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Dedao Hall.
Qian Fugui hid behind the door, craning his neck to look outside.
As the police car drove past, he felt a little guilty. Reporting a colleague wasn’t illegal, but it was morally reprehensible.
It wasn’t easy for the little girl to make a living; he had directly overturned her rice bowl. This didn’t seem right.
But on second thought, obeying the law is the basic duty of every citizen.
His teacher had taught him in school to find the police officer when encountering difficulties; he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Qian Fugui patted his chest, and the guilt disappeared. He closed the door and went home.
He took out his key to open the door; it was pitch black inside.
An inexplicable chill swept over him, and his chubby body trembled involuntarily.
Qian Fugui rubbed his arms. “Strange, the weather suddenly turned cold. I’ll take a hot bath and go to sleep.”
He turned on the light; the white light spilled onto the floor, and a cold breeze poured into the room, as if a wild beast was lurking inside.
Qian Fugui closed the door and rushed into the bathroom.
The hot water on his body finally made him feel less cold.
He hummed a song, “A Thousand Years of Waiting, I Have No Regrets…”
Suddenly, the lights went out.
Qian Fugui froze, the “ah” sound stuck in his throat.
The next second, the lights came back on, then went out again.
The overhead lights flickered on and off, as if they were at a disco.
A short circuit?
Qian Fugui shivered, feeling the water getting colder. He used the showerhead to rinse off the foam and prepared to call the property management.
As he turned his head, he was met with a blurry face.
The skin was as pale as paper, with two bright red spots on the cheeks, like a pool of blood spread on the paper.
Those eerie eyes stared straight at him, a creepy smile spreading across the corner of its mouth.
“Holy crap!”
Qian Fugui instinctively dropped the showerhead and clamped his legs tightly.
When he opened his eyes again, everything just now seemed like an illusion; there was no strange face, the lights weren’t flickering, and the showerhead was still in his hand.
A bone-chilling chill spread throughout his body. Qian Fugui said incredulously, “This, this… Did I just drop the showerhead?”
“Hallucination, it’s all a hallucination!”
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; there are no ghosts in the world.”
Qian Fugui kept comforting himself, rinsed off the foam, and ran barefoot into the bedroom.
Dedao Hall had been open for so long, and he had never encountered a ghost.
Those people were either scaring themselves or mistaken.
Qian Fugui got into bed and felt much warmer.
Gradually, he fell asleep.
“Hee hee hee, we’re here to catch you.”
“Ah! No! Don’t chase me!!”
Qian Fugui ran desperately forward, a large group of paper figures chasing him from behind.
The paper figures held various weapons—knives, guns, axes, grenades, Gatling guns…
Woo woo woo, it’s over if they catch me!
A gentle light appeared at the intersection ahead, and Qian Fugui’s eyes widened. “An exit, it must be an exit.”
He scrambled forward, and after a dizzying turn, he looked up and saw a sea of crimson blood.
The walls, floor, ceiling, everywhere was covered with dense blood handprints.
A paper figure in a red wedding dress giggled, staring at him. “Hee hee, Fugui, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Stay and become my groom, hee hee!”
“Ah——!”
Qian Fugui struggled, trying to crawl back, but his feet were grabbed and pulled back.
He opened his eyes and saw countless red paper figures rushing towards him.
Qian Fugui couldn’t move.
“This is a dream, it’s a dream…”
He pinched himself forcefully but couldn’t muster any strength.
Despair, suffocation, helplessness; this time, it’s over…
At the last moment, he woke up.
Qian Fugui wiped the cold sweat from his brow. “Thank goodness it was a dream.”
Suddenly, he realized something was wrong. “No! I should be in bed; why am I sleeping in the corridor?”
“Hee hee hee…”
The familiar sound exploded in his ears, and Qian Fugui’s scalp tingled. He ran desperately forward.
“Is this a dream or reality?!”
Qian Fugui and the paper figures played a game of “chase and escape” all night; he couldn’t distinguish between reality and dreams.
