I tiptoed to the counter, took out two chairs with backs and put them together, then took off my coat and folded it into a pillow.

Sleeping was definitely not easy, but it was bearable.

After I finished tidying up, I closed the shop door and, as usual, lit incense for the ancestral master.

Looking down at the turtle shell submerged in the water, my face was reflected in the water.

But a few wrinkles, not belonging to me, have appeared at the corners of my eyes.

It seems like I've gotten older.

It's not just a feeling, it's a feeling that I've really gotten older.

I am one step closer to death.

Perhaps Yuan Ying wasn't really tired and just wanted to sleep there.

Maybe she's afraid I'll die tonight.

I feel only deep gratitude for this middle-aged woman who wholeheartedly helped me but refused to take me as her apprentice, bearing everything in her own heart.

...

Before dawn the next day, there was a sudden loud bang in the shop.

I put on my coat and went to open the door. A young woman of about twenty-four or twenty-five years old squeezed through the crack in the door, carrying a cloth bag in her hand.

She looked vaguely familiar to me; she was quite pretty, but it seemed like we were meeting for the first time.

Her hair was disheveled, she was clutching a blood-soaked cloth bag, and her lips trembled when she saw me.

"Excuse me, could you..."

Before I could finish speaking, she grabbed my hand, her eyes red-rimmed: "Grandpa, I...I saw a ghost."

grandfather?

When I heard her shout that, I almost didn't react.

I paused for two seconds before realizing she was talking to me.

Yuan Ying appeared behind me at some point, holding a freshly boiled talisman water in her hand. Her gaze fell on the cloth bag that the woman was clutching tightly: "Xiuxiu, come in first and close the door."

Xiuxiu?

I looked at the woman in front of me with surprise.

Is she the daughter of Bald Old Man San?