Give Me Back What's Mine

Brother Liu was a cop. He wouldn't normally ignore a call.

But I called him several times, and he didn't answer any of them. On my last attempt, he switched his phone off outright.

Clearly, he was ignoring me on purpose. He was afraid of getting dragged into trouble.

The Seventh Master had been right. The influence rich people wielded was beyond anything ordinary folks like us could imagine.

Those two had barely been arrested, and Brother Liu was already cutting ties with me.

I couldn't count on him now. I would have to spend some money and find another connection.

I stayed at the guesthouse that night.

It wasn't that I didn't care. I had plenty to do next: run around looking for connections, and deal with the two ghosts, Li Xiumei and Du Yuwei, when they came looking for me.

So I needed to rest. Worrying myself sick wouldn't save my friends.

I had kept the two Ash Urns in my backpack without taking them out. I hadn't understood why the Seventh Master had told me to take them, but he must have had a good reason, so I needed to keep them safe.

Lying in bed, I was still worried about Meng Yifan and the Seventh Master, but before long, I fell asleep.

I slept lightly that night. I had no idea how long I'd been asleep when a sudden knock woke me.

I shot upright in bed, my first thought that the police had come to arrest me.

But I quickly came to my senses. If it really were the police, why would they bother knocking? Wouldn't they just come straight in and pin me down?

"Chen Mo, open up! You're sleeping pretty soundly, you bastard!"

I was stunned when I heard that voice.

It wasn't the police. It was Meng Yifan!

Holy shit!

Hadn't he been arrested along with the Seventh Master?

Could those security guards have decided not to call the police?

No, that didn't add up!

If the police hadn't arrested him, he should have called me right away.

How did he know I was at this guesthouse?

Suspicious, I jumped out of bed, walked to the door, and called out, "Meng Yifan, is that you?"

There was a brief pause outside before the reply came. "Who else would it be? You don't even recognize my voice anymore?"

"How did you know I was here?" I asked. "Where's the Seventh Master?"

The voice outside answered again. "Open the door first. I'll come in and tell you."

I didn't open the door. Instead, I quickly lay down on the floor.

There was a gap between the door and the floor. It wasn't big, but I could see the floor outside.

Reflected on it was a pair of red high heels.

At the sight of those red high heels, my scalp prickled with terror.

It was Du Yuwei!

She hadn't knocked on our door the previous two nights. The first night, Meng Yifan and I had been at the bathhouse. The second, we had summoned Li Xiumei's spirit and performed Fuji Divination, then spent the rest of the night at the hospital. I figured Du Yuwei hadn't dared to come because the Seventh Master was there.

After two nights without her showing up, I had almost forgotten about it.

Too frightened to speak, I lay frozen on the floor.

"Chen Mo, what are you doing? Open the door!"

It was still Meng Yifan's voice outside. He sounded impatient.

"Quit pretending!"

I worked up my courage and exposed the ghost outside. "Since when did Meng Yifan start wearing high heels? Du Yuwei, I know it's you. Stop pretending."

There was silence outside the door for a while. She said nothing more.

I figured she was embarrassed.

But then a bluish-purple face suddenly appeared in the gap beneath the door, along with half of a hate-filled eye glaring straight at me.

I sucked in a breath of terror and sprang to my feet.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The knocking started again.

Then an icy voice drifted in. "Give me back what's mine. Give me back what's mine."

"What things?" I cried in fear. "I didn't take anything from you!"

"Give me back what's mine. Give me back what's mine." She repeated the same words over and over.

My hair stood on end as I desperately tried to remember what I had taken from her.

Then it came to me: the two Ash Urns.

Those two Ash Urns contained the victims of the new round of the seven-death life exchange. They were essential to Du Yuwei's resurrection.

Now I finally understood why the Seventh Master had told me to take the two Ash Urns. They were important to Du Yuwei, and Du Ruhai was desperate to bring her back to life.

If I ultimately couldn't get the Seventh Master and Meng Yifan out, I could use the two Ash Urns to threaten Du Ruhai and force him to have them released.

That made the two Ash Urns my only bargaining chips. I couldn't hand them over.

I made up my mind not to give them to her. No matter how hard she knocked, I wouldn't answer again.

"Give me back what's mine. Give me back what's mine."

She kept repeating those words like a robot.

The sound made my ears ache.

But I had already noticed a pattern. No matter how much she knocked, she couldn't get in as long as I didn't open the door.

If she had a way to get inside, she wouldn't have been so polite about knocking.

It seemed the Seventh Master really had been right. Du Yuwei hadn't been dead long enough to have the power to come in and kill me.

I listened to that knocking for about three or four hours.

She alternated between knocking and repeating those words. The knocking didn't stop until dawn.

Knowing she had left, I went to the bathroom and washed my face.

When I looked in the mirror, I noticed that my complexion had gotten even worse.

I remembered what the Seventh Master had said. If Du Yuwei kept haunting us, even if all she did was knock on our door, one day Meng Yifan and I would fall asleep and never wake up.

After leaving the bathroom, I picked up my phone and called Xie Peng.

Xie Peng worked at our shop. Meng Yifan and I hadn't been there for several days.

When he answered, Xie Peng asked why I still hadn't come back to the shop and whether something had happened.

I didn't dare tell him much. I only asked whether the police had been by.

"The police? Why would they come here?" Xie Peng sounded worried. "Second Boss, what happened to you and the boss? How did you get mixed up with the police?"

I sighed. "We've run into some trouble. Don't ask too many questions for now. Tell the longtime employees to keep an eye on the shop. The boss and I probably won't be back for a while. If the police come asking questions, just answer honestly."

Xie Peng fell silent for a few seconds. "Then what do I say if they ask whether you've called me...?"

I thought it over. "Tell them the truth about that too. None of this has anything to do with you guys anyway. But if the police want you to trick me into coming out, cough once at the start when you call me."

"Okay, I understand," Xie Peng said. "There's something else... Fang Man is back. She's been asking about you..."

I immediately frowned.

Fang Man was my girlfriend. Her grandmother had passed away a little while ago, and she had taken leave to go back to her hometown for the funeral.

If she was looking for me now, I wouldn't dare go see her.

I was in so much trouble. What if I went to see her and dragged her into it?

But then something else occurred to me. I remembered that one of Fang Man's relatives was a cop too.

Now that Brother Liu had cut ties with me, I had to find a way to get Meng Yifan and the Seventh Master out.

It looked like I would have to go see Fang Man after all.