CH 10.1

Everyone in the main hall froze, then slowly turned around, following Tang Tian’s line of sight. Chen Peng exclaimed, “What the hell are you looking at—” but his voice caught in his throat as fear flashed through his widened eyes, and his face turned paler and paler. 

Set against the wall were a pair of matching vintage wooden chairs with a small table nestled in between. A white porcelain saucer could be seen lying motionless on the table, but without its matching teacup—which was strange, since there had been no one near the area. Suddenly, everyone’s attention shifted to one of the chairs. Even from afar, little droplets of what looked like water could be seen dripping from the top arch, splat, and the seat, as if someone with really wet clothes had sat on it and left. 

Drip. Drip.

The sound of water droplets landing on the floor caused alarm bells to go off in their minds. 

Chen Yunzhi quickly hid his shock and chided calmly, “Who cleaned the hall this morning? Look at that mess! Someone cleaned the furniture with a damp cloth, and even forgot to take the used saucer away.”

The excuse that he had invented sounded reasonable enough; everyone else believed it and let out a heavy sigh of relief—all except for Tang Tian, who remained silent.

That damned ghost was sitting there the whole time, just enjoying the show. 

She could see a greyish apparition still seated on the chair, leaning nonchalantly to the right while his hand toyed with the porcelain saucer on the table, as if he was trying to convey a message using it all this while.

“Stupid old housekeepers!” Chen Peng huffed imperiously, then abruptly clenched his fist in annoyance. He sensed that he had been made a fool of by Tang Tian, and to hide his embarrassment over his earlier reaction, he gritted his teeth and spat, “You know where the body is? Fine. Tell us, tell us now! I won’t let you off so easily this time.”

She shot him an amused glance from the corner of her eye. “Now is not the time, we’ve got to wait until night-time.”

“You scammer!” Chen Peng pounded the table with his fist.

“Shh. Patience.” She coolly lifted a pale, slender finger to her lips, disregarding the stares from several pairs of widened eyes. Her red lips curled up into an enigmatic smirk and she said, “Have you heard of the ouija board? When night falls, Chen Xu will personally come and tell all of you, through the board, where his corpse lies.”

Clatter, clatter.

Chen Peng shuddered involuntarily, losing his grip on his teacup lid. He gaped at Tang Tian in speechless horror. The woman next to him froze as well. 

Tang Tian turned to smile at Chen Yunzhi. “So, Boss Chen, do you dare to accept my earlier proposal?”

This was a trick question. If he refused, it would mean that he was hiding something in relation to Chen Xu’s death. If such a rumour got out, it would be all too easy for an excitable public to conjure up sensational murder conspiracies that would slander his good name. However, if he accepted Tang Tian’s proposition and she did reveal the location of the body by nightfall, he would be obliged to hire another team to search for the body. If and when it was found, who knew what further clues to some horrible truth would be unearthed…

Fear flashed across Chen Peng’s face. He wished he could dismiss something so preposterous, but her mysterious, intimidating aura, on top of the supernatural occurrences he had witnessed as a child in the ancestral estate, could not help but plant the seeds of self-doubt in his mind. 

“Yunzhi.” Lin Luoyan abruptly tugged on Chen Yunzhi’s arm forcefully, her long sharp fingernails leaving deep, visible marks on his skin. “You still have urgent matters to resolve back at the company. You don’t have time to listen to this woman’s nonsense. She’s a con artist, along with that matchmaker and that feng shui master husband of hers. This eerie place is giving me the creeps and I don’t feel good here. Let’s call it a day, shall we?”

Chen Yunzhi’s turned to look at his wife, his gaze softening as he said, “Luoyan, we can’t avoid this anymore. Why don’t we give it one last try? I’m still Chen Xu’s father. If it’s truly his dying wish, I have to fulfil it.” With his back to Tang Tian, he gently patted Luoyan’s hands, subtly commanding her to loosen her grip. 

Once his gaze shifted back to Tang Tian, his eyes were cold as steel. 

“Alright,” he said tersely. He paused, then added in a low, threatening tone, “However, mind my words—I will only say this once, young lady. I gave you a chance to back out of this, but you insisted on getting involved. If tonight turns out to be another ridiculous spectacle, don’t blame me for being less than civil.” Read only at salmonlatte.com

After agreeing on a time to meet later that night, Chen Yunzhi left with his wife and son. Outside the hall, the funeral tent stood in the middle of the empty courtyard with no one else to be seen. Butler Chen had ensured all the hired workers and funeral-related personnel had left the compound, except for the feng shui master and his wife, the ghost matchmaker Wang Li. 

Wang Li stepped into the main hall, eager to know what had transpired behind closed doors, but Tang Tian only gave her a cursory response and went back to her room to spend the evening on her own. Using her lunch plates and the porcelain saucer from the main hall, she drew a few concentric circles on a piece of blank paper that was the size of an old calendar. In between the circular lines, she jotted down “yes”, “no”, numbers from 0 to 9, and the 26 letters of the alphabet. Time was running out, and she wasn’t a professional psychic. This makeshift ouija board was the best she could do with the scarce resources she had, to convey any possible answers from Chen Xu.

Once she was done, she put it aside and wondered, If Chen Xu was able to control my body, why didn’t he possess Boss Chen instead and use him to tell everyone where his body was? 

She deliberated for a few moments and came to the conclusion that Chen Xu’s spirit must have limited abilities. Chen Yunzhi was a strong-willed man with great vitality—in terms of ghostly possession, he would undoubtedly presented a difficult target. She, on the other hand, was a woman, traditionally viewed to have a greater Yin aura, 1 and had even technically died, albeit for a short period. Read only at salmonlatte.com

No matter what she said to the Chen family, she knew that they would treat it with extreme scepticism. If Chen Xu possessed her body and spoke with her voice, it would only be treated as another attempt to pull the wool over their eyes. However, if she used the ouija board, giving the Chen family a chance to experience the supernatural themselves, they would take her words more seriously. 

Tang Tian recalled the last step needed for the ouija board, which was the blood of someone participating in the divination. She made a little cut on her fingertip, smeared the crimson liquid on the back of the saucer, from its middle to the rim, then drew an arrowhead at the end of the crimson line. She stared at the saucer—now her makeshift ouija board indicator—and muttered out loud, “I hope I don’t invoke something unexpected by smearing my own blood…”

She had gotten a lot more wary ever since her otherworldly experience. From walking paper dolls to vengeful ghosts and a mobile phone with a mind of its own, her fundamental beliefs of materialism had been overturned.

Who knows what other strange creatures and spectral beings wander the earth? 1

Traditionally, women were said to have the Yin aura (阴气), which correlated to a tendency towards ill-omens and the supernatural, whereas men were said to have the Yang aura (阳气) and thus, less susceptible to the supernatural.