Otherworldly Merchant

I immediately looked around the body and started searching for clues. I found one of his arms next to a trash bin.

The bones were sticking out, and the scene looked terrifying.

The hand gripped onto a pair of chopsticks. It was a pair of golden chopsticks with clear and sharp edges. The ends were extraordinarily smooth, and the craftsmanship was exquisite. They perfectly matched the golden bowl.

Sure enough, Lei Long’s friend had kept the chopsticks!

I took a deep breath, and while the crowd had yet to gather, I quietly took the bloody chopsticks away. Then, I acted as if nothing had happened and kept looking at the scene.

Lei Long was so nervous. “Grandmaster, s-should we leave now? We have the chopsticks. I guess we can deal with that golden bowl now.”

I shook my head. “Haven’t you noticed that something is strange? Why did your friend suddenly jump off the building to commit suicide? Why now of all times?”

Lei Long shook his head. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s related to me.”

I then pointed at the back of the body. “Take a look at the back of his body. Tell me if you see anything.”

Lei Long looked and then sweated. “A… A black handprint?! A ghost pushed him?”

I nodded. “If I’m not mistaken, he encountered the same situation as you. However, he didn’t find an expert that could help him, and the ghost killed him.”

“This proves that there’s another independent resentful spirit inside this pair of chopsticks! Sigh, I don’t know if it will be good or bad to put the bowl and the chopsticks together...”

"If the golden bowl and these chopsticks are a pair, could the evil spirits that live inside them be a couple? They got separated, and this enraged them. But if we reunite them, they should calm down, right?” suggested Lei Long.

“Their relationship seems very complicated. It’s useless to guess. Let’s go!” I wasn’t in the mood to linger here. I turned around and left with both of them.

When we got to the house, I looked at the golden bowl. I didn’t have the guts to put the two items together.

There was still a doubt in my heart. Why didn’t that person sell both items to Lei Long? If he sold both of the items to Lei Long, nothing would have happened.

Did he create this mess just because he was selfish?

Li Mazi asked me what was wrong since he saw that I was pensive. I told him my concern.

Li Mazi thought and then suggested, “Let’s try to put the golden bowl and chopsticks together. I want to see if anything strange happens. It’s broad daylight right now, and even if the spirit shows up, it won’t be able to threaten us that much.”

He had a point. No matter how powerful the ghost was, in broad daylight, it would be weakened. It wouldn’t be able to take our lives.

After considering things, I gently placed the chopsticks across the golden bowl and waited for a reaction.

However, the golden bowl and the golden chopsticks seemed to be inanimate objects; there was no reaction.

I used the chopsticks and gently knocked on the bowl. It created a clear sound, but nothing else happened.

It was strange. If the golden bowl had created a mess because of their separation, something should have happened as they were now reunited! However, everything was strangely normal. I felt a little confused.

As I watched the golden bowl and the chopsticks, Lei Long’s phone rang. He glanced at his phone, and his face turned tense.

I looked at Lei Long’s strange expression. It seemed something had happened. Curiously, I asked him, “Who called you?”

Lei Long said, “It’s my friend’s wife.”

I was confused. Her husband was dead. Why did she call Lei Long? There were only two possibilities. The first one, she suspected that her husband’s death was somewhat related to Lei Long. The second possibility was this woman and Lei Long had an affair.

From Lei Long’s tone, I guessed it was the latter.

After Lei Long hung up, I said, “Why did she call you?”

At first, Lei Long tried to dodge the topic. He didn’t want to tell us. However, since I kept pushing him, he had to spit it out.

It turned out Lei Long did have an unusual relationship with his friend’s wife. However, they thought that they weren’t to be blamed because his friend was a workaholic. He had only work in his head, and he often ignored his wife.

They were both married people, so even if they wanted to satisfy their physical needs, they did not want to ruin their respective families.

Anyway, after Lei Long’s friend collected the golden bowl and the chopsticks, he began to act strange. He decided to divorce his wife and was very determined about it.

His friend was well-known for loving his wife. And now, he suddenly asked to divorce. This scared his wife a lot. She thought that their secret was discovered.

However, no one knew about their affair, so how had her husband got wind of it?

