69novels Chapter 54 Treating You to Dinner
Chapter 54 Treating You to Dinner
Sun Zhenguo was terrified. He had been suffering from the torment of impending death these past few days. He grabbed Zhou Fengchen's trouser leg as if he had finally found his pillar of support. The grown man in his forties cried his eyes out.
"Well, about this..."
Zhou Fengchen had a question in his mind. That man in the long robe was undoubtedly a ghost messenger. Although Sun Zhenguo and the others had indeed acted a bit recklessly in this matter, the ghost messenger's actions were also inappropriate. After all, you are just a ghost messenger, not the King of Hell. How can you arbitrarily decide the life and death of a living person? What's the difference between this and a vengeful ghost committing evil?
But then again, what if this is just the rule of the underworld? Theoretically speaking, as long as someone dies, they are under their jurisdiction, including Zhou Fengchen himself.
Seeing Zhou Fengchen's hesitation, Sun Zhenguo shouted, "Master! You can't abandon me! I have elderly parents and young children to support..."
People were coming and going in the alley, casting strange glances at him, which made Zhou Fengchen feel embarrassed. He said, "Well, I have a master at home. I'll go back tonight and discuss it with him, and I'll give you an answer tomorrow."
Sun Zhenguo objected, "How can that be? Nobody knows when that ghost official will come knocking. What if I die tonight?"
"You're still clinging to me!" Zhou Fengchen said helplessly, "I still have to go to work, so why don't you just wait here."
Sun Zhenguo readily agreed and returned to the small restaurant, rolling up his sleeves and eagerly taking on the work, leaving the proprietress and Old Li quite astonished.
After get off work that evening, Zhou Fengchen took Sun Zhenguo back to their rented apartment. Monk Yuanzhi had already returned and was chanting the sutra. Hearing the door open, he ran out of the bedroom wearing only shorts: "Hey bro, let's go get some lobster for supper tonight. I just passed by, and there were a lot of old ladies at that stall, all incredibly slutty... uh!"
When it comes to reading people, Monk Yuanzhi was a master. Seeing the obsequious man following Zhou Fengchen, he immediately understood what was going on. Changing his tone abruptly, he said in a nonsensical way, "Amitabha! Let's go to that lobster stall and clean up these shady practices!"
"Amitabha! Master Yuanzhi is absolutely right!"
Zhou Fengchen nodded, told Sun Zhenguo to sit down first, and pulled Yuan Zhi to the balcony to tell him what had happened. After he finished, he asked, "Do you think this is reliable? Ghost messengers seem a bit scary. I didn't want to take this job, but this guy kept pestering me and wouldn't leave. It was the policewoman Wang Min who introduced him."
Monk Yuanzhi pondered for a moment and said, "Don't worry about who introduced us, the key is whether the money is right."
Zhou Fengchen said, "That man said he could give us money even if it meant selling everything he owned!"
Monk Yuanzhi's eyes lit up, and he said, "That's settled! Let's do it."
Zhou Fengchen voiced his doubts, saying, "We're ghost messengers, is it alright for us to meddle in other people's business?"
Monk Yuanzhi chuckled and said, "You don't understand. Ghost messengers are much easier to deal with than evil ghosts. You can reason with them. As long as they are willing to sit down and talk, things will be more or less settled. I encountered one once before. After a couple of sentences, the other party left. Anyway, we haven't had any business for a few days. Let's get to work!"
Zhou Fengchen felt relieved. The two discussed the specific details for a while, then returned to the living room and said to Sun Zhenguo, "We'll take this job, but there's something we need to figure out first."
Sun Zhenguo was overjoyed and nodded repeatedly, saying, "Please speak, masters."
Monk Yuanzhi said, "There's no specific date for this. In other words, we don't know when the ghost messenger will come. We can't possibly wait at your house every night. The reward is too expensive for you to afford. Write down the dates of death of the previous three people, and we'll figure out which day it is before we talk about it."
As the saying goes, if the King of Hell wants you dead at midnight, who can keep you alive until dawn? This means that the concept of time is still very strong in the underworld, and some things can be understood logically.
