Otherworldly Merchant

Not long after I returned, Yin Xinyue called me. “I’m going to bring a female friend of mine to your shop. You must call Li Mazi and make him come.”

Of course, I understood Yin Xinyue’s intention. She wanted to introduce the girl to Li Mazi. I agreed and called Li Mazi, telling him to come to my shop immediately.

However, Li Mazi said that he couldn’t come because he was going to plant some peach trees around Chu Chu’s grave. He had to stay behind to water and fertilize the trees. He didn’t have time.

I couldn’t help but feel sad. Li Mazi seemed to be lost in his sorrow. “I’ve got a business case that I need you to help me with. If you don’t come, I might die.”

After hearing this, Li Mazi agreed to come.

Yin Xinyue arrived shortly after. Accompanying her was a pretty girl that looked even cuter than Yin Xinyue herself. She was a little chubby with a petite body. Two dimples appeared on her face whenever she smiled, and her hair reached her shoulders.

She was very lively, and she directly called me ‘brother-in-law’ when we met. This made me feel very embarrassed, and Yin Xinyue also threatened to strip her if she slipped her tongue and talked nonsense again.

However, to Yin Xinyue’s dismay, the girl still kept addressing me as ‘brother-in-law.’

“Brother-in-law, I’ve heard that you’ve bumped into a zombie. Is that true?”

“Brother-in-law, do many of the antiques in your shop have a spirit? Could you open my Yin and Yang eyes so that I could see them too?”

“Brother-in-law, I have an otherworldly item in my house. I’ve come to see you today to ask for your help.”

I thought to myself, This girl is really lively. I just hope she doesn’t turn my antique shop upside down...

However, I still answered all of her questions with a smiling face.

Yin Xinyue didn’t look pleased because the girl kept pestering me with her questions. “Girl, are you here to study or something? Let’s go out. We’re going to have a BBQ. Later I will introduce you to a mature oppa.”

While we had lunch, I learned that the girl was called Ru Xue. We had waited for a while but Li Mazi hadn’t arrived, so we decided to eat without him.

During lunch, the girl was still very energetic. She continued to ask questions here and there. I was embarrassed and had to stop eating in order to answer her questions. I was afraid that I would spit food out of my mouth as I talked, which would definitely ruin my reputation.

However, I noticed that something was wrong. The girl had beautiful, rosy cheeks earlier. However, the longer we ate, the paler she had become.

I didn’t feel comfortable because I had a strong feeling that there was something wrong with her. I excused myself and asked Yin Xinyue to walk outside with me.

Yin Xinyue was puzzled and asked, “What happened?”

“Has Ru Xue bumped into anything evil lately?”

Yin Xinyue looked at me bewilderedly. “Aren’t you too absorbed in this business of yours? She’s just a little girl. How could she have encountered something evil?”

I smiled. “All right, I’ll just have to prove it.”

I pulled Yin Xinyue to the kitchen and added a lot of salt into the fish soup we ordered. Then, I asked her to bring the soup to our table. I wanted Ru Xue to drink it.

Yin Xinyue rolled her eyes at me. “Do you hate her or something? Why are you teasing her like this? She’s my friend!”

“If I don’t act now and the evil thing takes control of her body, the situation will become more serious.”

Yin Xinyue hesitated for a while then nodded. She brought the fish soup to the table.

A moment later, I followed her to observe Ru Xue.

Ru Xue was a foodie. As soon as Yin Xinyue placed the bowl down, she picked up the spoon and drank the soup.

However, after the first sip, Ru Xue couldn’t help but hiccup uncontrollably. While hiccuping, she asked, “Why is the soup so salty? Where’s the chef? We need to replace the soup! How could they cook this soup?!”

I asked, “Ru Xue, do you often hiccup?”

Ru Xue blushed. “It’s embarrassing… Hic… I-I only hic… hiccup when I have salty food.”

“Did this bad habit appear in the last few days?” I asked.

Ru Xue was surprised. “Brother-in-law, how did you know that? You’re really skilled!”