Every time he heard “hee hee hee” and saw paper, he reacted with fear.
“Ah——!”
Qian Fugui woke up for the forty-ninth time, saw the sunlight outside the window, and cried happily.
“Mama, I’m finally back, back!”
He ran barefoot straight to the antique street.
Seeing Lin Xi was like seeing his own mother.
Qian Fugui shouted at the top of his lungs, “Master Lin, save me, save me!!”
Lin Xi sat on her small stool. “Master Qian, what are you doing in such a rush early in the morning?”
“I’m not the Master; you are.”
Qian Fugui swallowed. “Master Lin, I saw a ghost. Please save me. I have an eighty-year-old mother above me and three-year-old children below…”
Lin Xi interrupted his nonsense. “Your parents passed away long ago. You’ve never been married and don’t have any children.”
Qian Fugui’s toes curled into the ground.
Bad! He had gotten used to fooling people; he blurted out that line again.
He chuckled awkwardly. “Master Lin, I’ve offended you several times before; please don’t mind.”
Lin Xi stared at him. “Which several times?”
Qian Fugui quickly apologized. “The time with Wu De, and last time… It was all me. I truly deserve to die. I’m narrow-minded and have acted like a villain.”
“I’m sorry, Master Lin.”
Lin Xi looked at him with a smile. “Is that all?”
Qian Fugui met her calm gaze, breaking out in a cold sweat.
The onlookers whispered among themselves.
“Fugui, you forgot about yesterday. If you hadn’t reported her, how could Master Lin have gone to the police station?”
Qian Fugui was shocked.
Finished! She knew about this too!
It was clearly the blond young man who called the police, but she actually guessed it.
At this moment, Qian Fugui deeply regretted calling the police.
Countless gazes fell upon him, and Qian Fugui’s legs went weak. He knelt down with a thud, tears gushing forth.
“Master Lin, I was wrong, woo woo…”
The 1.8-meter-tall, 180-pound man cried like a child, his nose twitching.
Lin Xi didn’t expect him to cry.
Last night, Xiao Jin and Xiao Tu volunteered to scare Qian Fugui. She didn’t know what the two little paper figures had done, but they scared him like this.
Lin Xi said, “Get up. Shut up. Don’t cry.”
Qian Fugui covered his mouth, quietly comforting himself.
“No crying, no crying, Fugui don’t cry.”
Lin Xi found this hilarious. “Fugui, you won’t see ghosts anymore. Don’t do things behind my back in the future. If you have any problems, come find me to fight it out.”
Qian Fugui shook his head like a rattle. “No, no, Master Lin, from now on, you’re my boss, the boss of the entire antique street.”
Lin Xi said calmly, “I don’t take underlings. You can go home.”
Qian Fugui refused to leave. “Master Lin, can you give me a peace talisman?”
Lin Xi glanced at him. “I just told you that you won’t see ghosts anymore; your life is long.”
“Then I’m not leaving.”
Qian Fugui tugged at his waistband, stepped to the side, and looked at the sun above, smiling foolishly.
Being with Master Lin, even the sunlight felt warmer.
Lin Xi ignored him and continued fortune-telling.
A man in a suit forcefully pushed his way in, his attitude arrogant. “Mr. Wang wants to see you. Come with me.”
Lin Xi didn’t look up. “Go to the back of the line to get your fortune told; if you’re not here for that, get lost.”
The man frowned. “Do you know who Mr. Wang is?”
Lin Xi said calmly, “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
“You!”
The man reached out to grab her, but Qian Fugui stepped forward. “Are you deaf? Master Lin said, line up.”
“Go, go, go, to the back.”
The man stared at the fat man in front of him, his tone impatient. “Who are you?”
Qian Fugui lifted his chin, puffed out his chest, and snorted disdainfully.
“Coming to the antique street and not inquiring about the reputation of Qian Banxian (Qian, the Half-Immortal)?”