Otherworldly Merchant

When I thought about the situation later that day, I thought it was both scary and funny. 

Who could have imagined that we would bump into a ghost that was actually a patient with severe schizophrenia?

Part of her wanted to harm us while another part of her wanted to protect us.

In my circle of business, this kind of otherworldly item was really rare. They were even more precious than pandas. We called them ‘twin otherworldly items.’ 

This sort of otherworldly item was also the most scary and harmful to people. You could not let your guard down because it would want to kill you one moment and then try to save you in the next moment.

My mind was blank. I didn’t know how to deal with this. 

Luckily for us, everything had quieted down since the time had we jumped into the small river. The female ghost didn’t follow us. The bright moon hovered high in the sky and insects chirped. 

If we were on the shore, it would have been a nice night to spend outdoors. However, at this moment, we didn’t dare go to the land.  

I would rather stay in the water for two days instead of spending the rest of the night on the land with such anxiety. 

Anyway, we didn’t have any other choice. 

In a distance, the river surface began to bob. We could hear bubbling sounds as if something was trying to get up from the bottom. 

We immediately opened our eyes wide and stared at the water. 

The first thing that came to the surface was a mass of wet hair! The wet hair looked soft and messy. It scattered on the surface. 

Right after that, an extremely beautiful woman slowly arose. 

She was mesmerizing with delicate facial features and fair skin. Her long eyelashes and bright, big eyes impressed me the most. She smiled. 

Her slender shoulders finally emerged. They enchanted me. The two red straps that crossed her shoulders brought endless enticement. 

We gawked in shock. How could a female ghost be so beautiful? 

At this moment, our brain stopped working. We didn’t even notice that she was approaching us. 

I did not react until she drifted to us, reached out her freezing hands, and grabbed my legs. We needed to run!

However, I opened my mouth but couldn’t make a sound. 

My body couldn’t even move as I was floating silently on the surface of the river. 

Li Mazi had swum away for two meters and found that I was still idle. He immediately turned around and tried to grab me. However, the water around me seemed to become as solid as ice, trapping me inside. 

I could only look at the beautiful woman smiling at me. Her mouth kept opening wider and wider until the corners of her mouth reached her ears. Blood streamed like tap water onto my face.

Her hair began to peel off. Her face started to rot quickly. After around ten seconds, the beautiful lady had turned into a ghost. I was scared and my nerves went numb. I almost choked to death with the river water.  

Her hands that grabbed my legs were also rotting fast. I had just felt her warmth and softness and a moment later, they had become sharp bones that squeezed my legs!

I felt a twinge in my legs that went through my skin. It was as if something was trying to dig hard into my skin, turning me rotten… 

I was dumbstruck. No matter what, I had never experienced such a dangerous situation. The female ghost was too strong! How could she turn a living man into a decayed corpse?!

As I was reaching my limit, I saw the woman in front of me slowly ‘getting better.’ 

From her foul form, she had quickly turned into the shape of a singer from a brothel. She had long, black hair and fair skin. It formed a sharp contrast with her decayed body from earlier. 

As the ghost transformed back into a beautiful woman, I felt my body ‘heal’ quickly. This must be the ghost’s ‘good side,’ while that rotten corpse was her bad side. 

After she became beautiful, she smiled at me. Her smile didn’t make me feel disgusted. I quite liked it. 

The ghost kept shifting her appearance like that for the rest of the night. My mood changed from frightened to mesmerized until the break of dawn. I thought I was tormented to the point that I would soon develop some mental disease. 

Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue stayed with me the whole time. They looked numb and watched the female ghost change her face repeatedly. Then, a beam of silver light shone from the East. My body was finally freed. 

Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue pulled me to the shore. I was completely exhausted. I had no energy left in me and just laid there, gasping for my breath. 

Li Mazi checked my body carefully. After he confirmed I wasn’t harmed, he heaved a sigh of relief and smiled. “You’re still alright. Everybody is okay. However, I want to ask you. How did you feel while the ghost served you the whole night? Are your kidneys still good?” 

“Get lost!” I was enraged that Li Mazi was teasing me. 

Yin Xinyue was very tired. At this moment, she was already asleep. 

I was afraid that she was going to catch a cold. I let everyone rest for a while and then woke Yin Xinyue up. I asked them to warm themselves up. 

Yin Xinyue asked, “Are we going to wait for the little Daoist child?” 

Right, yesterday, the little Daoist child told us to wait for him at the riverside. If we survived, he would come to save us. 

It was best to wait for him. 

After waiting for quite a long time, we didn’t see the little boy. Instead, we saw a man and felt relief. He was Chuyi, the man wearing the Kumamon t-shirt.  

He didn’t say anything but squatted and checked my legs. 

He observed carefully then exhaled in relief. “All right. Your legs weren’t affected by resentful energy.” 

I asked Chuyi, “What’s happening? Why did the old man want to harm me? Is he the one you told me was looking for me?” 

The man shook his head. “No, that old man actually wanted you to die in his grandson’s stead. That’s why he’d tried everything to deceive you and make you bring the quilt to him.” 

The man continued. “If you had taken that quilt yesterday, even if I was there, I wouldn’t have been able to help you.” 

I felt scared. That old man was toying me around!

At the same time, I wondered, how did the mysterious man find us? Why the little Daoist child come to us? 

Chuyi hesitated. Eventually, he took out a small fragrant sachet. The sachet looked old with worn-out embroidery, and its color was somewhat faded. It looked crumpled in the man’s hand. 

Using his slender fingers, he grabbed some hairs out of the sachet and said, “This is the little Daoist child you’ve mentioned.” 

I felt a chill run down my spine. In this instant, I realized something. 

Yin Xinyue and Li Mazi weren’t slow-witted. When they saw the hair, their faces turned pale. 

It turned out the boy wasn’t a living human. He was a little ghost Chuyi was raising!

No wonder the boy had acted strange. For example, he was living in an abandoned Daoist temple. He could also ‘teleport’ from Hong Kong to the Mainland. It all made sense now….

I sighed and looked at the man in disbelief. 

Chuyi said coldly, “There’s no need to be surprised. He was a little Daoist child beaten to death by some Red Guards during the Four Olds period. His resentment is hard to erase. I pitied him, so I’ve kept him with me.” 

After hearing his nonchalant answer, I had a feeling he was this strange because he kept a boy ghost with him. 

As for how the man found us, it was simple. He had used the circle. 

Once more, I felt the power of the circle. It seemed that within the circle, they could get news of secret matters such as this very quickly.