Otherworldly Merchant

The next business case I encountered wasn’t the scariest one but definitely the one that left the deepest impression on me.

The reason was that the otherworldly item I had to confront this time was related to my grandfather!

It was around three months after the last case. I remembered that Li Meng had just started his summer vacation, and the weather was very hot. I didn’t feel like going out, so I stayed in my air-conditioned shop all day.

It was so hot outside that even the cement floor in my shop was burning hot.

At around noon, when Yin Xinyue was about to go to work, she put an egg outside and asked me to check how long it would take for it to cook under the sun. Since I was so bored, I agreed.

I had to hand it myself for being able to stare at an egg for around ten minutes... Anyway, it took around fifteen minutes for the egg to cook.

I considered whether I should bring some pepper and spices along with me whenever I went out. If I ever felt like roasting a piece of meat on the road, I could have a Korean BBQ right on the spot…

Whenever Li Mazi was free, he would Li Meng to my shop to enjoy the air-conditioned room. I was a little bewildered, though. Li Mazi should have a good portion of savings by now, so why was he this stingy? Later on, I learned that he manly came to my shop to let his son use the Internet.

“Why didn’t you install broadband in your house?” I asked.

Li Mazi answered with a grimace, “They’re afraid of the hot weather. They don’t want to come as it would require them to climb on a burning hot electric pole.”

Anyway, it was boring to stay in the shop alone. Since Li Mazi was here, he could play cards or chat with me.

On the third day of Li Meng’s summer vacation, Li Mazi and Li Meng came to my shop as usual. I was playing cards with Li Mazi while Li Meng was playing League of Legends when someone banged on my shop door.

I asked Li Mazi to open the door, and a sweaty uncle wearing a set of white mourning clothes appeared before us. As soon as the door opened, he screamed, “Save me!”

I had a headache. I would burn to death if I went out to deal with an otherworldly item now. However, although I felt helpless, I couldn’t reject him since he had come all the way to my door. I invited him inside.

From the way he dressed, his tanned skin, and his rough palms, I guessed he was a farmer.

He looked really anxious, and I wondered if it was the hot weather or if he was just scared.

“Grandmaster, please come with me!” As soon as he stepped into the shop, he started begging Li Mazi.

Li Mazi pointed at me. “I’m not the owner of this place; I just run errands for him. He is the grandmaster you’re looking for.”

The uncle smiled awkwardly then turned to me. “Grandmaster, please help me!”

I opened a can of cold Sprite and gave it to him. “What happened? Here, drink this and tell me slowly.”

The uncle said worriedly, “You should come with me and see for yourself! My mother recently passed away, but we couldn’t bury her no matter how hard we’ve tried. I think I might have an otherworldly item in my house!”

“Hmm?” I frowned and said, “What do you mean when you say that you can’t bury her?”

The uncle said helplessly, “My mother had a long life but she was also a very difficult person. This time, she had a quarrel with a neighbor for trivial reasons and died of anger. I think she isn’t willing to be buried like this. We’ve tried everything, but we couldn’t lower her coffin. Moreover, the strange thing is that…”

The uncle suddenly stopped and didn’t continue talking. His face was filled with fear. I guessed he had just recalled a terrifying event.

“Say it.” Li Mazi urged, “What happened?”

The uncle looked up at me and said, “Grandmaster, please come with me. There’s something I can’t say aloud. Please don’t force me…”

What’s wrong with this man? I gave a wry smile. “If you don’t explain things clearly, how am I supposed to help you?”

The uncle gritted his teeth, thought for a while, then said, “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. Our village has a custom, and according to this custom, only after crossing the Bridge of Helplessness and fulfilling the wishes of the deceased can we bury them.”

“Wait a minute, the Bridge of Helplessness?” Li Mazi interjected.

The uncle explained, “It’s not the Bridge of Helplessness you are thinking about. It’s a bridge in our village, and every time we hold a funeral, we have to cross that bridge. That’s why we call it the Bridge of Helplessness.”

The uncle continued, “During my mother’s funeral, we carried the coffin across the Bridge of Helplessness. However, every time we reached the middle of the bridge, our legs felt like jelly. Some people even had cramps, so we weren’t able to cross the bridge.”

“I forced myself to move forward, but I started hearing my mother crying under the bridge. She cried very pitifully and scolded me for being unfilial. She said that I had let someone take her mansion.”

“My mother must have had her reasons for telling me that. As such, I’m sure she won’t be able to rest in peace if we bury her forcefully. That’s why I’ve come to you. I need your help…”

I contemplated then looked at the uncle. “Uncle, there’s something you haven’t told us yet. You said there was something ‘strange’ earlier. What was it?”

The uncle shivered. It seemed he didn’t want to tell me the truth.

I kept pushing him. Eventually, he gave up. He gulped down the Sprite then started to tell us.

What happened on the bridge was very unusual and left him worried.

He tried hard to understand what his mother meant when she told him that someone had taken her ‘mansion.’

He was sure that the ‘mansion’ she mentioned wasn’t the house she had lived in when she was alive. It could be her house in the other world or her grave.

The uncle put the funeral on hold and carried two brave young men with him as he went to check the grave they had prepared for his mother.

When they arrived at the scene, the uncle gawked in shock.

A coffin was under the plot of land they’d dug up!

The coffin was old and tattered, and the layer of paint on it had peeled off in some spots. There was still fresh dirt on the coffin, and it felt as if it had just been dug up.

The uncle was angry and immediately summoned the workers in charge of digging graves. When they saw the old coffin, they were all confused and argued that when they dug up the dirt, they didn’t see any coffin there.

The uncle knew this wasn’t normal. His mother said that someone had occupied her mansion. She was probably talking about that coffin!