Otherworldly Merchant

I told the ship owner my idea and he looked even more anxious than us. 

He told us, “I’m now exposed. I’m sure I will try to commit suicide again tonight. If we can’t solve this case now, we can’t sleep tonight. Please watch over me and stop me from killing myself.”

I nodded. “No problem. I wasn’t going to sleep tonight anyway!”

Since I knew nothing about the otherworldly item’s origin, I couldn’t prepare the tools. I just grabbed two bags of refined salt. I hoped they would work tonight!

Naturally, the ship owner’s wife wouldn’t let us stay the night on the ship. We were too lazy to care about her, so we just let the ship owner deal with this matter.

I didn’t know whether the ship owner had promised her something good or if he had threatened her, but in short, she had agreed to let us stay here for several days.

At night, we gathered in the cabin.

To prevent the ship owner from killing himself, Li Mazi prepared an iron chain and tied him to a chair.

Furthermore, to avoid the ship owner from biting his own tongue to commit suicide, Li Mazi pulled off his smelly sock and shoved it into the poor man’s mouth.

Although the man wasn’t willing at all, he was under special circumstances and couldn’t do anything about it…

Yin Xinyue looked at the ship owner and chuckled. “We look more like kidnappers now.”

Li Mazi half-joked, “How about we do it for real? If we sell all the antiques here, we can get enough money to last for dozens of years.”

I could see the ship owner’s face turn pale.

We were afraid that there could be a circuit shortage in this small chamber so we had prepped some candles and flashlights. Once everything was ready, we spread the mattress on the ground and laid there. However, we didn’t go to sleep.

After the Golden Perianth’s story, we had learned our lesson. What if we fell asleep and a banshee jumped out of nowhere and controlled us in our dream?

Under such torment, time ticked by pretty slowly. I felt bored and checked Yin Xinyue’s mobile phone.

Yin Xinyue’s phone had captured a lot of moments during our trip. While Li Mazi made funny poses in the photos, I didn’t know where to put my hand. This difference was really amusing.

After browsing through the photos for a while, I suddenly spotted a problem.

In all these photos, there was a person with their back facing us, standing not far away from us.

The posture and clothing were very similar in each photo.

I was startled.

Are we being stalked?

I immediately scrolled and checked all the photos one more time, this time more carefully.

After checking, a chill ran down my spine. In every single picture, no matter if it was inside Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum or on the Purple Mountain Observatory, there was a woman behind us the entire time!

She wore a short-sleeved, blue and white shirt and a pair of black leather trousers. She had long hair that accompanied her not-so-bad figure. She must be a beautiful woman.

This finding made me shudder.

Why would she want to keep track of us?

How come we had never noticed anything during the entire trip?

I hurried to show the photos to Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue. After they had confirmed my findings, they were scared and looked pale.

I found the earliest photo of that person.

It was the time we had bought the tickets to Qinhuai River’s scenic area. At that time, I was lining up and Li Mazi had just bought a steaming-hot breakfast. We were eating while waiting. The woman was at the end of the line.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t know that people started stalking us as soon as we had arrived in Nanjing.

At this moment, my heart flustered. This woman had kept watch on us for quite a long time but didn’t take any action. I was certain that she had some scheme planned.

If we still continued to ignore it, the consequences would be really terrible.

I wasn’t a man of justice. I was just an ordinary antique businessman. I wasn’t that determined to abandon my life in order to save someone else’s.

That was why I made up my mind quietly. If we couldn’t solve the ship owner’s case tonight, we wouldn’t care about it further. Tomorrow, we will leave Nanjing.

I shared my thoughts with Yin Xinyue and Li Mazi. They agreed with me.

We guessed the woman was unaware that we knew she was stalking us. Once we leave, we would surely disrupt her plan.

We had made up our mind, but tonight, we would try our best to save the ship owner.

My eyes returned to him.

I had to admit, this ship owner was really brave. Under such frightening circumstances, he had already drifted away into sleep…

Of course, we couldn’t rule out that the otherworldly item had affected him and made him sleep. Bad things happened whenever he slept.  

We had been waiting for around one hour when the ship owner began to act strangely.

The muscles on his face contracted and green veins bulged. We could tell that he was gnawing his teeth in anger. Damn, it seems he wants to bite off his tongue and commit suicide!  

Luckily, Li Mazi’s sock was thick. No matter how hard he had forced himself, he couldn’t bite his tongue.

The scene was even more shocking because the ship owner had his eyes closed the entire time. This scene was really frightening.

He seemed to recognize that he couldn’t just commit suicide by biting his tongue. Then his body started to move.

I moved forward and carefully studied the ship owner.

The moment I walked forward, the ship owner suddenly opened his eyes. I was startled and my heart throbbed.

I was confused. Normally when a person was possessed, the host would show how hot-tempered or angry he was.

But the ship owner that was tied in front of me didn’t show any symptoms. After seeing me, his face went so calm and the corners of his mouth widened… he was smiling at me.

I took a deep breath and said, “Who the hell are you? Why do you want to torture him?”

Loud breathing noises came from the ship owner’s throat. His legs began to kick crazily and his body struggled unconsciously.

