1
A friend came over to my place.
“Your AC is great. You can leave the windows open and it’s still so cool in here.”
I said, “I’m not running the AC. I just put out a ghost-attracting flag.”
My friend: “?”
Their face turned deathly pale. “There’s nothing weird going on at my place, but I should get going.”
Yeah, she was dirt-poor. Compared to the ghosts, it was anyone’s guess who’d get the better of whom.
2
But it wasn’t all upside.
At night, the window was always creaking.
So I took the window off.
The TV kept turning itself on and off.
So I threw the TV out.
And whenever I slept, I’d get sleep paralysis.
Well, it was pretty refreshing, actually.
3
But after a while, I realized there seemed to be more than one ghost showing up.
One ghost liked wrecking things.
Every time I came home, the place was a disaster.
No big deal. I just treated it like having a beagle.
Besides, my place was so poor there was nothing but bare walls. After it wrecked the place, it turned out nothing was missing.
One ghost liked wailing miserably in the middle of the night. Its cries were shrill and mournful.
It sounded just like my best friend after a breakup. I was so used to it that I could sleep soundly through the crying.
Another liked running back and forth through the house at midnight, making a bright, bell-like laugh.
The crying and laughter mingled.
One cried, the other laughed.
As if it were mocking the crying ghost. It was downright ironic.
After a few days of this, the crying ghost seemed unable to take it anymore.
When the bright laughter rang out, I heard a loud, heavy thump.
The laughter stopped at once.
Then it burst into a wail of misery.
Good grief, that was just adding fuel to the crying ghost’s fire.
4
Honestly, it was bearable.
My lively little single-parent household—what’s not to love? That is, until a ghost messed with the only piece of real estate in my home.
It scratched my table!
The next day, I immediately set up a formation.
Sure enough, at midnight, fresh scratches appeared on the corner of my table. I seized the moment, rushed out, and activated the formation with my own blood essence.
The peachwood sword in my hand was practically bursting with anticipation!
In an instant, golden light flashed. A torrent of dark energy surged out.
I braced myself, ready to face it.
The dark energy dissipated. Before me stood... a long-haired cat.
?
Wait, how is it a ghost cat?!
The ghost cat and I stared at each other.
Instinctively, I went, “Meow?”
The ghost cat: “...”
It shot me a sidelong glance, its expression unmistakably disdainful.
...Where was my peachwood sword?!
5
In theory, after small animals like cats and dogs die, their simple-minded souls are guided away within seven days and reincarnated two months later.
But the ghost cat before me was nearly transparent. Clearly, some lingering attachment kept it stubbornly in this world.
Come on, what kind of attachment could a cat possibly have?
But I didn’t know cat, so I couldn’t communicate with it.
It sprawled lazily on the floor, still scratching at the corner of my table with its claws.
As if it weren’t the one whose soul was about to vanish.
I tried reaching out to touch it.
It glanced at me, then started purring comfortably.
Then, out of nowhere, it bit me.
Hmph, I’ll send you on your way myself!
6
The moment I raised the peachwood sword, the formation flashed with golden light. But right after, dark energy surged out in a flood.
Oh my god, could this dark energy be the reincarnated Evil Sword Immortal?!
A moment later, a pitch-black hand crawled out of the formation, dripping with moisture.
Drip, drip.
His voice was hoarse, and the syllables he forced out were hard to make out. “No... don’t... I... I know...”
I gripped the sword tightly.
“I know... what it wants to do.”
His voice gradually grew clearer, as if his ravaged throat had finally remembered how to form words.
“It wants to appear in its owner's dream.”
7
The Water Ghost said the cat had been dead for two months.
It had died of an illness.
It had been very happy in life. But when it died, its owner was so heartbroken that they hadn’t managed to hold it one last time.
I said, “So it was so full of regret that it formed a lingering attachment?”
The cat stared at me with round eyes.
What a petty little cat.
But the Water Ghost said, “No. Its owner is the one so consumed by regret that it’s become an obsession. They hurt themselves every day and can’t forgive themselves.”
“It wants to tell its owner that everything is okay.”
Right. A cat’s mind is a blank slate; it doesn’t have anything like an obsession. But a beloved cat might.
