Jiang Yi couldn’t care less whether she was angry or not. She closed the door and left.
Little did she know, the moment Jiang Yi stepped out, Ancestor Grandma—who had never experienced a modern city—began to stir up trouble.
The spring mattress bounced up and down as if someone were jumping on it.
The toilet in the bathroom gurgled as it flushed.
The faucet was turned on, water gushing out noisily.
Toilet paper twisted and writhed in mid-air, like snakes charmed by a snake charmer’s flute.
In the room where the electricity was supposed to be off without a keycard, the TV screen flickered with static, occasionally showing a clear frame or two.
As the TV turned on, the energy-saving lights in the perpetually lit hallway—illuminated due to the darkness—began to flicker abnormally.
Sitting at the front desk of the small inn was a middle-aged woman, the shop owner. Everyone called her Sister Chen. She was divorced and raising a child on her own.
Sister Chen fiddled with her phone, her mind restless. The short videos that used to make her laugh heartily now only added to her unease.
Recently, guests had often fled in the middle of the night, complaining that the inn was haunted.
Sister Chen refused to believe in such superstitions and decided to stay in one of the rooms herself.
During the day, everything seemed fine. But in the dead of night, as she drifted into a heavy sleep, sounds began to seep into her ears.
The seductive voice of a woman, the piercing cries of stray cats and dogs, and the urgent blaring of car horns all mingled together.
Sister Chen jolted awake, and the sounds vanished. Only the dripping of a long-neglected faucet at the end of the hallway echoed in the silence.
That faint sound was especially eerie in the quiet of the night.
Unwilling to give up, Sister Chen closed her eyes again, only to be met with another chaotic cacophony in her ears.
Too terrified to sleep, she fled the room in a panic, scared out of her wits.
The next day, she closed the inn and pulled every string she could to find a highly skilled practitioner. She spent tens of thousands to purchase a shop-warding object.
After all that effort, it seemed to work.
She reopened the inn with great fanfare.
But news of the haunting had spread like wildfire in the small county, and no guests dared to set foot inside.
Frustrated, Sister Chen tossed her phone aside when she suddenly heard the sound of rushing water.
Today, only one guest had checked into her inn—Room 103.
It was a young woman, around eighteen or nineteen, tall and pretty.
But she distinctly remembered that the young woman had left shortly after dropping off her belongings.
Afraid she might be mistaken, Sister Chen checked the surveillance footage again.
Sure enough, the young woman had left over ten minutes ago.
Most likely, the faucet was broken.
Sister Chen quickly opened a drawer, took out a spare keycard, and prepared to check.
As soon as she stepped into the hallway, the lights above her began to flicker.
On and off.
The buzzing of electric currents crackled incessantly.
If it weren’t for the previous haunting incidents, Sister Chen might have simply blamed it on unstable electricity.
But now, her heart leaped into her throat. She hastily removed her protective pendant, clutching it in her hand and holding it in front of her.
Moving like a thief, Sister Chen crouched low and followed the sound of water to Room 103.
As her hand, holding the keycard, neared the door lock, the sound of water abruptly stopped.
The flickering lights in the hallway also returned to normal.
Cold, white light spilled down, and everything fell silent.
Sister Chen let out a long sigh of relief. It seemed she had been overthinking things.
After spending so much money on a house-warding object, even if there were any dirty things, they wouldn’t dare to cause trouble.
She turned and headed back toward the front desk.
But before she could take two steps, the deafening noise from the TV erupted like thunder in her ears.
And it wasn’t coming from just one room.
Every room’s TV had turned on simultaneously, the volume cranked to the maximum.
All sorts of programs, all kinds of sound effects mixed together, it was like hundreds of mouths chattering nonstop right beside Sister Chen’s ears.
Sister Chen’s face was pale with terror, her legs trembling.
She was the one who had tidied the room, and she was certain all the power cards had been pulled out—there was simply no electricity in the room.
Now, there was only one possibility.
A haunting!
She screamed, sprinted to the front desk at full speed, grabbed her phone, and dashed outside.
Standing on the bustling street, the sun scorched her skin, yet the chill rising from the depths of her heart still left Sister Chen feeling cold.
Trembling, she scrolled through her contacts, found a number, and dialed.
When the call connected, she wailed, “Master!… Come quickly… It’s haunted.
The lights, the TV… they’re still on even without power!”
She was so frightened she couldn’t even speak coherently.
After Jiang Yi left, she headed straight for an antique shop.
These days, few believe in Metaphysics, and the yellow ritual paper and cinnabar sold are often of poor quality, passed off as good.
This antique shop dealt in ancient artifacts and held a bit of reverence in its heart, so the quality of its yellow ritual paper and cinnabar was top-notch.
High quality came with a high price.
By the time Jiang Yi walked out with the yellow paper and cinnabar, she had only about ninety yuan left.
If she didn’t make a sale, after paying the rent tomorrow, what remained wouldn’t even be enough to catch a warm draft of the northwest wind.
Jiang Yi wandered over to the small square in the county town and thoroughly washed her split-tipped, worn-out brush in the public restroom.
It was high noon, the sun blazing down on the earth without a hint of breeze.
Jiang Yi found a stone table and stools in the square, laid out her paper and brush, ready to make a big score.
After dipping her brush in cinnabar, she steadied her hand and began writing, her strokes flowing like a dragon or snake.
An old man watched her from a distance.
At first, his face was full of admiration, and he thought to himself, not many young people use brushes these days.
This girl seemed like a professional.
The more he watched, the more curious he became, so he moved closer.
When he saw clearly what Jiang Yi was drawing, he pursed his lips and began lecturing her, “Young lady, you’re drawing this to scam people! I say, at your age…”
“Tsk… what are you talking about? Scam who? This is the real deal, okay!” This was Jiang Yi’s lifelong trade, and she couldn’t help but speak up when someone criticized her like this.
“If you’re going to scam people, at least use better props. Look, even your writing is splitting at the tip, and the things you draw are all fuzzy.”
The old man’s tone was filled with disdain and resentment.
Young people these days don’t think about working hard—they just dabble in these crooked paths!
Experts see the skill, amateurs see the show, and this old man was nothing at all!
Though Jiang Yi thought this, she didn’t want to argue with him.
Arguing was pointless; otherwise, it would just lead to a scene—this was something she’d learned from Ancestor Grandma.
Once the cinnabar dried, Jiang Yi folded the talisman into a triangle, swept it into her small bundle, and called it done.
Cheerfully, she picked up her little bag and walked toward a group of people dancing in the square under the shade of the trees.
She spread out her bundle cloth and neatly arranged the triangular talismans one by one, waiting for customers.
Unexpectedly, the old man followed her from afar, standing there watching her, even making a call on his ultra-long-lasting, speakerphone-comparable multifunctional senior phone to someone.
And then… the city inspectors arrived in their little patrol car.
Their target was Jiang Yi.
Terrified, Jiang Yi packed up her things and made a run for it.
If she couldn’t set up here, she’d go to the overpass.
She refused to believe that with such good goods, no one would recognize their worth.
Jiang Yi had just set up on the overpass when he spotted the old man again.
No need to say—the city inspectors had shown up once more.
The street vendors scattered in panic, terrified of being caught.