Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 31: Four Acquaintances
At 11:45, one life had to be surrendered.
If the scope of “forfeiting life” included sacrificial offerings, Bai Shuangying thought this ritual was simply perfect.
The “E” had always been rigid; it wouldn’t force people to commit taboos. For example, in order to uphold the taboo “If you offend the Weishan God, you die,” the E would first create a Weishan God to fulfill the prerequisite.
…Therefore, as long as every living thing on this street that could die ended up dead, then until new people arrived, only he and Fang Xiu would remain here.
Because of their Underworld Ghost Contract, they would be regarded as one entity, so there would be no need for them to kill each other.
As long as Fang Xiu couldn’t resolve the E, they could live on this street for a very long time. Whenever new sacrifices or evil spirits appeared, they would just kill them all again. One year, two years, or even ten years could pass like this…until he figured out the anomaly of the seal.
Once the seal was successfully undone, he was going to devour Fang Xiu slowly, savoring every bite. After that, he would descend upon the world, taking thousands more along with Fang Xiu as burial offerings.
Before then, they could go shopping together every day. Fang Xiu would definitely like that.
When Bai Shuangying imagined this, he felt an incomparable sense of satisfaction.
Yet, even though he imagined it, he didn’t intend to deliberately hinder Fang Xiu. If Fang Xiu turned hostile toward him, that would be tedious. Rather than forcing Fang Xiu to comply, he preferred Fang Xiu’s voluntary company in picking out a vase.
Thinking of this, Bai Shuangying walked closer to Fang Xiu and took out the blood-soaked magic weapon whistle.
“Picked this up on the way. It’s yours.” He casually brushed Fang Xiu’s hair aside.
Fang Xiu took the whistle, his messy hair revealing bright, shining eyes. “For me? Really?”
Bai Shuangying nodded. Fang Xiu’s face turned slightly red. He pressed his lips together for quite a while, as if he were trying hard not to smile.
“Is this magic weapon powerful?” Fang Xiu asked again a few seconds later.
Bai Shuangying: “No, it was about to break. But you could feed it to Earth Knocking…or rather, your ‘Meal Card’. It could still summon a headless ghost, barely.”
Fang Xiu paused, then grew serious. “This is actually really useful. Thanks.”
He paused for a moment. “I really liked it.”
With that, Fang Xiu decisively bit his finger and smeared a bit of blood onto the whistle.
Bai Shuangying watched the whistle slip into Fang Xiu’s pocket and took the opportunity to pat Fang Xiu’s head. Unfortunately, his seal still didn’t react at all.
……
Fang Xiu put the blood-smeared whistle into his pocket, ready to top up that so-called “Meal Card” at any time.
When evil spirits became scarce later, he would summon a headless ghost to kill, at least handling the taboo once.
Ever since the first ritual ended, Bai Shuangying’s attitude had grown extremely proactive. Fang Xiu was certain it wasn’t just his imagination.
Even though their situation was very grim, Fang Xiu still felt a bit of untimely happiness.
His companions, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the word “happiness”—
Relying on his physical strength, Blondie had gone out again and captured two injured evil spirits. He tossed them to Jia Xu and Guan He, helping the two of them out of trouble for the moment.
“Everyone, act quickly. It’d be best if we solve this in three days like last time.”
In the next moment, Jia Xu overturned his previous statement. “This taboo is troublesome. If it only demands ‘killing’ and doesn’t restrict it to killing evil spirits, we might end up killing each other.”
Blondie said, “Huh? There are so many evil spirits outside. Everyone kills just one a day. Shouldn’t that be fine?”
Jia Xu said worriedly, “What if the taboo affects the evil spirits too, and their numbers decrease exponentially1?”
Blondie: “Exponential what—planting trees to reduce them1?”
1Clarity: Jia Xu says (指数递减), which means decrease exponentially. Blondie misheard him, or rather not educated enough to recognize the word, thought he said planting trees (植树), instead of exponential (指数), which sounds very similar but they mean entirely different things (the joke).
Even Guan He showed an expression that was hard to describe.
Jia Xu had no choice but to explain the horror of “halving and then halving again”. Once Blondie heard it, he scoffed. “Back in Weishan Village, that taboo didn’t limit evil spirits.”
Jia Xu: “Just because Weishan didn’t impose restrictions doesn’t mean there aren’t any here.”
Blondie thought for a while, then suddenly chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. Even if we all kill each other, I’ll definitely be the last one alive.”
He spoke so casually, as if they were just talking about a game rather than murder.
Fang Xiu interjected with a smiling face, “You want to be the last one alive? Then you have to kill me first. And by that time, you’d better hurry up and settle the E. Otherwise, you’d starve to death here by yourself.”
Blondie: “……”
Blondie: “Jia Ge is right! We must hurry and find the E!”
No one felt like waiting until tomorrow. Everyone agreed to check out all the shops today and catch a few more evil spirits to test the taboo.
Fang Xiu had taken a short nap and felt decent, so he didn’t mind strolling around with Bai Shuangying again.
