Chapter 61

Qi Xu sat on the sofa, while Xia Zhiming sat on top of her. Xia Zhiming controlled her strength perfectly; neither of them got hurt. The position in which they ended up on the sofa carried a hint of ambiguity.

However, Xia Zhiming reached out and roughly kneaded Qi Xu’s cheeks: “What do you mean by that? You’d rather believe that Stinky Fortune-Teller than me, huh? I told you I was helping you find it, but you didn’t believe me. Fine then, go find it yourself! Go on! I’m not stopping you.”

Qi Xu’s cheeks were like putty in Xia Zhiming’s hands, getting squished and stretched without any power to resist. Qi Xu’s words came out muffled: “That’s not what I meant…”

“Then what did you mean!”

Qi Xu had no way to reason with the unreasonable Xia Zhiming, but she also knew her words had been a bit presumptuous. So she sincerely apologized, but Xia Zhiming didn’t forgive her right away. She kneaded for a good while longer before her anger somewhat subsided.

“Is your brain just for show? Think things through in your head before you blurt them out—don’t act like a dumb pig!”

Qi Xu stayed silent for a moment before asking, “Then why did everyone tell me not to go out during the Hungry Ghost Festival?”

“Are you an idiot? The gates to the ghost realm swing wide open on the Hungry Ghost Festival. If you wanna go out and play, then go ahead. I’m not stopping you anyway.”

“…I’m not going.”

Qi Xu muttered that quietly. She wasn’t the type with overwhelming curiosity. Everyone had repeatedly warned her not to go out, including Zhang Ziyue’s senior colleague, a reliable investigator from the Third Bureau. That person had no grudge against her and had even given her a friendly heads-up as a fellow colleague.

Under these circumstances, going out anyway would make her a total fool! It’d be like throwing her own little life away!

After Xia Zhiming finished kneading Qi Xu, she yawned and headed upstairs to continue sleeping. This time, Qi Xu perked up a bit and felt happier.

That evening, Qi Xu truly didn’t step out the front door, let alone the back one. She even had Xia Zhiming fetch the delivery for her. After dinner, Xia Zhiming curled up on the sofa watching TV. Seeing this, Qi Xu scooted over too.

The atmosphere at that moment was truly nice. It was rare for the two of them to share such a relaxed and pleasant vibe.

To watch TV better, Xia Zhiming turned off all the lights. In the dim living room, only the TV screen played the variety show, occasionally punctuated by the canned audience laughter typical of such programs.

The variety shows these days weren’t that great. Qi Xu watched for a bit before shifting her attention to Xia Zhiming beside her. Xia Zhiming was really beautiful, especially when she wasn’t talking. The moment Xia Zhiming opened her mouth, Qi Xu knew she was about to start cursing again.

With her mouth closed and eyes focused intently on the show, Xia Zhiming watching TV had an added sense of serene beauty.

But this atmosphere didn’t last long. Xia Zhiming noticed Qi Xu staring and turned her head: “What’re you looking at me for? Watch the TV!”

“I just wanted to look at you.”

“Smooth-talking.”

Xia Zhiming called Qi Xu smooth-talking, but before long, the two of them had unconsciously snuggled up together. By the time Qi Xu snapped out of it, she was already hugging Xia Zhiming as they lay on the sofa, locked in a deep kiss for quite a while.

Qi Xu even suspected that Xia Zhiming had put some kind of spell on her. Otherwise, why would she like Xia Zhiming so much?

Xia Zhiming wasn’t exactly wife material. She had a sharp tongue, didn’t give Qi Xu complete peace of mind, and always spoke and acted in riddles. Even Qi Xu, who liked her, couldn’t fully trust her.

That was fatal in a romantic relationship. Without trust, what was there to talk about love?

They didn’t even really count as being in a romantic relationship. Their connection was too complicated, and it felt like only Qi Xu was investing her true feelings. But… when Qi Xu’s fingers caressed Xia Zhiming’s cheek, she felt that even this was enough.

It was Qi Xu who had stubbornly fallen for Xia Zhiming. Being able to kiss her like this, hug her, and even do some naughty things with her was already Qi Xu’s fortune in three lifetimes.

So at that moment, Qi Xu confessed to Xia Zhiming: “I like you.”

Qi Xu’s words were sincere, but Xia Zhiming didn’t seem to believe her. When she said “I like you” again, Xia Zhiming even replied: “Don’t say it so absolutely. It’s just the suspension bridge effect. Besides, I’m not that likable. One day, you’ll get tired of it and won’t be able to say those words anymore.”

What Xia Zhiming said was very realistic, and it did seem possible for them.

But Qi Xu insisted: “No, you said it yourself—we need each other.”

Their fate constellations were there. Qi Xu needed to stick close to Xia Zhiming to absorb the yang energy she lacked, while Xia Zhiming, due to her own fate constellation, needed to stay close to her too. In their situation, neither could do without the other.

“Nagging.”

