Funerals (3)-The Ledger

Three incense sticks burned slowly, their reddish-orange sparks flickering at the tips. Yu Xing watched as she lay down, quietly waiting in the increasingly strange atmosphere.

He certainly didn't need to wait for "the time it takes for an incense stick to burn." In no time, the three incense sticks of the same type showed completely different burning speeds and were also distinguished by their length.

"Long, long, short..."

In the incense burner before me, the two sticks on the left and in the middle are of equal length, while the one on the right burns faster and is already much shorter than the other two.

This trend has basically stabilized. Yu Xing murmured twice, searching the incense manual in her mind for the meaning of this type of incense. After a while, she chuckled softly, "A death trap incense..."

This is a very ominous type of incense, a death-bringing incense, signifying that the Black and White Impermanence death) have come to take lives. Within a month, someone in the household who burns this incense will be in grave danger.

"I thought it would be incense for mourning clothes, since everyone here is wearing white mourning clothes... but it turns out to be such a malevolent, death-bringing incense." Yu Xing sighed softly, her tone carrying a hint of an enigmatic smile. "I just wonder, does 'the incense burner' specifically refer to me, or does it represent the shop owner who once used this incense burner?"

As soon as his light, ethereal voice faded, a sudden gust of cold wind swept through the closed shop. Yu Xing's long robe fluttered in the sudden gust, and he sat up straight, reaching out to shield his face from the bangs that kept slapping him.

The eeriness reached its peak at this moment. Yu Xing squinted and caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head and looked into the eyes of the largest portrait of the deceased.

This was an old man; the years had etched deep marks on his face, the deep lines standing out starkly against the black and white of his skin. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes resembled fish tails, and his chapped lips moved slightly...

The smiling expression instantly transformed into an exaggerated laugh.

A sinister glint suddenly flashed in the old man's lifeless eyes; his eyebrows arched dramatically, and his eyes darted downwards, as if he had come to life.

Yu Xing tapped the table twice with her fingertips. Before she could even say hello, the photo next to the old man's portrait frame also underwent the same change.

Like a spiderweb, all the portraits in the shop seemed to laugh silently, their eyes darting around, all staring at the spot where Yu Xing was sitting, their gazes filled with undisguised malice.

Faced with the stares of countless pale, lifeless faces, Yu Xing shrank back, looking somewhat frightened.

Two seconds later, he couldn't help but joke, "Ha, could the 'death-bringing incense' really be referring to myself?"

[... Was he genuinely afraid or just pretending?]

To be honest, this scene gave me the creeps.

I feel like Xing's personality is a bit twisted; is he more alienated?

[Ever since he suddenly started seriously lighting incense, I've suddenly become a little afraid of him. I feel like he's one of those people who's possessed by a ghost.]

Why? Because his incense-lighting technique was too skillful?

[Intuition told me, as I looked at him, that he blended in perfectly with the environment, as if he had shed his modern aura.]

[I'm not scared by ghosts anymore, but I am scared by "livestreamers". I'm used to it.]

[The new guy, Cold Wine, has met up with Zhao Ruru. They both seem to care a lot about this Xing. I came over to check.]

[Come check this out, wow, I just arrived and I saw such a high-energy scene!]

[Hey, you know what, that scorpion braid at the back of this guy's head really does have a vintage feel to it.]

"Cough cough..." Yu Xing ultimately failed to greet them, because as soon as he opened his mouth, he was met with the distinctive musty smell of a funeral home.

Dust from the floor flew straight into his eyes, forcing him to close them. He had no choice but to give in briefly, closing his eyes and becoming extremely vigilant.

The malicious stares disappeared.

Just as Yu Xing closed his eyes, he suddenly heard footsteps, not just one, but many, walking around where he was sitting, as if many people were circling around him.

But with the shop closed, people definitely can't get in, so what exactly is coming in is self-evident.

Yu Xing's nerves stirred, and she decided to squint and observe what kind of ghosts were causing trouble.

Etc...

Can't open your eyes?

He felt a chill run down his spine as a pair of icy hands reached out from behind and covered his eyes.

An irresistible pressure pressed down on Yu Xing's eyelids, making it impossible for him to open his eyes. He could only passively listen to the sudden sound.

Yu Xing tensed up for a moment, thought for a moment, and then stood up.

The hands above his eyes seemed to be just two palms. He stood up straight and did not feel any extra weight behind him, nor was his movement restricted.

So, relying on his memory, he stepped out from behind the counter and reached out to touch the direction from which the footsteps were coming.

If a physical ghost were to arrive, he should be able to touch it, right?

