Chapter 7: Preparing To Deliver The Mail
“Huh? Why aren’t you speaking?” Zhang Qian shook his backpack, shaking out two more envelopes from the crevice. “I thought they might be useful, so I brought a few.”
“No hope, just wait to die…” Gao Yong nudged Xu Shaowen next to him with his elbow. “Aren’t you supposed to know everything? What do we do now?”
Xu Shaowen’s mouth twitched, feeling like he couldn’t hold it together. “Don’t talk about us—even the messengers on the fifth floor couldn’t deliver this many letters…”
“Plop—”
A drop of blood water suddenly dripped down, staining the envelope with a touch of bright red.
Immediately after, more and more blood water seeped from the ceiling, pattering down onto the mountain of envelopes. The letters, like candles meeting fire, began melting from top to bottom into the blood water.
“This is bad, I just remembered a rather ominous rumor…” Xu Shaowen’s face turned grave. “It’s said that the fourth-floor messengers were once completely wiped out on a delivery mission. Out of twenty-four messengers on the entire floor, only one survived by luck.”
“I never dared believe it before, because some of them even controlled fierce ghosts, which should have made delivering the letters easy.”
“Now it seems the letters they carried weren’t ordinary ones…”
Before the words finished, all the envelopes had vanished, leaving only a pool of blood water glistening strangely on the floor.
The lights in the room seemed to be interfered with by something, starting to flicker with a sizzling sound.
The puddle rippled in circles without wind, and a pale palm holding a red envelope slowly emerged from the surface.
Dead silence filled the room—even Zhang Qian didn’t dare move recklessly at this moment. However, the orange lights grew dimmer, like candles flickering in the wind, ready to go out at any time.
Take it, or not?
Xu Shaowen’s eyes flickered as he quietly reached into his pocket.
But Zhang Qian was faster, snatching the envelope from the ghost hand. “If we don’t take it, it’ll probably attack. Let’s see what this letter is about first.”
“Wait, the ghost hasn’t left!” Wang Shang suddenly pointed at the blood water and shouted.
For some reason, after losing the envelope, the palm didn’t retreat but stretched even higher, revealing a swollen arm.
Zhang Qian had already untied the straps on the golden box, ready to smash it down with the whole box at any moment.
Fortunately, the ghost hand only slapped down in front of Zhang Qian’s toes, scraping the wooden floor with its bluish-black fingernails, producing one piercing noise after another.
After a long while, the ghost hand finally slowly retracted into the puddle, and the blood water turned into a vortex and disappeared from the floor.
“It should be the delivery address.” Gao Yong squatted halfway to the ground, observing carefully for a long time without figuring it out. “What the hell did this ghost write?”
“Illiterate, step aside.” Xu Shaowen pushed Gao Yong away and traced the strokes with his finger. “Deliver to… Flower Market… Tangxi Road… No. 44… Within 7 days…”
“Never heard of this place. Does anyone know where the Flower Market is?”
“No problem, Big Brother and I live in the Flower Market.” Wang Shang thumbed toward Zhang Qian. “You guys just lie back—we got this. My Big Brother is a big shot.”
In Wang Shang’s eyes, the supernatural event at the mental hospital was definitely resolved by Zhang Qian. So many ghosts couldn’t do anything to him—let alone a small delivery mission.
“I can tell.” Gao Yong nodded deeply in agreement. “After all, I’ve never heard of anyone bringing a bunch of letters into the post office.”
“Zhang Qian, when do you think we should meet, and where?” Xu Shaowen looked toward Zhang Qian. Clearly, he and Gao Yong weren’t going to act superior like the old man—they planned to stick with Wang Shang and latch onto the big leg.
“As soon as possible, best to leave extra time to complete the mission.” Zhang Qian thought for a moment and suggested, “Tomorrow morning at Tangxi Park, how about that?”
“Sounds good. This mission isn’t simple—we should gather early to prepare together.” After Gao Yong spoke, he looked toward Jiang Dan. “What do you think?”
Jiang Dan had been leaning back in her chair pretending to doze off since earlier, looking very sleepy.
“I’m not going.” Jiang Dan dropped a bombshell. “I’m just an ordinary person—me not going won’t make much difference, and going might even make me a burden. So I won’t trouble you all. I’ll just stay home obediently.”
“You sure?” Gao Yong reminded her. “This mission has already started. If we fail, everyone dies—even if you don’t go.”
“It’s fine, I trust you guys.” Jiang Dan said as she rolled up her sleeve to show her skinny arm. “If I go and run into danger, it’s no different from suicide. This way, you all still have a chance to survive.”
Zhang Qian nodded in agreement too. “It’s your freedom to go or not. Hope we get a chance to meet again.”
Then Zhang Qian exchanged contact info with them, pushed open the main entrance, and walked back onto the dirt path he’d come from.
After Zhang Qian disappeared into the darkness, a window on the fifth floor of the post office building—no, above the fifth floor—slammed shut with a bang.
An old man in a black long gown slowly left the window and sat down in front of a huge painting.
He picked up the paintbrush and added details to the painting bit by bit.
On the massive canvas, a five-story Republic of China era building stood in the darkness, shaped exactly like the ghost post office outside.
In the corner of the painting, an old man in a long gown fell to his death from the building.
…
Soon, Zhang Qian climbed back into his room through the window. Looking back, the scenery outside had returned to normal, and his mobile phone in the backpack started vibrating.
“Hello, Zhang Qian, report the situation.” After connecting, a female operator’s voice came from the other end. “Your phone signal just cut out—what happened?”
“We don’t seem to have a superior-subordinate relationship, so please correct your attitude.” Zhang Qian said disdainfully. “Please get me a professional operator.”
“Fine, you’re awesome… Beep beep beep—”
At operator headquarters, Liu Xiaoyu hung up the phone, turned around, and complained angrily to Yao Jin. “You call Zhang Qian. That guy dislikes me.”
“Alright, our operator job is way easier than ghost controllers’. Have some sympathy for them.” Yao Jin said as she dialed Zhang Qian’s number. “Comrade Zhang Qian, this is Yao Jin. Are you out of danger now? Do you need headquarters to provide medical aid?”
“No need, I’m fine.” Zhang Qian got straight to the point. “I entered a strange place and want to ask if the official side has any more detailed information?”
“One moment.” Yao Jin muted the mic. Moments later, communication resumed. “Comrade Zhang Qian, this is Communications Supervisor Zhao Jianguo. What information do you need?”
“How much does headquarters know about the ghost post office?”
“Ghost post office?” Zhao Jianguo flipped through the files. “Sorry, aside from one article in the database, headquarters has no other intelligence. Were you just at the ghost post office? Can you tell us about the situation inside?”
“Sure…” Zhang Qian briefly recounted today’s experience.
Zhao Jianguo sat personally at the computer, recording nonstop. “Messengers… deliveries… upgrades…”
“Looks like Yin Zi failed on some mission. Such an excellent ghost controller—such a pity.” Zhao Jianguo sighed. “Your intelligence is very valuable. What type of reward does headquarters need to provide? Cash, gold, whatever.”
Headquarters was very generous to friendly ghost controllers. Ghost controllers resolve supernatural events, headquarters pays—overall, both sides were satisfied. After all, ghost controllers had short lifespans; most wanted to earn more money for their families in their limited time, so working for headquarters was a good choice.
“Hmm…” Zhang Qian thought for a moment. “Get me a truck of herbs, and hire an alchemy master for me?”
With the delivery mission imminent, Zhang Qian figured boosting his strength first was the safe bet.