“Ru Xue, did anything strange happen to you recently?”

Ru Xue dropped her spoon and didn’t hiccup anymore. “You... How did you know that?”

I told her, “The Yin energy in your body is very strong, and refined salt repels Yin energy. When you eat salty foods, it will expel the Yin energy from your body. That’s why you hiccup.”

Ru Xue was puzzled. “So, d-did I really bump into a ghost?”

I nodded and said, “It might be.”

Ru Xue shivered. “Oh my! It turns out I’ve been followed by a ghost these past few days, how romantic!”

Romantic? What is freaking romantic about this?

“Ru Xue, what happened to you these past days?” I asked.

“It should be the elevator in our apartment building, ghosts must be haunting that place. I heard that a delivery boy went missing in the elevator, and the case was even stranger than Lam Ho Yi’s. [1] After that, the residents in our neighborhood started to spread a rumor that a ghost was living in that elevator. Nobody dares to use it anymore.”

Xu Rue was a bold girl, and also somewhat lazy, so she didn’t really care about the rumors and kept using it.

After hearing my analysis, Xu Rue finally believed that the elevator was haunted. Although she was brave, she now understood that she had provoked something evil. Feeling frightened, she asked, “What should I do now?”

Yin Xinyue smiled and said, “This matter is really troublesome. I’m not sure if Brother Zhang has a solution. Just wait here. An uncle will come and help you soon.”

Ru Xue began to sob. “I don’t want to go home tonight! Elder Sister Xinyue, can you stay with me tonight? Now that I think about it, that elevator is indeed strange…”

“What’s strange about it?” I asked.

“Every time I rode the elevator, it would stop on the third floor. But when the door opened, there was no one outside. The delivery boy also disappeared on the third floor! And, every time I got into the elevator, it was freezing cold.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Things were so strange and yet she didn’t believe the rumors. This girl was really simple-minded.

After waiting for Li Mazi, we headed go to Ru Xue’s apartment building.

On the way, I asked Ru Xue to think things over. I wanted to see if she had missed any details. Ru Xue shook her head. “I never thought that it would be related to a ghost so I didn’t really pay attention.”

Yin Xinyue purposely created chances for Li Mazi to talk to Ru Xue. However, Li Mazi was somewhat absent-minded. Sometimes, when Ru Xue asked him a question, he didn’t listen and Ru Xue would have to repeat herself.

The girl even thought that Li Mazi’s hearing had problems. I had a strong feeling that the matchmaking wouldn’t work as Ru Xue didn’t seem to like Li Mazi.

When we reached Ru Xue’s apartment building, we rode the elevator several times up and down. However, we didn’t notice anything abnormal.

I then asked Ru Xue, “When do you normally use the elevator?”

Ru Xue answered, “Hmm, I go to work at 6 AM and come home after dinnertime, around 10 PM. Those strange events happened around that time.”

“Then we’ll have to wait and take the elevator at night to experience it...”

For the time being, I wanted to know what had happened to the delivery guy that day in the elevator. Since the elevator had cameras, they should have been able to capture the scene.

I asked Ru Xue and Yin Xinyue to wait in her apartment while Li Mazi and I went to the control room to see what the cameras had recorded.

“Li Mazi, what do you think about Ru Xue?”

Li Mazi looked at me bewilderedly. “What about her?”

“I mean, what do you think about her?”

“She’s all right.” Then, he remained silent.

This fellow was truly clueless at times. I guessed he hadn’t figured out that we wanted to match them. I decided to talk him into this once he got over his sorrow.

We soon found the control room. However, the man in charge didn’t want to show us the recordings no matter what. He told us the police had taken all of the tapes as evidence.

Of course, I knew that he was trying to deceive us. The more excuses he made, the more certain I was that there was something wrong with the elevator. Yin Xinyue knew some policemen because we had helped them solve a big case. We soon got the privilege to watch the video recordings. However, the guy asked us to keep all the information confidential. We shouldn’t tell anybody about this!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elisa_Lam