Xia Zhiming uttered that, then pulled Qi Xu down into another deep, entwined kiss.

But that was as far as it went—just kissing, nothing more. After all, Xia Zhiming had been thoroughly worn out the night before. Doing it again tonight would really kill her from exhaustion. And Qi Xu… hadn’t trimmed her nails beforehand.

That night, they each went to bed separately. Qi Xu gazed at the moon outside. On the fifteenth night, it was full and huge. Perhaps because everyone kept mentioning the Hungry Ghost Festival to her, Qi Xu felt that the moon exuded a distant, eerie vibe.

Qi Xu watched it for a while before falling into a deep sleep.

In short, no one was dragging Qi Xu out that night. Ignoring others’ advice was a huge taboo in horror movies. Whenever Qi Xu watched them, she always wanted to complain: they’d explicitly tell the protagonist not to go here or touch that, but the protagonist’s curiosity was off the charts, with itchy hands to boot.

No matter what, they just wouldn’t listen. And the result? A ton of trouble, and sometimes even losing their life.

As someone who frequently watched horror movies, Qi Xu took this lesson to heart—never do what others had repeatedly warned against a thousand times over.

So that night, Qi Xu happily went to sleep. The next morning, she cheerfully got up. Still on summer break, Qi Xu had plenty of time. After some morning cuddles with Xia Zhiming, she saw her off. Once she left, Qi Xu tidied up the house again.

Then she hunkered down at home playing games.

The following days passed peacefully. The thing Qi Xu looked forward to most was payday. Her salary was quite generous. Plus, with the Tiger Granny and Ghost Bride incidents, the Third Bureau handsomely gave her a 30,000 bonus on top of her base pay. After deductions for social insurance and personal income tax, she still took home a nice sum.

Looking at the number in her bank account, she sighed in awe: Heavens, that’s way too much!

She’d only ever been an ordinary college student before and had never seen that much money in her life—not even the tuition she’d paid out of pocket. With so much cash, Qi Xu got a bit carried away. When her mom called to ask if she had enough spending money, she confidently waved it off: “Plenty! I can even pay my own tuition now!”

Her mom suddenly got emotional on the other end, her voice choking up: “Our Xu Xu has really grown up, able to earn money and pay her own tuition.”

Qi Xu comforted her mom for several minutes until she laughed through her tears: “I was just feeling emotional, it’s fine. Mom’s proud of you. Mom didn’t cry. Just take good care of yourself out there, Xu Xu, and don’t overwork.”

“It’s fine, Mom. I’m doing great. Don’t worry.”

As the school term approached, Qi Xu went to campus alone to pay her tuition and dorm fees, and hung out with her roommates for a bit. She was always worried about running into little ghosts and accidentally getting herself killed, so when she got home, she even asked Xia Zhiming if she could learn some basic spells.

But Xia Zhiming flatly refused: “No chance. You can’t learn them.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Xia Zhiming sized up Qi Xu for a moment and dropped a harsh truth: “Because you don’t have enough yang energy.”

Spells worked by using yang energy to attack ghosts. Ghosts found yang energy attacks very uncomfortable. Once all the yin energy in their bodies dissipated, they couldn’t maintain their ghostly form and would scatter into nothingness.

Qi Xu was different. She was half-human half-ghost. More yang energy only made her feel good because her human side craved it. But her ghost body also needed yin energy, so either way, she benefited.

Last time, that outfit had felt uncomfortable because the Daoist had infused it with offensive yang energy, which hurt when it hit her.

“With so little yang energy that you’re practically turning into a ghost, you wanna learn spells? Casting one would just deplete your yang energy and speed up you becoming a full ghost.”

Xia Zhiming’s words shut down Qi Xu’s desire to learn spells from the root. She was right—Qi Xu really couldn’t learn them.

“Then what if I run into those little ghosts? What do I do?”

“Figure it out yourself. Learn to switch between your human body and ghost body at will. Once you’re in ghost body, why would you fear little ghosts? Figure it out, and stop just opening your mouth to ask every day.”

“Alright…”

Xia Zhiming gave a solution but no specific steps, so Qi Xu had to experiment day by day on how to switch. But up to now, she hadn’t found a reliable method.

In the blink of an eye, the new semester arrived. Entering her junior year, Qi Xu still had classes to attend and resumed her routine of taking the subway to school each morning. Sometimes, she did spot little ghosts.

But her acting skills had improved a lot. She could now treat them as nonexistent without being noticed. Only after getting far away did she message the Vice Bureau Chief to report the sighting.

Life had gone so smoothly that she almost thought those busy days before had never happened. But soon, a creepy urban legend shared by her roommate yanked her right back to reality.

“Oh yeah, have you guys heard? Lately, there’ve been red envelopes all over the school grounds. But if you pick one up, it turns out to be one that borrows life or grades from others!”

Her roommate shared this with the excitement of spilling hot gossip.

Qi Xu couldn’t help but put on a mask of pain.