Otherworldly Merchant

The ship owner shook his head and said, “Myself.”

“You, yourself?” I couldn’t believe it and stared at him.

The ship owner cried and explained. “All these wounds are my doing.”

During the last few days, he had gotten arrested and stayed in a cell with some gangsters.

Those gangsters often bullied him because he looked honest and nice.

Eventually, the ship owner couldn’t stand it anymore. His bad habits arose. He told the other party that he knew their boss and that he was their boss’s brother.

Of course, the gangsters didn’t believe him. The ship owner swore, “If I tell a lie, then I will kill myself!”

He never would have thought that around midnight, he would keep his promise. He stood up on his bed and was prepared to kill himself. He tried to bite his belly several times. He used his toothbrush to stab himself and he even tried to bite his tongue off in an attempt to commit suicide.

However, he was lucky that the police station was diligent in protecting the prisoners. His suicide attempts were quickly discovered and were stopped. That was why he had not succeeded yet.

However, the ship owner knew that if he didn’t kill himself, the otherworldly item wouldn’t spare him. That was why he came to us and begged for our help.

After listening to him, we were speechless.  

We could picture him using the toothbrush to stab himself. I could imagine him biting his tongue. But how he could bite his own belly?

It was hard to imagine that the ship owner had twisted his body in an attempt to bite his belly like a yogi at midnight. It was really scary.

The ship owner told us that he didn’t remember what had happened. He could only remember that when he woke up, he felt his waist hurting. It hurt so badly that he wanted to cry.

Li Mazi asked, “Why didn't you buy food?”

The ship owner said, “Because I found a loophole to avoid the problem. As long as I don’t talk to other people and I dress in a way that no one can recognize me, that thing won’t have control over me…”

I laughed. The ship owner had been tortured to the point where he had almost lost his mind.  

I asked him, “Do you have any skeptical antiques on you? Perhaps that otherworldly item is always with you.”

He shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple.”

At first, he had also thought that it was something he wore that had some supernatural power. He tried taking off all different kinds of chains and rings and locked them into a safe in his room. He also moved out and tried his best to stay away from those items.

However, it was useless. He couldn’t escape the curse…

The ship owner even thought that some ghost had tagged along with him. He thought that this was why he couldn’t escape.

I pondered and nodded my head. I had never heard of this symptom.

It would have been good if Chuyi was here. I was sure he could find the otherworldly item within seconds.

Just like when we encountered the Golden Perianth, the mysterious man had recognized the item at first glance. Sigh, we needed a lot more experience.

I dialed his number.

However, his phone was turned off, just like the times I had called him in the past. I felt a little distressed.

Actually, I didn’t care too much about the ship owner’s problem. I had just earned some money and I didn’t want to take any more risks.

Eventually, Li Mazi had a solution. “Your grandfather knew that old man, right? He worked as an otherworldly merchant for many years. I think he must know the origin of that thing. Perhaps he could tell us how to deal with it.”

Right, since we had access to him, it would be a waste to not go to him for help.

Then, I took out the phone and called the old man.

Li Mazi pulled the ship owner to the corner and talked about the commission.

The old man sounded really friendly and polite at first. “Hey, how are you doing? Is Chuyi still with you guys?”

I told him he wasn’t.

The damn old man began to fume. “It’s good that he’s not there. I have restrained myself long enough. Don’t think that I’m afraid of you. I just put up a polite front in front of him. You dared to touch my life-bound mouse. You should be thankful that I didn’t kill you. You shameless bastard. Now you’re calling me for help?”

I didn’t know if I should have cried or smiled. This old man was really interesting. Feeling helpless, I looked at Li Mazi. Li Mazi was enraged and asked me to hand him the phone.

Then, Li Mazi and the old man began to shout and curse at one another. They poured out their hearts and swore that they would scold the other to death.

Seeing them quarrel lively, I didn’t want to interrupt… 

Alright, if I can’t find external help, I will have to do it myself. 

Now we had to start with the first step. We needed to find the otherworldly item.

I asked the ship owner, “Could you let us see the room where you keep your antiques? I need to study the ones that are the most suspicious.”

The ship owner hesitated for a while. He looked at the sky then said, “We don’t have much time. We must go now! If that wretched woman doesn’t allow me to board the ship, I’ll take her down with me!”

Then, with some courage, the ship owner took us back to his former ship.

The ship owner’s wife was somewhat beautiful. She used to be some model or a contestant in a beauty pageant. When we arrived, she was wearing a bikini. We saw her sitting on the deck, playing with a foreigner. They were laughing and chatting lively.

After seeing us, the woman pulled herself together and gave us a blank stare. “Why are you here?”

“You have no shame,” the ship owner scolded. “I’m here to take my stuff.”

“Nothing belongs to you here,” said the ship owner’s wife. “When you transferred the properties to me, everything went under my name. I can show you the contract.”

“Get lost!” bellowed the ship owner. “Those items were bought with the money I worked hard to earn. Why would they belong to you?”

After watching the two quarrel, even the beefy foreigner wanted to join in the fight. Yin Xinyue and I couldn’t help but step forward and persuade the two to stop fighting. Regardless of who was right, there was a man’s life on the line. We hoped the ship owner’s wife would show mercy and let us take a look at the antique storage room on the ship. Once we found the otherworldly item, we would leave. We would not touch anything else in the room.  

The ship owner’s wife hesitated. Eventually, she nodded. “Okay, fine! But I’m warning you. If you dare to play tricks, it won't end here!”

These two were so hostile, it was as if they had killed each other’s father.

The ship owner led us to a small cabin on the ship. This cabin was dark and filled with many miscellaneous items, such as life jackets and the likes. It didn’t look like a room to store antiques.

However, who would have ever thought that this cabin hid a secret. After the ship owner cleared a remote corner, a small door was revealed.

I had heard that rich people in Nanjing liked to store private belongings in secret places, but I didn’t expect to bump into one during this trip.

After the small door was pushed open, a really wide space was uncovered. It was around fifty square meters.

The space was packed with glass boxes of different sizes. This was where he had displayed his collection.

No wonder the ship owner said that his antiques were enough to fill a museum. He didn’t lie about that. A rich man's world was something ordinary people like us could never understand. They had so many items but it wasn’t for trading. It was just a hobby.

I looked at Li Mazi’s face and knew he regretted offering such a low price for this job.

One could imagine how difficult it would be to find an otherworldly item from this big pile of antiques. I walked around the colorful antiques and tried to investigate. I already had a headache.

In theory, an otherworldly item had a touch of evilness. This was directly related to its age.

In other words, the older the item, the eviler it was!

The ship owner’s situation must have started because of some really old otherworldly item. If most of the antiques here were dated to the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, or even later, with one or two older items in the middle, then our searching range would be much smaller.

However, it was really hard since the ship owner was not interested in ordinary antiques. The items he kept here were all from the old ages. I had even spotted a set of bells that dated from the Warring States Period. I dropped my jaw when I saw them.  

It was going to be impossible to pinpoint the otherworldly item with the naked eye. We had no other option. We had to wait for the night to come.