“Ghost?!”
Upon hearing this word, Yu Du’s eyes went wide.
He looked around dramatically: “Where?! Where?! We on the spirit path don’t even have one demon per household, and you nether path guys can have one ghost per household?! What does a ghost look like? Is it like in horror movies? Is your ghost male, female, or a kid? Does it crawl out of the TV? Does it get under the covers?!”
“Yu Du… don’t embarrass yourself, just apologize quickly!” Chen Wuyue couldn’t bear to watch, holding her forehead.
“I am going to apologize, I’m not saying I won’t! But I have to bow when I apologize, right? I can’t see him, so which way do I bow? How can I express my apology if I bow wrong? So, Crazy Brother, where’s your ghost?”
Fu Sang had once naively believed that Huo Wei was the loudest and most talkative person in the world.
He hadn’t expected that there was always a taller mountain…beyond Huo Wei, there was another master.
“Stand there.” Fu Sang had Yu Du stand still, then dragged Qi Changying to stand directly opposite him: “Apologize.”
Yu Du immediately responded, without missing a beat:
“I’m sorry!!! Ghost!!!! I really didn’t mean it, please forgive me!”
Qi Changying instinctively stepped back half a step.
It might have been the first time he’d received such a grand and dramatic apology.
In fact, he hadn’t been that bothered by it. Kids were naturally playful, and it was normal for them to cause trouble and bump into things. He wouldn’t hold a grudge against a child. His injury wasn’t serious; the Ghost Blood Whip hadn’t really hurt him that much.
Fu Sang had demanded this apology on his behalf, and he guessed he probably didn’t have a say in the matter. So after Yu Du finished apologizing, he looked at Fu Sang.
“Don’t look at me. The apology is for you.”
So Qi Changying hesitated: “Mm, then… it’s nothing?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
Clearly, this wasn’t the answer he’d wanted.
Meeting Yu Du’s eager gaze, Fu Sang lied with a completely straight face:
“He doesn’t forgive you.”
Qi Changying: “…?”
“Let’s go.”
Qi Changying had the disadvantage of not being able to communicate directly with people. His persona outside had to be defined by Fu Sang.
But that was fine.
Whatever Fu Sang said went.
“Don’t be angry, Fu Sang. I’m fine.”
He followed beside Fu Sang, quietly trying to soothe him.
“Get lost. Who cares?”
“Wait… Fu Sang?” Seeing that Fu Sang really was leaving, Chen Wuyue chased after him, “I’m really sorry. This kid of ours has been spoiled by his masters and senior brothers at home. He loves to play around and has no sense of boundaries. This happened because I didn’t keep him in check. When we get back, I’ll definitely give him a good scolding. As for our exchange…?”
“Our karmic connection isn’t settled yet, so you don’t have to worry about me walking out on you. But I’m allergic to kids, so I won’t be providing any more ‘accompanying services’ from here on.”
Fu Sang’s tone was cold:
“I’ll be in Qianzhou for three days. During those three days, if you find any new clues that need my confirmation, I’ll come whenever you call. But after three days, I’ll be heading north. If you still need my help afterward, we’ll have to make arrangements based on the situation.”
With that, Fu Sang repeated: “Let’s go.”
“…” Since he had put it that way, Chen Wuyue couldn’t very well insist.
After all, theirs was an equal exchange. Since her side had caused the problem and made him angry, he really had no obligation to continue playing nice.
‘…A thousand wrongs, all this brat’s fault!’
Chen Wuyue put her hands on her hips, glaring hatefully at Yu Du not far away.
Yu Du was still kicking stones around, oblivious. When he met her resentful gaze, he spread his hands in protest:
“What? I already apologized!!”
“You just had to sneak after me here, didn’t you? Are your lessons done? Does your senior brother know? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a nether path spirit master? Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?” Now that outsiders were gone, Chen Wuyue composed herself and began scolding the kid in a low voice.
“Of course they’re done! I followed you because I have my own reasons!” Yu Du crossed his arms, mirroring Chen Wuyue’s stance.
“Alright, let’s hear them.”