I paused. “All for this?”
I patted the cat’s head. This time, it didn’t dodge. Was this the only reason it was willing to let its soul fade away?
But now that I thought about it...
“It’s been dead for two months, and its power keeps getting weaker. Why didn’t it manage to appear in the owner’s dreams at first?”
The cat suddenly let out an agitated yowl, as if cursing someone out.
Somehow, I understood what it meant.
“They didn’t sleep at all for the first few days! Then they cried all night and only slept during the day! The daytime yang energy was too strong, so I couldn’t get into their dreams!”
8
I lent the ghost cat some of my yang energy.
That night, the crying ghost didn’t cry. The laughing ghost didn’t laugh either.
The ghost cat’s soul entered a watery dream.
In the dream, a person’s tears became an ocean.
I dreamed, too.
There was a cat in my dream, too.
It bit me.
9
When I woke up, the ghost cat had left to be reincarnated.
Meanwhile, I looked at the Water Ghost, who was pinning me down.
“If you couldn’t see me, fine. But now that you can, isn’t it a little rude to lie on top of me?”
The Water Ghost glanced at me, then slowly crawled off me.
Then he curled up in the corner.
He stared at me coldly.
His stare gave me goosebumps.
Then he buried his face in the crook of his arm.
Only his watery eyes showed.
He murmured, “Sorry. It’s because you’re so warm.”
...That’s what it’s like for people with strong yang energy like us.
The ghosts really love us.
10
From that day on, my house got livelier and livelier.
I could only assume the ghost-attracting flag was still doing its job.
I don’t know if the laughing ghost was just too excited, but lately it’s been more and more energetic.
I could be in the corner of the bathroom, on the bedroom ceiling, or beneath the bed, and I’d still catch it staring at me with a blood-soaked, sinister grin.
Sometimes its whole body would even twist into the shape of a Chinese doughnut. After it startled me several times, I finally drew my sword and stood up!
But it wasn’t scared at all. It pointed at me and cried, “Oh my God, you’re mad! You’re mad!”
“This is hilarious—someone finally cracked!”
Me: “?”
It tossed its head. “So what? What are you gonna do about it?”
I smiled, bit my fingertip, and smeared the blood on my peachwood sword.
“Why don’t you guess what I can do?”
Its expression shifted slightly. It pouted. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Good grief, it really was a demon child incarnate. Even the demons weren’t spared the latest internet slang.
At least beating up a demon wasn’t against the law.
I was just about to finish it off with a couple of swings when it suddenly dropped to its knees and kowtowed. “I’m sorry, I was wrong. I just wanted to get your attention.”
Me: “…”
Was bending its arms backward 180 degrees and spinning its head right off supposed to get someone’s attention?
Well, it certainly got mine.
11
The laughing ghost said it had seen me help the ghost cat. It wanted me to help it, too.
But it didn’t know how to ask.
I didn’t hesitate. “Then don’t ask.”
Its eyes immediately turned red. “You won’t even help a child? You really are heartless!”
I gave it a wicked smile. “So what? What are you gonna do about it?”
“You!!!”
The ghosts who remained among the living all had powerful obsessions. Who knew what this one was fixated on?
Besides, I was already so poor. I was the one who needed help most, wasn’t I?
The laughing ghost glared at me furiously. Gradually, red blood began to seep from its eyes.
After a long while, I heard it whisper, “Please.”
I still refused.
But that night, I had a very long dream.
In the dream, I was very little.
Because of the domestic violence, my parents divorced.
I went with my father.
My father left me in the countryside. My grandparents didn’t like me. They said my mother was selfish and arrogant, and had left just because she’d been hit a few times.
And I was a girl, so the village kids didn’t like me.
Fortunately, I had a phone. It was all I had.
Two years later, my father came back. He told my grandparents he probably wouldn’t be able to have any more children. Suddenly, I became the family’s precious darling.
My father brought me to the city to live with him.
For the next six months, I was very happy.
That is, until my father met a beautiful woman.
One day, she called my father.
“I’m pregnant!”
My father held the phone, his eyes brimming with joy.
But right after that…
My father’s gaze shifted to me.
The eyes that had looked at me with love, however briefly, turned cold.
Love disappeared so quickly.