Since this was a ghost market, that raised an obvious question.
Where was Pei Zhao right now?
Two possibilities immediately occurred to Qin Shu.
Maybe he alone had accidentally wandered into the ghost market, while Pei Zhao was still safely back in the normal, real world.
Or maybe the location where someone entered the ghost market was somewhat random. Pei Zhao had not been close enough to the barbecue stall at the time, and the two of them had not been holding hands, so Pei Zhao might also have been transported to some other stall.
If it was the latter, Pei Zhao might already have sprung into action and started looking for the City God Temple and a way out, while Qin Shu was still standing here at a loss, muddleheadedly watching a bloody spectacle…
After all, when they left Yunli Metro Station the night before last, Captain Wu had casually mentioned something about ghost markets.
“The ghost market is watched over by officers serving the City God, which is why it’s somewhat safer.”
Those words were like an anchor that let Qin Shu stay calm from the very beginning instead of instinctively beating some little ghost to death.
Some ghost customers truly had no sense of personal boundaries. They could clearly see Qin Shu sitting there, yet still walked straight through him without changing expression, taking advantage of their translucent bodies to wander wherever they pleased…
Every time a ghost passed through his body, the temperature suddenly dropped. Dense yin energy seeped into him, then slowly dispersed, chilling Qin Shu’s hands and feet and making him deeply uncomfortable.
If Captain Wu had not mentioned the “officers serving the City God,” Qin Shu really would have been unable to resist doing something.
He had not asked many questions at the time. Thinking about it now, he really should have asked a few more. At the very least, he should have found out how to locate those officers and how to leave this place quickly.
Qin Shu closed his eyes and exhaled, telling himself that from now on he needed to maintain a high degree of curiosity about absolutely everything. Then he pulled himself together, stood up, and prepared to explore the night market himself.
From what he had observed so far, he could tentatively confirm that even though this was a ghost market, it was still a proper night market, with rules and security personnel.
Like other ghost domains, as long as he obeyed the rules, he could temporarily guarantee that he would not be attacked.
Cutting in line was allowed. Fighting was allowed. But killing any living or dead being was forbidden. Anyone who broke that rule would be slapped to death on the spot by a giant hand descending from the sky, with no chance to struggle.
“Honored guest, interested in one of our Gui Gong machetes? It was just dug out of Living Water Village. Look at the resentment on this blade, still fresh, quality guaranteed! I can tell you and this weapon are destined for each other, so I’ll give you a special price this time. Twelve percent off.”
Just as Qin Shu put down the price tag and prepared to blend into the crowd of spirits and wild ghosts, he suddenly felt a chill against his arm. A perfectly ordinary little ghost had appeared out of nowhere at the previously empty stall.
It looked utterly unremarkable. Its clothes were the rough, short workwear worn by shop assistants and laborers in ancient times, and a strip of cloth was wrapped around its long hair. It was fairly clean and looked reasonably tidy.
The little ghost greeted him enthusiastically, completely unconcerned that Qin Shu was alive. Somehow, it could even touch Qin Shu’s wrist instead of passing straight through him like the other wild ghost customers.
Qin Shu narrowed his eyes at the little ghost. After considering it briefly, he curved his lips into a sunny smile.
The little ghost suddenly shuddered. Then Qin Shu took the plump eyeball out of his pocket and tossed it lightly in his hand.
“Sorry. This thing killed the Gui Gong from Living Water Village, so I’m not interested in anything from there.”
“Ah… ahaha, my apologies, my apologies…” The little ghost trembled, and a faint bluish shade of panic crept across its already deathly pale face. “Honored guest, I’m terribly sorry. Please accept this machete as an apology from the shop. I insist, my lord…”
“Don’t rush. I have a question. I only came out of Living Water Village yesterday, yet today you already have the Gui Gong’s machete. That was fast. Where did you hear the news?”
As Qin Shu spoke, he noticed the little ghost quietly inching backward. Its two translucent legs were trembling so hard they were almost impossible to make out.
