I stared at her in shock. One hundred thousand?
I didn’t even have a thousand yuan!
That rich heiress was really asking for the moon!
When I didn’t agree, Tống Phỉ Phỉ raised the stakes. “Two hundred thousand a month! That’s my final offer!”
I was stunned. Why was she raising the price?
Even if Bách Linh was my ghost, she couldn’t demand such a huge salary!
Tống Phỉ Phỉ snatched my phone. A moment later, a pleasant female voice announced, “Your Alipay account has received two million yuan!”
I trembled and stiffly raised my head to look at Tống Phỉ Phỉ.
So when she said two hundred thousand, she didn’t mean I had to pay her. She was paying me two hundred thousand a month?
She was going to work and pay me, too?
I couldn’t begin to understand the world of the rich.
“All right, transfer ten months’ pay upfront. From now on, I’m your employee. I’ll come in every day.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ’s youthful, beautiful face was full of excitement and anticipation.
Giang Bắc Châu sat slumped in a chair, his face streaked with tears.
He’d been searching for his mother for nine years—internet, streets, phone calls. Missing-person flyers were plastered everywhere. He’d even thought she might have amnesia, like in the movies.
But what had just happened shattered his hopes. His mother really was gone.
I patted his shoulder sympathetically. “I found Hà Tỷ by the river. Amnesiac ghosts are extremely rare. And given the form she takes when she transforms, I have a grim suspicion. I don’t know if you can handle hearing it.”
Giang Bắc Châu wiped his face. His eyes were red, but his gaze was resolute. “I want to know what happened to my mother. Please tell me the truth.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ tensed, too, leaning in to listen.
“There’s a sinister technique. A murderer afraid their victim will become a vengeful ghost drives a soul-subduing nail into the victim’s head, gouges out their eyes, cuts out their tongue, and scrapes the bones at the back of their neck. Even if the victim becomes a ghost, they won’t remember anything.”
“Smash!”
Giang Bắc Châu crushed his glass. Holding back his rage, despair, and grief, he looked at me. “I want to work here, too, until I find out the truth about my mother.”
And just like that, I had two more employees who paid their own salaries: Tống Phỉ Phỉ gave me two million yuan, and Giang Bắc Châu gave me one million.
In the blink of an eye, I went from proletarian to middle class.
There was a small courtyard behind the haunted house, with a kitchen and two empty rooms.
I took one room, while Giang Bắc Châu insisted on taking the other. “Until I find out the truth, I’m not leaving my mother.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ wanted to join in, too, but when she saw how basic the accommodations were, she reluctantly left.
The next morning, Hà Tỷ finished making breakfast and knocked on my door. “Linh Châu, get up and eat! I made braised beef noodles today. They smell amazing!”
I bowed my head and wolfed down my food. Giang Bắc Châu stared at the bowl of noodles as tears streamed down his face. He didn’t wipe them away; he just cried and smiled at the same time.
Hà Tỷ looked disgusted and floated over to me. “Linh Châu, your boyfriend’s acting kind of weird!”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s the store’s new employee.”
“Mom~”
“Ahem!”
I choked. Giang Bắc Châu gave a sad smile. “Hà Tỷ, hello. I’m Tiểu Khoa. From now on, I’ll be working for Linh Châu.”
That’s right. So he wouldn’t upset Hà Tỷ, Giang Bắc Châu even had to change his name.
“Oh, Linh Châu, you’re all grown up, and you still button your shirt wrong.”
Hà Tỷ chattered on as she came over to fix my shirt.
Giang Bắc Châu stared at me, his eyes full of jealousy and envy. I felt like I’d stolen someone’s mother, and I was a little guilty.
“Hà Tỷ, I know. Go burn some incense, then come eat breakfast.”
I’d turned the hopping vampire Chu Hoài Khoan’s room into an ancient tomb, with a large wooden coffin in the middle.
I lit three sticks of incense in the corner. As the smoke curled upward, four ghosts gathered.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ and Giang Bắc Châu crouched curiously in the corner, watching us sit on the floor.
The finest incense burned in the small space. I took out an ancient horsetail whisk, my expression solemn.
The ghosts knelt respectfully before me, their eyes full of longing.
I chanted an incomprehensible ancient incantation, and golden light flowed into their ghostly bodies.
Bách Linh tilted her face up to bask in the light, delighted. Tiểu Minh’s translucent body gradually solidified, and his green face grew paler. Golden light flickered across Chu Hoài Khoan’s blue-black body; he was on the verge of evolving into a copper-armored hopping vampire.
