(two)
Zhou Ziqiu arrived at Liu Mei's door at 10 o'clock sharp. Her home was in an old residential area in Luoqi City, and the dilapidated stairwell was covered with small advertisements.
Zhou Ziqiu knocked on the door three times.
The door creaked open, revealing a middle-aged man behind it. Zhou Ziqiu guessed he was Liu Mei's husband and nodded, saying, "Hello."
The man had thick eyebrows and looked fierce. When he opened the door and saw that it was someone he didn't recognize, he asked in a not-so-friendly tone, "Who are you?"
Zhou Ziqiu raised an eyebrow and replied, "I am from the Wish Pavilion."
"I don't know him." The man made a move to close the door, but Liu Mei, who had heard the noise in the kitchen, quickly came out and stopped him from closing the door. "He's the person I'm looking for. Let me handle this." As she spoke, she bent down and got Zhou Ziqiu a pair of slippers.
"The person you're looking for? Who is it? If you bring any more shady characters, I'll break your legs."
Zhou Ziqiu paused in his act of bending down to put on his shoes.
Liu Mei quickly laughed it off, saying, "Master, don't listen to his nonsense, come in quickly." At the same time, she said to the man in a voice she thought Zhou Ziqiu couldn't hear, "Shut the hell up, this is a real master."
The man glanced at Zhou Ziqiu and sneered, "If someone so young can become a master, then I must be his ancestor."
Zhou Ziqiu didn't explain anything and stepped into Liu Mei's home. He glanced around briefly. Liu Mei's home was simple and old, but full of life.
"Master, do you think the offerings I bought are alright?" Liu Mei pointed to the meat and vegetables on the table.
After looking at it, Zhou Ziqiu said, "The pork and mutton can be kept, but the beef should not be put on the table."
Liu Mei quickly agreed, but her husband looked at Zhou Ziqiu with disdain, quietly watching him pretend to know what he was talking about.
"Master, what are these things you asked me to buy... for?" Liu Mei asked, puzzled. If they were offerings for the deceased, they wouldn't be needed after the funeral.
Zhou Ziqiu placed the offerings on the altar, looked at the kind face of the old man on the altar, and answered Liu Mei's question: "Tonight is the night the soul returns."
"What 'night of returning souls'? It's all a lie," Liu Mei's husband muttered under his breath. Liu Mei quickly nudged him with her elbow.
Zhou Ziqiu pretended not to hear anything, sighed as he looked at the empty incense burner on the altar, picked up the incense sticks placed to the side, lit them, and inserted them into the incense burner in the order of center, right, and left.
Liu Mei's face flushed slightly; her own father needed someone else to put incense in his burner.
"I've been busy with my son lately and haven't had time to..." Liu Mei stammered as she explained.
"Tonight is the night of the returning soul. Deceased relatives in the family will return home between midnight and 11 pm," Zhou Ziqiu explained to the two.
"So what should we do?" Liu Mei asked, rubbing her hands nervously.
"wait."
"wait?"
Zhou Ziqiu nodded: "Wait for the moment of the soul's return. Also, no living people can be in the house on the night of the soul's return."
Upon hearing this, Liu Mei's husband suddenly became aggressive: "What nonsense! This is my own home! Why can't I be here?!"
Zhou Ziqiu remained silent, only looking at Liu Mei.
Liu Mei hesitated for a moment and asked, "Master, could you explain this?"
Zhou Ziqiu nodded: "Because if there are living people in the house, ghosts won't come in if they hear the noise. Also, your birth chart is very weak, making you prone to encountering these things. Although it won't cause any harm, it's still not good for a living person to encounter a ghost."
Liu Mei gritted her teeth, looking at the young man in front of her. Although he was young, he was very composed. Moreover, just because he had offered incense to her father, she was willing to trust him.
"Okay. Let's leave."
The man was puzzled when he saw that Liu Mei had actually agreed, and he scolded her sharply, "You long-haired, short-witted old hag, what do you know!"
In the past, if Liu Mei were scolded like this, she would no longer disobey her man, but now, she didn't know where the courage came from, and Liu Mei finally retorted: "You motherfucker! I've been busy with Yangyang's things these past few days and haven't been home, and you haven't even helped me light incense for my father! I'm telling you right now, you fucking get out of here!"
When the man saw that Liu Mei dared to resist him, he reached out to hit her, but his hand was grabbed by a slender, fair hand with distinct knuckles.
Zhou Ziqiu had somehow appeared beside him.
The man tried to pull his hand away, but he didn't expect that although the boy looked thin, he was surprisingly strong. Even he, a grown man who did manual labor every day, couldn't break free.
“Violence is unacceptable,” Zhou Ziqiu sighed and said softly.
The man glared at Zhou Ziqiu and pulled his hand back. Zhou Ziqiu released his hand, and only then did the man realize that his hand had gone numb from Zhou Ziqiu's grip. He shook his numb hand, slammed the door shut in embarrassment, and left.
Liu Mei looked at Zhou Ziqiu apologetically and said, "I'm so sorry, Master, for making you see all this."
Zhou Ziqiu shook his head and said, "It's nothing."
Despite saying that, Liu Mei saw that Zhou Ziqiu showed no intention of leaving and asked suspiciously, "Didn't you say there shouldn't be any strangers in the house? Master, why are you..."
