Old Man Wang

Before Chen Xingyue could question him again, Chen Shouyi hurriedly made an excuse and quickly left.

Back at the hotel, he could not help but sigh.

His days of freedom were over.

He had originally wanted to hold out until the agreed-upon "training period" was over, but he had not expected his luck to be so bad that Chen Xingyue would catch him.

He sat for a while, then had no choice but to pack his luggage.

Looking at the bags upon bags of food he had snapped up today, Chen Shouyi thought it over and decided to leave them here.

For one thing, it would be hard to explain why he had bought all this stuff, and it could easily make his parents suspicious. For another, he had booked the hotel for half a month, with six days still left. He was not short on money now; rather than check out, it was better to have somewhere he could replenish supplies at any time.

Besides, he had put the hotel room down as the delivery address for his packages. Given the current situation, who knew when they would arrive.

Checking out before then would be troublesome.

"Dad! Mom! I'm back."

The restaurant was closed, clearly having stopped business long ago.

Hearing Chen Shouyi's call, Mother Chen and Chen Dawei soon pulled open the rolling shutter and came out to greet him.

"Shouyi, why are you back?" Mother Chen asked.

Chen Shouyi immediately repeated the excuse he had prepared earlier.

"They should have given you a break. I didn't feel it yesterday, but when I woke up this morning, everything felt strange somehow. My heart's been all aflutter." There was unease in Mother Chen's voice.

"Don't go muttering superstitious nonsense," Chen Dawei said. Then, as if nothing had happened, he changed the subject with a smile. "How come you've only been gone a few days, but you look so much fairer? And more handsome."

The question had finally come. Chen Shouyi gathered himself and hurriedly said, "The training was all indoors. I guess it's because I haven't been out in the sun for so long."

"Looks like you really should get less sun. You're much easier on the eyes now," Mother Chen said with a smile as well.

After that, neither of them brought up Chen Shouyi's changes again, much less dug to the root of them. Instead, they asked about the training.

Was he eating well?

How was he getting along with the other trainees?

Had the training been effective?

Chen Shouyi had already prepared his answers on the way over and responded to each question.

He had passed the test!

He still had so many contingency plans lined up, and he had not even needed them.

Chen Shouyi suddenly felt a stir in his heart. Sometimes, what you thought was some huge matter you could not face might not be such a big deal to your parents. As long as you were healthy and safe, that was enough.

Before long, Chen Xingyue returned as well. She had not brought good news: aside from daily necessities, the shelves for supermarket foods and other goods were already empty.

"Good thing we bought plenty this morning!" Mother Chen said, pleased with her own foresight.

Chen Shouyi felt that his mother was overreacting. Their family ran a restaurant, so even if they did not go panic-buying, they always kept supplies such as alcohol and grain in stock. For a family of four, it would probably be more than they could finish in a month.

After dinner, as Chen Shouyi and Chen Xingyue headed upstairs, Chen Xingyue suddenly said in a mysterious tone.

"Bro, let me tell you something. After you left last night, Old Man Wang, the one who ran the general store in our neighborhood, died!"

"Huh? He was usually pretty hale and hearty. How did it happen so suddenly?" Chen Shouyi asked in surprise.

This area had once been countryside, and it had only been incorporated into the city a few years ago. He basically knew all the neighbors around here.

But that was only familiarity. To say he had any real feelings for them would have been rather fake.

Chen Shouyi was only somewhat surprised and had assumed that was all there was to it. But what Chen Xingyue said next was rather eerie.

"They said it was a cerebral hemorrhage. By the time they found him, he only had one breath left. Last night, while the family was holding vigil over his body, you know what Old Man Wang's two sons are like. They kept watch until midnight, then both went off to sleep!"

Chen Shouyi nodded. There had been no electricity last night, and with only that little candlelight, unless the children were especially filial, they really could not have stayed there.

"But when they woke up this morning, they found Old Man Wang's body was gone! Guess where they found it?"

"Where?" Chen Shouyi played along, though he was surprised as well.

"They eventually found it at the east gate of the neighborhood, a full half li from their home. Isn't that strange?"

