator goes up by converting electric energy into kinetic energy to offset the force of gravity. In the absence of electric energy, even if there is a ghost, I don"t believe it can lift this thousand-pound plus elevator and then send it falling back down."
If the elevator had been on the fourth floor, then I would also have been concerned. After all, we were only flesh and blood. But the elevator was on the lowest floor. What could go wrong?
Trusting in science, I accompanied Ning Tiance into the elevator. Xia Jin, who had remained outside, immediately turned off the power after the elevator doors closed. The inside of the elevator became so dark you couldn"t see your hand in front of your face.
"Xia Jin turned off the power too thoroughly. He might have left the lights on," I mumbled, taking out my phone. I saw it only had 2% battery left. I said to Xiao Ning desperately, "Use your phone"s flashlight, mine"s about to turn itself off."
But instead, Xiao Ning said somberly from beside me: "Shutting off the lights wasn"t Xia Jin"s doing. It was the elevator ghost controlling them. It wants to trap us in the dark. Soon the elevator is sure to start rising on its own."
"How could that happen." I hit the wall of the elevator with a fist. Maybe I had used too much strength; the whole elevator shook. "Let"s see it go up, then."
I leaned against the elevator wall with my arms crossed in front of my chest. The darkness was soporific. I"d been staying up late these past few nights, so I was very sleepy.
When I was on the point of falling asleep, I felt a cold hand touching my chest. It was so cold that it woke me up right away. Somewhat awkwardly, I said to Xiao Ning, "If you can"t see then turn on your phone"s flashlight. Don"t go groping around."
The touch had me blushing.
Ning Tiance"s voice sounded across from me: "I can see in the dark. It wasn"t me touching you just now, it was the elevator ghost. I don"t know why it"s more interested in you than in a Celestial Master who poses a greater threat to it."
"You aren"t going to admit you touched me?" I was a little angry.
Although considering just where he had touched me, a somewhat delicate and awkward place, not admitting it was all right. It saved me from being embarra.s.sed.
The two of us were together in this enclosed dark s.p.a.ce, and after all my orientation was rather bent. Just closing my eyes, I could imagine Xiao Ning"s handsome face. All my anger dissolved at once.
Appearances really were what mattered in this world.
Then Xiao Ning took out some gold, glowing thing that hurt my eyes a little. Squinting, I could see he had taken out his wooden sword and was swinging it around in the narrow empty s.p.a.ce, still feigning propriety.
"What are you doing!" The sword swept in front of my face several times.
"The ghost has already appeared. It"s going to use this elevator to kill the two of us. It can"t take on a visible form, so you can"t see it," Ning Tiance replied as he waved his sword around.
I was forced to plaster myself to the wall in the corner of the elevator like a caterpillar for fear of being stabbed by the wooden sword. The nonexistent ghost didn"t scare me, but Xiao Ning did.
After a long time, Xiao Ning stopped swinging and leaned against the elevator wall panting. "This ghost is too cunning. It"s gone back into hiding in the elevator."
I saw that he had finally stopped and went to force the wooden sword out of his hand. I banged the sword against the elevator wall like a discipline whip. "You"ve been too deeply poisoned by superst.i.tion."
By the golden light coming from I didn"t know where, I saw Xiao Ning"s face change when I beat the wall with the wooden sword. Thinking that he was upset about his sword, I thrust it into his hand. "Here, take it back. I didn"t want to steal it, I just didn"t want you blindly swinging it around again."
Ning Tiance took the wooden sword, his face disbelieving. "The elevator ghost has disintegrated."
"Huh?"
"Just as you hit the wall with the sword, the ghost showed its face and was destroyed." Xiao Ning"s face looked he was on the verge of collapse.
I was so stumped that all my anger vanished. Whatever I said, Xiao Ning wouldn"t believe it. I could only sigh. "If it"s gone then let"s get out of the elevator. If we stay longer we"ll start running out of oxygen."
"R-right."
Ning Tiance immediately contacted Xia Jin and told him to turn on the power. We left the elevator, and I sat down on the ground dispiritedly.
Convincing people to believe in science was a ch.o.r.e!