The ghost in the work uniform hunted around the old house for a spot he claimed had a good signal, tinkered for a while, and produced two devices one after another: one shaped like a little pagoda, the other just a plain square wooden box. He buried the little pagoda in the dirt and handed the wooden box to Ji Yi.
By the time the uniformed ghost had finished installing the two devices, the sky had gone fully bright. In the meantime Ji Yi had cooked a bowl of instant noodles and drunk the broth down to the last drop. Only then did the uniformed ghost look up and say to him, “All done. Want me to reset the password for you? The default is four fours.”
Four fours was certainly in the netherworld’s spirit, but Ji Yi nodded anyway. “Change it to eight eights.” He still preferred what counted as lucky among the living.
Since it was a netherworld network, Ji Yi opened the Wi-Fi settings on his phone, and sure enough, at the very bottom a network called “Yin-1414” popped up.
Ji Yi couldn’t even be bothered to comment on the name anymore.
The uniformed ghost beside him had already started yawning, but instead of going straight to the room Ji Yi had prepared for him, he spoke up as if the question had only just occurred to him. “You live here all alone, a living person? There’s hardly a soul for miles around. If I weren’t a well-trained, top-notch ghost employee, I wouldn’t dare come out to a place like this on a whim.”
Ying Xiaotao was an unlucky little ghost fresh on the job, assigned by his seniors to this hard-to-manage patch of turf next to Beishan. Getting any work done out here really wasn’t easy: the local ghosts were unreasonable troublemakers with no worldly sense, and he’d toiled the whole night without finishing his task. When he’d finally gotten things sorted, it was only thanks to a living person.
True, the living person had seemed pretty bold just now, clearly able to see ghosts and unafraid of them, but Ying Xiaotao still found it strange. Then again, he’d been dead less than ten years, and it had taken him no small amount of trouble to land this job, his family burning a good deal of spirit money on his behalf.
So strange as it was, he was still grateful that Ji Yi had stepped in to help, and so he said, “You may not be scared of me, but you’d still best watch yourself out here. There are lonely, homeless ghosts around these parts who’ve gone years, decades, without a chance to reincarnate. Even the netherworld’s constables can’t keep them all in line. You saw it yourself just now, they smashed that ghost’s camera. That camera was top-quality goods, they’ll have to pay to replace it. You’d do well to keep your distance, or they might latch onto you too.”
Ji Yi nodded, though his eyes stayed on his phone. He’d already connected to the netherworld network, and the “connected” Wi-Fi icon on his screen had turned into a tiny “Yin” character. Apart from that, though, he couldn’t spot any difference for the moment.
He opened his browser and noticed the little icon in the search bar had also become a “Yin” character. Below it ran a row of small links, styled like a webpage from ten years ago, reading “Forum,” “Video,” “Shopping,” and the like.
Ji Yi’s interest was thoroughly piqued. He tapped into the forum and found the page was almost pure text layout, nothing but words crammed tightly together, with a “Log In” option in the top-right corner.
He gave it a tap. The interface that popped up wasn’t much different from an ordinary webpage in the human world, and there was an option in the corner to register a new account.
Even as he asked Ying Xiaotao, “Is the ID number the same as in the human world?” Ji Yi was already typing in his own ID number, only for the page to immediately flash a notice that the ID didn’t exist.
“Nope,” Ying Xiaotao said, craning his neck for a glance at Ji Yi’s screen. “That’s a new document you’re issued after you die. Management’s very strict down below.”
He didn’t expect the netherworld to do this so well, Ji Yi thought. It rather raised his opinion of the place.
Before that thought had even finished running through his head, Ying Xiaotao’s solemn expression flipped. Grinning, he rummaged in his own bag again, fished out a stack of paper slips, picked one out after some hunting, and said, “Of course, you did me a favor, so naturally I’ve got to help you out. This account works across the whole network, already ghost-verified. Flat price, ten silver ingots.”
He looked thoroughly pained about it. “Normally I’d sell one of these for fifty silver ingots.”