“I’ve never seen a nether path spirit master before, and I’ve never seen an underworld spirit! You finally got a case like this, so of course I had to come along, right? Junior Sister, underworld spirits are really dangerous. I was worried you couldn’t handle it alone. As your senior brother, I’m concerned about your safety!”
What Chen Wuyue hated most was Bu Wangzhou’s system of ranking people by when they joined, which left her forever being looked down upon by a bratty kid playing the senior brother card.
“Curious about nether path spirit masters? And your way of satisfying that curiosity is to hit him with stones and toy with him using your abilities? Now you’ve pissed him off. Are you happy?”
“Come on, I wasn’t even serious! Not a single stone hit him, okay? Even if there was an injury, it was an accident! But he really tried to kill me just now! He pulled a knife and went straight for my neck…a real attempt on my life! I didn’t even hold it against him and still apologized! If I was wrong, wasn’t he wrong too? Why don’t you say he’s a petty lunatic? Why don’t you tell him that Bu Wangzhou’s second disciple can’t just be killed and make him apologize to me?! Chen San, you’re taking sides!”
“You’re the one who started it. Whoever throws the first punch is in the wrong. Don’t you get that? This isn’t your home. Not everyone’s going to indulge you!”
“Nobody indulges me at home either, okay?!”
“Yeah, Master and Senior Brother don’t indulge you. They’re just afraid that the more they argue with you, the crazier you’ll get, so they go along with you. You think people outside will give you the same face as your family? This time it was a knife, and you had time to react, and I had time to intervene. What if next time someone just pulls out a gun and shoots you in the head, how am I supposed to explain that to Master and Senior Brother?”
Chen Wuyue considered herself an emotionally stable person, but she felt like losing her mind whenever she stood before Yu Du.
This kid had an outstanding talent for infuriating others.
She rubbed her temples and pulled out her phone:
“Anyway, I’m calling Master to have someone come pick you up and take you back to Bu Wangzhou. In the meantime, you’d better not cause me any more trouble.”
With that, Chen Wuyue started scrolling through her contacts to make the call. But just as she unlocked her phone, another incoming call request popped up.
She recognized the format of that encrypted number…it was the Spirit Supervision Bureau.
A sense of foreboding crept over her. She frowned, swiped to answer:
“Hello? Spirit path Bu Wangzhou, Chen San. What is it?”
The person on the phone said something, and the lingering anger in Chen Wuyue’s brow gradually turned into a heavier solemnity:
“…What?”
…
After walking a hundred or two meters away from Chen Wuyue, Fu Sang received a call from an unfamiliar number.
He casually answered. Before he could even say “hello,” Huo Wei’s voice burst out, violently assaulting his eardrums:
“Fu San You, are you sick?! You’ve got all my stuff on you, and you just ran off?! Can you at least tell me before you leave?! Do you know that in this day and age, you can’t get anywhere without a phone? I couldn’t even reach you! I had to borrow a stranger’s phone!”
Fu Sang seemed to have just remembered that this person existed.
He looked down at Huo Wei’s bag slung over him and her phone in his pocket…it was indeed all her “stuff.”
“Oh, I forgot. Where are you? I’ll come find you.”
“Damn it… Search for ‘Linzhu Cottage’ on the map. I’ll be waiting at the entrance… What did you just go do?”
“Ah,” Fu Sang said lazily as he opened the map. “Attempted murder.”
“?” Huo Wei drew in a sharp breath.
Fu Sang subconsciously felt that her reaction was a bit strange, but before he could ask, he heard Huo Wei say with a hint of awe:
“I think sometimes you really do have something going on.”
“What?” Fu Sang had a feeling that Huo Wei was about to tell him something big.
And sure enough:
“You probably don’t know, right? Someone died here.”
By the time Fu Sang arrived at the “Linzhu Cottage” Huo Wei had mentioned, the area had already been cordoned off with a “Temporary Control, Tourists Detour” notice. It was only after Huo Wei, adorned with her clinking silver accessories, went over to negotiate with the security personnel that she managed to bring him in.
