New Arc: LUST
Chapters 8-32
Fang Zehao had recently developed a crush on someone.
Perhaps due to some romantic and somewhat melancholic artistic preferences, she often sat alone on the bench by the nameless lake around eleven or twelve at night.
The first time he ran into her, Fang Zehao had just come back from a night out, carrying the smell of smoke and alcohol from the club, with a red lipstick mark from some girl still on his collar. If not for the task his advisor had assigned him first thing the next morning, he wouldn’t have come back to campus to sleep that night.
The graduate dormitory at Jingda was a four-person room. Fang Zehao didn’t get along with the other three, and they could barely exchange a few words when they were together.
One was a bookworm who spent all day in the library. Another was a shut-in who stayed in the dorm watching anime and playing games whenever he had no classes, saying things no one understood. Fang Zehao had once glanced over when he was pulling his bed curtain aside, revealing a bed full of body pillows printed with his anime wives.
The last one was even more impressive. He was a weird non-mainstream type with two different eye colors. When they first met, Fang Zehao thought the guy was just vain and crazy, wearing a colored contact lens on only one side on purpose. It wasn’t until he heard others talking privately that he learned it was natural.
Aside from those eyes, this guy was strange in other ways too. He didn’t talk to others much, didn’t stay at school often, wore a ring in his lip, and always had a bunch of copper coins and little bells hanging on him. Fang Zehao once complained about him to a friend, but his friend laughed and said he didn’t understand fashion. Apparently, this guy was what you’d call a “V-kei hardware guy”.
***Kinda like a dark goth punk aesthetic, with”hardware” like chains, rings, buckles etc for an edgy look.
Who cares about hardware or software…he didn’t stay at school much anyway, and he was even less likely to have much contact with these weirdos after graduation, so there was no need to get close to them.
Fang Zehao rode a shared bike through the cold wind on campus.
It was almost curfew at the dormitory, and there weren’t many people on the road, making it seem deserted. Only the exceptionally bright moonlight cast a dark, bluish green hue on the leaves and branches on both sides.
As Fang Zehao passed by Jingda’s nameless lake, he glanced over by chance.
The moonlight reflected on the lake, and a slender girl sat on a bench by the lake.
Her long black hair was straight, gently lifted by the wind, and along with it fluttered the hem of her pure white dress.
It was already winter. Wasn’t she cold, sitting by the lake in such a thin white dress?
Fang Zehao found it odd, even forgetting to pedal, letting the bike slow down on its own.
Late at night, a girl in a white dress sitting alone by the lake in the cold wind…it was beautiful as a painting.
A bit of pity for the beautiful and fragile naturally rose in Fang Zehao’s heart.
‘Had she been dumped or something?’
Fang Zehao braked.
“Hey! Miss! What are you doing sitting there alone in the middle of the night?!”
Fang Zehao cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over:
“It’s almost curfew…if you sit any longer, you won’t make it back to the dorm!”
Fang Zehao thought his voice was loud enough, but the girl didn’t react at all.
‘Maybe she has earphones in.’
He didn’t think much of it. He put his feet back on the pedals and was about to leave, but before that, he inexplicably glanced toward the lake again.
That glance, however, revealed that the girl by the lake had turned her head.
The moonlight outlined her beautiful, gentle profile, and her eyes were clearer than the water of the nameless lake.
It was late, and he couldn’t see the details clearly.
But he was willing to believe that the girl had given him an extremely gentle smile.
**
“Master Zhuge Nan’s former direct disciple, Zhuge Fusang…now just Fu Sang, right?”
At a small shopfront, tucked away in a corner of an old street. Very little sunlight reached it, making the interior dim.
Today was a restocking day. Clearly, the shopkeeper was very busy; cardboard boxes filled with ghost money and gold ingots were piled everywhere. The young man stood in the only empty space where a person could stand, staring at the pile of boxes. When asking the question, he deliberately emphasized the word “former”.
To be honest, this place was really hard to find. The young man had followed the GPS navigation and circled around at least five times before finding this legendary “Blind Cat Alley” in the old town. He kept walking deeper until the road ended, where he found this old, tiny shop with a full 5.0 rating on reviews. He just couldn’t understand what there was to review about a shabby funeral supply store.
Above the shop entrance hung a wooden sign with two words painted in red; “One Shop.”
Probably because the paintbrush had been dipped in too much paint, the excess had dripped down from the strokes and solidified, like blood slowly sliding down in a horror movie.
