Unexpected Windfall

"He died a month later?"

"Yes, the doctor was absolutely right. He passed away a month later. I went back to my hometown for the funeral. After returning to work, a client placed a huge order with me. My performance skyrocketed, I got a bonus, and even a promotion with a raise. Heh... I had a wife and kids, I... I had a wife and kids back then. We'd been married for seven or eight years. She was a good woman. I thought, now that I had money, I could treat her better. I bought her a necklace, bought her clothes. A few months later was the Golden Week holiday, so we went on a trip. We went to Yunhai Mountain. Standing on the cliff edge, looking down at the sea of clouds below. Golden Week, it was packed with people. I don't know which son of a bitch pushed me, and my wife... my wife fell over the guardrail..."

"Please accept my condolences."

"Hoo... My wife was gone, and I was devastated. I had no energy at work every day. Then someone invited me to partner up and start a new company in agency sales. My daughter was starting school that year. I thought about sending her to a good school, maybe even abroad in the future. The conditions he offered were very good, so I agreed. I resigned and started a new company with him. At first, we relied on our connections and things went smoothly. Later, it boomed. I'm not bragging, not just saying it casually, it truly boomed. Whatever we sold as agents sold out. People in the industry said we were miraculous; whatever we sold became popular. Client orders, employer orders, they poured in like snowflakes. In just one year, our company expanded three times. We both thought we should go all out. As soon as the plan was set, he... he got into a car accident. Hit by a truck, the car was deformed, and he was... deformed too... Died on the spot."

"Mr. Zhang, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. It's just that thinking about it now, it's still terrifying. He was perfectly fine, and then he just suddenly died. Like... like those other people... Not just my wife, my uncle, within that year, my relatives... Sigh... Anyway, I've lost count of how many white envelopes I've given out."

"So, as your career developed, people around you kept passing away?"

"Yes, exactly! That's why I felt something was wrong! But if you say it's some kind of supernatural event... they all died very normally. I mean, look at my wife, it was so crowded that day, she fell, that's within the realm of possibility, right? And my uncle, he was a chain smoker, died of lung cancer, that's normal too, right? And my partner, a car accident, that's even more so. How many people have car accidents every day? But it just so happens that I keep encountering these things... It's not really me, it's the people around me who have had things happen to them these past few years. My... my daughter... just last month..."

"Mr. Zhang, what happened to your daughter?"

"She had food poisoning... and died... She was studying abroad, went out to eat with classmates, and then..."

"What about her classmates?"

"They were rescued. Her classmates were rescued, she... she..."

"Mr. Zhang, based on what you've described, it's indeed possible that it's just a coincidence."

"Is it really a coincidence?"

"Have you encountered anything strange? Like strange sounds, eerie figures, or perhaps dreamt of anything?"

"No. I felt uneasy when my partner died. I mean, this feeling of people constantly dying made me uncomfortable. I hired a feng shui master to take a look. The feng shui at home and in the company was fine. I even invited monks to chant scriptures. Look at this, these are prayer beads blessed on Mount Pushi. My daughter had a string too, but still... You're not the first person I've found. In five years, I've spent a lot of money on this, but people around me still keep dying, old, young, sick, accidental... Really, too many! If this continues, everyone around me will die off!"

"Did you do anything unusual before?"

"Huh?"

"Anything that might have provoked spirits, like visiting places with heavy yin energy, cemeteries, crematoriums, crime scenes..."

"I... I attended funerals, and held my wife's funeral, does that count?"

"According to your timeline, things started with that lottery win five years ago? Then if you provoked something, it should be counted from before that."

"Before... Nothing before. I didn't do anything. But things should have started from then. I never won the lottery before, and that client! That client was already preparing to buy from another company. I circled him for over half a month, wore down my lips talking to him! He treated me like a monkey! He had no intention of placing an order with me, I can be sure of that! When I found out he placed an order, I didn't believe it myself. I reread the contract several times, afraid to call him, just in case I made a mistake somewhere. If I called, he'd back out."

"Because of these two reasons, you think things started from then?"

"Yes."

"Can you recall what you did before you won the lottery? And have you had any unexpected financial windfalls before?"

"Really nothing. I've thought about it many times over the years. Before the lottery... before the lottery, it was quite ordinary. Went to work as usual, ran errands for clients, incredibly busy, no time for anything else."

"Did you buy any special items? Like old objects with a history, or anything that made you feel uncomfortable at first glance."

"No, nothing at all, absolutely nothing. I have no clue."

"In that case..."

"Mr. Zhang, when are you available? We'd like to visit your home and company. Have you moved in the last five years?"

"Yes. But I haven't sold my old house, I've rented it out. You can go see it if you want."

"Then please make the arrangements."

"Okay."

June 3, 2010, analyzing audio file. Audio file 06620100603G.wav.

"..."

"Mushroom, how is it?"

"No problems at all. The recorded sound is very clean, no strange occurrences."

"So it's not ghosts then?"

"It's probably just coincidence. If someone's having bad luck, there's nothing to be done."

"Does bad luck affect the people around them?"

"Boss, what do you think?"

"Not sure. Maybe... it's someone like me."

"Huh?"

"But you were born with it, weren't you? This only started five years ago. I still think it's coincidence. He was in his thirties then, and now he's in his forties. At this age, it's normal for people in your social circle to die."

"Check on those who died, and also check his financial situation. If it's a coincidence, there must be a limit."

"Understood."

June 7, 2010, investigation revealed that a total of 19 people in the client's social circle had died within the last five years, 8 from illness and 11 from accidents.

Attachment: Death List.

June 13, 2010, investigation into the client's financial situation, organized and compared. Found overlap with the death list. Every time a large sum of income was received, someone would die within two months. The frequency increased annually.

Attachment: Financial Statements and Comparison Report.

June 15, 2010. Visited the client's company and residence. Audio file 06620100615.wav.

"This is it."

"The house is very clean."

"Mhm. The tenants I find are usually quite good."

"I mean clean in the sense of no ghosts."

"Ah... about that, the previous few people I hired also mentioned something similar."

"Let's go take a look at where you're staying now."