Otherworldly Merchant

It turned out that it wasn’t only me who had bumped into something bad; Li Mazi had also been affected.

Of course, Li Mazi was unaware of it until Chu Chu told him.

Chu Chu noticed that Li Mazi had snuck out at night for several days in a row, at exactly 11:00 PM.

Chu Chu had practiced ghost doctor techniques so she knew something was wrong with Li Mazi at first glance. She immediately followed him and saw Li Mazi enter my antique shop every night.

Chu Chu broke into my antique shop and noticed that I was also in a daze. At that time, I didn’t even notice Li Mazi when he visited my shop. He went straight to my room, chanted some bizarre spell and left in a hurry.

Chu Chu quickly checked Li Mazi when he was asleep. She found strange, tiny beads in his eyes. She immediately knew that he had been affected by the mind control witchcraft!

She also told me that there were many Thai mind control witchcrafts, which used ghost doctor techniques as reference. For example, they could use toxic worms to cast a spell. That was how she could confirm that Li Mazi had been cursed.

And, if it were such a witchcraft, there should be some amulet in the house. Eventually, she found a small bronze tripod, which had many strange symbols and letters engraved.

The smart Chu Chu then recognized that the Thai sorcerer had done something to this tripod!

There should be something similar in my antique shop!

To solve our problem, Chu Chu told Li Mazi the truth and together they planned to save me tonight. They didn’t expect to see Chuyi and Zen Master Baimei, which resulted in the previous misunderstanding.

Listening to Chu Chu, I threw Li Mazi an angry look. “You bastard, it was you!”

Li Mazi screamed as he tried to explain. “Little Brother Zhang, you didn’t listen, did you? I was unconscious at that time. I didn’t know what I was doing to you!”

Chu Chu also explained for Li Mazi’s sake, “It’s true. Li Mazi was unconscious at the time. Even if you had cut his tongue, he wouldn’t have screamed in pain.”

Zen Master Baimei said, “Merciful Buddha! Female Benefactor, it’s really dangerous to use your ways to deal with this otherworldly item. It’s possible that the item would counterattack!”

Chu Chu smiled. “No. I lifted the curse of the small tripod in my house…”

Zen Master Baimei spread his hand. “Can I see the brass tripod from your house?”

Chu Chu nodded. She took out a small brass tripod from her bag and handed it to him.

Baimei took a glance and shook his head. “Female Benefactor, you’ve just used your method to subdue it temporarily. You will receive a backlash once it bursts out.”

Li Mazi was scared, his face pale. “Zen Master, please help us.”

The Zen Master smiled. “It’s all right. I have to do it once, so it won’t matter if I do it twice. It’d be better to solve them both at once.”

Looking at Zen Master Baimei’s attitude, he didn’t even put the items in his eyes. I finally heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed, a master monk was far from being ordinary.

I asked, “Zen Master, how can we deal with these two small brass tripods once for all?”

Zen Master Baimei lifted his head to check the sky and then the clock. “We can’t do it tonight. The moment the tripods are the strongest has passed. We have to wait until tomorrow night…”

I felt a little at a loss. I’d have prefered to take risks now and completely solve the brass tripod problem. I didn’t want to wait another night. Well, is it because I’m the type of person who prefers to deal with the problem as soon as possible and enjoy the good time afterwards?

To me, the endless waiting was even more frightening than facing the danger directly.

Actually, Chu Chu wanted to go home, but Li Mazi didn’t agree. He was afraid that the little bronze tripod would counterattack and harm Chu Chu. They then decided to stay in my shop. Luckily my shop had many sofas. I nested on one while Zen Master Baimei and Chuyi continued to chat in the bedroom. Li Mazi and Chu Chu shared another couch and hugged each other to sleep.

Since Chuyi was there, my tense nerves relaxed. I found that I was quite tired and easily drifted into a long and nice sleep.

Chuyi woke me up in the morning, once the rooster had crowed at the break of dawn. I stood up, still feeling drowsy. “Are you hungry? I’m going to buy some breakfast.”

Chuyi shook his head. “Don’t get breakfast. We’re going to buy something special.”

My interest was aroused. As he mentioned something special, it should be some special delicacy. I nodded and then went to the bathroom to wash my face. We went out after I got changed.

After I saw Li Mazi hugging Chu Chu in their sleep, I decided not to disturb them.

I didn’t expect that Chuyi would take me all the way to a funeral house…

I looked at Chuyi, wondering what he could buy there. However, I was disappointed once I confirmed that he didn’t go there to buy some food.

“Do you know anybody from the staff working in this funeral house?” Chuyi asked me.

