CH 4

Chapter 4: First Business

In people’s perception, a city was always noisy, there were too many people, too many cars and too many things. But for Chen Yu, who had spent two nights in the capital city, felt that the city at night was especially quiet. There was almost no living thing in the carefully pruned lawn, the few cicadas that sounded occasionally didn’t have the sound like the crickets in the grass outside of Damu Village.

Chen Yu turned on a small desk lamp, carrying the linen bag given to her by the Old man, then quietly pushed the window and jumped down. It was already twelve o’clock at night, the lights on  Father and Mother Chen’s room next to hers had already been turned off for two hours, while Chen Yang’s room at the far left of the second floor was also turned off half an hour ago.

Chen Yu flipped out to the yard skillfully, bringing with her the smart phone that Mother Chen had just bought for her today, locking onto the place that she was going to go to tonight.

“Thirty five kilometers?” Chen Yu couldn’t help exclaimed, “Won’t it be dawn when I come back later?”

Chen Yu decisively dismissed her intention to walk and stopped a taxi on the roadside. Now that there was a new money-making skill, the way to spend money should also keep up with progression ah.

There were only a few cars at night so the speed was very fast. In less than forty minutes, the taxi stopped at the gate of Riverside Park. When getting off, the kind taxi driver saw that Chen Yu was only a little girl, coming to this place in the middle of the night, so he couldn’t help reminding her, “Student, this place is very remote, do you really want to get off here?”

“That’s right, thank you, mister.” Chen Yu said and handed over a hundred yuan.

“Student, it’s not easy to get a taxi near here, how long are you going to spend here? Do you want me to wait for you?” The driver said while looking for a change to give to Chen Yu.

“There’s no need, mister. I also don’t know when I would come out, thank you for your concern.” Chen Yu thanked.

“Then, okay, be careful.” The driver saw that this little girl insisted and that it’s hard to persuade her. These young’uns nowadays, really makes parents worry.

Waiting until the taxi turned on the junction and can’t be seen anymore, Chen Yu then turned around and walked into the park’s gate. Riverside Park was the newly developed park that was located on the lakeside, it hasn’t been opened to the public yet. The tall iron gate was secured by an iron chain, so Chen Yu looked up at the height and searched for a better place to put her foot on before jumping two or three times and entered the park.

After entering the park, Chen Yu flipped the compass out of her bag, looking at the pointer of the compass that turned around before finally pointing to the southwest.

Looks like the goal is right there.

After determining the direction, Chen Yu closed the compass and turned on the flashlight function of her new phone. While lamenting of the multi-function of the smart phone, she casually walked to the pointed direction.

After walking for about ten minutes, Chen Yu faintly felt a bit of ghostly aura, but she didn’t stop or look around in alert. She instead quietly walked along the stone path inside the bamboo forest, looking like she didn’t find anything yet.

Halfway through, Chen Yu found that there’s a small pavilion in the center of the bamboo forest that was dedicated for tourists. Pretending that she was tired, Chen Yu walked over to find a place to sit down before taking out her phone and played a Penguin card game.

“Loot the landlord, I’ll loot.”

“Quickly, I’m already waiting until all my flowers withered ah.”

“The king exploded!”

Just after Chen Yu played three to four rounds with keen interest, a cold voice suddenly sounded beside her ear, “Your card isn’t good.”

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t grab the landlord.” Chen Yu nodded in agreement as she bowed her head and continued fighting the landlord.

“...” The icy voice waited silently for a while, looking at Chen Yu finishing another round, Chen Yu actually planned to continue playing again, so she can’t help but asked, “There’s another people that appeared beside you suddenly, but you don’t lift your head up to see?”

“Of course one have to look up if there’s another people, but you’re not ‘people’ ah.” Chen Yu said as she pulled out a card.

The female ghost who was waiting to see the horrified expression of this human girl, suddenly changed her face. Her pale and beautiful face became hideous, her nails rapidly lengthened, and she raised her hand to clutch Chen Yu’s neck.

Chen Yu pulled out an expelling talisman from her pocket, and attached it to the female ghost’s hand that was reaching out to her. The paper issued out a green flame when it touched the ghost’s hand, immediately accompanied by a shriek while it scorched the ghost’s originally white palm.

“Who are you?!” the female ghost retreated 5 meters away and looked at Chen Yu cautiously.

Chen Yu clicked the pause button in the game and put down her phone. She looked up and began to think of her goal tonight. This was a ghost who died prematurely, should be less than 20 years old, her blood red eyes can’t cover her original beautiful face, Chen Yu thought she must be a beauty before her death.