“You have quite the influence, you’ve already made it into the inner circle?” Fu Sang said with a deadpan expression, cracking a cold joke.
“Stop talking nonsense. Let me say this upfront, once you’re in here, you won’t be getting out for a while.”
“Because you killed someone?”
“Because I was the first person who found the body!”
Huo Wei’s voice was a bit loud, drawing frequent glances from the security personnel.
She quickly lowered her voice to explain:
“Here’s the thing, I was just taking photos earlier, right? The photographer said we could go up to the rooftop for a better view, but it would cost thirty yuan to get up there, and asked if I was okay with that. I said sure, what’s thirty yuan for a good shot? So he brought me here, to this place, Linzhu Cottage, which is a guest house.”
“We were having a pretty smooth shoot on the rooftop, but when we were coming down, that’s when things went wrong…guess what? My Weeping Soul coins started ringing!”
“You know, for us nether path spirit master, our reaction to the weeping soul coins is instinctive. I immediately stopped to check it out, and that’s when I heard someone knocking on a door in the second-floor hallway.”
“This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but the weeping soul coins were going off and nothing else seemed out of place. Following the principle of ‘better safe than sorry,’ I went over to ask what was going on.”
“The person knocking was the guest house owner, a young lady. After a bit of talking, she told me that the guest in that room hadn’t checked out, and the cleaning lady was supposed to clean the room but couldn’t get anyone to answer the door. Normally, that kind of thing could be overlooked…people drinking a bit and sleeping in is common in scenic spots. But the room had been booked out to someone else today, and if it wasn’t cleared early, it would affect the next guest, so she was quite troubled… So I told her, just go ahead and swipe the door open, don’t worry about it.”
“Why did I say that? Because when I got close to that room, the weeping soul coins got louder and louder, and I felt something big was about to happen. Sure enough, the moment the owner swiped the door open, there was a dead body inside. Scary, right?”
Huo Wei clapped her hands together and spread them out, finally finishing her story.
Having spent so much time with her, Fu Sang had already developed the ability to extract key information from a mountain of rambling.
But even after that long story, Huo Wei still hadn’t covered all the crucial details.
So he asked:
“Mm, how did the person die? Accident? Suicide? Homicide? Or related to an underworld spirit?”
“That’s exactly the problem!”
Huo Wei clapped her hands again:
“There was indeed residual ghostly aura at the crime scene, but after I confirmed it, the owner of that aura? The ghost in question? Whatever…anyway, that ghost’s rank wasn’t high, at most below second-rank, so it couldn’t possibly have the ability to kill someone. The victim’s body was also… very unusual. In short, it isn’t a simple case, so I directly reported it to the Spirit Supervision Bureau. All in all, I’m the first person to discover the case and the one who reported it. I’m probably not getting out today, so you’ll have to stay here with me.”
“?” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly: “Are you human? You lost your own freedom so you decided to drag someone else down with you?”
“Who told you to be carrying all my belongings?”
“I could also stand outside the control line and toss your stuff over to you.”
“Don’t be like that. True friends should be able to share life and death, through blessings and hardships!”
Huo Wei snatched her phone and bag back from Fu Sang, glanced down at a message, and continued talking to him:
“The situation is special. Anyway, we’ll probably have to stay at Linzhu Cottage tonight. I’ll change clothes in a bit, and once the Spirit Supervision Bureau people get here, we’ll sneak into the crime scene to take a look. This is really fishy, so try to see if you can figure anything out.”
“You want Qi Changying to be in the same room as the people of the Spirit Supervision Bureau? Are you out of your mind?” Fu Sang felt that Huo Wei might have had her head squeezed too tight by her silver hair accessories.
“Ah? You really think I’m that stupid? I wasn’t done talking, so why are you getting all worked up? Why do you get so worked up when it comes to Qi Changying?”
Huo Wei gave him a once-over with a look of disdain before reluctantly explaining:
“The Spirit Supervision Bureau said there’s been a fugitive demon active around the Miao village lately, and they suspect this case is related to that demon spirit. So they’ll hand the case over to the spirit master in charge of tracking down the fugitive demon spirit. That person just happens to be in the Miao village and will be here soon. So it’s fine…spirit path people can’t see ghosts anyway, so they won’t discover your little secret…”
As Huo Wei turned her head to talk to Fu Sang, she raised her hand and pushed the door to Linzhu Cottage open.