No matter how hard he struggled, the strange smile on his face remained. It was so different from his wiggling body.

I was really worried that he would eventually break the iron chain. Hurriedly, I tore a bag of salt and sprinkled it onto his body in an effort to suppress the evil force inside him.

However, the refined salt didn’t work. The man struggled harder and harder. He had even lifted the chair he was tied to. The chair fell to the ground. He grumbled repeatedly.

I immediately shouted at Li Mazi. “Check the collection room meticulously to see if any antique there is reacting!”

Li Mazi was scared and asked me, “How would the otherworldly item react to the ship owner? What would it look like?”

I was annoyed. “How would I know! Just use your eyes!”

Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue hurried to check the glass boxes with the antiques inside.

I did not expect the otherworldly item to know our intention. The man stopped struggling. He calmly looked at me and the grin on his face became wider!

That damn thing is smart!

I knew that if the otherworldly item didn’t cause trouble, it wouldn’t produce a resonance with the host. As such, Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue wouldn't find anything strange. I had no choice but to call them back. 

Pfffftttt!

Everything had been quiet for a moment until the ship owner farted.

His fart sounded like a burst of a balloon. More importantly, it smelled much worse than an ordinary fart. It could be as stinky as that from a weasel. I wrinkled my nose and didn’t dare to breathe.

Then, another loud fart came. This one was even more powerful than the previous one. Shortly after, the horrible stench permeated the entire room…

Since we were in a storage cabin, there was no window. Helplessly, we had to open the door to take in the fresh air. However, the door was too small so it didn’t really work.

I was desperate and thought that we would be choked to death. If that happened, we would be a big joke to the others!

I recalled a time when I watched some soap drama where someone had foam at the corners of his mouth after inhaling a fart. At the time, I had cursed the writer for writing such a brainless situation. I thought at the time, how could a fart be that powerful?

But now, as I finally experienced the power of a fart, I knew it was really scary. I could feel that I was just a step away from having foam at the corners of my mouth…

Eventually, Yin Xinyue was the first one who couldn’t stand it anymore. I had no choice but to let her out. I thought about asking her to go and buy two gas masks. However, after thinking about it, I just put that thought aside.

Since someone was watching us, it would have been really dangerous to let Yin Xinyue go out alone.

In the end, the ship owner was tied tightly and he couldn’t kill himself. I felt assured and left the cabin with Li Mazi, watching it from outside.

That ship owner seemed to be addicted to farting. He had farted every ten or so minutes.

Fortunately, Li Mazi found an electric fan in the cabin. He turned it on, and it was still working. We set it up at the door and used it to ventilate the room.

Li Mazi asked me worriedly, “Could the ship owner fart to death?” “Well, I don’t think he can. I have never heard of anyone die like this.” 

Yin Xinyue felt uncomfortable and kept pinching her nose. However, she still managed to joke around. “Well, the ship owner really liked to talk nonsense [1], but now that all the air in his stomach is gone, perhaps he won’t babble anymore?”

“Yeah, this is possible.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loudly. In my mind, the status of otherworldly merchants dropped sharply.

I guessed we were really useless as we had to endure some guy’s farting.

To prevent any incident from happening to the ship owner, we had to check on him from time to time.

The ship owner seemed like he was going to pass out from his own farts. His face turned from pale to red, then black and ashen. Although he was struggling to breathe, he could manage to keep himself alive. For the time being, his life wasn’t in danger.

Perhaps because he was lacking oxygen, he had some foam at the corners of his mouth. It seemed the dramatic details in those soap dramas weren’t just fabricated. There was some scientific basis.

Around 4 AM, the ship owner finally stopped struggling. He closed his eyes and the smile disappeared from his face. He quieted down.

I pinched my nose and rushed in. I patted his face.

The ship owner coughed his lungs out and wasn’t in the right headspace. He cursed us for throwing him into this poisonous chamber and thought that we had tried to kill him and take his wealth.

I didn’t bother quarrelling with him. It was understandable that he wasn’t in the right mind after a whole night of smelling his own farts. I untied the ship owner and carried him to the front deck.

Even when he was on the front deck, his face still grimaced. He slumped helplessly on the ground and looked at us with blank eyes.

He rested and drank some water before finally pulling himself together.

However, he looked at us with a hostile attitude. “You bastards, what have you done to me..? Cough… 

What happened to my throat?”

“Do you have a fetish of farting a lot?” asked Li Mazi.

“Damn, it’s you who has such a fetish!” The ship owner scolded. “What have you done to me? Why does my butt hurt so much?”

“Well, you farted all night long yesterday,” I replied. “You farted a lot. I think it must have been some effect from that otherworldly item.”

He was bewildered. Looking at his face, I knew he couldn’t accept this. “That otherworldly item… can make people fart? That’s really disgusting.”

“It’s good,” I said. “At least you’re still alive.”

“Still alive...” the ship owner said absent-mindedly. “But I feel so weak now. I feel like I got poisoned. Oh right, did you make any progress? Did you find the otherworldly item? What is it?”

1. Talking nonsense and farting use the same character in Chinese.