There weren’t many types of shops on the pedestrian street. Most sold food and groceries, a few sold clothes or expensive items, and some offered products for temporary needs…
For instance, the first small shop next to the arch specialized in phone charging, appliance repair, and rentals. Inside was just one young, faceless clerk with an unlit cigarette, leaning against the storage room door while scrolling through short videos.
On the right side of the entrance hung gaudy phone cases; on the left side stood an offering to Guanyin Bodhisattva. The layout felt quite perfunctory.
Next to it stood a milk tea shop. Three or five customers were lined up at the front, and inside, two faceless girls were busy working, repeatedly making the same cup of milk tea. Opposite the milk tea shop was the “Treasures of Huai Zhen” where Fang Xiu and the others had picked out the vase.
Bai Shuangying watched as the shopkeeper added pearls that resembled insect eggs into the tea, showing faint wariness on his face. Fang Xiu, meanwhile, rummaged in his pocket for a while and took out the nearly useless Ziwei token.
“You mentioned this thing could make evil spirits uncomfortable,” Fang Xiu said as he toyed with the small token.
Bai Shuangying was still watching the pearls. “Yes. It has about the same effect as burning them with a flame.”
Fang Xiu simply raised his hand and pressed the token against the forehead of one of the customers. It was a faceless man who was waiting on his milk tea and pacing about impatiently.
When the token touched the man’s forehead, it was as if it pressed into a swirl of rainbow-colored liquid. Fang Xiu’s hand passed through the man’s head as though clipping through it, but the man didn’t react at all.
Fang Xiu said, “So he isn’t an evil spirit.”
Bai Shuangying made a soft grunt of acknowledgement. “Probably some type of illusion, maybe created by the E.”
Jia Xu had been listening in for some time and immediately spoke up. “It’s very likely that this street is already abandoned, and everything here is just an illusion made by the E.”
“That’s why the food and water are illusions, which is why we can’t eat them!”
Blondie: “Makes sense, makes sense.”
Fang Xiu neither confirmed nor denied it. Bai Shuangying remained uninterested, continuing to watch the pearls plop into the tea, seemingly about to fall behind the group.
Fang Xiu tugged on Bai Shuangying’s sleeve with a smile. “That isn’t anything weird. It’s just tapioca pearls.”
Only then did Bai Shuangying pull his gaze away and walk along with Fang Xiu. “What is tapioca flour?”
Fang Xiu: “It’s a kind of plant-based powder, like glutinous rice flour.”
“So it’s similar to glutinous rice? Would zombies be afraid of it?” Bai Shuangying was still thinking about those legendary zombie movies.
“Uh, well…”
……
It took them a full five hours to finish surveying one side of the street. By around five in the morning, the sky showed no sign of getting brighter, and they hadn’t found any shop that felt off.
Quite a few stores had statues of the God of Wealth, Bodhisattvas, or Guan Gong. These statues looked normal, lacking that unsettling appearance of the Weishan God.
When business was good, the faceless staff remained busy. If there were no customers, the staff busied themselves with their phones. Such was the plain routine of modern folks.
Aside from having no faces, the diners outside behaved no differently from ordinary people in daily life. There were no altercations on the street, let alone any bloodshed.
From start to finish, they only captured a few injured evil spirits and found not a single clue regarding the E.
Blondie said, “This place is so damn normal. What are we looking for anyway!”
“It’s faster to find clues from the taboo. There’s only one taboo so far, so it’s normal to have no leads,” Jia Xu remarked, feigning expertise. “The problem is that no one knows when the second taboo will emerge.”
Guan He bared his teeth and couldn’t resist muttering, “Would it kill you not to spew nonsense?”
Luckily, he kept his voice so low that Jia Xu didn’t hear him.
Behind him, Fang Xiu observed the surroundings in a relaxed manner. Jia Xu’s chatter went in one ear and out the other. Fang Xiu only occasionally glanced at Bai Shuangying, explaining some modern gadgets to him.
This time, Fang Xiu took extra care regarding the ground. Whenever he found money scattered among the battle debris, he picked it up cautiously, saving up for that white porcelain vase.
Even if it was only a temporary illusion, sincerity was still sincerity.
Fireworks continued to bloom across the night sky, crackling relentlessly, as though they would last until the end of time.
……
When the group moved on to the other side of the street, they finally had a breakthrough.
They discovered another group of survivors in an accessories store.
That group had five people left: four men and one woman. The woman lay motionless in a corner with her long hair covering her face. The four men didn’t look much better; they were all pale, with that peculiar restlessness born of hunger.
They wore five copper coins with red tassels around their waists that were neat and uniform; most likely Underworld products again.
Jia Xu lowered his voice and said, “Don’t alert them before we figure out the taboo. Let’s just quietly—”
“Bai Shuangying, hide yourself completely,” Fang Xiu whispered. Then the Kan trigram on his left arm flashed, and he retrieved two canned goods from a beer glass. “Hey, are you all okay? We have food here!”
He said it loudly enough that even a deaf person could hear.
Jia Xu: “?”