Ji Yi looked at Ying Xiaotao. Ying Xiaotao looked at Ji Yi.
After a moment of silence, Ji Yi said, “Didn’t you say management was very strict? Aren’t you a well-trained, top-notch ghost employee?”
Was he messing with him here? Wasn’t this just trafficking in ghosts’ identity information? Did illegal activity really have to be this seamlessly unified across both realms?
Ying Xiaotao stiffened his neck. “I’m fresh on the job and I got stuck with this brutal assignment, so you won’t even let me earn a little on the side? How am I supposed to get by? Besides, rest easy, these are all sold off by the poor ghosts themselves, no trouble down the line.”
He added, “So, you want it or not?”
Ji Yi had no idea what prices were like down below, but ten silver ingots was nothing to him. The paper money at funeral-supply shops came in roughly two kinds. One was paper coated with a thin layer of tinfoil, folded or pasted by hand into the shape of ingots. The other was the new style, a single note that could be denominated up to tens of millions, the so-called “Bank of Heaven and Earth” spirit currency.
Whether the netherworld actually had a Bank of Heaven and Earth, Ji Yi didn’t know, but he did know that down below they wouldn’t honor this new-style spirit currency. What they wanted was still the old-style hand-folded money. Ji Yi remembered that as a kid, a few days before the family went to sweep the graves and pay respects to the ancestors, they’d fold silver or gold ingots by hand, the only difference being the color of the paper, one yellow, one white.
Back home there was a saying that ingots folded by hand by the family’s children lasted longer down below. Ji Yi now suspected this was just something his mom had made up on the spot to rope him into helping, but he’d gotten quite skilled at the folds anyway. There were two or three ways just to fold an ingot, plus folds for gold and silver bars. Even in the matter of burning money for their ancestors, people hadn’t let a single sheet of paper limit them, inventing all sorts of paper-folding variations.
And so Ji Yi agreed readily. “Tomorrow I’ll get the money and burn it over to you.”
Ji Yi entered the account into the forum and quickly logged in. The original account name was a string of Chinese characters spelling out numbers, too lazy to change it, he went straight to browsing the forum pages.
“Help please, I’ve already bought a house, and now the previous owner tells me his family forgot to burn him the property deed. What do I do? 【New】”
“Let me tell you about the offerings I got to eat back at the old altar rites 【Featured】”
“Ranting about the freak I almost had a ghost marriage with, thank goodness I ran fast 【Hot】”
Ji Yi’s gaze locked onto one post in particular: “So mad! Thought I’d struck gold at Beishan, turns out he’s a total blockhead! 【Hot】”
The two characters for Beishan really drew Ji Yi’s eye, since it was right next door. Assuming a local ghost had posted it, he ignored the other threads and tapped into this one first.
Right below the title was the poster’s rant.
Determined to Be a Famous Director: I spent over two years writing this script. It took me forever to line up investors and then to find an actor with the right look. I thought everything was ready and I only lacked the final push [1]from a saying meaning everything is ready except the one crucial thing jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931958_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931958_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. The netherworld promotion was all done, and who’d have guessed the male lead has no acting ability whatsoever. His lines and expressions are downright eye-searing. He even dares call himself top-tier talent in the human world, says fans praise him every day over there. He infuriates me. 【Image】【Image】 Take a look at this fool.
Reading the first stretch of the rant, Ji Yi was still a bit fogged up, wondering just which human-world A-lister was being trashed like this. But when the two attached images below finished loading, he nearly choked on his own spit.
The one in the pictures, looking like a meek, spiritless sad sack, who else could it be but Jian Yi? He’d probably been scared witless by a swarm of ghosts closing in around him. He’d had no acting ability to begin with, and after a fright like that, naturally he had nothing left at all.
Ji Yi thought back to how haggard and worn out Jian Yi had looked at the scenic area earlier. So that was it, he’d been shooting a human production and a ghost production, running back and forth nonstop. Who wouldn’t look haggard in that situation?
Even though Ji Yi felt nothing for Jian Yi, he found himself pitying the man a little for the moment.
