Chapter 72: The Shadow Ghost (3) – Continued part 1
The living room was deathly quiet. Bai Qiniang watched in stunned silence as Jiang Si ran past like a gust of wind, closing the door and getting busy with who-knows-what.
After a long while, she found her voice. “What’s happened to you two?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then make it short.”
Hai Di’s face was taut, and he only managed to squeeze out three words: “We saw ghosts.”
“???” Bai Qiniang’s expression went blank. Fearing she had misheard, she repeated, “Saw ghosts?”
Hai Di gave a silent affirmation.
“He saw a ghost?” Bai Qiniang couldn’t help but sneer. “I’m afraid the ghosts he’s seen are more numerous than the people he’s met. How could he be afraid of that?”
This reason was practically an insult to her intelligence, considering how many years she had lived.
Unaware of her thoughts, Hai Di was considering another matter.
He couldn’t help Jiang Si with metaphysics, but he could take action against the tomb raiders.
In the inner room, after lighting three cigarettes, Jiang Si began to recount the day’s events with an aggrieved tone.
Seeing some dust on the photo frames, he picked up a dry cloth from the corner of the table and wiped them down.
The offering table was a long, red-lacquered solid wood table with a vase on either side. Jiang Si would periodically change the flowers and plants inside. In the center were three black-and-white photos: his father, his mother, and his grandfather.
The incense burner was placed right in the middle, filled with about half a burner’s worth of ash. It was clear it hadn’t been cleaned in a while.
Besides coming to offer sacrifices regularly, Jiang Si actually spent very little time here. When his parents had their accident, he was still young. As he grew older, his memories of his parents’ faces became increasingly blurry until they were forever fixed as the images in the photos.
Old Man Jiang had raised him single-handedly, but just when Jiang Si was about to be able to repay him, Old Man Jiang also passed away. The large house was left with only one person and three black-and-white photos.
In this situation, even a thief would have to offer a stick of incense before leaving.
“Grandpa, Mom, Dad. No matter which of you can hear me, you have to stand up for me. That dead ghost was so fierce. If I hadn’t dodged quickly, I would be on the table with you tomorrow. Our whole family would have had a complete, tidy reunion.”
Jiang Si whimpered and groaned, completely failing to mention how he had torn the arm off the shadow ghost with his bare hands. Using the art of language, he portrayed himself as the perfect victim, striving to evoke sympathy from his elders.
He was focused on wiping the photos. Just as the cloth moved away from Old Man Jiang’s face, the eyes in the photo seemed to move. Immediately afterward, he was struck heavily on the back of his head without warning.
Jiang Si gasped, clutching his head as he looked back. Naturally, there was nothing there.
Recalling the anomaly in the photo, he understood everything.
Old Man Jiang had indeed heard his complaints, but it wasn’t clear what the old man was thinking.
Inside the incense burner, the white smoke rose in curls. Under his gaze, two long sticks of incense suddenly snapped. Before they could even burn, they crumbled into powder and fell into the burner.
What does this mean?
It’s said that people fear “three longs and two shorts,” but incense fears “two shorts and one long.”
Could this be Old Man Jiang’s hint that something bad was about to happen?
Before Jiang Si could figure it out, the white smoke was blown by a breeze and actually began to coalesce into a pattern.
Jiang Si held his breath and watched intently, fearing he might miss even a single bit of information.
Once the pattern formed by the white smoke was fully revealed before him, Jiang Si’s eyelids twitched violently. His pursed lips suddenly relaxed, revealing an expression of speechlessness.
He saw a large hand pointing upward. Four fingers were curled in, leaving only the middle finger extended.
“…”
Even if he were beaten to death, Jiang Si would never have expected this.
His heart full of grievances was completely punctured by this giant middle finger, vanishing entirely. Jiang Si lowered his head. Old Man Jiang in the photo looked vigorous and sharp-eyed, staring back at him.
To anyone else, he would seem like a righteous old man.
Who would have known he could flip someone off?