As she stepped in, Huo Wei was unaware that the dark shape in her peripheral vision was someone standing in the doorway, blocking the light…so the next second, she walked right into someone’s back.
With that bump, the silver ornaments on Huo Wei’s body jingled and clattered, truly turning her into a welcome wind chime.
“Oh, sorry sorry…”
Flustered and apologetic, Huo Wei used her hand to wipe the foundation powder she’d rubbed onto the back of the person’s coat.
“It’s fine.” Chen Wuyue turned around, first seeing Huo Wei, then raising her eyes to meet Fu Sang’s gaze at the entrance.
Her gaze paused, a bit embarrassed:
“Ahem… We meet again.”
“…”
A spirit path spirit master investigating a case in the Miao village?
Fu Sang should have seen this coming.
Hearing this, Huo Wei looked blankly at Chen Wuyue, then at Fu Sang: “What do you mean? San You, you know this beautiful lady?”
“Mhm,” Fu Sang replied, “I suppose we’re online acquaintances.”
“Yes…” Chen Wuyue had also rushed over after getting a call from the Spirit Supervision Bureau.
When the phone call informed her that the person who reported the case was a nether path spirit master, she’d thought that Miao village was really a gathering of talents today…who knew that after all that running around, it was still the same group of people.
She pulled a credential from her crossbody bag. Even though they’d already met, she still had to go through the formalities and properly introduce herself:
“I am Chen Wuyue, an in-house investigator with the Spirit Supervision Bureau and from the Spirit Path’s Bu Wangzhou. The higher-ups informed me that a homicide had occurred here, possibly related to the demon spirit I’ve been pursuing, so they sent me to coordinate with the nether path spirit master who reported the case. Is that you?”
“It’s me, it’s me.” Huo Wei raised her hand enthusiastically, then repeated the whole situation she’d just told Fu Sang:
“…Anyway, the owner and security cooperated and cleared out all unrelated people in the establishment. The victim’s body is in the room at the end of the second-floor hallway. The police haven’t arrived yet, so no one has gone in to check since the report. How about we take a look before the Muggle police show up? San You and I aren’t from the Spirit Supervision Bureau, so we don’t have credentials. Once the police get here, it’ll be harder for us to get involved.”
“That works, sorry for the trouble.” Chen Wuyue had originally wanted to confirm whether underworld spirits were involved in this case, and now hearing the nether path spirit master’s proactive invitation, she naturally nodded in agreement.
Huo Wei led the way toward the elevator. When Chen Wuyue wasn’t looking, she turned to Fu Sang and gave him a wink, signaling for him to follow along.
The interior decor of Linzhu Cottage was quite nice, with furnishings mostly made of wood and bamboo. The air carried the fresh, natural scent of plants, mixed with the tea-leaf fragrance of the incense the owner had specially chosen, the two blended together very pleasantly.
Huo Wei took the lead, fully leveraging her social skills, chattering away with Chen Wuyue nonstop.
One moment she’d say how tall and pretty she was, the next she’d ask about the Spirit Supervision Bureau’s benefits and whether the spirit path was fun.
Fu Sang followed not far behind them, silently observing the layout of the entire guest house.
The guest house was a standalone small building with three floors total. Half of the first floor was the front desk, the other half rented out to a costume and makeup studio, and there was a small garden out back. The second and third floors were all guest rooms, while the rooftop was the photo spot Huo Wei had mentioned. He’d heard that the rooftop scenery was beautiful, and photographers in the Miao village loved bringing clients here to shoot, which also meant the place saw a lot of foot traffic every day, and the crowd was quite mixed.
According to Huo Wei’s explanation, the guest house had both an elevator and stairs. The elevator was only for guests staying overnight, while photographers and their clients going to the rooftop had to use a separate small staircase on the other side.