Nothing... nothing at all, so it really is just a pure spirit or ghost?

He had no idea how terrible his actions had been. After arriving at a vague conclusion, the footsteps were joined by a cacophony of voices, some near and some far.

"Have you heard? Boss Liu, he..."

"Tsk tsk tsk, yes, I never expected that this Boss Liu, who seems so respectable on the surface, would do such a despicable thing!"

"Don't let him hear this, I think this guy is really weird..."

"Hey, Lao Jia, I'll borrow two stacks of paper money from you. I'm out of stock. I'll pay tomorrow!"

"Okay, take it yourself."

"Hey, Lao Jia, you mean that Boss Liu..."

The voices of these people were mixed together, making it difficult to distinguish who was who. Yu Xing stopped and listened carefully, trying hard to make out who was who for a while. He found that they were all talking about Boss Liu, but they were unwilling to say directly what Boss Liu had done. They were all riddles.

"..."

He paused for a moment, then finally found a good opportunity to interject. "Boss Liu is here!"

The surroundings fell silent, and in the midst of the commotion, someone seemed to say, "Oh no! What if Boss Liu heard that?!"

However, Boss Liu did not come. A few seconds later, the surrounding noise resumed as if Yu Xing had not heard him speak.

It seems that nothing I do will affect them... Yu Xing thought to herself, then suddenly turned her head and keenly realized that the "person" who said he wanted to buy on credit was right next to her.

Without the slightest hesitation, he reached to his side again.

[Ahhh, stop touching me! Holy crap, this is a scene of Semir losing sanity!]

[How terrifying! Thank goodness you're still alert. Stop touching me!]

Wow, he's really brave. Most people would be sitting quietly and listening at this point.

[I'm dead, I was really watching a horror movie]

How can he be so calm? This isn't a riddle, it's a ghost! A ghost!

[How exciting! Does he want to touch me or not??]

Yu Xing is currently blind, but the viewers in the live stream are not seeing a black screen; instead, they are seeing a third-person perspective.

He will never know how many people his groping and touching would leave an indelible impression on.

From the viewer's perspective, this small funeral shop is packed with "people".

Some were buying things, some were having secret conversations, and some were walking to the counter to sign their names in a notebook.

These "people" never stopped talking, constantly discussing "Boss Liu, Boss Liu," as if they would never stop. Their bodies were transparent, and without exception, their faces were deathly pale, like paper dolls. Their expressions were far from normal, instead appearing ferocious and pained, with their brows and eyes tightly furrowed together.

Yu Xing's face now bore the appearance of a pair of unclaimed hands, their fingers slender and deathly pale, their wrists seemingly suspended in mid-air, hidden in the dim light.

This ignorant and fearless man stared at the ghostly hand on his face, raising his arm and touching it here and there. His hand passed through the surrounding ghostly shadows, as if sinking into a quagmire. Each time he touched it, he left a hand full of blood.

The ghosts stared at the wandering human with malevolent expressions, but none of them attacked him. Their tone remained unchanged, as if they were casually mentioning Boss Liu's name.

The overall effect of the scene is like a little white rabbit blindfolded entering a wolf's den, mistaking the wolves for huskies, and fully believing that the wolves haven't noticed him. Little does he know that all the wolves are just pretending, and in reality, they are all staring at him with predatory eyes.

Just as the comments section was flooded with messages, Yu Xing, wandering around aimlessly, bumped into a ghost standing by a low shelf. The ghost said, "Not human! I'm never buying from Liu Bingxian's shop again!" and quietly floated away from Yu Xing's body.

Its face showed an expression of near-malice as it stared intently at Yu Xing's smooth neck. Then it raised its hand and touched its own neck, where a grotesque reddish-brown scar coiled around it, proclaiming that it had been strangled.

[Don't go! Bro, can't I call you bro? I'm most afraid of deductions involving ghosts.]

[Are they incapable of killing?]

Finally, Yu Xing felt the noise around her gradually subside, the footsteps and conversations faded away, and the pressure on her eyelids also subsided.

Once everything had calmed down, he tilted his head and lifted his eyelids.

The shop was still the same, and everything was peaceful.

The portraits hanging on the wall returned to normal, once again revealing an illusion of dignity and sorrow on the verge of death.

The incense on the counter had burned down to the bottom and gone out.

He felt something slip across his hand, and when he looked down, he saw that all ten of his fingers were covered in flowing blood.

"..."

The blood was cold and dirty. Yu Xing looked around, then wiped her hands thoroughly on the gold ingot string until it was clean before whispering, "I guess I really did run into it."

Live stream viewers. "..."