Seeing it this frightened, Qin Shu boldly moved a few steps closer. With absolutely no sense of distance, he lowered his head and stared at it. “I’m new to this line of work and don’t know much. Explain everything carefully, and you can keep the knife and sell it.”
“Oh, honored guest, you’re far too courteous. This machete should have belonged to you in the first place. Please take it, just to put my mind at ease… Oh, you truly are magnanimous, a born seed of the Dao! To possess such ability at such a young age, my lord, you must be a once-in-a-thousand-years chosen genius, an unparalleled prodigy! Remarkable! Don’t worry, my lord. I’ll explain everything clearly and thoroughly!”
The little ghost forced a wide grin. Trapped at its own stall by Qin Shu with nowhere to go, it instinctively unleashed a torrent of shameless flattery.
Qin Shu could tell that it did not actually want to be dragged into a long conversation. The ghost market had only just opened, after all, and it still had business to do.
But there was nothing it could do. It had dug up a dead person’s treasure to sell, only to run into the terrifying person who had killed the original owner… That was the risk of doing business. It knew it could not beat Qin Shu and was terrified he might chase it down outside the market and chop it into mincemeat, so all it could do was submit.
Qin Shu pulled out a chair and sat down again, his smile unchanged, then detained the little ghost and asked question after question about the ghost market and Living Water Village.
The real Living Water Village no longer existed. All that remained was a ghost domain containing the villagers, hidden in some crack in the world. The villagers living inside that ghost domain did not actually know that they were already dead. They simply repeated what had happened in the past over and over again.
As for how to break Living Water Village in its form as a ghost domain, the little ghost had no idea. It was only a merchant, after all.
Judging by the timeline, however, the instant Qin Shu completed the movie’s storyline, that ghost domain had already completely declined and lost all vitality, returning to a state where anyone could explore it. It had left behind many magical treasures and artifacts refined by supernatural power, along with all kinds of spiritually charged rare materials.
For ruined ghost domains like Living Water Village that reappeared in the world, people who knew the trade only needed to make a few calculations or use a tracking artifact to find the entrance with ease. Such places could contain countless treasures, as well as traces left behind by powerful cultivators during cultivation and battle.
The little ghost’s eyes filled with envy. As it spoke, it even forgot to be afraid, bobbing its head as it continued, “…Someone blessed with extraordinary fortune might enter and attain sudden enlightenment, even ascending in broad daylight. That’s why, hundreds or thousands of years ago, places like these were also called secret realms within tombs.”
Qin Shu listened with great interest and pressed curiously, “You look this weak, so I assume you don’t personally go into secret realms to dig things up. Where do your suppliers come from?”
“Ahem. Honored guest, you really are direct… Well, our suppliers are those Mojin Commandants, of course. Tomb robbers are forbidden from entering the ghost market. Those people really do dare to dig on Tai Sui’s head. They’ve even disturbed the City God’s temples several times, angering both Heaven and ghosts. So they can only sell cheaply and pass us the goods they have no use for.”
Elio’s Notes: Mojin Commandants (摸金校尉), literally “Commandants Who Touch Gold,” are the famous tomb-raider title associated with traditional grave-robbing lore and modern tomb-raiding fiction.
Elio’s Notes: “Digging on Tai Sui’s head” (太岁头上动土) means recklessly provoking someone or something extremely dangerous or powerful.
Qin Shu became even more interested. “Where can I contact these Mojin Commandants? Don’t worry, I’m not interested in setting up a stall at the ghost market. I just want to see something new and broaden my horizons.”
The little ghost chuckled, rummaged inside its undershirt for a while, and pulled out a small, irregularly shaped piece of gold. Wisps of ghost qi seeped from it, making it look distinctly ominous.
“Easy. Honored guest, look at this gold in my hand. Genuine dead man’s money, hard currency that works much better than paper notes or copper coins. If you want to contact the tomb robbers in Jiangcheng, carry some dead man’s money with you, set out at the third watch, find any little grave mound in the mountains, and wander around for a while. Someone will crawl out and greet you.”