The shop was really unsettling and bizarre as its owner.
No wonder no one in the family was willing to make this trip. Several people had treated this seemingly simple little task like a hot potato, tossing it back and forth until it ended up in his hands.
After the young man’s opening remark, the pile of cardboard boxes he’d been staring at finally stirred.
Someone emerged from behind.
Fu Sang’s hair was a bit messy, there were two smudges of dust on his face, and the dark circles under his eyes looked even heavier in the dim light, making him appear listless.
He sniffled, his voice a bit low:
“That’s me. So?”
“I heard that ten days ago, you and your fellow disciple Huo Wei went to the Hei Mountain Pass in Qinshi?” the young man continued.
“I don’t get it.” Fu Sang peered into a nearby box and then pulled out a pen and paper from somewhere, scribbling.
“What don’t you get?” Seeing his absent-minded attitude, the young man gradually lost patience, and his tone turned unpleasant.
“I don’t get why I have to report to the sect just for going out to gather material for my writing.” Fu Sang glanced up at him coldly:
“Isn’t that a bit too much control?”
“You…!”
The young man’s eyebrow twitched. He really couldn’t stand this arrogant, ignorant brat in front of him.
Before coming, he had heard others say that this Fu Sang had a notoriously strange temper, spoke harshly, and was second to none at pissing people off.
There weren’t many young disciples in the family who had received personal instruction from the elder generation of the main clan. Each was a once-in-a-million genius, so a bit of arrogance and disdain was normal. But this Fu Sang had long been stripped of his surname and expelled to the outer branch after being found to be a useless person who couldn’t see spirits. Where did he get the nerve and the right to talk to him like that?
With his status and seniority, anyone out in the world would respectfully address him as “Senior Brother”!
“Are you here to do business? If not, please move. As you can see, I’m very busy today. If you really want to hear about my travel adventures, leave your contact info. I’ll compile my field notes into a PDF and send it to you later, but you’ll need to pay me a 99-yuan borrowing fee. If you find the text boring and need real pictures and videos to go with it, that’ll cost extra.”
Fu Sang kept his eyes lowered, his tone flat like an emotionless quoting machine.
The young man laughed in exasperation at his behavior.
Where did this penniless money-grubber come from? Was he crazy for money?
So he nodded, pulled out his phone, and aimed it at the QR code on the counter.
A few seconds later, Fu Sang heard his shop’s cheap Bluetooth speaker announce in a gritty, gravelly voice:
“WeChat payment received: one hundred ninety-nine yuan!”
Fu Sang’s head, which was about to disappear back into the mountain of boxes, popped up again like a spring.
Only then did he take a serious look at this unfamiliar fellow disciple in his shop.
The man looked about thirty years old, with spiky short hair. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a luxury brand logo, but over it was a bamboo-patterned Tang suit jacket, a mismatched and incongruous outfit.
Fu Sang stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes.
Since the guy had paid, he had to put on the attitude of serving a customer. So when he spoke again, his tone was much more serious:
“Welcome to One Shop. What service do you need, God?”
The stark contrast in attitude before and after taking the money left the young man completely dumbfounded.
If he had known, he would have scanned the code the moment he walked in. Wouldn’t that have solved everything?
From now on, whenever some unlucky soul was sent to deal with this kid, he’d have to pass along today’s lesson for everyone’s benefit.
Seeing that Fu Sang was finally cooperating, the young man felt much more relaxed.
He pulled over a red plastic stool held together with tape and sat down, saying:
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Zhuge Buhuo. You probably haven’t heard of me, but you should remember my younger brother, Zhuge Buyi, right?”
Out of respect for a paying customer, Fu Sang gave it a brief thought.
Then he shook his head: “No.”
After that, he ventured a guess at the client’s intention:
“If needed, I’ll have a five-thousand-word biography of Zhuge Buyi compiled into a PDF and sent to your email by midnight tonight. That’ll be an additional three hundred ninety-nine. The QR code is on your right.”
“?” In the original context, there was actually no need to bring up his brother. Zhuge Buhuo had only mentioned it to borrow his younger brother’s reputation as the family’s number-one genius to make this brat show a bit more respect, but the effect was zero.
He took another look around the shabby little shop:
“Aren’t you selling funeral goods? What’s with the biography?!”
Fu Sang pointed behind him.
