Otherworldly Merchant

I was all tensed up as I gazed at the wall. My fingers gripped the Sirius Whip tighter.

The willow twigs didn’t seem to be working. I had no choice but to use the whip!

I vaguely heard someone chanting; the sound was blending with the cackling coming from the wall. The faint chanting didn’t seem to come from the wall, but from somewhere outside.

I shot Li Mazi a glance, signaling him to go to the balcony to check.

He was all jumpy as he made his way there to see.

However, it would have been better if he hadn’t walked over to check. Li Mazi noticed something horrible outside. His jaw dropped, and he was unable to make a sound. It seemed to be something beyond his imagination.

A second later, he stepped on the balcony with the intention to jump!

I sweated in fear. Although he wouldn’t die after jumping down from the second floor, he would possibly hurt himself and end up with a disability, unable to take care of himself for the rest of his life.

My eyes and body were agile enough. I didn’t hesitate and stormed forward to pull Li Mazi back. “You crazy bastard, what are you doing?! Do you want to die?”

At this moment, Li Mazi finally pulled himself together. He turned to look at me with a horror-stricken face. “Little Brother Zhang... a h-head…”

“What head?” I asked, looking at him in bewilderment. Then, my eyes followed his finger, which was pointing at something.

Goosebumps sprouted all over my body from just a quick look!

I would have never imagined to see a floating human head, just outside the villa with eyes locked onto us!

That head was still alive; eyes wide open, almost bulging, while it mumbled something unceasingly. The chanting we had heard was actually coming from that man's head. He had many dark tattoos on his face, their meaning unknown to me. He had curly hair outlining his face and malicious eyes. Looking at him gave me the shivers.

However, I couldn’t help but have a strange thought. I wanted to jump out and fight against that head.

I climbed on the balcony, knowing I could die if I jumped, but I couldn’t control myself.

Li Mazi had already pulled himself together. He rushed and hugged me from behind. “Little Brother Zhang, wake up!”

“The Whip! Where’s the Sirius Whip?” I was sweating in fright.

“Isn’t it in your hand?” asked Li Mazi.

I reacted and attacked the floating head with the whip.

The head dodged swiftly and flew away in the blink of an eye.

Still flustered, I hurried and closed all the windows. I knew what that thing was: a Flying Head, one of the top ten sorceries in Thai folklore!

In legends, the Thai sorcerers’ favorite magic was an evil technique called ‘mind control,’ which was extremely malicious. As long as the sorcerer had a hair or blood sample, they could cast the spell and make long worms or even steel nails grow in the victim’s belly. In short, the recipients of the spell would rather die than to suffer like that.

Rumor said that sorcerers who successfully practiced the technique could even detach the head from the body and make it fly around and hunt for blood. The spell would be completed after feasting on blood for forty-nine days. From that day onward, the sorcerer would be able to separate the head from the body and fly it around as he pleased.

In Thailand, a lot of people liked to grow Japanese banana trees in their yards and install iron mesh fences to ward off Flying Heads.

I didn’t expect that the previous owner would go to such lengths to deal with the mistress. They had even invited a Thai sorcerer!

It wasn’t some ordinary sorcerer if he could use the Flying Head witchcraft.

I made up my mind the moment I saw the Flying Head. No matter what, I would not work on this case anymore.

The Flying Head only showed up to give us a warning, so that we wouldn’t interfere in someone else’s business. If he had wanted to attack us, Li Mazi and I would have been unable to resist; it could kill us in the blink of an eye. So, I turned around and said to Li Mazi, “Let’s hurry up and leave. It’s not something we can handle.”

However, Li Mazi wasn’t answering. His horror-stricken eyes were focused on the sofa.

I followed his eyes and shivered in fright the moment I caught a glimpse.

A dark-skinned man was sitting neatly on the sofa, together with several beautiful women in golden dresses. They were sitting with their backs to us as they watched TV.

From their silhouettes, I knew they were the ghosts I had seen in my dream the other night!