The small staircase had a separate entrance and not a fire escape, so although there were doors in the stairwell that led into the second and third-floor guest room hallways, those doors were usually locked. This way, the two groups of visitors…those there for photos and those staying overnight…theoretically wouldn’t interfere with each other. Furthermore, the rooftop was only open until 8 PM, so guests didn’t need to worry about security.
As for why Huo Wei had noticed the owner knocking on the second-floor door and was able to enter the second floor while coming down from her shoot, it was because that door had been open at the time. Huo Wei had asked the owner why, and the owner’s answer was that there had been a plumbing issue in one of the second-floor rooms that morning, so they’d called in a repairman, which was why they’d unlocked the stairwell door to the second floor.
“This is the one.”
After stepping out of the elevator and walking all the way to the end of the hall, Fu Sang looked up at the half-open metal door of the stairwell at the deepest end, and only withdrew his gaze when he heard Huo Wei’s voice.
He turned his attention to the door in front of Huo Wei.
The overall decor of the guest house was a pure wood minimalist style, and the guest room doors were also wood-colored, the numbers from “206” engraved on it.
Then, Huo Wei pushed the door open, and the number on it disappeared out of his field of vision.
Next, the scene inside the room should have been fully revealed to them, but who would have thought that, in the next instant, a dark shadow suddenly dropped down from behind the door:
“Surprise!”
“Ahhh!!!”
Huo Wei was startled, screaming as she stumbled backward repeatedly.
Chen Wuyue, standing beside her, was also taken aback. When she came to her senses and recognized who was behind the “surprise”, her composure flew out the window:
“…Yu! Du! Explain. I told you to wait at the hotel. What are you doing here?!”
This was the annoying thing about spatial abilities…it was like a cunning rabbit with multiple burrows, impossible to catch and restrain, especially since Yu Du wasn’t a rabbit but an exceptionally slippery loach.
Yu Du was hanging upside down from the ceiling, holding the hem of his shirt and swinging back and forth like a pendulum:
“Your phone call was so loud, who couldn’t hear that there was a murder case at Linzhu Cottage and that you needed to come check it out? You took way toooo long. I’ve already turned this room inside out twice.”
As he complained, he grinned, showing off a row of shark-like teeth:
“Ta-da! There’s more!”
With that, he let go of his shirt hem, and something came “clattering” out of his clothes, falling to the floor.
Fu Sang walked past Huo Wei and Chen Wuyue, bent down, and picked the thing up.
It was a string of blackened silver bells.
He shook them; the sound was dry and unpleasant.
“Hey, you’re here too, Crazy Brother?”
Upon seeing Fu Sang enter his view, Yu Du grabbed the doorframe and flipped himself down from the ceiling, straightening his clothes and hair as he explained:
“I found this in the Inner World. This case is indeed related to a demon spirit. He killed someone here and then fled back to the Inner World, but he left in such a hurry that he dropped this.”
“This case is not your responsibility. Do not take it upon yourself to join the investigation, okay? Also, you just scared someone and haven’t apologized yet.” Chen Wuyue frowned.
“Oh, sorry about that, forgive me, Black Miao sister. I wanted to give her a surprise, but I didn’t expect you’d push the door open first.”
The “Black Miao sister” made Huo Wei feel absolutely delighted.
She waved her hand generously:
“Oh, no worries hahaha, I’m not easily scared. Teacher Chen, is this your little brother? How old is he? He’s so cute hahaha…”
“I’m her senior brother!” Yu Du emphasized, then added:
“I’ll be sixteen this summer.”
“Yes, he’s my senior fellow disciple.” Chen Wuyue held her forehead:
“No need to be so formal with the address. I’m ranked third in our sect, so just call me Chen San. At Bu Wangzhou, we’re ranked by the time we enter. He’s the second, named Yu Du…’Yu’ as in metaphor without the mouth radical, and ‘Du’ with the water radical.”
“Oh, oh, okay. I didn’t expect this little sharp-tooth to be so young yet so senior in rank, huh?”
Huo Wei laughed:
“Hey, you know Fu Sang too? You call him Crazy Brother? Nice, how did you come up with a nickname that fits his persona so well?”