Cheng Songyun also glanced at Fang Xiu in surprise.
With a smile, Fang Xiu stepped forward holding the cans. “We brought these from outside. They’ll fill you up.”
The four men exchanged looks, or more precisely, three of them turned to look at one man. He was about forty, somewhat overweight, with a kind face. Besides the Five-Emperor coins at his waist, he also wore a golden Buddha around his neck.
He thought for less than half a second before beaming. “Thank you, young man.”
He gestured to a robust fellow with a face full of acne scars, who walked over and took the two cans of yellow-peach slices.
Jia Xu coughed twice, hinting at Fang Xiu to stop talking.
“A lot of people died outside. This ritual was really odd, so we should work together,” Fang Xiu continued enthusiastically, ignoring Jia Xu’s signal. “Sir, how should I address you?”
“Just call me Lao Jin. Which round is this for you?” he asked.
Fang Xiu: “Our second time. What about yours?”
“About the same,” Lao Jin said with a smile. “Interested in working together?”
Jia Xu coughed wildly, on the verge of yanking Fang Xiu’s ear and yelling “no.”
“That’s up to our boss.” Fang Xiu grabbed Jia Xu in one swift motion. “This is our Boss Jia. He’s a top performer, extremely smart.”
Lao Jin turned to look at Jia Xu, who immediately showed a standard business smile. “Hello, hello.”
Lao Jin raised an eyebrow. “You’re aware of the first taboo, right? Before 11:45 every day, each person has to kill one evil spirit. Why don’t we capture some weaker ones, keep them penned up, and kill them over time? That way, we can at least buy ourselves a few days to focus on finding the E.”
Jia Xu let out a forced laugh and didn’t answer right away.
Lao Jin, seeing this, just smiled again as if it was no surprise. “Ever hear the saying ‘Money can make even ghosts turn the mill*’? Our magic weapon can hypnotize evil spirits. Work with us, and you won’t lose out…”
*Idiom referring to if one has enough wealth, they can make someone do anything for them (AKA money makes the world go round).
With that, he gave Jia Xu a meaningful look.
Regardless of whether Jia Xu got the hint, Fang Xiu understood Lao Jin’s subtext. People had to eat, and if Jia Xu didn’t agree, they would find “other methods” to take their supplies.
“Work together? I think it sounds good,” Blondie said.
“Me too. It’s great,” Fang Xiu echoed from where he stood, the two of them acting as if their combined IQ barely broke triple digits.
Jia Xu whirled around, seemingly wanting to glare at them. After turning back, he spoke politely again. “Ah, cooperation…sure, cooperation… By the way, who are these gentlemen?”
“This is Mazi, Dashun, and Yan Jing. They’re my employees,” Lao Jin said gently, pointing to the three men.
Jia Xu looked at the woman for a moment. Seeing no reaction, he didn’t ask further.
After some discussion, everyone decided to follow them back to their base. That clothing store could house ten people and had a large storage area suitable for locking away a few evil spirits.
Before leaving, Jia Xu glared hard at Fang Xiu, but Fang Xiu pretended not to notice.
Cheng Songyun whispered, “Xiao Fang, that girl…”
“I know, Cheng Jie,” Fang Xiu whispered back. “She was beaten to death. Judging by the state of her body, she hasn’t been dead long.”
Her neck had been twisted, and there were bruises on her arms and legs, yet her body was intact, making it clear it wasn’t done by an evil spirit. Moreover, from the condition of those four men… They had been here a while, even tidying up a place to spend the night. They had definitely been present when she died.
“She was probably their reserve food, too bad the canned goods looked tastier than human flesh,” Fang Xiu added casually.
Cheng Songyun pursed her lips, at a loss for words.
Fang Xiu knew what she wanted to ask. “We need these people. We still don’t know if that earlier taboo was really a death taboo, or whether ‘killing people’ counted. We can’t test that on our own people.”
“I understand,” Cheng Songyun whispered. “But what if they weren’t the ones who killed her…”
“Trust me, they definitely were.”
Fang Xiu walked at the back, closing the jewelry shop door slowly. His back was turned to Cheng Songyun, so she couldn’t see his expression. Hearing how certain Fang Xiu sounded, Cheng Songyun chose not to pursue it further. Bai Shuangying, however, grew curious, hovering around Fang Xiu.
“Why were you so certain?” he asked.
Fang Xiu checked the surroundings, then leaned in to whisper, “Because I happened to recognize all four of their faces.”
“Bai Shuangying, do you know what ‘drug dealer’ means?”
The author has something to say:
Happy National Day, everyone! Have a great holiday!
Fang Xiu be like: “Time to hunt.”
He’s baiting them, baiting them, preparing ultra-delicious living-soul mooncakes for his ghost.
Anyway, there’s no way drug dealers are gonna make it out alive in my stories. Anyone in that trade is just a beast.
Kinky Thoughts:
Bai Shuangying is about to discover the world of boba.
<<< || Table of Contents || >>>
Kinky Translations 
Bro, how many criminals do you know?
LikeLike