As soon as I laid down, someone banged on the door. It was Zhou Tian’s wife. She looked worried. “Master, my mother-in-law just called. She said that the evil thing has come to trouble her. Please help her!”

“Dammit it.” I patted my thigh, put on my jacket, and descended the stairs. The otherworldly item was hurt. It was so angry that it attacked the grannie. How could I make such a mistake?

I left the neighborhood and hopped in a taxi. After giving the driver five hundred renminbi, I asked him to drive at maximum speed to the grannie’s hotel.

When I entered the hostel, I saw the grannie lying on the sofa. She didn’t look hurt at all. I exhaled in relief and asked, “Auntie, are you okay?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she asked, “How is my son? Is he safe?”

She wasn’t on the same page as me. I suddenly felt that something was wrong. I frowned. “Auntie, after I left, did something happen at the hostel?”

“I’m just an old woman. What could happen to me?” Auntie noticed my stern face and seemed to realize something. She quickly asked, “Is something the matter?”

“Something doesn’t feel right.” I didn’t explain much and rushed to the single-story house behind the hostel. The box on the altar table had disappeared.

The grannie entered the house after me, dropping her jaw in shock right after. “Before you came, I checked once and it was still here. Where did it go?”

“It seems it couldn’t stand still…” My face darkened.

I took out the compass and checked around the altar. When I moved in the Southeast direction, the compass handle shook hard. This indicated that there was some Yin energy there and that the box had possibly escaped in that direction.

I slowly moved forward while following the handle. I then found a one-square-meter wide hole in the Southeast corner of the house.

The box must have escaped through that hole. When the grannie saw me frown, she explained, “That’s a coal hole. We used it a very long time ago to throw cinders away.”

“Auntie, stay home and wait for me.” It was pointless to dwell on this hole further. I told her to stay and entered the hole. Then, I invited a spirit to carry me.

It was said that one shouldn’t open their eyes when they were inviting a carrying spirit. However, I needed to use the compass to track the otherworldly item, so I had no choice.

This time, I had invited a little boy wearing a red dudou [1]. His head was giant and his eyes sparkled with a blue light.

The boy was shivering. Perhaps he was scared of the compass in my hand. “Don’t worry, kid. This compass of mine is used to deal with evil spirits. Just take me to my destination, and I will reward you.”

The boy understood me and moved faster. I followed the compass handle. Eventually, I confirmed that the box had gone to Zhou Tian’s house.

When we stopped, I dropped some blood on the ground to reward the little boy. A small ghost such as him could easily vanish. That was why he had agreed to help me in exchange for some drops of blood to preserve his soul.

He was a self-reliant ghost, which was much better than the ghosts that harmed people to strengthen themselves!

I hurried to return to Zhou Tian’s villa. Before I entered his house, I saw his wife sitting at the entrance with both hands placed on her knees. She lifted her head, her blank eyes gazing at the roof. She looked really strange.

I wanted to ask her what happened, but a commotion occurred. Things were being thrown in the house. I turned and stormed into the house, catching a wisp of a red shadow flying toward Zhou Tian’s bedroom.

Although it moved very quickly, I had caught a glimpse of it and saw that it didn’t have legs. This spirit didn’t have a lower body!

I noticed that all the movable items were on the ground, like the chairs, table, small decorations, and even the teapot. They were all broken into pieces.

I was surprised and thought that this spirit was rather odd. It liked to throw things and was so strong that it could shatter all of the items.

I was deep in thought when someone suddenly screamed in the room. Then, the same throwing commotion resounded.

All of my defensive tools were left in the grannie’s hostel. As I had just raced against the spirit, I didn’t have time to get them. For now, all I could do was to pick up a cactus from the ground and dash into the bedroom.

The instant I got into the room, a red mist attacked me. I didn’t have time to chew the cactus that the attack hurled me to the ground.

“Cough…” I felt something sweet in my throat, which made me spit blood. Then, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I felt as if I was being deep-fried with hot oil.

