Chapter 60.3: The Hungry Ghost's Toll

Li Zhuiyuan studied the feng shui for a while longer, but ultimately couldn’t make out anything meaningful. He said, “Everyone check your pockets—see if you’ve got snacks or candy left. Give it all to Runsheng.”

There were some things to eat, but not much—barely enough to fill a crack in Runsheng’s teeth. He lit ten incense sticks and chewed them all at once, then tore up a handful of grass and leaves to swallow down with them.

It was a bit too savage a sight, but he was just trying to create a sense of fullness.

Incense, to him, worked more like seasoning; it didn’t provide much energy, and whatever meager nourishment it offered likely wasn’t even enough to digest the incense itself.

Still, his belly did visibly bulge out.

“Xiaoyuan, I’m ready!”

“Let’s go—into the village, before it gets dark.”

Staying here would’ve been the easier choice, but there was nothing to eat except bark and leaves. Hanging around would only make everyone weaker—a slow death.

Just as the four of them reached the village entrance, they froze in place. They’d heard something.

Tan Wenbin asked, “What’s that sound?”

“It’s so chaotic. Feels close and far at the same time,” said Xue Liangliang, glancing around, though there was nothing to see—just noise.

Li Zhuiyuan’s ears were subtly twitching. “Gongs, drums, suona… and chanting. It sounds like someone’s holding a ritual.”

He stepped back and forth near the village threshold, then looked down. The sounds seemed to center right beneath his feet.

Looking ahead, he spotted a faint pair of footprints appearing.

“Step back. Be careful!”

Everyone immediately moved aside, eyes fixed on the spot.

The footprints deepened, and in front of them, four more indentations appeared in the ground.

“Runsheng, go!”

“Mm!”

Runsheng brandished a steel pipe at the prints, swinging it wildly—but hit nothing.

Nothing strange happened to him, either.

“Stop, Runsheng.”

He ceased his movements and took steady breaths.

Li Zhuiyuan crouched beside the marks, inspecting the two close-together impressions.

Xue Liangliang crouched too. “Those are human footprints. Probably boots. But what about these four depressions? What are those?”

“A table,” Li Zhuiyuan replied.

“A table?”

“Looks like it. And that music—it sounds like a funeral band.”

Just as he spoke, Tan Wenbin shouted from the perimeter, “Watch out—fire!”

A fireball had appeared, floating above Li Zhuiyuan and Xue Liangliang. It ignited Liangliang’s clothes and hair. He ducked and slapped at himself furiously, extinguishing the flames with no injury.

Li Zhuiyuan, being shorter, had the fireball floating higher above him. He didn’t dodge, just tilted his head to track its path, subtly gesturing as if mapping out its trajectory.

Suddenly, the fireball sped up, sweeping in a wide arc.

While watching it, he also glanced at the four leg prints in the earth.

A memory rose—his great-grandfather conducting rituals: lighting yellow paper with a candle, chanting in front of an altar, circling it while swinging the paper.

When the flame neared his fingers, he’d drop it into a bowl of duck’s blood, chicken blood, and pig’s blood.

All that was left now was to wait for the next step.

“Fsssh…”

The fireball fell and vanished without a trace—no sparks, no smoke.

Dusting off his pants, Li Zhuiyuan stood up and said, “Right where we’re standing—someone’s performing a ritual.”

Tan Wenbin shrieked, “A ghost holding a ritual? That’s totally backward!”

Smack!

Runsheng slapped a yellow talisman onto Tan Wenbin’s forehead, hard enough to send him stumbling back.

The talisman didn’t change color.

Tan Wenbin tugged at his collar to show another talisman on his neck. “See? Already got one. Couldn’t you have checked before smacking a new one on me?”

“You got too worked up.”

“I believe you, Zhuiyuan, I do. But ghosts holding rituals? That’s… insane.”

Xue Liangliang’s face darkened. “Maybe… it’s not a ghost performing the ritual.”

Tan Wenbin asked, “If it’s not a ghost, then why can’t we see them?”

Li Zhuiyuan said quietly, “Maybe… we’re the ghosts now.”

He remembered the last time he walked the shade and heard villagers cursing someone for kicking down their door.

Tan Wenbin asked, “So… this ritual—is for us?”

Li Zhuiyuan nodded. “Maybe. This morning, we kicked in two doors. Ghosts that can break doors must be pretty fierce. The villagers were probably so scared they hired a ‘master’ to conduct the ritual.”

Still, that priest or monk didn’t seem very skilled. The results were meager—barely comparable to his great-grandfather’s actual ability.

Tan Wenbin pinched Runsheng’s arm. “Does that hurt?”

Runsheng shook his head. “No.”

Then he pinched Tan Wenbin back—hard.

“Ow ow ow ow! That hurts!”

Xue Liangliang stepped up to Li Zhuiyuan. “Xiaoyuan… are we really ghosts now?”

“Liangliang-ge, I don’t know. I’ve never been a ghost. But in this case, I think you’re more qualified to comment.”

Runsheng chimed in, “Yeah, you’ve messed with ghosts before.”

Liangliang inhaled sharply. “She wasn’t a corpse. Not a ghost either. She… didn’t feel alive, though.”

“Neither ghost nor human—just like our current state,” said Li Zhuiyuan.

Xue Liangliang raised his hand, signaling he was thinking. “I often think back to that time in Baijia Town…”

“Liangliang-ge, no need to think back. You’ve been visiting it a lot lately.”

“Oh—right, yeah. Anyway, I think this environment is like Baijia Town. It’s under the river but doesn’t truly exist.

“Think about it: the Yangtze isn’t the sea—it’s not that deep or wide. They’re building a bridge here. If a whole town was really down there, someone would've found it already.

“When I got back to school, I even checked the library…”

“And?” asked Zhuiyuan.

“Found nothing. So I asked around in a student club.”

“Club?”

“A club for supernatural enthusiasts. The girl who runs it gave me a theory that made sense—she said it might be a spatial fold.”

“Did she tell you how to get out of it?”

“Nope. She wasn’t even sure the town existed. Kept begging me to take her there.”

Tan Wenbin, trying to prove he wasn’t possessed again, asked something quite logical: “Liang-ge, you’ve been in spatial folds a lot. How do you get out?”

Xue Liangliang waved him off. “Each time, I just… stumbled out, I guess.”

“What?”

Runsheng clarified, “He said, every time he comes out nice and easy.”

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