Part 2
“I… I saw it.” Old Wang licked his dry, cracked lips and grabbed Jiang Si’s arm, trying to get some sense of security from him.
“There was an old man… I knocked his head off… I… I just tossed my phone gimbal at him. I didn’t expect his head to just fall off like that.”
“I didn’t mean to. He definitely wasn’t human. A human head couldn’t be knocked off that easily.”
“A human head?” Bai Qiniang curled the corners of her mouth and looked at the floor. “Where is there a head here? You must be dreaming.”
“There really was one!” Old Wang shrieked in protest.
“You guys just didn’t see it! Before you came, I was trapped on the eighth floor for so long! I tried everything, but whether I went up or down, I just kept circling on the eighth floor!”
“A Gui Da Qiang,” Bai Qiniang said knowingly. “I know how to do that too! It’s too simple—it’s just something covering your eyes so you can’t see the real path.”
Listening to her speak, Jiang Si belatedly realized she was referring to the time she had taken a fancy to Lin Nan and had used a Gui Da Qiang to prevent him from returning home. He scolded her crossly: “And you’re actually proud of it.”
“Tsk. I’m just saying.” Bai Qiniang twisted a strand of her hair to play with, then asked him, “Since you said that old man ghost’s head was knocked off by you, why did he just keep you trapped here instead of killing you directly? This ghost has quite a good temper, actually not seeking revenge on you.”
“I didn’t mean to! He forced me!” Old Wang recounted the series of events he had encountered after going to the eighth floor.
Jiang Si didn’t have much of a reaction at first, but when he heard the part about the man wanting Old Wang to change clothes for photos, he suddenly interrupted: “Tell me more. What exactly did he say to you? Did he say he’d give you money for the photos?”
“Yes.” Old Wang wiped the corner of his eye. “I thought he was from your film crew. As soon as he mentioned it, it was like my heart was blinded by grease and I believed him, following right after him to take the photos.”
“You took them?”
“One set.”
“I really couldn’t tell those were Shouyi!” Old Wang took a breath. “Damn, I’m going to find a master to take a look once I get back. I don’t know if there will be any trouble.”
Jiang Si told him not to leave yet and asked him to lead the way so they could go back and see. Old Wang originally didn’t want to go back even if it killed him, so Jiang Si asked him to just point out the way while he went to see for himself.
Old Wang was afraid of being left alone, so he gathered his courage and led them back to that “studio” room.
The door wasn’t closed. Once pushed open, the inside was revealed to be full of rags and rotten wood. The smell of mold mixed with dust flew out, making Old Wang cough repeatedly.
He waved his hand and said, “This isn’t right. It wasn’t like this when I was here just now. It was clearly beautifully decorated!”
“Alright.” Seeing this, Jiang Si had a general idea in his mind. He exchanged a look with Bai Qiniang and said: “You were ‘Ghost-Blinded’. You mistook hallucinations for a real scene. It’s no wonder you couldn’t walk out of this floor all night.”
“What?” Seeing that he seemed to know about these things, Old Wang grabbed him and asked, “What about me now? Am I okay now?”
“…”
Jiang Si pointed to himself. “I’m a real person. Rest assured.”
“Ghost-Blinding only works at night; the heavier the Yin energy, the easier it is to succeed. There isn’t a soul here, so it’s no surprise you fell for it.” At this point, he couldn’t help but add: “You’re a man over six feet tall; how could you be this scared? The more scared you are, the weaker your Yang energy becomes. In contrast, it becomes stronger.”
Is it a crime to be afraid of ghosts? Old Wang really wanted to grab his collar and ask loudly, but he didn’t dare.
He could only humbly ask: “Then what should I do?”
“Scold the ghost. The more fiercely you scold, if you encounter a cowardly ghost, you can scare it away.”
Old Wang was silent for a few seconds: “I was livestreaming at the time. If I cursed too filthily, my account would be banned.”
“…As expected, no ghost is as scary as a ‘poverty ghost’.” From the phone tightly gripped in his hand to his determined gaze, Jiang Si finally understood this sentence. He sighed and turned to go downstairs.
Old Wang followed closely, asking incessantly: “Will that old man follow me home? I… Can I do anything to drive him away?”
“Go home and sleep, then come to this place. I’ll leave you a phone number.”
Jiang Si didn’t have his phone on him, so he used Old Wang’s phone to leave his number and said seriously: “This shop is very reliable. The items are definitely authentic. If you feel bad about it, burn some things for that old man. Spend some money to buy peace of mind.”
Looking at this string of digits, Old Wang felt as if he had found a treasure and nodded repeatedly. “Sure, sure, okay. I’ll definitely go take a look. Thank you.”
“Mhm.”
After watching him leave, Jiang Si also got into his car. Bai Qiniang asked curiously: “Whose phone number did you leave?”
Jiang Si: “That’s my shop. Whose would I leave if not mine?”
Bai Qiniang: “…”
Selling your own gourds and praising them as sweet.
No wonder he spoke with such sincerity; turns out he was soliciting a customer for himself.
Having pulled an all-nighter, Jiang Si also went back and slept. When he woke up, he happened to receive a call from Hai Di. The two chatted about nothing for a while until it was time to go to work in the afternoon.
Jiang Si told him to focus on work while he found something to eat and then headed to the joss paper shop. He wanted to see how Lin Nan was adapting.
To his surprise, as soon as he reached the entrance, he saw several people gathered inside.
Leading them was a woman in her forties. She wasn’t tall but had a very powerful presence. She launched into a long monologue without a single pause, like a machine gun.
With her as the main force, the man and woman beside her, along with a younger boy, constantly chimed in.
In short, after listening for a while, Jiang Si found there was only one central theme: they had bought something from his shop, but it was incorrect and had caused trouble, so the owner had to be responsible.
The middle-aged woman’s voice was somewhat shrill. With one hand on her hip and the other pointing at the paper figures on display, she said: “You even cheat people of their money for the dead. Do you have no conscience? You actually sold us fake goods! How are we supposed to explain this to our family when we go back? How do we explain to our deceased elders? You must give me an explanation today.”
Lin Nan, a college student who hadn’t graduated yet, really couldn’t bring himself to argue with her. He could only lamely ask her to calm down and talk things over.
“Talk over? If I talk over with you, my old man won’t talk over with me! He came directly into my dreams to scold me! I’ve worked hard for half my life, only to be cheated by you heartless people. Where’s your boss? Have him come out! I want to see what kind of person would do such a thing!”
“No, Auntie, please lower your voice. I’ll call our boss over right now, okay? Let’s talk nicely. Everything in this shop is handmade by the boss; there are no fakes. There must be some misunderstanding.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she was about to start cursing again. Suddenly, she was tapped on the shoulder. She turned around and met the smiling face of a young man.
The young man was fair-skinned and handsome, with gentle features. His appearance caused the woman to lose her voice instinctively, the words she was about to shout getting stuck in her throat.
After a long while, she asked: “Who are you?”
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