I nodded. We couldn’t avoid having contact with the dead when it came to my trade. After the corpses were taken to the funeral house, the staff would discreetly remove the jewellery or accessories from the dead. Many of the items would have the resentful energy; this would create ‘commotions.’ Afterwards, they would sell those small otherworldly items to me.

“It’s good then. Go and ask if there’s any recent dead pregnant woman. It would be the best if you could find a five-month-pregnant woman,” Chuyi told me.

I was surprised, so I asked, “Why do you want a five-month-pregnant dead woman?”

It wasn’t easy to find such a specific kind of corpse.

“I want to take something. No matter how much it costs, just try to do it,” he told me.

I nodded “Okay,” then called Old Qi.

Old Qi was the one in charge of the incineration. As a result, he had many chances to search the corpses. That was also why he got his hands on many pieces of jewellery from the dead, and I had bought a lot of small trinkets from him.

Old Qi walked out to greet me when he heard I was there. He was quickly taken aback once he saw an incredibly handsome man whose murderous aura reached the sky. He assumed that I had brought someone to investigate him.

To make Old Qi feel at ease, I frankly told him the purpose of our visit and that Chuyi was my close friend.

“It’s not convenient to talk here. We should get a room and talk,” Chuyi said. Old Qi then took us to a waiting room.

Old Qi was quite surprised to hear Chuyi’s request. “Why do you want to find such a corpse?”

I assured him, “You don’t need to mind that. Money is not an issue, either. Just get the job done and you’ll receive money for it.”

Old Qi found it difficult. He sighed and said, “I don’t want to hide things from you, Boss Zhang. It’s not that I don’t want to help you. Someone is also interested in finding a similar corpse. I must keep my word.”

Oh crap, someone else is also looking for that corpse! 

However, I immediately recognized that the one who wanted the same corpse could be related to the cursed tripods. Did a Thai sorcerer plot against him, too? 

Chuyi asked Old Qi with cold eyes, “Is the person Thai?”

Old Qi nodded. He was startled. “How did you know?”

Chuyi looked at me, grinning. “Seems like we got the ringleader…”

I immediately understood. It turned out the one who wanted to harm me was the same person who had contacted Old Qi for the corpse.

The flames of my anger were about to burst. We tried everything before and found nothing. And now, we found the source without an ounce of effort. They brought themselves to my door. You won’t get away! 

I didn’t say anything, I simply took out thirty thousand renminbi from my pocket and threw the stack of money on the table. “Old Qi, do me a favor. We want that corpse, just give us a price. If that Thai man comes again, you should tell me immediately!”

In China, if you didn’t have money, you couldn’t do anything. As soon as Old Qi saw the money, his smile broadened. “Deal! I will call you first when they come here!”

I asked, “Hey, don’t just take the money without doing the job. Is there any five-month-pregnant corpse in the funeral house?”

Old Qi stooped and bent his back. “Boss Zhang, you came at the right time! It’s true that we’ve just received a pregnant woman. But I’m not a doctor so I can’t tell how many months in she had been. Anyway, her belly looks big.”

I asked Old Qi to let me go there and take a look.

The corpse looked like she had died only a few days before. It seemed she had overdosed with sleeping pills to commit suicide. Her face color had turned into a scary purple.

Chuyi carefully checked the corpse’s head and legs. He nodded to me. “It works.”

Then, he took out a white candle from his chest and found a small piece of iron in the room. Holding the iron with a pair of pliers, he placed it under the woman’s chin. At the same time, he asked me to light up the candle and burn the piece of iron.

Neither Old Qi nor I knew what Chuyi was doing.

I wanted to ask him about the corpse and the ritual, but I decided to keep my mouth shut once I saw his expressionless face. I simply did what he asked me to do.

Soon, the candle had heated the piece of iron until it was red. The pregnant corpse’s chin vibrated under the heat from the iron. Chuyi was chanting something under his breath while using his other hand to make a series of hand symbols on the woman’s face. I had no idea what he was doing.

Soon, the air was filled with the smell of roasted meat. I tried my best to keep quiet and not to inhale the smell.

Old Qi seemed unable to endure that ghastly scene, so he left.

Chuyi didn’t pause his chanting even for a moment; his hand symbols also kept changing. However, it looked quite laborious to him. In a short moment, sweat had already beaded his forehead.

I saw something golden ooze from the pregnant corpse. I thought it had to be corpse oil.

Chuyi wanted to extract corpse oil from this deceased pregnant woman?

While my eyes were glued to the corpse, the woman’s mouth suddenly dropped open. At the same time, she started to giggle.

The sudden reaction scared me. I landed on my butt, then the candle fell on the ground and went out!