Zhou Fengchen found paper and pen, and Sun Zhenguo thought for a moment and wrote them down one by one:
Zhou Hong died on September 17.
Zhang Yang died on September 25.
Li Mao died on October 3rd.
After Sun Zhenguo put down his pen, Zhou Fengchen and Yuan Zhi looked at it and exclaimed in unison, "Eight days per person?"
Zhou Fengchen turned to Sun Zhenguo and asked, "What's the date today?"
Upon hearing this, Sun Zhenguo's face turned pale, and he stammered, "October 11th!"
Zhou Fengchen and Yuan Zhi exchanged a glance. Good heavens! It just so happens to be today. This guy is really lucky. He just happened to come knocking on our door. Otherwise, this wouldn't have happened after today.
"You're lucky!" Monk Yuanzhi muttered, turning around to grab his weapon.
Zhou Fengchen also rummaged through drawers and cabinets looking for things. To prevent any accidents, he brought along the suona passed down from his father and the goose-wing knife he bought while shopping in the city that day.
A few minutes later, the two got dressed and, led by Sun Zhenguo, went downstairs, hailed a taxi, and headed straight to his home.
Sun Zhenguo lives in an old-style community. The houses are covered with ivy, and the doors and windows are old and dusty, looking quite dilapidated.
When he entered the house, his mother, wife, daughter, and son were all waiting anxiously. They had also learned about Sun Zhenguo's situation and were all frowning. When they saw Sun Zhenguo enter with a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk, they were all startled.
Sun Zhenguo was slightly agitated, but forced a smile and reassured his family: "It's alright! Everything's fine now. I've found the reliable Taoist priest that my daughter's policeman friend recommended."
The whole family was overjoyed to hear this and said that they hadn't eaten yet, so let's eat together.
Monk Yuanzhi glanced at the table: a dish of cucumber salad, a dish of shredded potatoes, and a bowl of dark, braised chicken. He shook his head and said, "Amitabha! Go and prepare a whole chicken, half a braised pig's head, a braised fish, a dish of mushrooms and greens, a plate of scrambled eggs with chili peppers, and a pound of liquor."
Zhou Fengchen was a little embarrassed and said in a low voice, "That's enough, we can't finish it."
To everyone's surprise, Monk Yuanzhi said, "Do you think we're eating this? It's for that ghost messenger! We're just keeping him company!"
Sun Zhenguo and his family were terrified. They forgot about eating and rushed out to buy things.
……
Around 10 o'clock, a table was set up in the living room with five dishes: chicken, fish, meat, eggs, and vegetables, plus a bottle of liquor. Monk Yuanzhi turned off the lights, lit six incense sticks on either side of the table, and then lit six candles.
The number six is sometimes considered ominous by humans, but by ghosts it represents goodwill and an invitation.
After finishing, Monk Yuanzhi instructed Sun Zhenguo's family: "You all hide in the inner room, and remember not to speak or make any noise. Of course, you can quietly observe to prove our abilities."
Sun Zhenguo and his family nodded repeatedly and quickly hid in the inner room, leaving only a small crack in the door.
Then Zhou Fengchen and Monk Yuanzhi sat facing each other, leaving the main seat in the due north direction empty for the ghost messenger.
Zhou Fengchen looked around and said, "Brother Monk, to be honest, only you could pull off these things and connections. I couldn't do it."
Monk Yuanzhi chuckled, a little smug, "Right? Sometimes, you really do have to learn a lot from me."
"Absolutely."
The two chatted for a while longer, and before they knew it, it was past eleven o'clock. The neighborhood was unusually quiet, and the streetlights outside were flickering. A gust of wind suddenly rose from somewhere, making the windows rattle.
As Monk Yuanzhi was speaking, he was taken aback when he looked at the outside environment. "Yin energy! It can't be this early, can it? It's not even midnight yet."
Zhou Fengchen's face had already hardened. "They're here!"
Huhu——
Five of the candles next to them suddenly went out, and the remaining one flickered as if it might go out at any moment.
One of the six incense sticks went out, leaving five sticks with three long and two short sticks!