Zhuge Buhuo turned around and saw a huge foam board on the wall behind him, with rows and rows of text in bold font like a restaurant menu;
[Funeral supplies, fortune-telling, physiognomy, feng shui, printing, knife sharpening, locksmithing, phone screen protectors, small appliance repair, used appliance recycling, missing person/pet/cat/dog searches, thesis editing, plagiarism checking, and reduction…]
Probably because there were too many services to fit on the board, a handwritten couplet was pasted around it. The first line read “We can do anything”. The second line originally said “As long as you pay”, but now a big X was drawn over it, replaced by a new sticker reading “Selling skills, not the body.” The horizontal scroll had five crookedly written words;
“The Mission Must Be Achieved.”
Zhuge Buhuo was confused.
And Fu Sang’s 199-yuan worth of patience was running thin: “So what service do you actually need?”
“…”
‘What an absolutely insane lunatic.’
Zhuge Buhuo swallowed dryly:
“I’m just asking you a few things. Did you make any discoveries on your trip to Hei Mountain Pass?”
Fu Sang’s expression didn’t change as he casually said: “Discoveries? The weather was bad, the plants weren’t growing well, the disposition was poor…stuff like that?”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” Zhuge Buhuo was getting annoyed:
“Do you think I came all this way to ask you about the local scenery? I’m asking about spirits! Did you find any strange ghosts… or anything like that?”
“Are you joking?”
Fu Sang’s good demeanor had run out. He let out a light scoff, reached up, and pulled down his left lower eyelid:
“Haven’t you been told? I can’t see spirits. Even if you threw me into hell, I could only tell you that it’s empty, and all the ghosts are in the human world. All I know is that the place has very heavy yin energy, lots of resentment, and many people have died unjustly over the years. As for the rest, I really can’t help.”
He paused, then raised an eyebrow slightly:
“For this kind of thing, why don’t you ask Huo Wei?”
“If she knew anything useful, why would I be asking you?”
“What did she say?”
“She said she didn’t go with you…she thought you were in danger and went to find you. After she got there, a murder happened in the village that night. After you and her settled the deceased, you left. The terrain in the mountains was bad, so she only circled the outer perimeter and didn’t dare go in. Something like that. Do you have anything to add?”
Fu Sang didn’t even look up:
“Then I wouldn’t know. I went into the mountains for my graduation thesis…you can think of it as gathering material. I was alone when I went. Later, I got lost and fell. I joked about leaving her my inheritance, and she took it seriously and came looking for me… You checked her phone, didn’t you?”
“Ahem…” Zhuge Buhuo dodged the question.
Both their testimonies matched the known information, and the people in Hei Mountain Village had said roughly the same thing. It was just that…
Zhuge Buhuo still wasn’t convinced:
“The village chief of Hei Mountain Village said you did feng shui readings for free?”
“Mm.” Fu Sang nodded.
“Why?”
With his “pay and I’ll do anything” attitude and the way he called someone “God” for a couple hundred bucks, would this money-grubber go all the way to a mountain village to do charity work?
He didn’t believe it.
“…”
Fu Sang was silent for a moment, then gave his answer:
“Because I’d met the deceased once before. The day before, I’d asked her for directions. Then she died. I found her a plot of land to settle the karmic debt, so no charge was necessary.”
Zhuge Buhuo was speechless.
In their line of work, karma was heavier than heaven.
Reasonable.
But having come all this way, only to get annoyed, spend money, and still get no useful information, he was truly unsatisfied.
So as he was leaving, he hesitated and asked one more question:
“You really didn’t see anything strange? You can’t see spirits, but what about strange formations, or ritual tools… didn’t you see those either?”
Fu Sang’s expression didn’t change:
“Unfortunately, no.”
Zhuge Buhuo left.
Fu Sang continued burying himself in the goods to be organized.
No one noticed that behind the mountain of cardboard boxes, in the corner of the shop, there lay an open travel backpack.
A long nail was wedged diagonally into the bag, its surface wrapped in layers upon layers of talisman paper.
A wisp of dark gray mist slowly seeped out from the long nail, spreading toward Fu Sang.
Fu Sang knelt on the ground counting bundles of yellow paper in the boxes. He noticed a faint chill brush past his ear but didn’t react.
He let Qi Changying appear, draw closer, and lower his head to take a light sniff near the side of his neck.
The fierce ghost manifested, yet the copper bells and Weeping Soul Coins hanging around the shop were completely still.
In the cramped, dim shop, the Crimson Evil leaned down to whisper:
“You’re lying.”
