Otherworldly Merchant

After the Coagulated Gold event, Li Mazi went to Yin Xinyue and asked her to dress him up in style. After he put on a suit and let some stubble grow under his chin, he really looked like a Korean uncle. 

After receiving the commission of 500,000 renminbi from the golden necklace, Li Mazi bought a second-hand Audi. Then, he started his crazy campaign to chase after Qingqing. 

In front of Qingqing, Li Mazi displayed his tenderness and manners. However, when he stood in front of me, he showed his true colors, which was of a typical despicable countryside man. He kept wearing his suits day and night and showing off. 

Today, I discussed with Li Mazi whether we should go to the countryside and collect some stuff. These days, I did not have many things to do and I was very bored. If I had to stay any longer in the antique shop, my butt would grow white mold soon. 

As we were men of action, I let Li Mazi go home to pack up some luggage and then we would depart.

We were going to the countryside mainly to find ‘leftovers’. The money earned from this hunting trip wasn’t enough for anything, it was just a traveling trip. Still, each time you saw an antique valuable enough to change the destiny of a farmer family thrown away as trash or just used as a poultry food holder, that sort of contrast was something that made you speechless. 

However, I received a call before we departed. I found the caller’s number familiar. Eventually, I recalled that it was the number the man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt had left me.

Is the man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt calling me? I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and I wondered how he had been. 

I picked up the call. Indeed, it was him.

“Zhang Jiulin, help me a little over here.” The man spoke frankly.

I smiled and asked, “Since when did you become so polite? What do you need me to help with, just tell me frankly.”

As he had saved my life, let alone helping out in a case, even if I were extremely busy, I would still give him a hand. 

The man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt said, “I have an urgent case that I can’t walk away from. But I have a client that needs help with an otherworldly item. I’m going to refer him to you. Do you have free time now?”

The man in the Kumamon t-shirt talked fast and hastily as he finished everything in a breath. It was probably the longest sentence he had ever said anything to me. 

I knew that he had gotten involved in something very troublesome. I answered him quickly, “Give me your friend’s number. I’ll call him.”

The man said, “He’s already on his way to you.” Then, he hung up.

I smiled at Li Mazi, feeling a little disappointed. “It seems we can’t go to the countryside to treasure hunt. The man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt has a client troubled by an otherworldly item…” 

Li Mazi said gravely, “I need to make it clear first. Although we are friends, business is business. Even if I’m going to help a friend, I will still take my commission. I’m not going to work for free!” 

I scoffed at him, “Did you get blinded by money?” 

Li Mazi said shamelessly, “Wrong, actually. I only have eyes for money.”

What guy! I could only smile reluctantly. 

The next day, early in the morning, I was woken up by the sound of someone knocking on my door. 

With great irritation, I went to open the door. There, I saw a middle-aged, bespectacled man. He looked in his thirties or forties and was very mild-mannered. He smiled at me. “Are you Boss Zhang?”  

I answered, “You are the client the man wearing Kumamon t-shirt introduced, right?” 

He was bewildered for a while as though he didn’t understand what I meant by ‘the man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt’. However, he collected himself shortly, smiled and confirmed. 

I invited him to the antique shop. 

He looked really polite. As I could sense a noble aura from him, I understood that if he weren’t a rich businessman, he was sort of important official. However, standing in front of me, he was really humble, asking me about antiques and the stories of the items in my shop. 

The more I explained to him, the more impatient I became. I suddenly felt like he was probing my knowledge. Was it because he was deceived before?

Eventually, I couldn’t do help but ask, “Excuse me, are you here to buy some antiques? Can I introduce some good items to you?” 

The middle-aged man was abashed, smiling at me. “I’m sorry Boss Zhang. I’m also an antique admirer. As I’m seeing a lot of treasures here, I couldn’t restrain myself…” 

Then, he took out a piece of green jade. 

He carefully put it in front of me and looked at it with a frightened face. “Boss Zhang, can you check and see what's the problem with this jade?” 

I picked it up and studied it. The material was good, it seemed to be grade-A Hetian jade. Although the workmanship was excellent, it had some traces of vicissitude. The piece of jade had to be quite old. There were nine dragons, lively carved onto the jade. It seemed that only royal family members in ancient times could wear this jade because in ancient China, the dragon was the symbol of royalty. Ordinary people weren’t allowed to wear clothes with an embroidered dragon or use any tools with a dragon drawing or carvings on it. If they did, it would be considered a serious case of rebellion, which would result in the extermination of nine generations of their family. I estimated that this piece of jade was valued at around one or two million.