Then, while they were fighting about their divorce case, Lei Long’s friend killed himself by jumping off a building…

I patted my head. I finally had a clue!

Ever since he obtained the golden bowl and the chopsticks, he had started to quarrel with his wife. It was obvious that the otherworldly items had started to mess with him.

But why did the otherworldly item make them fight and eventually divorce? What was its purpose? Could it be…

I didn’t dare to continue thinking about this topic as I was startled by the thought that had emerged in my mind.

“How is it going?” Li Mazi was puzzled as he saw me absorbed in my thoughts.

I took a deep breath and said, “Lei Long, you have to do as I say. I want to check what this golden bowl intends to do.”

Lei Long nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

“Go buy some paper money and clothes to burn to the dead. The sooner, the better. It won’t be safe if it gets dark.”

Lei Long nodded and left.

After he left, Li Mazi asked me, “What do you want to do?”

I contemplated and said, “I think that the spirit inside the golden bowl and chopsticks want to have a ghost marriage!”

“A ghost marriage?” Li Mazi jerked back in shock. “A ghost that wants to get married? Isn’t that too perverted?”

“It’s not what you think,” I said. “The purpose of a ghost marriage isn’t to have sex with living people but to absorb the spouse’s vitality. Once it gets ghost married to a living person, it can easily draw upon their vitality…”

“Lei Long’s friend loved his wife a lot, right? Perhaps he didn’t want to hurt his wife, so he took advantage of the fact that he was still sane and jumped off the roof. Of course, it could be that he didn’t want to get married to a ghost, which enraged the ghost and got him killed.”

Li Mazi nodded and looked pensive. “Little Brother Zhang, I have a serious question I want to ask. Is it possible for me to have a ghost marriage with Chu Chu? Also, after we get ‘ghost married,’ can we become closer? For example, will I be able to dream about her every night?”

I felt helpless. It seemed Li Mazi couldn’t let go of Chu Chu just yet.

However, this wasn’t strange. Someone like Li Mazi would either never fall in love or love his partner forever and disregard all consequences.

I didn’t want to just stand and watch Li Mazi ruin his life because of Chu Chu. I talked him out of it. “The ghost marriage will only create a vague connection. There’s nothing good in it for the both of you. It will hold Chu Chu back, and she will never be able to reincarnate. She would have to stay in hell and receive torment forever.”

Li Mazi sighed, disappointed.

Not long after, Lei Long came back. He held a big bag of paper money.

I asked him to put the paper money on the ground and use a pair of scissors to cut a human doll out of it. “You should keep this paper doll and walk around with it in your living room. Remember, you have to count the number of steps you take. Circle around the living room twice. I will call you when you need to stop.”

Lei Long nodded. He held the paper doll and started to walk around his living room.

I gathered the remaining paper money and burned it in a corner as I carefully watched Lei Long.

Lei Long walked in a circle around the living room, his eyes closed.

I’d learned this trick from Chuyi. The last time we used this method, it’d worked well.

At first, everything seemed normal. However, when Lei Long started the second round, I noticed that his steps were strange…

Sometimes, he just stepped on the spot. Other times, he made a long stride or just a small step.

Also, Lei Long didn’t seem to notice this. He still walked normally, and his face remained calm.

After Lei Long finished the second round, he stopped and opened his eyes. He looked fearful and turned to look at me. “Grandmaster, t-there is problem…”

I asked him, “What happened?”

“I took me thirty steps to complete the first round but forty-two for the second one…”

“Forty-two minus thirty is... twelve…” I gulped. This number was really ominous. In ancient times, when people held a ghost wedding, the groom would give twelve copper coins to the bride as a wedding gift!

While I was absorbed in my thoughts, Lei Long suddenly shivered. Then, several coins rolled out of his sleeves. They created a series of clinking noises as they rolled on the ground.

I was startled and rushed forward to catch them.

More coins rolled out of Lei Long’s other sleeve. Although I knew that the coins might be dangerous, I had no choice but to act. I couldn’t let all twelve coins drop to the ground. Otherwise, it would mean that Lei Long had given his wedding gift to the golden bowl!