Otherworldly Merchant

For starters, I took Li Mazi to the market to buy some fragrant Thai rice; then we went to the river bank to pick thirty willow twigs. We also bought a set of burial clothes in the shop, together with the boy and girl paper dolls that would be burned in the ceremony. In the end, we went to another store to buy some refined salt and baijiu.

At first, I wanted to prepare some ox tears. However, it wasn’t easy to find them so I had to use baijiu instead.

The otherworldly item in question was different than the usual. Chuyi wasn’t supporting me this time, so I had to take the Sirius Whip with me.

We returned to the villa after everything was prepared.

As we entered the place, the first thing we noticed was the cold temperature. The room was even colder than an ice chamber now.

I knew the resentment energy was affecting the house. It was really serious this time!

I turned on the air-conditioner to ease my nerves, and it did help in offsetting the cold temperature. My back still felt the chill, but the fear in my heart was lessened.

We sat on the sofa. Li Mazi was somewhat frightened; he checked the dim-lit room and said, “Do you know where the otherworldly item is hidden? We should prepare in advance.”

I forced a smile. “It’s hidden somewhere, but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet…”

Li Mazi sighed. “I was planning to hold my wedding ceremony in a couple of days. But all the excitement went away after this happened.”

I couldn’t do anything else but comfort him. “It’s gonna be even better. I’ll be giving you more gift money by the time you hold the wedding!”

Nothing strange happened while we spent time watching movies in the evening. I started to feel sleepy after midnight; I kept on yawning so I got up and walked around the room. However, I didn’t dare to sleep, as I was afraid I would never be able to wake up once I closed my eyes.

While trying to stay awake, I came to think that the ghosts I had encountered the previous night weren’t real. They had to be illusions created by the amulet.

Hallucination was one of the most well-known effects of such amulets.

Evil spirits were confined in the amulet; although they were unable to go beyond a three meter radius, they would create hallucinations as long as the amulet wasn’t broken.

I felt a little tired and my eyelids were heavy after circling the room twice. I checked the clock; it was almost time. I found a remote corner and brought out the burial clothes to start pulling out their threads.

While doing so, Li Mazi yawned. “Why do we have to do that? It’s a good set of burial clothes. What a waste!”

I laughed and scoffed, “You are so stingy, you know? It’s just a set of burial clothes. If you like them, I’ll buy eight sets for you tomorrow.”

After removing all the threads in the burial clothes, I linked them together to form five-meter lines.

Well, making them that long wasn’t due to a special indication. It was because the main bedroom was around five meters wide.

Shortly after, we weaved the longer threads to make a thick mesh net!

Actually, I was trying to locate the amulet using the items I had prepared. Things would be much easier if we could locate it and survive the night. Then, we would ship the amulet back to Thailand, or worship it in a big temple somewhere in China. That could solve things smoothly.

I poured the baijiu into a pot and boiled it, adding refined salt. Once I was done stirring the solution, I used it to wash my face and kept a mouthful without swallowing.

However, the action enraged Li Mazi. “Why didn’t you wait to wash your face later if you knew you had to keep it in your mouth? Now the solution is dirty. How could I keep that in my mouth?”

I spat and said, “Oh well, you don’t need to do it.”

Li Mazi exhaled in relief.

I added, “If you’re not afraid of death.”

Li Mazi was scared; he almost glued his face to the pot…

We checked the time after we prepared everything; it was barely 1:00 AM in the morning.

Still early. My sleepiness is gone at least. I stretched my sore back and began to cook the fragrant Thai rice.

This part was guesswork. The spirits wouldn’t easily come out to mess with us since we were prepared. I had to find a way to lure them out!

In China, a bowl of rice offering was needed if you wanted to entice ghosts.

However, since we were talking about Thai ghosts who had flown all the way to China, they would have a sweet tooth for Thai rice, wouldn’t they? Perhaps they wouldn’t like offerings with Chinese rice. I should offer them ‘a taste of their country.’

The steaming hot Thai rice was ready shortly after.

Li Mazi seemed to disdain my approach. He said with a joking tone, “Why didn’t you prepare a bottle of Laoganma? [1] That way the Thai ghosts can season their rice with chili sauce.”

I shot him a glance. “You can go buy it if you like. Perhaps those beautiful female ghosts would take a liking to you.”

I placed the bowl of steamed Thai rice on the most eye-catching location in the room. Then I sat together with Li Mazi on the sofa and continued to watch TV.

I had especially relocated the bathroom’s full-length mirror to be right across the sofa. It would help me observe the entire place.

I didn’t even blink while I gazed at the mirror; I was afraid I could miss something.

Around twenty minutes later, a strange phenomenon began to happen in the living room. At first it was a sizzling noise coming from a remote corner behind the sofa; it sounded like a snake sticking its tongue out to sense the surroundings. Oddly enough, I didn’t see anything in the mirror.

However, I spotted them real fast!

The net made from the burial clothes’ threads began to dip and move. I could guess something or someone was pressing down on it.

Moreover, I could tell it was clearly not just one ghost by looking at the area that moved.

When discussing whether ghosts had weight or not, I would be in the group of people who said yes.

I had read about an experiment described in a scientific magazine. They had weighed a person at the very moment of his death and detected a slight change in his weight, concluding that a human soul weighed around 0.05 grams.

Although it was really light, it was enough to press the burial threads down…

I saw the threads dipping down, then slowly moving toward us. I became restless, so I gently poked at Li Mazi.

Li Mazi looked at me, oblivious to the situation. He had the salt solution in his mouth, so he couldn’t talk, but I understood he wanted to say “What?”

I pointed my finger at the mirror and he finally reacted; his body tensed up once he saw the movement. He didn’t dare to blink as he gazed at the mirror.

Eventually, those things were hovering above our heads.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, pretending I was recovering from the shock. Actually, my eyes had never left the mirror.

When those things were just a little distance away from us, I simply jumped without giving any warning signs, spraying the salty solution in my mouth at them. Li Mazi did the same.

After the spraying, several mist-like shadows appeared in front of us!

Although their appearance was really vague, I knew they were the foul spirits from the amulet.

The shadows realized they had been spotted, so they turned around to flee. However, we didn’t give them a chance to run. We whipped them with the willow twigs we had prepared!

The ‘shadows’ were backed into a corner. However, they struggled angrily, trying to find a way to escape. I then purposely left an opening so they could run.

I released the net after they got out, which made the shadows even more visible to us.

We continued whipping them, not giving them the slightest chance to counterattack!

It was good that we had caught them unprepared. Our attack left them petrified.

I heaved a sigh of relief and sprinkled all the remaining salty solution to the corner. I surrounded the corner with the willow twigs. Would they be confined like this? 

I looked at Li Mazi. He was holding my small leather whip, fearfully looking at that corner.

I swiftly took back the whip. The Sirius Whip shouldn’t be used carelessly. If it couldn’t subdue the ghosts, it would completely enrage them. We would not have a nice ending if that happened.

Thankfully, they were behaving. They stood in the corner and didn’t look like they were about to fight their way out. I sighed in relief.

I thought that everything would end there; we would be able to open the wall to see what was hiding inside in the morning. It would be much easier to deal with the otherworldly item once we found it.

However, I had underestimated the amulet’s power. After finally calming down, I heard a burst of hair-rising laughter coming from the wall just as I was about to call the mistress to return!

1. A brand of Chinese chili sauce.