Elio’s Notes: The “third watch” traditionally falls around 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Here, “dead man’s money” is supernatural hard currency carrying genuine ghost qi, not ordinary paper offerings burned for the dead.
Qin Shu took the gold and examined it. The instant his palm touched the gold, the formerly sluggish ghost qi came alive as though it had smelled blood.
The active ghost qi grew so dense it seemed almost liquid, sticky and excited as it coiled around his fingertips for a moment. But the gloves, thin as cicada wings, completely blocked it and kept it from affecting Qin Shu at all.
The things he had snatched from that foreigner really were useful. Qin Shu raised an eyebrow, calmly tossed the gold back into the little ghost’s arms, and said, “You need to make one thing clear first. The ones who crawl out of a grave mound in the middle of the night, are they humans or ghosts?”
“That’s hard to say. Could be either. We don’t exactly dare stare too closely at their faces, you know? But you’re capable, honored guest. Those petty thieves wouldn’t dare treat you badly. As long as the time and place are right, if you’re carrying dead man’s money, you can buy things from them.”
The little ghost wore an ingratiating smile, but its tone was vague and evasive enough to make the whole thing sound unreliable. Qin Shu also understood that suppliers were part of a merchant’s livelihood. No matter how terrified someone was, they could not casually reveal every detail.
Knowing the general method was enough. If he ever genuinely needed to buy something that could not be brought into the light, he could take Yuanbao with him, bring a few more of Daoist Master Xu’s talismans, and probably still manage to escape if anything went wrong.
“Thank you. I have one last question.” Qin Shu stood, thoughtfully rubbed his wrist, and unobtrusively tugged the little centipede out of his sleeve. “I need to see the City God. Which way?”
…
Ten minutes later, Qin Shu stood behind a large group of tiger-headed men nearly three meters tall and fell into contemplation.
Traffic jam.
There were simply too many spirits and wild ghosts in the ghost market. To reach the City God Temple, he had to walk all the way to the “end of the sky,” but now he discovered that getting there was rather difficult.
The incorporeal ghosts, large and small, had been squeezed together so tightly by the crowd that they looked like the eyeball in Qin Shu’s pocket, compressed into thin little pancakes.
The remaining large, muscular, short-tempered yao were not nearly so easy to deal with.
Yao qi was completely different from ghost qi.
Judging from Qin Shu’s experiences over the past week, ghost qi was made from only a few elements: resentment and pain, obsession and unwillingness to let go, intense grief, and a chill so cold it approached numbness.
Different kinds of ghosts contained those elements in different proportions, but in the end it was basically supercharged air-conditioning. Aside from affecting his mood when he came into contact with it unexpectedly, it did not seem to have any negative effect on Qin Shu himself.
Qin Shu had already gotten used to the sky above the school periodically filling with dark clouds and turning pitch-black, accompanied by several piercing wails, low chuckles, sobs, or a few utterly meaningless flashes of lightning… He could ignore it completely and continue paying attention in class.
Yao qi, however, was different. It was a manifestation of a yao’s strength, an innate ability to project their magical power outward to intimidate weaker beings. Any yao that had not learned a Turtle-Breathing Technique simply could not hide its scent.
Qin Shu was almost suffocating. To him, the smell was no different from body odor, except every one of these creatures stank in its own distinctive way… If I pinch my nose while walking past them, will they take it as deliberate provocation?
Forget it, forget it.
Once it became unbearable, Qin Shu chose to take a detour down a slightly less crowded side path.
This side road was just as brightly lit, but there were far fewer ghostly figures around. Several hulking ox yao wandered back and forth now and then, which actually stirred a trace of curiosity in Qin Shu.
Ox yao looked rough and brutish, but they were much better than furry mammals. They carried only the faint scents of grass and earth, mixed with a trace of blood.
Keeping his face expressionless, Qin Shu quickly passed the ox yao. For some reason, however, he attracted the attention of an old yellow ox.
Yes, an actual old yellow ox. It had not transformed into human form. It stood beneath a streetlamp chewing dry grass, then suddenly raised its head, stared at Qin Shu, and mooed.