Holy crap, they escaped…

I guessed they didn’t want to harm us since they weren’t moving; they just wanted to scare us away. The Flying Head had only made an appearance to bolster their courage.

I pulled Li Mazi’s shirt and tiptoed out of the villa.

I had an odd feeling when I reached the door. I actually heard a lot of footsteps behind me. Slowly, I turned my head to one side, glancing through the corner of my eye.

Just one look gave me goosebumps. The ghosts who were sitting on the sofa were standing right behind me, wearing cold grins while they moved stiffly on the spot.

I was sure they would leave with us if we walked out of the villa.

Damn, what to do? What to do now? My heart was restless, as if raging flames were burning and torturing me from the inside.

The dark-skinned man led that group. He dropped his jaw to flash a strange smile, showing how blood was pooling inside his throat.

The women behind him also beamed at me, showing their sharp fangs.

I gritted my teeth as I faced those ‘foreign friends.’ I decided not to leave the place, because they would pester me for a lifetime once I walked out. I didn’t want those ghosts to live with me for the rest of my days!

I tried to suppress my fear, walking back to the sofa and sitting down. Li Mazi gawked in shock and fright, unable to make a sound while fixing his eyes on me.

I couldn’t do anything other than pat the space on the sofa next to me, asking Li Mazi to sit down.

Li Mazi was clueless about the situation so he didn’t want to act rashly. He sat down since he didn’t know what else to do.

I pretended to be really into what was on TV. The ghosts were also watching the show with me while standing behind the couch. Sometimes, they would bend and beam at me.

Damn, why are these ghosts so annoying? I would have already taken action if I wasn’t afraid of the Flying Head.

However, it was true that they just wanted to scare me, since they didn’t do anything to me. They disappeared at dawn.

Seeing that nothing dangerous happened, I pulled Li Mazi so we could leave.

However, Li Mazi was scared. He said with a shaky voice, “Little Brother Zhang… I-I got a cramp. Lend me a hand a-and, c-carry me.”

I looked at his lower body; it reeked of urine. Although I was disgusted by that, I still carried him on my back.

The mistress called me while we were heading back home. “How is it going?”

I immediately unleashed an angry tirade on her. “You were hiding something from me, right? The other owner even sent a Flying Head. How could it be just because of a small villa? I was almost killed in your house yesterday. I can’t continue like this. You should invite another master!”

The mistress wanted to use harassing tactics to control me, so I directly shouted at the phone, “Call the police to arrest me if you want!”

The woman was scared and her attitude became more respectful towards me. “Please, you have to help me.”

I sighed. “I can’t. There is even a Thai Flying Head in the mix now. How could I, a small otherworldly merchant, deal with it? You guys better go to Thailand and ask a monk to help you! One more thing: I found the place where the amulet is hidden. Get rid of it. Perhaps you’ll have a chance to survive.”

The mistress asked me to wait for her at the villa. “I’m at my shop. If you want to see me, come to my antique shop!”

This time, the woman didn’t show up alone. She brought over a refined middle-aged man. He was slender, and his eyes exuded arrogance.

He told me he was Xia Jie, a provincial leader. However, he didn’t say what his position was. He told me to find him if I needed any help in the future.

I was surprised. He was so confident; surely he wasn’t ordinary.

Anyway, I wasn’t afraid of him. I frankly said, “Are you guys still hiding things from me? The previous owner has indeed invested efforts in this case. There’s a blood feud between you, right?”

Xia Jie hesitated for a while. He said with an awkward tone, “Little brother, can we talk in private?”

I glanced at Li Mazi. “Don’t worry. We’re a team.”

Xia Jie nodded, not pressing further. He simply told us what had happened.

Back in the sixties and seventies, that villa’s neighborhood had rows of apartments where elderly people used to live.

However, real estate developers from Singapore went there and invested more than ten million renminbi, vowing to make the place a charming villa neighborhood. And of course, they needed to demolish the old apartments.

The elderly residents didn’t want to see their homes torn down. They didn’t want to relocate, either. The realtors had tried to persuade them but to no avail. Eventually, they resorted to the police and the local gangsters. An old man was accidentally killed when the local gangsters were forcing them to leave.

