The Natives of This World Are So Fierce - Chapter 4: The Real Thing and the Strange Kid
For about two minutes, Qin Xiaoxia's head was filled with one thought: Is it a gold coin? Is it a gold coin?
Only then did it dawn on him.
This thing had come out from under his own pillow!
Obviously, he couldn't have put it there himself, and it certainly couldn't have been Old Qin's. Besides, he had changed the pillowcase and sheets just a few days ago. It absolutely had to have been put there recently-there was even a ninety percent chance it had happened last night!
At that thought, Qin Xiaoxia suddenly shivered again, unsure whether he was cold or simply frightened.
He hurried back to the bed and got dressed, then went around the whole house checking every nook and cranny before inspecting the doors and windows one by one.
They were basically all still locked from the inside, just as he had left them last night. There was no sign at all that anyone had come in from outside.
Unless it wasn't human at all!
"Hiss..."
As he sucked in a breath, an even stronger shudder sent tingles all the way from his feet to his head.
But the terror he had worked himself into lasted only a few seconds before the hefty piece of gold in his hand shattered it.
"If it really is a gold coin, that might not be so bad..."
The workers installing the cameras arrived at noon, while the door lock had already been replaced that morning.
Qin Xiaoxia might have said it wasn't so bad, but his actions told a different story.
Nobody wanted people to be able to enter their home whenever they pleased. In a situation like this, installing cameras to record what happened was definitely necessary.
Besides, plenty of horror movies showed cameras capturing ghosts and other nasty things, didn't they? Even if that was nonsense, it could at least offer some comfort.
The surveillance system was much cheaper than he had expected. Including installation, the three cameras cost only about a thousand yuan, well within his budget.
Once everything was finished, he ordered a pizza and wrestled with a question as he ate.
Should he find a professional to appraise this thing that both felt and looked like a gold coin?
He had tried several authentication methods he found online. Only its hardness seemed slightly off, though that might have been because he was afraid to use too much force and spoil the "gold coin's" appearance.
After all, what if it was an antique? And gold alloys did exist.
But that raised another problem.
What if this gold coin was stolen property, and its owner was looking for it or had even reported it to the police? Wouldn't taking it in for appraisal mean walking straight into the mess that damned petty thief had left him?
It would look incriminating no matter what. Even if he eventually cleared things up, it would still leave a stain on his life!
Deep down, Qin Xiaoxia was already mostly convinced it was a gold coin, and he absolutely wanted to keep it.
If he picked up a wallet on the street, he might consider returning it to its owner. But something that had fallen out from under his own pillow? Why would he refuse it?
He searched endlessly online for reports of stolen gold or antiques, and even checked the Ministry of Public Security's website for related wanted notices, but found nothing.
After wavering until lunch was over, Qin Xiaoxia, whose curiosity was clawing at him, finally gave in to temptation and decided to have it appraised at a pawnshop.
An hour and a half later, he was in an ordinary pawnshop in Kehua District, a dozen or so kilometers from Qing Town.
The middle-aged appraiser studied the gold coin for a long time, examining its lettering through a magnifying glass and shining a small flashlight over its patterns. Qin Xiaoxia's confidence grew considerably as he watched.
Though he was no expert, he knew that professionals could easily tell whether gold was genuine. They generally wouldn't spend this long examining the other details of a fake.
After a long wait, the appraiser, whose surname was Lu, finally put down his tools and turned the gold coin over in his hands, looking reluctant to let it go.
"Mr. Qin, this is a genuine gold coin, and it wasn't made using ordinary pure-gold minting methods. It should be a special alloy that gives it a brighter color and greater hardness, but its gold content is definitely above eighteen karats."
"Oh, good! That's good!"
Qin Xiaoxia was now smiling both inside and out.
"Mr. Qin, if you don't mind my asking, where did you get this gold coin?"
Qin Xiaoxia's heart skipped a beat. Choosing his words carefully, he answered with a question.
"Why? I found it in my late grandfather's trunk."
The appraiser had evidently encountered plenty of situations like this and quickly waved a hand.
"Please don't misunderstand, Mr. Qin. There's nothing wrong with the coin. It's just that I don't recognize the writing on it!"
"It's foreign writing. You can't know every language, can you?"
Qin Xiaoxia relaxed and teased the appraiser.
"You're right, Mr. Qin, but not entirely. Of course I can't read every script in the world, but as a professional appraiser, I'm confident I can identify which script something belongs to. This one, however, I've never seen. Either it isn't writing at all, just a special pattern, or it's a script that's never been discovered."
At that, the appraiser smiled too. The coin's lines were delicate and unusual, and combined with the alloy technique, it was most likely a modern custom creation. The markings were probably just fanciful decorative engraving. He was, however, quite curious about the craftsman capable of minting such a coin.
