Chapter 75: The Shadow Ghost (6)
“I didn’t! I didn’t! This is slander!” Sun Yu’s composure shattered. He suddenly broke down, pointing at the motionless Shi Danxing on the bed.
“What right do you have to judge me?! I’ve known Brother Shi for ten years. When times were toughest, he was the one who pulled me out of the mire. If it weren’t for him, I would have jumped off the rooftop long ago. How could I ever harm him?! How could I possibly be such an ungrateful person?!”
His voice grew louder with every sentence, until finally he was practically screaming. It was as if by being loud enough, he could hide the guilt in the depths of his heart.
A voice kept pulling at his nerves in his ear: You’re not wrong. Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. That’s what Brother Shi taught you. You just wanted to survive. Since Brother Shi could save you once, why couldn’t he save you a second time?
Sun Yu’s chest heaved as he gasped for air. His eyes were red as he glared at Jiang Si.
“Shh.” Jiang Si calmly raised a finger to his lips and said softly, “This is a hospital. Why get so excited? Can’t you speak properly?”
“Since you say the Infant Head Gu has nothing to do with you, then I’ll give you a gift. You take it.”
“What gift?!”
Jiang Si glanced sideways, signaling him to come closer. The item was placed in an ordinary box on the table behind him.
Once Sun Yu drew near, Jiang Si lifted the lid, revealing the contents.
The color instantly vanished from Sun Yu’s face. His pupils dilated as he stared at it in shock.
It was the figurine—an item brought out from a tomb! How did he dare bring such an evil thing here?!
“Why have you gone quiet?” Jiang Si simply held the box out. “Take a good look. Isn’t it quite beautiful?”
“A clay body, colored with minerals, the colors changing in myriad ways under high-temperature firing. Multi-color is also called Sancai. Looking at this color, it must have been buried for at least a thousand years, right? Finding such a piece really wasn’t easy.”
Sun Yu recoiled, not daring to reach out and take it.
“I don’t want that.”
Jiang Si said, “Take it and walk out that door, or stay here forever. Choose one.”
“This is illegal imprisonment!” Sun Yu looked toward the hallway in a panic. Only then did he realize something was wrong. Why was the hallway outside so quiet?
Where was the nurse on rounds? Where were the other patients and doctors?
“I am a law-abiding citizen,” Jiang Si said in an unhurried tone. “I’ve just temporarily booked out this entire floor. Don’t make such a mountain out of a molehill.”
“And I’m not trying to imprison you. I just want to have a chat. No one will know the content of our conversation today.”
“You—” Sun Yu suddenly realized he had truly underestimated this young man. He was supposed to be just an ordinary person who had resigned from Ning City to open a shop—aside from being good-looking and knowing a bit of Feng Shui and metaphysics, he had nothing and was even full of worldly cynicism.
And yet, it was precisely this kind of person who had seen through his plot.
Sun Yu simply could not accept this.
“My time is limited. If you don’t speak, I’ll make a choice for you.” Jiang Si calmly unfolded the yellow talisman in his hand and refolded it.
“I have no other merits, but I do love to learn. It just so happens that I just learned a bit of the skill of manipulating Gu arts. Why don’t you see if I’ve learned correctly?”
After saying this, Jiang Si blew a gentle breath toward the yellow paper in his hand. It flew up from his palm and circled the frozen Sun Yu a few times.
“One.” Jiang Si watched the ensuing developments with leisure.
While Sun Yu was still confused, he suddenly found that his lower body could no longer move; he couldn’t use a single bit of strength.
“Two.”
A needle-like pain struck the back of Sun Yu’s neck. His breathing space diminished bit by bit until he couldn’t catch his breath—he could only inhale, not exhale.
“Three.”
His heart suddenly convulsed, as if gripped tightly by a hand. His heart was nearly squeezed to bursting, forcing out a messy spray of blood.
With his lower body unable to move, Sun Yu couldn’t even manage to kneel. He could only fall straight onto the floor, rolling around while clutching his chest.
