Short Story

In my fourth year as Song Jingyuan’s kept woman, he tired of me and asked to break up.

I had meant to cry, make a scene, and threaten to kill myself to keep him, putting on the same devoted performance that had pleased him countless times before.

But the floating comments before my eyes said he meant it this time.

He had fallen for someone else, and this truly would be the last time we ever met.

I fell silent at once.

While tears slipped down my face, I hooked a bill from the floor with my little finger, rolled it into my palm, and tucked it deeper into my sleeve.

In the year of famine, disaster fell upon our entire village.

My little brother was so hungry he no longer had the strength to cry, yet his small belly was swollen tight and shiny.

Mother held him in her arms and sat on the threshold, motionless, like a clay idol that had lost its soul.

In the pot was Guanyin clay boiled in clear water. Eating it made your stomach swell, and then you couldn’t pass it.

“Girl…” Father finally spoke. “Don’t blame your mother and me for being cruel… In the palace, in the palace there’ll at least be a mouthful of food.”

When the human trafficker came in, he brought with him a gust of dry, cold wind.

“She’s decent-looking enough, just a bit too thin and weak.

“Three pecks of millet. Not a grain more.”

I saw Father’s hand trembling violently as he pressed his handprint onto that sheet of paper.

Three pecks of golden-yellow millet were poured into the only broken grain jar in our home, making a soft rustling sound.

It was such a beautiful sound-the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

My little brother would probably live through this winter.

Ten years after my death, the young crown prince had grown up. Clutching my memorial tablet, he announced that he wanted to marry me.

His father beat him to tears with a court memorial.

The august emperor roared, “Wake up! She’s dead!”

You’re the dead one. Your whole family is dead.

I drifted back and forth, then kicked over his most treasured seal.

It landed with a clack, stamping half an impression onto the memorial—right where my name appeared.

Ruiniang.

The crown prince held up the memorial. The tears on his cheeks had not even dried, yet he was laughing and crying all at once. “Ruiniang! Look, Father, it’s Ruiniang! She’s still alive. She’s still alive!”

The emperor was plainly startled, but did his best to look composed. “Nonsense! I simply lost my grip on the seal!”

I kicked it again. The seal that had just settled flat went rolling across the desk and stamped half a crimson impression onto his dragon robe.

Ruiniang.

The emperor panicked and bolted for the door. Halfway there, he remembered something, ran back, and grabbed the crown prince by the nape.

At least he had some paternal feeling. He knew enough to take his son when he fled.

“Guards! There’s a ghost!” he shouted.

The crown prince, meanwhile, was sobbing as he cried into the empty air, “Ruiniang, is that you? You’ve come back, haven’t you?”

Even in tears, he held my memorial tablet tight against his chest.

I looked at him fondly and reached out to wipe his tears, only for my fingers to pass through empty space.

My fingertips felt hollow. My heart ached a little.

Of course. I was a ghost. I could not touch the living; only the things of the dead would answer me.

The school bully tormented me at school, then followed me home and, right in front of me, slammed Ah Huang, the puppy who had grown up by my side, to death.

But the bully didn’t know I was the Daughter of the Underworld King.

Seizing souls was an ability I had been born with.

The next day, the bully acted completely out of character at school. One by one, he beat up everyone who had ever picked on me.

Then he announced in front of everyone that from now on, he would protect me forever.

When no one was around, I reached up and patted his head. “Good boy, Ah Huang. This body is pretty useful, isn’t it?”

In the dead of night, a friend called me begging for help.

“Save me! Someone with their bones showing broke into my house!”

I cursed him for being insane and was just about to hang up.

Then he sent me the video.

In the surveillance footage, a stark-white humanoid skeleton was pacing back and forth through his living room.

The fox spirit I’d been tracking for so long had finally shown up.

I sneaked into the dressing room of a top idol, buried my face in his clothes, and said excitedly, “Ah~ this is the scent!”

But the next second, the police arrived.

Wait! I’m not a pervert! I’m here to catch a monster!

My rich, pretty roommate had a boyfriend who was five-foot-three, weighed 187 pounds, and always had a greasy shine on his face.

She guarded against me at every turn, terrified I had designs on him.

I told her her boyfriend was a pig, and she snapped that I was just calling the grapes sour because I couldn’t have them.

But what she didn’t know was that her boyfriend really was a pig.

Have you ever heard of the Evil Children?

While volunteering as a teacher in Shanglian Village, I saw what true Evil Children were like.

They hung bloody animal carcasses outside my door.

They led an old bachelor to my place and tried every trick they could think of to get me to open the door…

But what they didn’t know was that I was a demon subduer.

This village had been placed under the Curse of the Evil Children, and disaster was about to strike.

But now, I have no intention of saving them.

I was trafficked to a mountain village for a ghost marriage.

But they don’t know I’ve lived for three hundred years and am the Dragon King’s Wife.

In the dead of night, I soothe the Black Dragon coiled around my waist.

“Alright, alright. They’re just little kids of sixty or seventy. What are you getting mad at them for?”

My roommate was a professional bride.

She said she’d landed a big job recently, and the client was incredibly generous.

When I saw the fee wrapped in red paper, I tried to talk her out of taking it.

But on the day of the event, my roommate still snuck off.

And she never came back.

What she didn’t know was that every one of the event’s organizers…

wasn’t human.