Qin Shu abruptly turned at the sound and met its gaze, startling badly.
“…H-hello?”
The old yellow ox mooed again, then slowly spoke. “Young man, you’ve gone the wrong way. Up ahead is the fairground section. This year’s event isn’t suitable for you.”
“The fair?”
Qin Shu paused. Thinking of the school fair held every year, he realized it was indeed roughly in this direction. It was usually beside the stage on the athletic field, occupied a large area, and was quite popular.
All at once, he understood the layout of the ghost market. This enormous ghost market seemed to have unfolded over the terrain of Jiangcheng No. 2 High School without significantly altering the geography.
The route the little ghost had given him to the City God Temple had sounded abstract, but it was actually just the direction of the principal’s office. In that case, there was nothing to worry about. Qin Shu knew how to detour around and get there.
For the moment, though, Qin Shu had taken an inexplicable interest in the old yellow ox. The creature was tall and sturdy, nearly level with his chest even while standing on all fours… but its large watery eyes and the few blades of grass left at the corner of its mouth made it look especially honest and gentle.
The mere thought of a cow talking made Qin Shu want to laugh.
He hurriedly held it in, cautiously kept his distance, and asked curiously, “Senior, I’m looking for a human friend. He has golden eyes and is wearing the same school-uniform jacket as me. Have you seen him?”
“Mm… another human? Haven’t seen one. None came through our side.”
“Then may I ask, Senior, why isn’t this year’s fair suitable for me?”
The old yellow ox snorted and answered slowly, “The Dragon Mother’s birthday is drawing near. The Mountain Lord gave an order. This year’s fair is special. The competition is meant to select the strongest, most vigorous fellows. They’ll be sent to the birthday banquet as guards to help the shrimp soldiers and crab generals carry the palanquin and move gifts… Competition is fierce, but there are plenty of benefits.”
Qin Shu raised an eyebrow slightly as a certain head-bobbing old Daoist surfaced in his mind. “You mean the Dragon Mother worshiped at the Dragon Mother Temple in West Town? Then I want to go too. Senior, living people should be allowed to attend the birthday banquet, right?”
“A newborn calf really doesn’t fear the tiger… Young man, do you know what the selection event is?”
Elio’s Notes: “A newborn calf doesn’t fear the tiger” (初生牛犊不怕虎) describes someone young or inexperienced who charges into danger without fear. The joke is extra literal here because an ox yao is the one saying it.
“Let me hear it, Senior.”
“Arm wrestling.”
“…Huh?”
Seeing Qin Shu’s blank expression, the old yellow ox suddenly blasted air through its nostrils and laughed in a deep voice. “Didn’t expect that, did you? This year’s fair has only one event. Arm wrestling! Young man, how’s your wrist strength? Think you can beat my nephew?”
This selection method sounds almost like a joke, Qin Shu complained silently. But such a simple and brutal approach did fit the stereotypical way animals might think.
Besides, it was only arm wrestling. The safety margin was relatively high, unlike actual fighting where someone could easily be killed or seriously injured, and it happened to fit the night market’s rule against killing.
“If they’re choosing guards, they probably won’t choose only one. I’m pretty strong. Even if I can’t take first place, I can give it a try and count it as a life experience.” Qin Shu exhaled.
Yes, he had decided to participate. After all, getting to arm wrestle a yao in a ghost market was the sort of novelty he might never encounter again. Better to broaden his horizons now than regret missing it later.
“Good attitude, young man! I like your temperament. When you’re young, you ought to do a few foolish things and embarrass yourself, hahaha!” The old yellow ox laughed with several booming moos, then sighed. “Unlike me… old and weak, no drive left, and I still have to worry about the clan’s reputation. Ah, life gets duller and duller.”
“Senior, you’re this powerfully built. One kick could send me flying. How could you call yourself old and weak?”
Qin Shu laughed along and casually coaxed the suddenly gloomy old yellow ox a little more, praising its thick, powerful legs and broad, strong back, then expressing admiration for its hard, sharp horns. The effect was excellent.