Not only could he flip someone off, but he could also snap incense to form an abstract middle finger.
Heh—
Jiang Si grumbled a few words to himself but still obediently placed the photos back in their original positions. He personally dispersed the white smoke and gave a long sigh, feeling sorry for himself. “The little cabbage in the field, with no one to love him. This is just my fate; there’s nothing I can do.”
After he finished, he specifically waited for a while. Seeing the incense show no further movement, he finally felt at ease and walked away.
The clothes he was wearing were covered in someone else’s blood. Had it not been to sell his misery in front of Old Man Jiang, he wouldn’t have tolerated it for another second. Although, looking at it now, the effect of selling misery was just so-so.
He went to the bedroom to change his clothes. Only then did he settle down, lazily leaning against the sofa. He finally remembered he hadn’t asked Bai Qiniang when she had arrived.
“I’ve been here the whole time, hey!” Bai Qiniang was speechless.
Really?
Jiang Si used his eyes to ask Hai Di, and after receiving a positive response, he said gloomily, “Well, truly sorry about that. I didn’t see you.”
His words were said, but they weren’t sincere at all.
Bai Qiniang had specifically come and waited for a long time to deliver a piece of big news. Seeing Jiang Si’s attitude, she felt a bit aggrieved.
“I kindly came over to tell you something major, and this is how you act?”
“What major thing?”
“The Metaphysics Competition held in the Eastern Sea this year has concluded! Guess who the final winner was?”
If she hadn’t mentioned it, it would have been fine. But now that she did, it reminded Jiang Si of her unreliable Second Granduncle, who had forced Bai Qiniang into his home and then run off himself.
“Who?”
“Us, of course!” Bai Qiniang was so proud she couldn’t help but transform her snake tail to thump the ground. “Our great nation is full of talent. If we couldn’t handle those small-country sorcerers, we’d really be underestimating ourselves!”
Jiang Si and Hai Di looked at each other. Although they felt a sense of national pride, Jiang Si raised his hand to ask a question: “What exactly is the deal with this competition? If it’s so official, why isn’t the outside world told about it?”
Bai Qiniang’s lips twitched. She had forgotten that neither of these two were part of the metaphysical circle.
She was in a good mood, so she began to explain patiently: “This competition has been held for over a hundred years, rotating every ten years to a different country. Nominally, it’s to invite masters from various countries to exchange skills, but in reality… you both know. It’s to show off national strength and intimidate them.”
“But after all, everyone promotes that materialism stuff. Naturally, the officials won’t promote this to the public. It’s an unspoken agreement among countries.”
Jiang Si was thoughtful. He felt that indeed, things weren’t peaceful in any industry. Beneath the seemingly calm surface, there were actually undercurrents surging.
“Actually, these competitions are usually just for show. In reality, they all use underhanded tactics behind the scenes.” Bai Qiniang curled her lip in disdain, thinking back to the events of a few years ago. “Two years ago, Eastern Sea sorcerers set up a Feng Shui array in the Central Plains, triggering a massive rainstorm once in a century, nearly destroying the entire city overnight. Fortunately, the people from the Celestial Master Association discovered it in time and broke the array, ending it.”
“The Xingzhou rainstorm?” Jiang Si’s memory was fresh. However, he only knew that the death toll in that rainstorm was over a thousand, with losses exceeding a hundred billion. Many people had also disappeared and hadn’t been found to this day.
“I also remember it. At that time, I collaborated with over a dozen companies to raise funds and donate supplies. Since high-speed rail, planes, and trains were all out of service, I personally followed the convoy all the way there to check the situation.” Hai Di spoke up, his brows furrowing as he recalled the tragedy.
Recommended Reads
![[ABO] After Accidental Marking, I Became Everyone’s Darling](https://beereads.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ABO-225x300.jpeg)
![Those Years When the Son of Destiny Was Severely Scammed [Quick Transmigration]](https://beereads.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/QUICK-TRANSMIGRATION1-214x300.jpg)