The pain made his facial muscles tremble, as he fought desperately for the limited oxygen available.
Jiang Si watched coldly for a while before slowly retracting the talisman.
The moment it landed back in his palm, the pain throughout Sun Yu’s body vanished. He slumped limply on the floor, cold sweat soaking his hair as he stared up at the ceiling.
It felt like he had walked through hell and back. The relief made the present ease feel exceptionally precious, and he panted greedily.
“The skin of Shi Danxing’s wife was peeled off alive, and she turned into a monster that was neither human nor ghost. Never mind Shi Danxing, Mrs. Shi probably didn’t have much contact with you. Did you think of her when you were designing this plot?”
“Every man for himself.” Looking at the snowy-white ceiling, Sun Yu’s eyes were hollow as he muttered, “What was wrong with me wanting to survive?”
A figure gradually entered his line of sight. It was Jiang Si, walking over and looking down at him.
“If you could truly live, your body wouldn’t also contain Gu poison. You have a more personal experience of being controlled by others than I do. What makes you think that by sacrificing Shi Danxing, you’ll be able to live? Is it possible that the only reason you’re alive now is because Shi Danxing is still alive?”
Sun Yu’s heart jolted. His eyelashes fluttered rapidly as his self-deceiving excuse was mercilessly torn away. He was humiliated to the extreme.
Jiang Si watched the man on the floor in silence—cold sweat dripping from his head, his lips constantly moving—waiting for his final decision.
After a long time, Sun Yu covered his face with his hands to hide his disheveled expression. His voice came from beneath his palms, muffled yet exceptionally clear.
“Six months ago, my company was set up, and all my funds were tied up. Not only that, but I also fell into huge debt. I’m in the jewelry business, and a Japanese man claiming to be a jeweler wanted to do business with me. He claimed he had a batch of top-tier treasures and wanted to sell them through me, splitting the profits fifty-fifty.”
“I asked to see the items first before making a decision, so he gave me one. It was a Qilin ornament made of jade. The color was rare; I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. But I was afraid of being cheated, so I asked where it came from. He said it was passed down from his ancestors.”
“I knew it was a lie the moment I heard it. That thing clearly belonged to our country. But considering the war a hundred years ago, it wasn’t surprising that they had looted many things from us. So I agreed and focused on finding a buyer.”
“The item sold beyond my expectations, and I received a generous reward. Just when I thought my luck was about to turn, the buyer suddenly died a few days after getting the Qilin ornament. He died a miserable death; his entire body was just a skeleton, his flesh and blood sucked dry. I only took one look and had nightmares for an entire week after I got back.”
“That’s when I realized I’d been tricked. It wasn’t something they had looted; it was something dug out from a tomb. Whoever touches these treasures will be poisoned by Gu and eventually have their flesh and blood sucked dry. I went to confront that Japanese man, but he actually admitted it. He even threatened that if I didn’t listen to him, not just me, but my entire family would be targeted.”
“That was a Gu, a legendary thing. Even if I called the police, no one would believe me. I could only do as he said—send the Tang Sancai figurine to Brother Shi and lie to him saying it was an imitation from the Republic era. As you know, there are many imitations from that period, and after so much time, it wouldn’t be considered a fake. Brother Shi cared about his reputation and didn’t want to feel like he owed anyone favors; it was the best reason. He wouldn’t feel it was beneath him, nor would he think he was taking a bribe, so he accepted it directly.”
“Later, I went to great lengths to find a woman, arranged for her to get close to Brother Shi, and then waited for her to get pregnant so I could take the child and give it to that Japanese man…”
Jiang Si asked him, “Why did you go to such trouble to harm Shi Danxing? What is it on him that you wanted?”
“It wasn’t what I wanted,” Sun Yu countered. “I only heard that Brother Shi boasted while drunk that he had once relied on something to change his destiny. That thing was placed inside his body and grew with his flesh. I guess the Japanese man wanted it, but it can only be taken out once the host is dead.”