Sweat rolled down my forehead as I rolled on the ground like a drug addict in agony, my body shaking uncontrollably. I knew I just needed to chew on the piece of cactus to ease this pain, but my hands were shaking too hard. I couldn’t hold anything.

At this moment, someone got out of the room. From the corner of my eye, I was scared to see that it was Zhou Tian’s wife!

She had a mocking face as she assessed me. With a broken hacksaw blade in her hand, she looked down at me and sneered. “You’re courting death!”

It was the spirit’s voice. Zhou Tian’s wife was possessed.

But then, I realized that this made no sense at all. If she had been possessed, who was the woman sitting at the entrance?

Before I could analyze the situation, I felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I stooped and sweated in fright. The woman was sitting on my thighs. She was using the metal hacksaw blade to saw my leg! I didn’t even have any strength in me to resist!

At the moment my life was at stake, the door sprang open one more time. A dim shadow flew fast toward the woman’s hand.

As it came closer, I recognized it was the little boy wearing the red dudou; the same boy that had brought me here. He didn’t stop when he entered the room and bit Zhou Tian’s wife’s middle finger.

In the human hand, the middle finger contains most of the blood essence. Whenever the middle finger is squeezed, Yang energy will be released. That is why it is popular to use chopsticks to squeeze the middle finger. It can expel the ghost when people are possessed.

The little boy’s sudden attack had saved me!

The spirit from the box was focused on sawing my leg, so it couldn’t react in time when the boy attacked it. Zhou Tian’s wife screamed, and the legless red shadow left her body, turning to attack the boy.

The spirit grabbed the boy, making it scream in pain. I gritted my teeth and sat up. I quickly picked up a piece of cactus and chewed it. Soon, the heat expanded in my mouth, and the pain in my chest subsided.

“Screw you!”

I couldn’t think of other ways of attacking the spirit, so I bit the tip of my tongue and spat the blood on the spirit. The red shadow sizzled and fumed smoke.

It released the boy as it felt the danger. Then, like a tiger watching its prey, the spirit glared at me.

I knew the spirit was frightened and hesitant, but after I had spat my blood, I didn’t have any other means to attack it. The ball cactus could keep me safe, but it couldn’t help the boy.

Neither of us made a move. We just stared at each other in a deadlock.

I knew it would attack me soon, so I made a bet. I turned and picked up the Sirius Whip. I pretended to read some spells and lashed at the spirit.

The spirit hesitated for only one second. Then, before the whip could hit it, it turned into a red mist and fled. When it completely disappeared, I heaved a sigh of relief and slumped to the ground.

The boy flew to me and gave me a shy smile. At this moment, I didn’t find him as terrifying as before. His smile was rather kind. I said, “Kid, you want to follow me, right?”

My grandpa used to tell me that lonely little ghosts often wanted to stay with otherworldly merchants because they didn’t want to vanish forever.

If they were lucky and followed the right master, they could even revive. The little Daoist boy Chuyi had kept was a good example. He, too, had the chance to come back to life. Unfortunately, he perished to help me.

It was a good move to adopt a little ghost. They were different from the evil ghosts who harmed people. However, I didn’t have the habit of keeping ghosts with me. I just wanted to find a suitable ghost for Chuyi.

Indeed, the little boy nodded when I asked him. Then, he stooped his head and played with his fingers, not daring to look at me.

I guessed he was afraid that I would reject him. I smiled at him and found a piece of white paper. I folded a crane, dropped a bit of blood on it, and gestured to the little ghost to enter the crane.

The boy jumped in joy. He got on his knees and gave me three kowtows before turning into a wisp of smoke. Then, he entered the paper crane.

I put the crane in my wallet and went to the bedroom. Zhou Tian was weakly breathing, still on his bed. The bronze box was placed next to him.

It seemed the spirit was scared and hadn’t returned to the otherworldly item. The situation was exactly what I wanted!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudou