The moment night fell, Ying Xiaotao came out of the house, beaming and gazing eagerly at Ji Yi, he was practically ready to rub his fingers together right in front of Ji Yi’s face [1]the universal gesture for “money, please” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931959_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931959_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Ji Yi had come prepared. He’d spent the whole afternoon folding paper ingots, and now he took out the ten silver ingots he’d set aside earlier and burned them for Ying Xiaotao, right there in front of him.
Once Ying Xiaotao had the money, his expression relaxed and his manner grew much more courteous. He patted his own chest and said, “Now that’s what I call generous. Consider us friends. I may be new on the job, but I’ve still got some connections. Before I head off, I’ll put in a word with the local ghost-officers and make sure they look after you.”
Ji Yi neither agreed nor refused. “You’re too kind.”
He had no expectation that the ghost-officers would look after him. Down below, the ones working government jobs didn’t get much in the way of perks from their actual duties, so they’d always liked to make it up elsewhere. This custom had been around for ages, the same for thousands of years, and not something that would change overnight. He figured the underworld had long since tacitly accepted it, and there’d be no crackdowns on graft. Otherwise, how would a fresh recruit like Ying Xiaotao already have the whole routine down pat?
If he really let a ghost-officer “look after” him, Ji Yi would have to devote a lot of energy to managing the situation. As the saying went, the King of Hell is easy to face, but the little imps are hard to fend off [2]the underlings cause more trouble than the boss jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931959_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931959_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Ghost-officers weren’t like ordinary ghosts, better to steer clear of them. Of course, Ji Yi believed Ying Xiaotao was only saying something nice to sound good, and would never actually call in a favor on his behalf.
After seeing Ying Xiaotao off, Ji Yi mulled over how to find a chance to ask the local ghosts he’d met the night before whether any of them knew the Master Chen that Wei Hu and the others had mentioned. While working during the day, Ji Yi had even made a point of asking for Master Chen’s full name, if the local ghosts knew him, they’d surely recognize it.
“When are you leaving?”
Out of nowhere, Ji Yi heard a childish little voice from directly overhead. The voice itself was cute enough, it was the direction it came from that gave him the creeps.
He lifted his head toward the source. On the tiled edge of the courtyard well stood a round, fluffy silhouette. Against the lit interior, the power was on now, and the black sheet of the night sky, it stayed hidden in the dark, but Ji Yi could feel it watching him.
He even had the sense that this bird was one of the three he’d seen while showering the day before.
Was this… a demon?
Ghosts, Ji Yi had seen plenty of. But a bird that talked, surely that could only be a spirit-touched demon? He’d never seen a demon before, but he knew their numbers these days couldn’t be very large, and that they wouldn’t show themselves in the mortal world lightly.
“You… you’re a demon?” It was hard for Ji Yi to keep the hesitation out of his voice. That round black silhouette was barely bigger than his fist. In Ji Yi’s old imaginings, demons were supposed to be majestic and awe-inspiring, their true forms shaking the earth. The gap now was so vast that his first reaction wasn’t fear at all, it was a head full of question marks.
The doubt in Ji Yi’s tone seemed to enrage the little sparrow. In an instant it swooped straight down at him, wings flung wide, and at last, in the lamplight, it revealed a pair of glittering black-bean eyes, eyes full of grit and cold resolve. It should have been a thoroughly imposing sight. Except, one second before it reached Ji Yi’s face, the little sparrow’s body made a sharp turn, veering toward the eight-immortals table. Its two small, sharp talons clamped onto the table’s edge, and its head plunged straight into a half-eaten bag of Ji Yi’s potato chips.
Whatever confrontational mood it had built up after all that wounded pride evaporated completely. Seeing its whole body about to disappear into the bag, Ji Yi had no choice but to step in and stop it.
Holding the chip bag in one hand, Ji Yi cupped the little sparrow’s back and rump in his other palm and dragged it out. “Hey, hey, that’s way too unsanitary.”
The little sparrow still had half a chip in its beak, glaring stubbornly at Ji Yi, its little skull dusted with seasoning powder. It crunched down the chip in its mouth, and as if it had already forgotten the whole reason it had come, asked, “What is this thing? So crisp and delicious.”
It looked like it wanted more, but since the chips belonged to Ji Yi, it couldn’t very well snatch them outright. Still, the little sparrow wriggled free of Ji Yi’s hand, shook out its feathers, and planted one foot on his palm, straining to stand a full head taller than him.
“These are cucumber-flavored chips,” said Ji Yi, steering things back on track. “You were asking when I’m leaving?”
The little bird’s greedy, chip-mooching antics had already taken the edge off much of Ji Yi’s unease toward the unknown. Even if a bird had cultivated into a spirit, it seemed there wasn’t much to be scared of.
“Oh, right.” Back to business, the little sparrow’s tone grew a shade more serious. “What is a human like you doing hanging around here so long? In broad daylight I saw you bring in yet another living stranger, and at night you’re all tangled up with ghosts. I don’t know what you’re scheming, but I’ve got my eye on you at all times, and I’ll report to Lord Lin Zhao right on schedule.”
The plump little bird’s black-bean eyes blazed with an “I’m watching you” glare.
Ji Yi very much wanted to point out that “tangled up with” probably wasn’t quite the right phrase here, but his fingertips couldn’t help fishing a chip out of the bag and offering it to the sparrow’s beak. It immediately opened wide and crunched away.
That name, Lin Zhao, had reached Ji Yi’s ears once again. He’d originally guessed Lin Zhao was some local ghost-immortal, but ghosts and demons had never had much overlap.
Ji Yi asked, “Who is Lord Lin Zhao?” As he spoke, he fed the sparrow another chip.
The little sparrow tried its best to hold a proper posture, but kept getting seduced by the chips. Over the course of a few questions, it let slip several key words.
“Lord Lin Zhao, a powerful great demon, guardian of this great mountain. Doesn’t like humans. Rarely shows himself.”
“Is that so?” Ji Yi found this strange. “But I met him my very first day here.”
The little sparrow, annoyed at how slowly Ji Yi was handing over the food, had already stuck its head back into the chip bag. At this it mumbled thickly, “That’s only because it was your first time coming here, the Lord wanted to see who you were, that’s all. For hundreds of years, the Lord has always been like this.”
“Hundreds of years?”
“It’s been several hundred years since I cultivated my spirit-consciousness,” the little sparrow said, munching a chip.
He doesn’t like living strangers, yet every time one draws near, he comes to see for himself. Ji Yi thought back to that night, to the gaze that had scrutinized him so carefully in the dark, and a suspicion formed: maybe Lin Zhao was looking for someone.
But if he didn’t like humans, why search among them? Wasn’t that a contradiction in itself?
“Anyway,” said the little sparrow, finishing off the last of the chip crumbs, “when are you leaving?”
“I’m not leaving,” said Ji Yi, running a fingertip over the sparrow’s little head. “I’ll be living here for a good while. I’m going to open a—” he thought over his wording “, an inn. There’ll probably be living strangers dropping by now and then.”
The little sparrow flapped its wings in alarm, deeply offended. “You, you actually have such a despicable idea!”
“But strictly speaking, the place I’m at doesn’t really count as part of your mountain, does it?” said Ji Yi.
That was true enough. Left with nothing to say, the little sparrow could only grind its beak, mostly just bewildered and at a loss for how to deal with Ji Yi. It turned its head and said, “I’m going to tell Lord Lin Zhao.” Then it spun around and shot off into the night.
Ji Yi found the whole thing amusing. As for whatever the little sparrow meant to report to Lord Lin Zhao, Ji Yi wasn’t worried. Although he’d only met him that one night, he didn’t think Lin Zhao was an unreasonable sort, surely the man wouldn’t forbid him from opening a guesthouse outside the mountain. Besides, if Lin Zhao really was searching for someone, wouldn’t the occasional guest at his inn actually make that search easier? Ji Yi figured that even if Lin Zhao came looking for him, he could use that as an excuse to smooth things over.
Sure enough, the little sparrow didn’t reappear all the way through the following night, and Ji Yi didn’t see Lin Zhao either.
The sparrow didn’t come, but at nightfall Ji Yi did run into Old Man Li. He was standing with a few of the local ghosts Ji Yi had met, in a patch of woods not far from the house, all huddled together talking about something or other.
Spotting Ji Yi’s figure from a distance, Old Man Li came right over.