“I’m an exorcist, you can call me Xishi.” Chen Yu replied.

The female ghost had lived for nineteen years and died for a hundred years, but she had never seen such a blind confidence in a girl, making her couldn’t control the twitch on the edges of her mouth.

“From the first time I started exorcising ghosts, my grandpa had set out two rules for me.” Chen Yu looked at the female ghost and stretched out her two fingers, “One, exorcism is absolutely not free, even if it’s just a coin, I still have to receive it. After all, exorcising ghosts is dangerous, right?”

The female ghost’s face looked like she suffered from constipation after hearing her words.

“Secondly, when exorcising evil spirits, just directly break them up to prevent death from talking too much.” Chen Yu raised her eyebrows and smiled, “But you still have the patience to play a game with me, I don’t think you’re an evil spirit, so why don’t we have a talk?”

“What do you want to talk about?” The female ghost looked at Chen Yu defensively. She had been on this site for a hundred years, and it wasn’t that she had never met Taoist Priest or Heavenly Teacher who wanted to clean her away, but it was her first time to see one as young as Chen Yu. However, after the brief fight just now, the female ghost didn’t dare to look down on the little girl called 'Xishi' in front of her.

“Do you want to reincarnate yourself, or do you want to be beaten by me… and reincarnate?” Chen Yu asked sincerely.

“You’re… seeking death!” The female ghost was suddenly irritated as the yin energy around her rose up. The dense yin covered the moonlight that trickled in from the crevices of the bamboo forest. In the dark space, the figure of the female ghost was no longer visible, and only the faint light of the phone screen was still stubbornly flashing.

“It seems that I still have to get to work.” Chen Yu raised her hand as she wanted to get the intermediate expelling talisman, but she suddenly remembered that a sheet of this talisman worth 200 thousand, so she immediately shifted her target and took six primary level talismans instead.

“Open.” Chen Yu pointed at the center of her eyebrows, opening the seal on her Yin Yang eyes. When she opened her eyes again, Chen Yu saw the dark black yin fluttering like mist.

Chen Yu accurately found the ghost position from there, and she flung her hand to throw out the six talismans. They converged into a circle in the air one meter before Chen Yu, as they shined with divine light, along with the chanting of the mantra, they swiftly shrinked and bound the female ghost on the spot.

The female ghost who was originally hidden inside the yin energy and wanted to stealthily attack Chen Yu, was suddenly chained by the talismans. She fell down from the air and struggled desperately in vain. The aura flashed one after another, and the female ghost’s long nails shrank slowly to a normal length, while the blood-red eyes also gradually turned back into black and white.

“Release me! I don’t want to be reborn!” The female ghost struggled like a madwoman.

“I see that although you have quite a lot of Yin, but you didn’t kill that much. Reform well in the underworld, you still have a chance to rebirth as a good baby.” Chen Yu consoled her.

“I don’t want to reincarnate, I don’t want to reincarnate!”

Chen Yu was already familiar with this situation. She took out the compass from the bag around her waist, raised her hand, threw it into the air and said, “Considering your worth of one million, I’ll personally open the gate for you.”

There were two main methods for driving out ghosts, one was to deliver the ghost to the Underworld and let the Underworld handle the rest, while the other was to break the ghost directly, but their soul will disappear completely from the three realms after being scattered like this.

However, there were two methods to send them to the Underworld. The first was to notify the errand demon to take the ghost itself, in this way, it would be equivalent to the arrest of a fugitive prisoner. The second method was to open the gate to the Underworld and let the exorcist send the ghost directly. In this way, when the ghost pass the gate, they can be purified by the exorcist’s spiritual energy. This kind of lingering ghost, the Underworld will still investigate the reason of their detainment in the human world, but if it was reasonable, they would be dealt with leniently.

The compass buzzed twice in the air, an Underworld's gate with glowing silver light opened in front of the ghost. It was the size of a normal bedroom door, and there was a small silver path behind it This path of light was the path of purification transformed by the exorcist’s energy.

If the female ghost passed through this path of purification, she can wash away most of her resentment.

“Go now.” Chen Yu pushed the female ghost’s shoulder, telling her to enter the gate.

“I don’t want to go in, I don’t want to be reborn, please, I beg you, I still have things to do, the person I’m waiting for hasn’t come yet, I…”

Without waiting for the ghost to finish her sentence, she was already pushed inside by Chen Yu. The gate disappeared with a swish, and the compass fell back to Chen Yu’s hand after turning a circle in the air.