Ji Yi bought a stack of paper money and incense and headed home, tossing them onto the Eight Immortals table. These days he walked to and from town and back. The bit of exercise was nothing to him, but he’d still ordered a little electric scooter online, so that whenever he needed to buy something, getting around would be more convenient.
Still, dropping over three thousand in one go stung Ji Yi a little, after all, he was unemployed now, all outflow and no income.
He was just turning around when a voice came from the doorway. “Brother Ji, I brought the master over.”
Ji Yi stepped out to find Wei Hu had indeed brought an electrician over. This had been arranged yesterday, so he wasn’t surprised.
The electrician came in, took one look, and saw that much of the old house’s wiring had aged. Materials plus the master’s labor, all told, would run to four figures.
That was another expense he couldn’t avoid.
Wei Hu peeked cautiously out past the front gate at the big tree. Turning back to find Ji Yi watching him, he said in a low voice, “Brother Ji, have you ever dreamed about this tree?”
Ji Yi: “It’s not like I enjoy peeing under it.”
Wei Hu wilted and pursed his lips, but perked up again quickly. “Speaking of peeing, don’t you need to install a toilet, and a water heater and all that? The whole place needs renovating, doesn’t it?”
Hearing them mention renovations, the electrician cut in. “You’re going to renovate this place? How do you want it done? I know several masters who do really good work. If you need, I can introduce you.”
The electrician and his fellows were seasoned hands at fixing up new houses. Among locals it was all word-of-mouth referrals, and the skilled masters were in short supply.
Very chummily, the electrician tallied up another bill for Ji Yi. A bit here, a bit there, and it shot straight into five figures.
But the numbers the master quoted really weren’t high, and they were still calculated at the most basic level. Whether or not Ji Yi meant to open a guesthouse, or just live here himself, these were all basic expenses, unless he truly wanted to boil water for a shower every single day and use a foul, reeking old outhouse.
Ji Yi’s head buzzed, one single thought echoing through it: he had to save money, he had to save money, how could he save money, how could he save money?
Wei Hu remarked wistfully beside him, “Ah, I should’ve gone and learned a trade too, back in the day. This work earns its money on skill. The materials, honestly, don’t amount to much.”
The electrician didn’t take offense at that. He smiled and said, “You were too busy playing a couple of years back, but it’s never too late to smarten up now. Want me to introduce you to a master? Ah, come to think of it, if you’d gotten your act together a couple of years earlier, you could’ve apprenticed under a real good one. Master Chen from our town before, your dad knew him too, his skills were beyond words, did beautiful work. Pity he died young…”
“Master Chen?” Wei Hu thought about it. “You mean the gambling Master Chen?”
“The very one. Speaking of gambling, honestly, with skills like that, if he hadn’t gambled he’d have struck it rich long ago. Now he’s dead, such a waste.”
As Wei Hu and the electrician talked, their steps carried them over beside the Eight Immortals table, where they caught sight of the tinfoil paper money and incense candles Ji Yi hadn’t had time to put away. After the business with the old tree spirit, his pee still ached faintly, so naturally he was a bit sensitive now. He immediately grabbed Ji Yi and asked, “Brother Ji, what are you buying all this paper money for?”
“Oh, I’m planning to use it to pay respects.” Ji Yi answered offhandedly, his mind still on saving money.
Wei Hu figured he must be paying respects to his ancestors, since Ji Yi’s ancestral house was right here, though in fact Ji Yi’s maternal grandfather had been taken by his mom to be buried in a city cemetery.
Wei Hu just looked at the paper money and let out the sour grumble of a poor man. “For ghosts, isn’t this a whole lot of money?” He even wanted to say it’d be great if he could spend this money too, but even a fool knew that sort of talk was unlucky, so by the time it reached his lips it became a sigh instead. “With money you can make a ghost turn a millstone [2]money can get anything done jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931958_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931958_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, no idea if that’s actually true.”
Ji Yi stared at the money too, and a flash of inspiration suddenly struck his mind.
That really was a lot of paper money. There was no reason he couldn’t save himself a bit right off of this.
References[+]