Pleased by the praise, the old yellow ox walked over and slowly rubbed its warm body against Qin Shu twice. “Young man, go find my nephew inside the grounds and have some fun with him. His name is Huang Yu Yuan. When he was born, we asked the Dragon Mother to bestow his name. Just call him A-Yuan. If anyone bullies you, let A-Yuan back you up.”
A faint layer of yao qi settled over Qin Shu like a barely visible mark. There was no malice in it. Instead, Qin Shu immediately felt refreshed and found it easier to breathe.
“Thank you, Senior!”
After saying goodbye to the old yellow ox, Qin Shu eagerly quickened his steps and arrived at the familiar yet unfamiliar fairground.
Although this was different from the school’s New Year event and the ghost market fair had only one activity, the spacious athletic field was still lively.
A group of cat yao were dancing on the stage, female and male cats alike. The center position was even occupied by a powerfully built young male leopard whose thighs were thicker than Qin Shu’s head.
They wore gauzy clothes as thin as mist, tantalizingly translucent and distinctly revealing, showing graceful waists and tight, powerful chests and abdomens as they slowly moved to the rhythm of the music.
A large audience had gathered below. Yao and spirits of every imaginable kind cheered and competed to throw strings of copper coins onto the stage as tips. Qin Shu had to admit that this lineup of dancers really was popular. The audience could always find the type they wanted to watch. Very inclusive…
Qin Shu felt slightly uncomfortable. He coughed, gave the stage a quick glance, then hurried around the crowd toward an open-air wine stall farther from the stage.
The wine stall was temporarily built from dark-brown wooden boards. There was only a small kitchen inside and a single window for payment and serving alcohol. The proprietor was a horse-headed woman wearing a headscarf, a cigarette clenched between her large front teeth and an impatient look in her eyes.
Animal heads crowded beside the stall. An utterly ordinary square table stood there, with a sweaty, horse-headed strongman seated on either side. Their thick arms were locked together over the middle of the table, neither able to overpower the other after a long stalemate.
So this is the arm-wrestling area.
Qin Shu perked up and began looking for Huang Yu Yuan according to the old yellow ox’s description.
According to the old ox, Huang Yu Yuan was remarkably gifted. He had learned to transform into human form at a very young age, could blend perfectly into human society in ordinary life, and was exceptionally handsome.
Qin Shu had been somewhat skeptical at first. But as he slowly approached the square table, looked past the horse-headed men, and then toward the flushed, shouting spectators, he realized the old yellow ox had not exaggerated at all.
A long-haired man with sword-like brows, bright eyes, and sharply defined features looked about twenty-five or twenty-six. He wore a black, cross-collared mang robe and stood as straight as a pine.
Elio’s Notes: A mang robe (蟒袍) is a traditional ceremonial robe decorated with mang motifs resembling dragons. Despite the literal character 蟒, it does not mean a robe made from python skin.
He stood smiling with his hands behind his back among the excited, muscular yao, his bearing extraordinary and his good looks impossible to miss.
“…A-Yuan?” Qin Shu tried softly.
The long-haired man had excellent hearing. He tilted his head slightly and quickly located Qin Shu amid the noise. When their eyes met, he gave Qin Shu a friendly smile.
Then he stepped away from the crowd and approached Qin Shu of his own accord, speaking warmly. “Young man, you carry my maternal uncle’s aura. Did he send you to take part in the selection for the Dragon Mother’s birthday banquet? This is our first meeting. I am Huang Yu Yuan.”
“Ah, hello, hello. I’m Qin Shu.” Qin Shu felt as though this man had stepped straight out of a historical television drama, and for once he actually stumbled over his words. “Senior, where do I line up?”
“You and I should be of the same generation. There’s no need to be so formal. Just call me A-Yuan like my uncle does.”
Huang Yu Yuan smiled, conjured a jade token wreathed in ghost qi with a turn of his hand, and tossed it toward the square table. It landed with a clear, crisp sound.
“Mountain Lord, let one more person cut in!”