Chen Shouyi nodded.

If a corpse had run off by itself, he would once have thought it was nothing but an absurd rumor passed from mouth to mouth.

But after encountering a ghost last night, he knew that this world truly was no longer the same.

"From now on, you'd better not go out at night," he reminded his sister.

Chen Xingyue was not used to her brother's concern. "I know that, obviously."

Then she lowered her voice and asked, "Bro, do you think there are ghosts in this world?"

"Don't you know there are all sorts of wandering souls and ghosts at night in the Otherworld?"

"I mean on Earth?"

"So what if there are ghosts? Are you scared of them?" Chen Shouyi shot her a sidelong glance.

"I... of course I'm not scared. I was just asking," Chen Xingyue said hastily, pretending not to care after being provoked by his look.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Come to think of it, I really did run into a ghost last night. It was around one or two in the morning. I suddenly woke up needing to pee, and after waking, I felt the air was bone-chillingly cold. The window was wide open too. I found it strange—it had clearly been shut last night..." Chen Shouyi lowered his voice, deliberately setting the mood.

"I don't believe your ghost stories. Keep making things up—I'm going back to my room." Chen Xingyue hurried away as if fleeing.

Chen Shouyi could not help but find it amusing. He had never expected his little sister to be afraid of ghosts.

Chen Shouyi returned to his long-unvisited bedroom.

He let Shell Girl out of the briefcase.

Shell Girl looked around at the familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings, somewhat dumbfounded. "Giant, are we staying here today?"

Chen Shouyi nodded. This was not a hotel, and the soundproofing was not much good either. If he talked to himself, someone would probably come knocking before long.

"Why aren't we staying at the old place?" Shell Girl asked anxiously.

"What's there to ask why about?" Chen Shouyi could not help lowering his voice.

"B-but... my... my gems." Shell Girl stammered.

"Aren't the gems clutched in your hand?" Chen Shouyi said irritably.

"There's only one here. I have o-one!" Shell Girl spread her hand pitifully, revealing the glass bead in her palm.

Chen Shouyi had long grown accustomed to her pitiful way of counting. Hearing that, he immediately looked suspicious. "When did you have two?"

There were only two possible places for the glass beads Shell Girl had gotten from him.

One was in her clenched hand; she never let go of them, not even when sleeping or eating.

The other was hidden in a shell treasure chest buried beneath sand and dirt on the small island in the Otherworld.

As for the hotel room, she never left anything there.

"I... I didn't pick up yours... I mean, anyway, I have o-one!" Shell Girl turned her head away with a guilty look.

Are you sure that isn't the very picture of protesting too much?

Chen Shouyi nearly laughed. You picked up my glass bead, and you still think you're in the right?

Fortunately, he did not bother arguing with her for once. It would be a headache if he made her cry again. It was only a glass bead, after all. Generously, he pulled one out and stuffed it into her hand. "Here. Satisfied now?"

Shell Girl clutched it tightly in delighted surprise, her face immediately blooming with joy.

In the middle of the night, Chen Shouyi was suddenly awakened by a strange sound.

It sounded like someone trying to take a dump in the toilet but unable to squeeze it out no matter how hard they tried—strained, forceful "nnngh, nnngh" noises.

At first, he thought someone in the house was constipated.

But after listening for a while, he realized something was wrong. The sound seemed to be coming from outside the window, gradually drawing closer, accompanied by the scraping sound of shoes dragging across the ground.

October was still hot, so he had not shut the window at night. With the dead of night all around, the sound was exceptionally clear.

Curiosity got the better of him. He stood and peered out the window.

The instant he looked, his scalp prickled.

His constitution of 138 gave him eyesight far sharper than an ordinary person's. Through the faint moonlight of the night, he saw a bizarre figure several dozen meters away, slowly making its way toward him.

It wore a dark gray shroud, with golden longevity characters clearly written across it.

Its bluish-white face had slightly sunken cheeks, its mouth hung half-open, exposing several yellowed teeth. Those eerie "nnngh, nnngh" sounds were coming from its mouth.

"That's... Old Man Wang!"

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