Chapter 98
Chapter 98
Of course, Wang Hu might simply have felt reserved because he did not know us well yet.
As a weak ghost, he naturally feared practitioners of the esoteric arts like Old Cao and me.
Uh…
All right, shamelessly placing myself on the same level as Old Cao was a considerable exaggeration. I still had a long way to go!
But even someone of my current strength was an exceptionally powerful existence to Wang Hu.
Smiling, I patted his shoulder.
“Brother Wang, Old Cao and I are both kind people–upright practitioners of the righteous path. Just interact with us normally, as you would have in life.”
Old Cao added casually, “That’s right. If we’d met while you were alive, you wouldn’t have been so reserved even if I were your boss, would you?”
Wang Hu nodded like a pecking chick.
“All right, Young Mr. Wu. All right, Boss.”
With that matter settled, I finally had time to give Old Cao a detailed account of that night’s corpse retrieval with Li Miao on the Chuan River.
Old Cao’s expression changed slightly at the dangerous moments.
When I finished, he frowned and sighed.
“It appears Lianghe Town will face more and more trouble over the next few years. Like you and Little Brother Li, I believe these incidents are connected. The good news is that once we find a breakthrough in one, we should uncover clues for resolving the others.”
Old Cao made sense, but the problem was that none of the incidents currently offered any leads.
We could only leave matters as they were and take things one step at a time.
Wang Hu sat beside us and listened to the entire conversation.
Naturally, a ghost as weak as he was could not help resolve any of it. Listening would at least broaden his experience.
It was nearly one in the morning, so I prepared to go upstairs and sleep.
Before ascending, I saw Wang Hu standing uneasily, looking as though he wanted to say something.
Only then did I realize we had not arranged anywhere for him to stay!
A ghost could remain anywhere. But since he was now an official employee of the coffin shop, he deserved a fixed place of his own.
After thinking, I said, “Brother Wang, if you don’t mind, you can live in the empty passage room beside mine. That’s where Old Cao stores the paper figures and horses he makes.”
My words reminded Old Cao. Embarrassed, he said age had made him less thorough and told Wang Hu to let me know wherever he wanted to stay.
After thinking, Wang Hu said, “Boss, Young Mr. Wu, I’ll stay in the storefront. I can guard the door at the same time.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you prefer, Brother Wang.”
Then I went upstairs to sleep.
I woke promptly at six the next morning.
After a full night of sleep cultivation, I felt refreshed. All the previous night’s fatigue had vanished, and the strength of both my soul and physical body had increased by an almost imperceptible amount.
That was right–sleep cultivation was that miraculous!
After Old Cao taught it to me, Master had remarked that he had been truly generous.
As long as someone practiced sleep cultivation every night, their soul and body would eventually become far stronger than an ordinary person’s even if they cultivated nothing else. Their fists and feet would possess tremendous strength, and evil ghosts would avoid them.
Of course, that would be the path of a lazy man. I could not stop cultivating. With sleep cultivation supporting me, I needed to train more arts and learn more academic knowledge!
I dressed and rose, crossed the passage room upstairs, and greeted the paper figures and horses. They could not possibly answer, yet I had an intangible sense of receiving a response.
Then I went downstairs and heard someone greet me.
“Good morning, Young Mr. Wu.”
Startled, I instinctively stepped back. Then I remembered the ghost we had taken in the night before–Wang Hu.
Looking closely, I saw that Wang Hu was already cleaning with a broom. When he saw me descend, he stopped and smiled in greeting.
Only practitioners like Old Cao and me could see him holding the broom. An ordinary visitor would see a broom moving through the air on its own and probably be scared out of their wits!
“Morning, Brother Wang. You don’t need to clean so early. Our coffin shop doesn’t receive many visitors anyway.”
Wang Hu scratched his head and answered honestly, “I can’t sleep and have nothing else to do. I’ll treat it as exercise.”
Since he put it that way, I smiled and nodded.
He had a point.
Ghosts needed exercise too!
A spirit body resembled a physical body and also required exercise to grow stronger. By grasping the broom with his soul and sweeping, Wang Hu truly was exercising his spirit body.
Of course, any exercise performed without a proper method could not be called cultivation. It strengthened him extremely slowly and was better than nothing.
But neither Old Cao nor I possessed a method for ghost cultivation. Even if we had, we did not know Wang Hu well enough to teach him yet.
Our admiration was one thing. He truly had been a good father!
But we could not trust him completely the moment he joined the coffin shop. We needed to observe him first. Even living employees had three-month probationary periods.
Naturally, I kept those thoughts to myself instead of saying them openly.
I had possessed a fairly complicated mind since childhood.
I often thought that if I had not been raised in a happy home by kind, loving parents, and later gained a master who pushed me to study hard, someone with my personality might easily have gone astray!
After leaving, I bought breakfast from the nearby steamed-bun shop as usual.
Auntie Wang, who sold the buns, smiled and asked why I was buying two more than usual. Did we have a guest at home?
I shook my head and said I was probably growing and had a bigger appetite.
In fact, the extras were for Wang Hu…
Back at the coffin shop, I placed Old Cao’s breakfast on the wooden table in his room, then gave Wang Hu two buns to eat.
“Thank you, Young Mr. Wu! I haven’t eaten a steamed bun in years.”
He regarded the meat buns in his hands with emotion.
Indeed, Wang Hu had spent his final years alive in an insane haze. People probably would not give him fresh meat buns while he begged.
After death, he became a weak panhandler ghost and recovered his ordinary consciousness and thoughts. But he did not dare manifest during the day and could never eat freshly purchased morning buns.
How did ghosts eat?
Very simply: they consumed food’s essence.
Wang Hu raised a bun to his mouth, opened wide, and inhaled sharply.
Whoosh!
A faint white mist emerged from the bun and entered Wang Hu’s mouth and nose. Deep satisfaction appeared on his face.
The bun itself rapidly rotted and shriveled before my eyes.
It also emitted a foul, sour smell, as though it had sat in the summer heat for two or three days.
Wang Hu “ate” both buns by absorbing their food essence. Each rapidly turned sour, spoiled, and shriveled.
I found it interesting and nodded. “So this really is how ghosts eat. This is my first time seeing it.”
Wang Hu looked embarrassed. “Please pardon the unsightly display, Young Mr. Wu.”
Then he dropped the spoiled buns into the trash.
I ate my own buns as I headed out.
Thus, ghosts “ate” by absorbing food essence. Any food eaten by a ghost would rapidly rot, shrivel, and turn sour.
If food in your home spoiled after sitting on the table for only half a day, even during a cold winter, it might not be natural decay. A ghost might have entered your home and eaten it!
You needed to be careful in such circumstances.
Sometimes the intruder was merely a weak, hungry ghost stealing food. Other times, it was a malicious ghost–and that meant real trouble.
In short, if you kept leftovers at home, pay attention to their condition. Caution was best.