Poverty Ghost

"This time my commission came from a Qi Refining Stage cultivator who has been entangled by a poverty ghost."

"Poverty ghosts aren't too rare; there were plenty of them in ancient times. Spending a long time around a poverty ghost will cause misfortune to cling to you and leave you destitute. The seniors of Dragon-Tiger Mountain even formulated specialized talismans to deal with poverty ghosts."

Zhou You asked in confusion, "Then how..."

Su Tingxue sighed, "I accepted the commission thinking it was the same as before, and agreed without even thinking."

"However, the poverty ghost encountered this time has new changes. The old talismans don't work, and it's fiercer than the ancient ones. Spending a short time together brings misfortune, cash vanishes into thin air, and mobile phones automatically shop for useless things and process automatic payments."

"Since ghosts are invisible, the poverty ghost used his phone to buy a lot of useless things. By the time the items were delivered to his home, that cultivator realized he was entangled by a poverty ghost. When he wanted to request a return, he found the return button was malfunctioning."

"What did he buy?" Zhou You asked curiously.

"The air of the Tibetan Plateau."

Zhou You: "..."

"I lacked experience yesterday when dealing with the poverty ghost and didn't realize it was a new type of poverty ghost. I also fell for it and bought useless things."

"What did you buy?"

"Albert Einstein's brain."

Zhou You tried hard to press his lips together and hold back, recalling the dark history of falling ill together with Chu Xiaoyao in junior high school, before managing to keep from laughing out loud.

Thinking of yesterday's ghost-busting experience, the corners of Su Tingxue's eyes twitched. The ghost wasn't eliminated, half her money was gone, and it was only thanks to her text message alerts that she noticed it in time and made an emergency retreat.

If she kept exorcising ghosts, she would be completely penniless.

This money wasn't given by her family, but earned through hard work helping people subdue demons and devils. Her bicycle, Nuomi rice balls, and shaved ice were all bought with this kind of money.

The disappearance of half her savings broke her heart.

"Automatic payments are one thing, but according to that cultivator, the poverty ghost can even make you take out automatic loans, borrowing money on various apps to buy useless things. That cultivator is already heavily in debt."

Zhou You grew nervous. Taking on loan debt was no small matter.

"You don't need to worry about the loans. Both of us are minors and can't take out loans; we can't even get past the loan app screening stage. The poverty ghost isn't powerful enough to break through to that extent and force the two of us to take out loans."

Su Tingxue reassured Zhou You, otherwise she wouldn't have asked him for help.

She had thought it over and over, and Zhou You fit best: a minor, a cultivator, able to see ghosts, and broke.

"That's good."

Zhou You thought about it and accepted the task, arranging with Su Tingxue to ask for leave during tomorrow evening's self-study session and set off, then hung up the phone.

The business of dealing with ghosts felt quite fun. Senior year of high school was so bitter, he ought to find some amusement.

However, Su Tingxue was wrong about one thing.

He wasn't broke as Su Tingxue guessed. Just like Nuomi, he had his own Little Treasury. According to Su Tingxue, when they went to deal with the poverty ghost, the money in his Little Treasury would probably vanish.

Thinking of this, he pulled open the drawer. A fifty-yuan bill lay quietly inside.

The next morning, Zhou You saw Chu Xiaoyao and swaggeringly slapped the fifty-yuan bill onto the desk, full of heroic spirit.

"What do you want to eat? Today only, my treat."

Rather than waiting for the poverty ghost to drain the money in his Little Treasury, he might as well indulge a little, go to the cafeteria and buy two fried chicken legs, or go to the school store to buy a novel and spend this fifty yuan.

Chu Xiaoyao looked at Zhou You incredulously, a bad premonition rising within her. "You aren't thinking of doing something drastic, are you? Who bullied you? I'll go back you up. Don't look at me like I have no cultivation right now; if I really have to make a move, I have ways."

Hearing this, Nuomi wailed, "Sect Master, don't die! If you die... oh, if you die, you'll just be like me."

Zhao Zhou turned his head, saw the fifty-yuan bill, and was extremely shocked. "Holy crap, fifty yuan! Youzi, we can't do anything illegal!"

Zhou You: "..."

I just took out fifty yuan, is there any need for this?

Fine, fifty yuan really was a huge sum of money; the meal allowance his family gave him was only twenty-five yuan a day.

Zhou You thought that after he graduated and found a good job making fifty or a hundred a day, that would be sheer bliss.

Seeing everyone misunderstanding, Zhou You had no choice but to tell Chu Xiaoyao and Nuomi that he was going to deal with a poverty ghost. It was Chu Xiaoyao's first time hearing of such a thing as a poverty ghost.

"Do you think a poverty ghost is edible?" Zhou You sought guidance from the mighty expert.

The mighty expert widened her eyes and warned, "You dare eat this ghost? Aren't you afraid of turning into a poverty ghost after eating it? Be careful of ending up in the same state as the Hungry Ghost Path Master."

"Alright."

Zhou You often missed the taste of the Sight-Obscuring Ghost; it seemed he wouldn't have the culinary luck this time.

Next, he had to consider how to spend this massive fortune of fifty yuan.

"Why don't you lend me this fifty yuan? I'll pay you back after dealing with the poverty ghost!" Chu Xiaoyao came up with a method.