That old man happened to be the father of the villa’s former owner.

Xia Jie was an official at that time. Since he was afraid that the incident would affect his position, he agreed to give the victim’s family a villa to reside in, eventually suppressing the situation.

Later on, Xia Jie found himself a mistress and he wanted to find a place for her. All of a sudden, he remembered that villa.

As things were, since the resident didn’t have any ownership papers for the estate, Xia Jie’s greed was spurred. He expelled the former owner.

Having added insult to injury, the former owner hated him to the bone and wanted to take revenge at any cost.

Listening to Xia Jie’s story, I inwardly thundered. Damn, if I had known earlier, even if I was beaten to death, I wouldn’t have taken this case! This man is a major bully!

Let alone me, Li Mazi, who considered money his life, was incensed. He said in a cold tone, “We can’t help you with this. You should find a senior Thai monk.”

Xia Jie was upset for a long time. Eventually, he puffed his cigarette. “I regret it now. I don’t want that villa anymore. If I return it now, will it be okay?”

“If the man doesn’t keep track of you, or uses the ‘mind control’ witchcraft on you, it won’t be a problem.”

Xia Jie heaved a sigh of relief. Then, he took out a stack of money and handed it to me. “All right! We’ve troubled you. Please accept this as your labor fees. I hope you bury this incident in the back of your minds.”

The stack of money wasn’t much, just around one hundred thousand renminbi.

No matter what, that sum of money would have been wasted in their hands. I didn’t pretend to be polite and took it all. Seeing that, the mistress cursed me through gritted teeth.

I never saw Xia Jie again after that. No one else went to talk to me about that matter, either. I guessed the problem was over.

However, it wasn’t the end yet.

About a month later, Li Mazi went to see me in a hurry. He had something in his chest.

I was puzzled by this so I asked, “Li Mazi, what have you done? Did you just rob a bank? Is that money in your chest?”

Li Mazi sniggered. “Little Brother Zhang, guess what? You can’t avoid karma if it comes to your door.”

Then, Li Mazi patted the thing he had kept in his chest and laid it on the table. I checked and saw a newspaper.

It was just a newspaper and he made it seem as if it were something very mysterious. I admired the guy!

However, I couldn’t help but clap my hands after I read the article’s title, exclaiming that karma had indeed arrived!

The news said that Xia Jie, a leader of some government department, had committed suicide by jumping off a house. He’d killed himself in that haunted villa.

The reason why he committed suicide was unclear. However, they found his mistress in the same villa.

She was about to cut her wrists with a piece of glass at the time she was found. They took her to the hospital where she was saved. However, she lost her mind after that. She ranted for days on end, saying that some ghosts were harming her. She even admitted that she had pushed Xia Jie down.

She wasn’t prosecuted because she was evidently crazy.

The police found a confession letter in Xia Jie’s pocket, where he listed the money he had taken as bribes, even the many people he had harmed by using his power. As a result, his death wasn’t peaceful as it led to various events, and many of his corrupted colleagues were arrested.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I finished reading.

It seemed like we did the right thing, when we decided not to continue with the case. Otherwise, such a filthy animal would probably still be alive, living as an outlaw and embezzling hard-earned money from ordinary people.

The villa remained uninhabited for a long time after the event. Some said that it was a haunted house; the TV would play at midnight, and they would even hear men and women laughing.

They couldn’t sell the villa, and all the neighbors living around it wanted to move away…

An amulet was able to uncover many corrupted officials. I hoped that more otherworldly items like that were found in China later.

Our ancestors said, “If an official doesn’t take care of the people, it would be best if he went home and sold sweet potatoes instead.”

The more power you have, the more responsibilities you carry. It’s a double-edged sword. If a person used it well, people would love him and his name would be spread through generations.

If he didn’t wield it well, not only would he kill himself but his bad reputation would remain forever.

No one can escape this ancient, unchanging rule. Even if you’re very powerful, karma would come knocking one day!