Hearing this question, before Yu Du could answer, Fu Sang, who had already entered the room to examine the body, let out a scoff:
“Maybe because I almost killed him?”
“?” Huo Wei’s smile froze on her face.
Chen Wuyue sighed and held her forehead again.
“Why?” Huo Wei really hadn’t expected that the “attempted murder” Fu Sang had mentioned over the phone earlier wasn’t a joke, but the truth.
“Because I threw rocks at him and accidentally hurt his pet,” Yu Du tattled, then emphasized:
“But I didn’t do it on purpose, and I’ve already apologized, twice…once to the person and once to the ghost.”
“Uh…” Huo Wei pursed her lips, not quite sure what to make of this.
‘Pet…? Was he referring to Qi Changying?’
She glanced at Fu Sang, lowered her voice, and quietly told Yu Du and Chen Wuyue:
“He’s really crazy, so it’s best not to provoke him if you can avoid it. Besides, he’s a weird one…if you make him bleed, he actually enjoys it, but if you hurt his pet, he will genuinely fight you to the death. His things are not to be touched by others, especially… uh, his pet. And lately, he’s been in a bad mood because of his ghost, so absolutely, absolutely don’t provoke him on this matter!”
Hearing these warnings, Yu Du didn’t seem intimidated at all; instead, he looked a bit eager to try: “So if I do provoke him, will he fight me?”
“No,” Huo Wei shook her head cruelly, “He’ll come up with all sorts of underhanded tactics, stopping at nothing, with the sole goal of killing you. And he’s really good at fortune-telling and feng shui, and knows a lot about dark arts and curses. Be careful…he might seem quiet on the surface while secretly sticking a voodoo doll of you behind your back!”
That last part was a bit of an exaggeration to scare a kid, though it was also true…though dark arts and curses carried too much karmic weight, and that kind of self-defeating move was beneath Fu Sang’s dignity.
However, Fu Sang didn’t correct her. In fact, he paid no attention to Miss Huo’s quiet gossip session. His focus was entirely on the corpse in the room.
The body was that of a young man, lying spread-eagled on the bed in a “大” shape.
The sight was indeed somewhat horrifying, because the person’s skin was paper-white, his eyes and mouth were wide open, his jaw nearly dislocated, and beneath his skin were web-like dark purple-black lines, making it look as though he had died from some kind of poisoning.
But Fu Sang didn’t know of any poison that could cause a corpse to appear in this state.
This meant that this was indeed not an ordinary homicide case.
“Is this poison?” Fu Sang asked the others to confirm.
“Mm! It’s poison, done by a demon. I’ve examined the spiritual traces here.”
As the one who had thoroughly inspected the crime scene, Yu Du was the most qualified to speak:
“It’s a rare Gu demon.”
Hearing his conclusion, Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly and first asked Chen Wuyue, “Is your little senior brother genuinely skilled, or is he just a troublemaking, chaos-loving show-off brat?”
“???” Yu Du exploded: “What do you mean by that?! You doubt me?!!”
“Uh…” Chen Wuyue said objectively, “Although he’s young and seems unreliable, to be honest, he’s very strong…stronger than me. He has a special talent, and his judgment on demons is never wrong. It should indeed be a Gu demon, which matches the information I received.”
Fu Sang nodded, finally giving the red-haired kid a proper look.
But when he spoke, he brought up something else entirely:
“As for what happened before, I’m still not over it.”
“?” Yu Du instinctively took half a step back, looking at him warily:
“…So what do you want?”
‘To kill me?’
His 1.9-meter-tall giant junior sister was still watching right there!
“Ordinary spirit path spirit masters can only enter and exit the Inner and Outer Worlds on their own, and can’t bring others along. But you have spatial abilities. Since I’ve been inside your space, that means this restriction doesn’t apply to you.”
“So, take me into the Inner World.”
Fu Sang raised his chin slightly, speaking with an air of superiority and entitlement, as if it were a form of favor.
It was his usual demeanor:
“And I’ll forgive you.”