Jiang Si continued, “Where is that Japanese man now?”
The afternoon sunlight had just shifted slightly to the west, shining into an inconspicuous, ordinary guesthouse.
The guesthouse, which had been quiet all day, finally welcomed its first guest—a tall, handsome young man. He wore a grey hoodie, carried a one-shoulder bag, and had his hands in his pockets as he strolled up the steps and into the lobby.
The receptionist thought that business had finally arrived, and a handsome guy at that. He hurriedly walked over with a smile to greet the guest. “Hello! Are you here to stay? How many people?”
The young man’s appraising gaze swept around behind him before finally settling on the receptionist’s smiling face. “I’m looking for your boss. I’m a friend of his. He owes me money and hasn’t paid it back, so I could only find him here. Please help me contact him.”
The receptionist’s smile froze. “Ah? Really? This… why didn’t you contact him yourself?”
“If I could contact him, I wouldn’t be here.”
That made sense. The receptionist looked the young man’s clothes up and down—all trendy brands. And with such good looks, he shouldn’t be a fraud.
So he politely asked the young man to wait and went to fetch the boss.
When the boss saw him, he couldn’t help but be confused. “Do I know you? When did I ever owe you money?!”
“In my dreams.”
The boss’s face immediately darkened. “Sir, this is a guesthouse. If you don’t want to stay, please leave. Trouble-makers are not welcome here.”
The young man clapped his hands, and three or four burly men immediately rushed into the shop. Although they weren’t carrying any weapons, their eyes showed they weren’t people to be trifled with. They stood there like small walls, completely blocking the light from the entrance.
The atmosphere in the room fell silent. Seeing things weren’t right, the receptionist hurriedly hid to the side to observe, planning to call the police.
“What do you mean by this? This is China! This is a society ruled by law!”
The young man couldn’t help but chuckle at his words. “You’re right. This is China. Let me introduce myself. My surname is Jiang. You probably don’t know me, but you should know Shi Danxing, right? Mr. Miyata.”
“!”
Miyata No’s gaze instantly turned fierce as his identity was exposed. He glared at Jiang Si, realizing that his actions were definitely known.
Is this person also part of the metaphysical circle?
His hand quietly reached behind him, touching a small wooden box inside his sleeve.
Unbeknownst to him, a small paper man had already jumped onto his body and opened the box ahead of him.
Miyata No’s finger reached into the box but touched nothing; the small box was empty.
His face changed slightly. At that moment, the person before him held up the item in his hand and smiled slightly. “Are you looking for this?”
His porcelain-white fingers held a hundred-legged red insect the size of a thumb. Placed next to his exquisite face, it looked exceptionally eerie.
“How could it be in your hands?!” Miyata No was shocked.
“Because you’re too stupid.” Jiang Si sneered. With a slight application of force, he crushed it in his hand. The insect, which turned to powder, vanished without a trace as the wind blew through the room.
“Thinking you can harm our citizens on Chinese soil—it’s pure fantasy.”
“Come with us.” Jiang Si raised his chin. Two of the burly men stepped forward and subdued the resisting Miyata No in a few moves, dragging him out by force.
The receptionist was anxious and hurriedly dialed the emergency number. Just as it connected, a hand reached over and cut the call.
At the same time, the person said, “Don’t waste your effort.”
The receptionist’s face was full of terror at the words.
“We’re just taking your boss to the police station.” Jiang Si finished the second half of his sentence and patted the receptionist on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you can take a temporary holiday.”
The receptionist was in tears—with the boss gone, how could he even work? He was practically unemployed now.
Translator’s Note:
Jiang Si is so cool! He basically just used a paper man to steal the antagonist’s weapon. “Every man for himself” (人不為己，天誅地滅) is a phrase often used to justify selfishness. Also, Qilin (麒麟) is a mythical hooved chimerical creature in Chinese mythology.
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