Unlike the others, Hà Tỷ grimaced in pain, gritting her teeth as she muttered, “Don’t come any closer! Let go! You animal!”
As soon as I finished the soul-congealing spell, I quickly drew Hà Tỷ into the gourd.
“That feels amazing, Little Linh Châu! Your soul-congealing spell keeps getting better. My ghostly body is becoming more solid. At this rate, I’ll be able to go out during the day without possessing anyone!”
Bách Linh stretched alluringly and shot me a flirtatious glance.
“Ahem.”
I cleared my throat and said seriously, “We’re all family now, so I’ll be frank. I want to help Hà Tỷ regain her memories. Once she does, she may turn into an evil spirit. Evil spirits have no reason, and Hà Tỷ died a terrible death and carries deep resentment. You’ll have to help me keep her under control. If we succeed, I’ll chant the ghost-core spell for you.”
Bách Linh drew a deep breath. “The legendary ghost-core spell—the one that can form a ghost core?”
I nodded solemnly, and the three pairs of eyes below me lit up.
If you’re going to make a promise, make it a big one!
After sending the well-fed ghosts away, Tống Phỉ Phỉ and Giang Bắc Châu looked at me with admiration.
“Lục Linh Châu! You’re so cool~” Tống Phỉ Phỉ propped her chin on her hand, looking utterly smitten.
“Can you really help my mother get her memories back? What do we need to do?” Giang Bắc Châu’s eyes blazed as he looked at me as if I were his savior.
After we came up with a simple plan, the operation to save Hà Tỷ began.
I named it “Reclaiming Her Memories.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ was even more excited than Giang Bắc Châu. She grabbed me and bounced around. “It was so dangerous back then! Can you teach me a few simple ghost-catching tricks? Like last time? She went ‘whoosh’ and shot out a bunch of seaweed, then I went ‘whoosh’ and chopped it all up with my sword!”
I rolled my eyes. “That was riverweed! Hà Tỷ lives in a river, not the sea!”
“Doesn’t matter!”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ waved a hand, eyes sparkling. “I’m tired of buying handbags and supercars and traveling abroad! The life I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! This is my true calling!”
To help Hà Tỷ recover her memories, we had to find her body, pull the soul-subduing nail from her head, then choose a place with good feng shui, erect a headstone, and give her a proper burial.
I stared helplessly at the luxury supercar, with its ostentatious engine roar and blindingly bright yellow paint.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ wore sunglasses, her face beaming. “Come on, aren’t we going to Giang Bắc Châu’s hometown?”
“Come on, do you really have to show off like this? It’s a supercar, and there are three of us.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ took off her sunglasses, looking a little disappointed. “How is this showing off? This is the cheapest car I own. Fine, let’s switch to an SUV.”
Giang Bắc Châu’s home was a two-hour drive away, in a remote town.
By the time we arrived, it was dark. Giang Bắc Châu opened the door and carefully pushed it open.
It was a simple two-room apartment: an old sofa, a yellowed dining table, and a few New Year pictures hanging on the walls.
It felt like stepping back into Hà Tỷ’s haunted house, the one she had painstakingly furnished.
Giang Bắc Châu leaned against the doorway, his eyes full of nostalgia. This house held his fondest memories.
“Find a few things your mother liked best, or used the most.”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ looked around curiously. Just then, a girl appeared in the doorway.
The young woman wore glasses and looked gentle and shy. “I’m your neighbor. May I ask who you are?”
Hearing her voice, Giang Bắc Châu came out of the room.
“Brother Bắc Châu!”
The round-faced girl’s eyes lit up, and the corners of her mouth lifted before she could stop them.
“Tiểu Văn, what are you doing here?”
Giang Bắc Châu was delighted to see her too. He stepped forward and greeted her warmly.
“Let me introduce you. This is my childhood neighbor, Trần Văn, and these are two friends of mine.”
So Trần Văn had been Giang Bắc Châu’s neighbor since childhood.
It was quite a story: somehow, Giang Bắc Châu’s father and Trần Văn’s mother had fallen in love. When the two children were seven or eight, they both ran away from home to follow them.
So Trần Văn and Giang Bắc Châu had shared the same circumstances and been close since childhood—childhood sweethearts in the most innocent, carefree sense.
“Where’s Uncle Trần?”
Trần Văn pressed her lips together and lowered her head. “My father fell and broke his leg a few days ago. He’s in the hospital.”