On the ship’s deck, the father slapped his daughter, then grabbed her by the collar and threw her to the floor, shouting, “I told you not to say stupid things when we went out! Everyone’s here to have fun, and you go saying the ship’s going to sink. Are you cursing your mother and me to die, too? Get on your knees! Apologize to everyone!”
The girl in red was terrified. She clung to her mother and didn’t dare say another word.
Her mother hurriedly clasped her hands and bowed. “I’m sorry… My daughter has a blood clot in her head. She didn’t mean it.”
It had always been a terrible taboo to talk about a ship sinking while you were aboard one.
Everyone had set out on vacation in high spirits, but now a child was saying the ship would sink and they would all drown. Their faces darkened. Even the nearby crew members only looked on coldly, showing no sympathy.
“If the child’s sick, take her to a hospital. Why bring her here to cause trouble? What kind of parents are you?”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her. Her parents probably just spoil her too much.”
“If you can’t raise a child properly, don’t have one.”
“Look at this family. They don’t look like they have any money. They had a kid just to make her suffer.”
The criticism made the mother feel humiliated. She held her daughter tightly against her.
The father snapped angrily, “I told you not to take her out, but you wouldn’t listen. She wanted to go on a cruise, so you let her. Look what you’ve turned her into by spoiling her!”
Her mother choked back a sob. “I just want Mumu to have no regrets in this life.”
The girl’s father’s eyes were bloodshot as he continued to scold her. “What regrets? We had nothing when we were kids, and we turned out fine. It’s not like she’s going to die in a few days. I think she’s just pretending, talking nonsense to scare people. Keep spoiling her, and sooner or later she’ll cause a serious disaster.”
With that, he stormed off into the ship. I stood nearby, watching the scene and feeling increasingly uneasy.
I felt even more uneasy when the girl suddenly looked up at me. A faint golden light flashed in her eyes, gathered between her brows, and opened into a slit before vanishing.
Had her Heavenly Eye opened?
I hurried over and crouched in front of her. Her mother was wiping away her tears. When she saw me, she quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. Mumu hit her head two years ago and developed a blood clot, so she says strange things sometimes. She really didn’t mean to…”
I smiled and shook my head, then took a White Rabbit candy from my pocket and said gently, “It’s all right. I think she’s a very sweet girl.”
The girl glanced at the candy and shook her head softly. “Thank you, ma’am. I don’t eat candy.”
“Why not? Go ahead and take it.” I still pressed the candy into her hand.
Her mother said something softly. The girl took the candy, gazed at it for a long time, then carefully tucked it into her little pocket.
I studied her eyes and the space between her brows, but now there was no trace of the Heavenly Eye.
The girl’s mother seemed uncomfortable under my gaze. She pulled her daughter to her feet and said quietly, “Ma’am, we… should get back to our cabin.”
I came to my senses and quickly took out a business card, handing it to her. “Hello, I’m Hứa Tâm. This is my card. If your daughter’s condition flares up again, you can call this number.”
“Are you a doctor?” The mother’s eyes widened as she hurriedly accepted the card with both hands.
I smiled and nodded. “You could say that.”
With so many passengers passing by, and the trace of the Heavenly Eye on the girl now gone, I said nothing more. I simply watched in silence as the mother and daughter disappeared from view.
Once inside, a personal butler escorted me to a luxury suite on the top deck. As I was about to enter, a man’s voice suddenly rang out from the adjoining corridor. “Ms. Hứa.”
I turned and saw a short-haired man. I was momentarily taken aback. “Yang…”
Before I could finish saying his name, he said, “Just call me Dương Kỳ.”
One look at him and I understood: Dương Kỳ was a police officer, dressed in civilian clothes. He couldn’t reveal his identity in public. I’d met him half a month earlier during a case involving a haunted object. Running into him here clearly wasn’t a coincidence.
“Dương… Kỳ, I take it you didn’t come here by chance?” I glanced down at the ticket in his hand.
This time, I’d boarded the Princess Rose to attend an auction.
According to the information I had, an important haunted object I was searching for would appear at the auction.
Dương Kỳ knew this, and he was a police officer, so our meeting aboard the ship obviously couldn’t be called a coincidence.
“Come into your room and we can talk. Or come to mine—1015.” Dương Kỳ smiled and raised his ticket.
So it really wasn’t a coincidence.
My room was 1016, also a luxury suite on the ship.
As a businesswoman with assets worth tens of billions, I didn’t mind spending 68,888 for a night in a room. But the fact that this police officer had booked the room right next door clearly meant he had an agenda.
“Let’s talk in my room.” I decisively stepped into my luxury suite.
My name is Hứa Tâm, and I’m the last female merchant of the ghost market in Huaxia.
I own a family-run antique shop near Phan Gia Viên, where I specialize in buying and selling antiques and dealing with haunted objects.
Haunted objects are items possessed by powerful obsessions. When people die—especially unjust deaths—their intense obsessions can cling to things in their coffins and turn them into haunted objects.
Haunted objects have strange powers, but every time you use one, it consumes your life force and causes you to develop an obsession of your own.
I can help people resolve their obsessions and recover some of the life force they’ve lost. That’s why I boarded the Princess Rose this time: for a haunted object, a very important one. I just don’t know what it looks like yet.
In the luxury suite, the personal butler gave me a brief tour of the amenities and then left.
I set down my backpack, let out my little black cat, Than, and casually tossed Dương Kỳ a bottle of mineral water from the table. Some things didn’t need to be asked about; one look was enough.
Dương Kỳ sat down on the sofa and explained without being asked. “Ms. Hứa, I’m here to investigate the next incident involving the ghost bus. According to the information I’ve received, several people connected to the ghost bus have boarded this ship.”
The ghost bus incident was something Dương Kỳ and I had experienced before. Every haunted object I’d encountered until then had been an antique passed down from ancient times, and had taken at least a hundred years to form. But the ghost bus was different: it was a haunted object created in modern times. A bus full of people was buried alive; they killed one another, even ate one another, and in the end, a haunted object was born that could grant anyone any wish—but would consume their remaining years.
According to my investigation, the organization that created the ghost bus was called Dạ Xoa. If Dương Kỳ was telling the truth, then someone from Dạ Xoa was aboard this ship.
“Officer Dương, I’m guessing there’s more you need to explain than that, isn’t there?” I lightly tapped my finger on the table, my eyes moving over every detail in the room before I gave a faint, wry smile.
“The Princess Rose cruise ship has eighteen luxury suites on its top deck, each costing 68,888 a night. Since when have you cops been so rich?”
Dương Kỳ laughed. “The department assigned me a four-person room on the third deck, but I like soaking in a big bathtub and watching TV, so I upgraded the room myself. The department doesn’t need to pay—I have money of my own.”
He was a police officer, yet he had such considerable wealth—and was even investigating haunted objects on his own... It was clear Dương Kỳ was hiding something from me. At the very least, he was probably more than just a police officer. If I hadn’t seen him call and dispatch other officers with my own eyes before, I might have doubted even that.
I nodded and gestured for him to go on. “Continue.”
“Continue?” Dương Kỳ raised an eyebrow, then nodded.