As it happened, Ji Yi wanted to ask Old Man Li about Master Chen anyway, so he didn’t dodge. Only up close did he notice a trace of worry on the old man’s face. Still, faced with Ji Yi’s question, Old Man Li pulled himself together and answered, “Chen Weiguo, eh? I think I’ve heard the name. Let me ask around for you.”
Old Man Li drifted off, murmured a few words with the other local ghosts, and quickly came back.
The other local ghosts kept sneaking glances at Ji Yi too, but didn’t come over right away, looking somewhat wary. Ji Yi suspected Old Man Li had told them about how, on that first day, he’d smashed the old man’s tombstone, heaven only knew what kind of terrifying image that had built up in those ghosts’ minds.
“They say there was such a person, buried not far from here. Shall we go fetch him for you?” Old Man Li offered eagerly.
“Then I’ll have to trouble you all,” said Ji Yi. “I won’t let you go for nothing.”
He went back inside and brought out some traditional pastries he’d bought that very day, still wrapped in yellow paper, from a confectionery shop in town. The old man who made the pastries there looked well over seventy. They actually tasted pretty good, though for Ji Yi they were a bit too sweet. Right now, though, they were just the thing to feed these ghosts who’d been helping out.
Some of the ghosts, like Old Man Li, had already lost their ability to receive offerings, others still had living children who’d come to sweep and make offerings at their graves during the first lunar month, Qingming, and the like. So their manners at the table varied, some were a little reserved, others wolfed the food down.
Only one ghost seemed less than pleased. Hesitantly, he asked Ji Yi whether these pastries were from the Changxing confectionery in town.
Ji Yi thought it odd, had the ghost read the wrapper? But since he’d been asked, he answered, “That’s right.”
“Ha, isn’t that your own family’s pastry shop?” Old Man Li said to the ghost. Then he turned to explain to Ji Yi, “His name’s Sun Changxing. That shop was opened back when he was still around, he’s the one who taught his son the trade.”
Sun Changxing let out a sigh. “My son’s really disgraced my craft. If I’d known, I should’ve passed the shop to my daughter back then. My daughter takes after me, she uses genuine, quality ingredients. Not like this rotten kid. He’s gone and used stale mung-bean flour again, and put in too much sugar besides.”
Ji Yi couldn’t taste the subtle difference between stale and fresh, but he heartily agreed about the excess sugar.
Having eaten Ji Yi’s food, the ghosts got the job done fast, sure enough. Ji Yi was browsing renovation materials on a certain shopping app for a while when the voices of the ghosts rang out from beyond the door, calling to him: “Boss Ji.”
Ji Yi had earlier told them his purpose in finding Master Chen was to renovate the old house and open a guesthouse, so the ghosts had all started addressing him as “Boss”, a bit fawning, maybe, but fitting.
Ji Yi figured it was more fitting than being called “Master Ji” by a crowd of old ghosts who’d been dead ten or twenty years, every one of whom had been older than his own father when they died. Earlier, one old ghost, dead for who knew how many years, had gotten teary-eyed after finishing his pastry and actually called him “Master Ji,” nearly dragging all the other ghosts into doing the same.
Ji Yi hurried to open the door. Sure enough, among the crowd of ghosts at the doorway was an unfamiliar face, a man of around forty or fifty.
On the way over, the old ghosts had already given Chen Weiguo a rough idea of what he was being asked to do. Even so, Chen Weiguo still found it strange to have been summoned to work for a living person.
Now, upon seeing Ji Yi, he muttered, “How’s it a living person? I’ve never done this kind of job in my life.”
He’d actually planned to go find a place to sit in on a card game tonight, his hands were itching, and he’d sworn to win back all the money he’d lost the day before. So naturally, he was reluctant and put out.
Ji Yi said, “I know it’s a bit hard, but do you think maybe you could work through it?”
“The living and the dead walk separate paths. Can’t be worked through,” Chen Weiguo declared loudly, fixing his gaze on Ji Yi, about to fob him off with a refusal, only to see Ji Yi pull out a handful of silver ingots from behind his back, gleaming and dazzling, stabbing straight into a ghost’s eyes.
Chen Weiguo’s eyes went instantly rigid, locked on the ingots. The words on the tip of his tongue took a sharp detour. “Even if it can’t be worked through, it’s got to be worked through! My motto has always been: scale the highest peaks, and never admit defeat!”
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