Unfortunately, this customer named Qin didn't seem inclined to say more.
"Mr. Qin, if you'd like to sell it, we can buy it by weight at the current domestic retail price of gold. We could also sell it on your behalf. What do you think?"
People who brought things to pawnshops generally had some intention of selling them, but Qin Xiaoxia had no plans to sell for now. He said he would think about it and left.
He had barely stepped outside when a text notification sounded in his pocket. He took out his phone and instinctively tapped the message.
It was an advertisement for a mobile-plan discount. But as he was about to put his phone away, he caught sight of the newly installed live surveillance app on the screen.
Suddenly, he couldn't resist the urge to open it.
It would only use a little data anyway. Still excited by the novelty, Qin Xiaoxia immediately opened the surveillance feed.
After ten-odd seconds of loading and connecting, the footage appeared on his phone in three separate panes.
Live views of the entrance, living room, and kitchen came into sight.
"Holy shit!"
The instant the picture became clear, Qin Xiaoxia couldn't help swearing.
The living-room feed showed someone who looked like a small child wandering around.
Fuck, there really is someone! And it's a kid!
He had only meant to check how well the cameras worked and hadn't been remotely prepared to see the "thief." Yet he had hit the jackpot on his very first try.
The child wore a strange gray hat, like a shabby gray version of a Santa hat. His clothes looked so filthy that their style was impossible to make out.
He was barefoot, and the exposed skin of his arms and feet looked a little odd. Perhaps he was simply too dirty, or perhaps it was the camera's image quality, but his skin seemed somewhat gray.
He never raised his face toward the overhead camera, and with that hat in the way, Qin Xiaoxia couldn't see it.
The fellow wandered all over Qin Xiaoxia's living room, jumping onto the sofa one moment and crawling under the table the next, having a grand time all by himself.
Before long, he left the living-room camera's field of view, only to appear in the kitchen right away.
As Qin Xiaoxia watched in puzzlement, the little thief nervously touched the refrigerator, then immediately leaped away.
That leap carried him nearly a meter and a half-quite astonishing for the tiny figure on the screen.
What's this guy doing? Is the fridge giving off electric shocks?
For a moment, the movement made Qin Xiaoxia forget how infuriating the little thief was. He wondered what the boy was doing.
A dozen seconds later, the little thief cautiously approached the refrigerator again and poked its door twice with a filthy hand. Only after seeing no reaction did he boldly stand in front of it.
Qin Xiaoxia grew even more confused. What on earth was this guy doing?
His curiosity even made him forget to call the police.
He waited nearly a full minute. Just as Qin Xiaoxia was about to lose patience, the little thief seemed to muster his courage and pulled the refrigerator door open with both hands.
Then the little thief himself leaped even farther away.
What remote backwater did he come from? He's scared of a refrigerator?
No sooner had that question occurred to Qin Xiaoxia than the little thief seemed to recover, walked up to the refrigerator, and took out his leftover pizza.
He held a slice in front of himself, apparently sniffing it. Over the next half minute, the little thief devoured all the remaining pizza at a speed that left Qin Xiaoxia dumbfounded, and even remembered to put the box back in the fridge.
He must have been starving. Qin Xiaoxia felt a flicker of sympathy and even considered not calling the police.
But the next moment, Qin Xiaoxia was furious again.
After eating, the little thief wandered around the kitchen briefly, then went into the bedroom. When he came out, he was holding something blue and black.
Holy shit, the little thief took my keyboard! Call the police! Call the police!
But his anger lasted less than five seconds before his body went rigid.
He hadn't known how the little thief had mysteriously appeared, but now he understood. After hiding the keyboard beneath the refrigerator, the little thief simply vanished.
He disappeared into thin air, without turning into smoke or producing any teleportation effects. He was gone so suddenly that it was as though he had never existed.
Holy shit! Is this really a fucking ghost?!
How was he supposed to call the police now? Tell them his house was haunted, and that the ghost liked hiding his things every few days for him to find?
Oh, and it had given him a gold coin as a reward.
At that thought, Qin Xiaoxia froze again. He stopped in a quiet corner by the road and discreetly took out the gold coin for another look.
The coin glittered in the sunlight with an almost intoxicating radiance.
It feels like this little thieving ghost is playing with me, then giving me a reward afterward?
Looking at it that way, he doesn't seem malicious. He's actually kind of cute!
Then another realization struck Qin Xiaoxia. Could ghosts eat his pizza? At any rate, he had never seen that in all those supernatural movies and stories.
Qin Xiaoxia had been growing afraid to go home, yet now, for some inexplicable reason, he felt the urge to head straight back.
Perhaps, at heart, he had a soul that craved the unusual and the exciting.