The only strange feature was that the surface of the jade was a little yellowed. 

My first reaction was to wonder if the jade had been soaked in corpse oil. If it were true, this item would absolutely be an otherworldly item with a strong spirit. However, if it were soaked in corpse oil before, it would have strong resentful energy within.

Yet, I didn’t feel a bit of resentful aura. So, it would fall into one of the two following cases...

The first case was that it wasn’t an otherworldly item but a common piece of jade. And the corpse oil wasn’t real corpse oil but cooking oil. 

The second case was that the resentful energy inside the jade had been sealed. In other words, someone had already processed this piece of jade. That would be why I could not feel any resentful energy. 

I patiently explained the two possible cases to the middle-aged man, then asked him, “Has there been any problems with this jade?” 

The middle-aged man nodded immediately. “Yeah, definitely. Ever since I’ve got this jade, a ghost is always pressing down on me while I’m sleeping at night. Sometimes, I would wake at midnight to see a faceless female ghost wearing a red dress straddling me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move or scream. Sometimes, this situation would last for the whole night…” 

I drew in a deep breath. A female ghost wearing red clothes? This was no joke. People all knew that red-dressed female ghosts were the fiercest and cruelest ones among the many kinds of ghosts. Perhaps, when the owner of this jade died, she had hoped to become an evil ghost to take revenge later on. 

I looked disbelievingly at the piece of jade. 

The middle-aged man immediately asked, “Boss Zhang, do you have any plan to deal with this jade?” 

I took a deep breath then asked, “Can you contact the previous owner?” 

The middle-aged man shook his head. “I can’t. I bought it from a street shop. I don’t know where the shop moved to.”

I said, “Okay, tonight just leave the jade in my shop. I need to see how evil it is with my own eyes, only then I can find the right solution.”

The middle-aged man nodded immediately, telling me, “No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then, he left hastily.

I held the jade in my palm, carefully observing it. I had been turning it around and around to study for a long time but I couldn’t find anything evil or suspicious. Eventually, I put it back on the table, waiting to see if the female ghost would appear. 

After dinner, Li Mazi came to my shop. Seeing the jade on the table, his interest was piqued. He picked it up to study it. A long moment later, he grinned. 

I was a little confused. “What are you smiling at?” 

Li Mazi said, “Idiot, this piece of good jade was soaked in olive oil. That will reduce its price.” 

I was startled, and I asked Li Mazi, “How did you know that it was soaked in olive oil?” 

Li Mazi said, “Did you forget that I was a chef before? I can still recognize the smell of olive oil.” 

I was still skeptical and asked, “Can you prove it?”

He replied, “Isn’t that simple? Oil doesn’t dissolve in water. You boil water and put the jade in it. Case closed.” 

I hurried to boil a pot of water. When the water was boiling, I carefully put the jade into the pot. I didn’t expect to see the jade shake continuously as the boiling substance continuously peeled off from the jade. Soon, the yellowish layer on the jade was washed away by boiled water. 

I immediately fished the jade out to inspect it. The jade now had its beautiful, original green color. 

It was really cooking oil as boiled water could never extract corpse oil!

After all the water was boiled and evaporated, a layer of oil residue remained at the bottom of the pot. Li Mazi then used a lighter to ignite it. The oil residue burned immediately in a yellow flame and the smell of olive filled the room. 

I was now confident it was actually olive oil. 

Needless to say, this business was over. That middle-aged man had nightmares every night not because of this piece of jade but his mentality. 

As the case was closed, I called the middle-aged man, asking him to make time to come over. 

He asked me how it was going. I told him, “The jade was accidentally soaked in olive oil for a while. The jade itself doesn’t have any problems. Your sleep paralysis must be because of psychological effects.”

The middle-aged man sounded calm. “Excellent! I’m coming to you now!” 

From his tone, he sounded as though he didn’t really believe me. It didn’t matter, the jade didn’t have a problem, and so I didn’t bother to worry about it.  

Not long afterward, he drove his car to my shop. His manner was the same, modest and respectful. I didn’t spot anything suspicious from him. However, before he left he said, “I will introduce you to some new business.”  

Looking at his back as he left, I felt something inexplicable. He was very odd, and he felt more bizarre than the other otherworldly item cases I had come across.