"Will that work?" Zhou You felt it wouldn't be so easy to exploit loopholes, otherwise why wouldn't Su Tingxue have done that?

"Mere poverty ghosts, don't even think about stealing a single cent from this seat!" Chu Xiaoyao patted her chest in guarantee.

"Don't worry, Sect Master! I'll help keep watch too!" Nuomi also mimicked Chu Xiaoyao and patted her chest in guarantee.

Zhou You looked at the human and the ghost speaking with such absolute certainty-one a Female Emperor left with only memories and temporarily unable to cultivate, the other a timid female ghost-and felt extremely unconfident about this fifty-yuan bill.

"Forget it." Zhou You didn't care whether this fifty-yuan bill could be protected or not; if it couldn't be guarded, he would just treat it as spent on the two of them.

He would make Su Tingxue reimburse the losses then.

When evening arrived, Zhou You and Su Tingxue met at the school gates. Su Tingxue was quite surprised when she saw Zhou You.

"Why do you have so many mosquito bites on you?"

Are mosquitoes living on you?

Zhou You smiled brightly, his tone carrying a hint of showmanship. This was a cultivation method he had comprehended himself: "I'm practicing body refinement."

Su Tingxue's face turned cold as she tilted her head, full of question marks.

What kind of body refinement method is this?

Could it be that this was Perfected Lord Wenchang's exclusive body refinement technique, getting bitten by mosquitoes every day?

Legend had it that Hu Weiyong, the last grand secretary of the Ming Dynasty, was bitten to death by mosquitoes in a single night. Could Perfected Lord Wenchang have drawn inspiration from this?

It was almost reasonable.

The place they were going to this time was rather far, so Su Tingxue chose to take a taxi.

The destination was a mid-range residential community from over a decade ago. As all these years had passed, the community looked quite ordinary, and even dilapidated in some places.

Downstairs, a slovenly young man in his early twenties was scrolling through videos while waiting for the two of them. He counted as the second cultivator Zhou You knew.

Seeing the two of them as if seeing saviors, his eyes lit up and he offered a proper bow.

"Fellow Daoist Su, we meet again. Is this the fellow daoist you mentioned who specializes in dealing with poverty ghosts?"

Su Tingxue nodded.

The slovenly young man bowed once more. "Kong Fan of the Green Ox Temple greets Fellow Daoist."

Zhou You imitated him and returned the greeting in a proper manner. "Zhou You of the Carefree Sect greets Fellow Daoist Kong."

Zhou You nodded inwardly; this self-introduction looked much more decent than before.

If he hadn't founded the Carefree Sect, his self-introduction would have become "Zhou You of Class Three, Senior Year, No. 2 Middle School greets Fellow Daoist Kong."

It felt completely different.

Zhou You didn't introduce himself as the Sect Master; his cultivation was too low, and saying it out loud would disgrace the Carefree Sect.

Carefree Sect? Never heard of it, Kong Fan thought to himself.

Their Green Ox Temple was a small sect, and the sect master was only at the early Foundation Establishment Stage, incomparable to top major sects like Dragon-Tiger Mountain.

Yesterday Su Tingxue had come to help, only to return in defeat, saying before she left that she was going to find a helper.

Since Fellow Daoist Zhou had been invited by that Su Tingxue of Dragon-Tiger Mountain, his background must be quite significant. Could he be from a secluded sect?

"I ask Fellow Daoist Zhou to lend a helping hand. That poverty ghost is hiding in my house." Kong Fan was somewhat excited; the sooner that poverty ghost was resolved, the sooner he could have peace of mind.

"The poverty ghost is right in your house? It doesn't go anywhere else?" Zhou You asked, worried that the poverty ghost would escape through the walls while they were trying to catch it, making it hard to handle.

"It can't leave. The poverty ghost is the previous homeowner; after dying, it was trapped in the house. I taught the real estate agent a lesson, and only then did he tell the truth!"

Kong Fan said with bitter resentment. He had suspected there was a problem with the house early on, but the agent refused to admit it. He wasn't someone who liked using violence, but this time he really had no choice. The poverty ghost had swindled him out of his money and left him in debt, and he was even prepared to eat leftovers at McDonald's. He had resorted to a cultivator's methods of interrogation and torture to teach the agent a lesson, and only then discovered the poverty ghost's identity.

"During its lifetime, that poverty ghost saw other people starting businesses and making big money, and grew envious, following suit to start a business of its own. Before paying off its mortgage and car loan, it was tricked into spending four hundred thousand in franchise fees to open a brand-name-knockoff milk tea shop in a small county town. Its wife tried to stop it, advising it for ages, but with no other choice, she took their son and divorced him. Unsurprisingly, the milk tea shop suffered a total loss."

"Then it survived by borrowing money on various loan apps, borrowing everything it possibly could. Every month it shuffled money back and forth, robbing Peter to pay Paul, until at the end it had nothing left to borrow."

"Later, seeing other people make money playing the stock market, it wanted to make a comeback through stocks, and lost its parents' retirement funds as well."

"Refusing to accept defeat, it mortgaged its house and car to gamble in a casino, running up a mountain of debt, and finally committed suicide inside the house."

"Who would have thought its resentment would be monstrous, turning into a poverty ghost after death? Anyone who comes close to it gets cursed by it."