He remained remarkably calm, turning his head to look at the counter. Sure enough, after that brief period of blindness, a black-covered notebook had appeared on the counter.

Approaching and picking it up, I saw that the notebook, which originally had no name on it, had the words "accounting book" scrawled on it with a brush.

Yu Xing opened the notebook. The first few pages were normal records: the cost of goods purchased, how much was sold, how much money was made, and the shopping expenses of the shop owner, Mr. Jia.

As you turn to the back, large blank spaces begin to appear in the notebook. Until the last few pages, the black ink gradually turns blood red, and the contents begin to look strange.

[On [Date], Liu Bingxian bought a picture frame on credit for 20 yuan. Outstanding (crossed out), now paid in full.]

[On [Date], Wang Rong bought a bundle of No. 2 incense and candles on credit for three yuan. Outstanding (crossed out), now paid in full.]

[On [Date], Liu Xue bought a paper cutter on credit for 2.3 yuan. Outstanding (crossed out), now paid in full.]

On [Date], Sun Chong bought two bundles of paper ingots on credit, totaling one yuan. The debt remains unpaid.

[On [Date], Liu Bingxian bought a picture frame on credit for 20 yuan. The debt remains unpaid.]

As the story progresses, the ink turns completely blood-red, as if the writer were not using ink to write, but rather blood as the material.

The entire ledger exuded an eerie aura; each blood-red name seemed to have been marked by a judge, sentenced to death, and about to end their lifespan and descend to the underworld.

Thinking about it carefully, it does have some relevance, since in legends, the "death-summoning incense" is a harbinger of the arrival of the Black and White Impermanence to collect souls and hasten death.

The date on it was the same as the paper on the door that Yu Xing picked up; the handwriting was blurry and illegible. All that could be seen was that from a certain day onwards, all the debts owed by everyone afterward remained unpaid.

There were a few pages left, Yu Xing, with the spirit of finishing the book, turned over them.

On [Date], I was fortunate enough to borrow three sticks of No. 2 incense for three cents, which I have not yet repaid.

"...?"

Their own Persona Mask, also known as their name, was written in blood ink, just like Liu Bingxian and Sun Chong.

He was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and cried at the same time, "I used three of your incense sticks just to complete the clues you left behind, and you're treating this as me paying on credit?"

The accountant didn't respond to him, but the handwriting was crisp and clear, as if emphasizing a fact.

Clearly, based on everything Yu Xing saw after entering Ghost Alley, those who hadn't paid their debts on credit had all met their end.

Intangible ghosts are more bound by rules when they want to kill, and similarly, the living must avoid falling into their traps and be cautious everywhere. This is why many fortune tellers would rather encounter a powerful, physical ghost than an ethereal spirit.

Now that those who owed money on credit are all dead, and Yu Xing's name follows closely behind, does it mean that he too will die because he owed money to Boss Jia?

In this kind of deduction, no detail can be overlooked.

Yu Xing scoffed at the glaringly blood-red name and coaxed the notebook, "Stop messing around, just pretend I was never here. Think about it, if I hadn't lit these three incense sticks, wouldn't I have missed what you wanted to convey? If I hadn't seen it, you would have had to wait a long time for someone to come, right?"

"Let's keep things separate. I was just doing what you asked me to do and used your things as a favor, not buying them. Since it wasn't a purchase, how can you say it's on credit?"

What is he doing? Trying to reason with a ghost?

[Lhh, how adorably silly!]

[Writing a name in blood is a major taboo. You can't be laughing it off like this. If it's not handled properly, he could really be in a dead end.]

Before the comments had even finished, there was a "sizzle" sound.

Yu Xing tore off the paper with his name on it from that night and casually put it into the red cloth bag hanging at her waist. "I won't make things difficult for you. Look, now my name isn't in the ledger, right? As long as it's not recorded, it means I didn't run any debts."

He closed the ledger and flipped back to the previous page, but sure enough, no new bloody text appeared.

In other words, his records of credit transactions in the ledger were erased.

Holy crap, is this really possible?

[Wow, this thought process is amazing! As long as I tear up the paper, I'm not on credit?]

Many viewers noticed a faint smile on Yu Xing's lips.

Because two messages appeared on the panel that only Yu Xing could see.

[You have obtained the key item "Xing's credit record", which can be placed in the Ghost Bag]

[You have obtained the key item, Ghost Bag has been activated]

[The Ghost Bag can collect key items in this simulation; its storage space is unlimited.]

[Your title, "Stunning Schemer," has come into play, increasing your fraud success rate.]

[You are attempting to defraud Shop Owner Jia]

[Behavioral analysis indicates fraud was successful]