"I need to stay and help your child's soul return to its rightful place."
Liu Mei understood, bowed to thank him, and was about to leave home when Zhou Ziqiu suddenly stopped her and asked her a question she couldn't understand.
Do you want to see your father off on his final journey?
........
About half an hour later.
As Zhou Ziqiu sat in front of the altar with his eyes closed, he suddenly felt the temperature drop and a dark, damp smell waft through the air.
He opened his eyes, his dark pupils glancing at the clock on the wall beside him; it was exactly eleven o'clock at midnight.
At the same time, the laughter of children could be heard outside the door, as if they were talking to the adults around them about the things they had seen while playing outside. Along with this, an old man's aged voice was responding to the children's words.
As they were talking, the toddler and the old man walked through the door and went inside.
Zhou Ziqiu stared blankly at the old man and the child. The two ghosts were also stunned as they looked at Zhou Ziqiu in the house, not understanding why a stranger had come to their home.
Zhou Ziqiu was the first to stand up and explain, "I was entrusted by Liu Mei to come and help her child return to life."
The child being led by the old man didn't understand Zhou Ziqiu's words, but the old man did: "This, this is all my fault. I took the child away without thinking about the consequences. This, this is really a big thank you."
Zhou Ziqiu shook his head, looking at the puzzled toddler, and said, "How could that be? I think your grandson must really enjoy being with you."
The little boy didn't understand what his grandfather and the older boy were talking about, but he understood what the older boy said. He nodded vigorously and said in his tender, clear voice, "Grandpa, I really like being with you!"
A simple sentence seemed to touch the old man's heart, and he suddenly burst into tears. Bloody tears flowed from his dark eyes, dripping down but disappearing midway.
He choked up and said, "You don't know, Yangyang's parents are both busy with work. I couldn't bear to leave Yangyang alone at home, so I took him in and raised him when he was very young. But when he was old enough to go to elementary school, Xiaomei took him away from me. I miss my grandson every day. Xiaomei and her husband argue every day, and I'm even more worried about Yangyang. I... I just want to see him more..."
The old man lowered his head, his transparent hand touching the child's face, but he was now a ghost, and ghosts have no physical form, so his hand could only pass through the child's face in vain.
The toddler quickly wiped away the old man's tears, calling out indistinctly, "Grandpa...Grandpa..."
Tears streamed down the old man's empty eyes. Though a ghost, he still retained human emotions, and even in death, he still had things he cared about: "I can't let go of Yangyang, and I can't let go of Xiaomei. I felt so sad watching Xiaomei argue with her husband for my and Yangyang's sake. That man is a scoundrel. He dragged his feet on Xiaomei wanting a divorce. If I leave, he'll bully my daughter even more. I can't bear to leave Yangyang and Xiaomei in this world."
"Grandpa...don't cry...Yangyang will be good and won't make a fuss, so Mom and Dad won't fight..."
Zhou Ziqiu sighed: "You don't need to worry, your daughter and grandson will be happy in the future."
Although the old man didn't know who Zhou Ziqiu was, he could sense a powerful aura emanating from him.
"If it's really as you say, then I can die without regrets." He thought Zhou Ziqiu was just trying to comfort him.
A clanging sound came from outside the door, the crisp sound of chains clashing, followed by three faint, eerie sounds—
"Liu Zhigang".
"Liu Zhigang".
"Liu Zhigang".
Zhou Ziqiu knew what that clear voice meant. When the old man heard someone calling his name, he turned his head to look at the door.
The sound grew closer and closer, passing through the door and appearing in the sight of the ghosts.
It was a messenger from the underworld, a tall, thin man wearing a tattered robe and a large straw hat, his face obscured, but he held a soul-binding chain in his hand.
The old man, who had lived an ordinary life, knew of the legendary underworld messengers even though he had never seen them. He was so frightened that his soul seemed to leave his body. The child, on the other hand, cried loudly in fear, and the old man quickly went to comfort him.
"We meet again." Zhou Ziqiu bowed to him.
The underworld official seemed to know Zhou Ziqiu. After returning the bow, he looked at Zhou Ziqiu and asked, "What are you doing here?"
“The child’s soul has escaped, and I have come to help the child’s soul return to its rightful place.”
The underworld official was puzzled: "How could the child's soul have suddenly left?"
Ghosts that arbitrarily entice living souls to leave their bodies will be judged.
The only suspect around was the old man, so the underworld official focused his gaze on him, looking him up and down. The old man trembled at the official's gaze and was about to confess when Zhou Ziqiu suddenly replied, "The child was young and was bored at home. He stood the chopsticks upright in the water to see if he could summon spirits. He must have offended something to cause his soul to leave his body."
Surprisingly, the old man was not mentioned in the conversation.
The underworld official said, "Oh, I see. The child is young, so it's understandable." Then he looked at the old man and asked, "Then what's the matter with this ghost here?"
Zhou Ziqiu sighed. He knew that the underworld officials were not so easy to fool: "The child's soul was wandering around nearby. Tonight is the night of the returning soul. When the old man's ghost came back, he saw the child's soul and brought it back."
The underworld official then turned his gaze back with some skepticism: "If that's the case, then so be it. Liu Zhigang, let's go, the time has come."
18:55:28
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