“Who hasn’t had any regrets in their lifetime ah?” Chen Yu said softly to the empty bamboo forest.

When Chen Yu was eight years old, she followed the old man to catch ghosts. At that time, when she was still young and naive, she would always be touched by those ghosts’ tragic fate, thus, when she became unhappy every time she caught a ghost, the old man would say such a sentence to her.

“Girl, you have to remember, there would always be regrets in a person’s life, but if you’re dead, then you’re dead, if everyone else go to reincarnate, why won't you do it too?” The old man patted Chen Yu’s head and said, “You have to know that regrets are created by yourself. If you don’t work hard when you’re still alive, then what’s the use of regretting it after you die?”

Looking at the gradually dissipating Yin energy, the bamboo forest was illuminated by moonlight once again. Chen Yu took her phone and opened the chat box with March Floating Rain.

I’m Small Account: ‘Done.’

March Floating Rain: ‘This quick? (shocked.jpg)’

I’m Small Account: ‘When will you give the rest?’

March Floating Rain: ‘I’ll send someone to look tomorrow, if there’s no problem then I’ll immediately send the remittance to brother.’

I’m Small Account: ‘Okay.’

March Floating Rain: ‘Did brother get hurt?’

I’m Small Account: ‘No, remember to send me the money, I’ll be offline now.’

Chen Yu didn’t wait for the other party to reply. After exiting her penguin account, she felt the remaining ghost energy that was still lingering in the air. Thinking that March Floating Rain said that he would send people to check tomorrow, so in accordance with her principle of perfection, she took out a purification charm from her bag, lit it with a bit of spiritual power and threw it into the air.

The purifying charm made speckles of fluorescent light, just like the summer’s fireflies, the light dispelled the remaining ghost energy inside the bamboo forest.

Chen Yu picked up her phone and found that it was already one o’clock. She put her phone away and retraced her way back. After she jumped over the park’s gate, she stood on the roadside for a few minutes but found no taxi anywhere.

Chen Yu pondered for a bit and planned to just run for a while until she arrive at the city center and catch a taxi there.

Then, on the road in the early morning, there’s an extra figure of a young girl running in a ponytail while carrying an old-fashioned linen bag.

Chen Yu was concentrating on running when suddenly a shuddering evil energy came from behind. She turned around with vigilance, her eyes were fixed on the black car coming nearer from quite a distance away. That terrifying evil energy came from that car.

Tian Fei was one of Third young master Lou’s seven assistants. Today, Third young master went to the scientific research department to attend a meeting until half an hour ago. Now he drove the car to take Third young master back home, but just as the car passed through the corner of Riverside Ave, his keen instinct made him aware of someone’s prying.

Tian Fei’s eyes quickly looked out the car, and the moment he saw the girl standing by the roadside, Tian Fei gave a soft grunt.

“What?” Lou Ming opened his eyes on the back seat.

Tian Fei originally wanted to say that there’s nothing wrong, but he remembered what He Qi had mentioned to him before, that Third young master seemed to have an inexplicable affection for the little girl from the Chen family who had just been retrieved back. For this point, several of them assistants also specifically checked Chen Yu’s information, that’s why Tian Fei could recognize Chen Yu with just a glance.

“I just saw Mayor Chen’s daughter.” Tian Fei replied.

“The girl from the Chen family?” Lou Ming can’t help but frowned.

“Yes, she's alone by the roadside.” Tian Fei added.

“It’s so late already, why is she alone outside?” Lou Ming raised his hand to look at the watch, frowning, “Tell the car behind to pick her up.”

“Third young master, you safety is our first priority.” Tian Fei said.

“Me?” Lou Ming couldn’t help laughing to himself, “It’s good if I don’t harm others, who still dare to threaten me?”

“Third young master, please don’t speak like this.” Tian Fei couldn’t bear to hear the resignation in Third young master’s words.

“Alright.” Lou Ming closed his eyes, obvious that he didn’t want to say much, “Let the car behind pick the girl up.”

Hence, Chen Yu who had ran halfway became baffled as she was lifted to a car for a free ride.

Half an hour later, the bodyguard of Third young master Lou sent the person right to the outside of Chen family’s compound. He faced Chen Yu whose face was full of gratitude with an expressionless face, “Third young master said, if later he finds you running around again, he’ll let us personally send you to Mayor Chen.”

“...” The ‘thank you’ was stuck in Chen Yu’s throat, she couldn’t vomit it out for quite a long time.

Author’s NOTE:

Chen Yu: Saying I was running around. I haven’t gone to my dad and complain how you carry guns illegally.