Chapter 156: Heading To Shangjing
Jiang Father and Jiang Mother, who were shocked by Nan Yuanman’s age, saw her actions and were frightened with their eyes wide open.
Jiang Mother swallowed some saliva and asked tremblingly, “That, that ghost she, she slept in the coffin last night?”
Doesn’t that mean this ghost spent the entire night with them last night?!
Nan Yuanman nodded: “Yeah, she really likes the coffin Jiang Beishu bought from me.”
Cypress wood is the best material for coffins besides golden nanmu, with a hard texture that can remain undecayed for a thousand years.
For ghosts, the coffin is also their ‘home’, so naturally they would like such a high-end home.
Three muffled thumps sounded from inside the coffin. Nan Yuanman listened for a while, then reached out to Jiang Beishu who was standing far away in fear: “She says yes, show me the place.”
Jiang Beishu gulped down a big mouthful of saliva, carefully moved forward, and handed the already yellowed paper he was clutching in his hand to Nan Yuanman.
Nan Yuanman glanced at the address and Eight Characters on the paper, frowned and calculated for a bit, then looked at the ghost hiding in the coffin unwilling to show its face: “You died an unnatural death back then? The one buried with you now isn’t your husband; someone stole your corpse after your death and sold it to someone else for a yin marriage?”
The originally quiet coffin suddenly made several muffled thumps, showing how agitated that ghost was.
“If you don’t come out directly to talk, I can’t communicate like this, and I can’t perfectly help the Jiang family fulfill the agreement they made with you back then.” Nan Yuanman didn’t understand what those few muffled thumps meant, pursed her lips and said.
The coffin quieted down again. After a long while, when Nan Yuanman thought she wouldn’t make a sound, a timid female voice rang out: “I, I have social anxiety.”
The little dumpling looked bewildered: “Social anxiety? Afraid of snakes? There are no snakes here!”
Jiang Beishu shivered upon hearing this unfamiliar female voice, subconsciously wanting to move closer to Nan Yuanman, but stopped because of the coffin beside her. He quietly explained to her: “Social anxiety means afraid of people.”
Nan Yuanman suddenly understood: “Oh, that’s how it is.” No wonder that day after she followed Jiang Beishu to the hospital, she absolutely refused to come out for direct communication.
It turned out that there were too many people that day, she was scared, and wouldn’t come out.
She looked up at Jiang Beishu, Jiang Father, and Jiang Mother. Jiang Mother quickly pulled Jiang Beishu over: “Then, then we’ll go wait in the room first. Little Immortal Aunt, you ask her what other requests she has, then tell us.”
“Okay.” Nan Yuanman nodded.
The three from the Jiang family timidly ran upstairs to the bedroom.
Nan Yuanman knocked on the coffin board: “They’ve gone, come out now.”
Moments later, the coffin lid made a creaking sound, and a shadowy figure slowly floated out.
Appearing in front of Nan Yuanman was a very thin woman wearing coarse cloth clothes with two pigtails, who quickly glanced at Nan Yuanman then lowered her head, uneasily fidgeting with the corner of her clothes.
When she lowered her head, she revealed the back of her head that was missing half, and that missing half of her skull was the cause of her death.
Nan Yuanman moved her gaze away from the missing half of her skull: “Li Zhaodi?”
Li Zhaodi timidly nodded: “It’s me.”
“Little Immortal Aunt, I, I didn’t mean to scare him, really, I just didn’t want to be buried with that one. He always bullied me down there.” Li Zhaodi kept her head down, not daring to look at Nan Yuanman, and hurriedly explained: “His grandpa promised so well when borrowing lifespan back then, but after he got better, decades passed without moving my grave.”
“I couldn’t take it anymore, so I came to find him myself. I… I didn’t mean to harm him, you, don’t take me away.”
“I’m not taking you away. Besides moving the grave, do you have any other requests? Say them all at once, let Jiang Beishu do them, since it’s what he owes you.” Nan Yuanman asked.
“One more, that is… that is…” Li Zhaodi uncomfortably touched the back of her head with her hand and said in a small voice: “Back then, I was murdered.”
“The one who killed me was Jia Haoren from Li Family Village. When I was squatting in the cornfield hoeing, he tried to force me. I wouldn’t, so he strangled me unconscious. Thinking I was dead, he got scared and used the hoe to hit the back of my head, making it look like I got unsteady and fell onto the hoe and died.”
“I, I want him to help me report to the police, get Jia Haoren to go to jail.”
Nan Yuanman: “What about the one who stole your corpse? Not pursuing that?”
Li Zhaodi was silent for a moment, then gently shook her head: “Not anymore.”
She knew who stole her corpse and sold it—it was her brother, Li Yaoguo.
Her brother wasn’t doing too well now either, which could be considered retribution, so she wouldn’t hold it against him anymore.
“Okay.” Nan Yuanman noted them all down one by one, and said to her: “Besides relocating your grave and sending Jia Haoren to prison, Jiang Beishu will burn you three jin and six liang of paper money and three sets of new clothes every year. That completes the contract between you two, okay?”
Li Zhaodi hesitantly looked at Nan Yuanman: “Um… Little Immortal Aunt, can you help me dissolve my marriage with that man?”
This time she sneaked out while that man wasn’t paying attention. She really didn’t want to live with him anymore when she went back.
She was already a ghost; she wanted to live out the rest of her underworld lifespan free and alone.
Nan Yuanman scratched her head: “I’ve never dissolved one before; Grandpa hasn’t taught me yet. But I can pass it on to Jiang Beishu and have him find a feng shui master who can dissolve marriages.”
She was only five now; Old Master Nan thought it was too early to teach her that stuff, so he hadn’t, who would have thought…
Li Zhaodi excitedly kept bowing to her: “Thank you, Little Immortal Aunt! Thank you, Little Immortal Aunt!”
Nan Yuanman noted down all her requests. Seeing it was about time, she had Li Zhaodi go back into the coffin to wait, then called down the Jiang Beishu family.
Jiang Beishu rubbed his hands, asking nervously: “Yuanman, what did she say?”
Nan Yuanman listed all of Li Zhaodi’s requests one by one. Jiang Beishu listened and got furious: “Damn, that Jia Haoren really is a scum! Don’t worry, leave it to me! I’ll definitely send him to eat prison food!”
Nan Yuanman nodded: “That’s basically it. After doing these, the contract between you and her is complete; just don’t forget to burn paper money for her every year.”
She reminded him: “Your life is borrowed from her. Only if she’s well in the underworld will your luck be good, so you absolutely can’t forget.”
Jiang Beishu nodded repeatedly: “Okay, got it.”
“It’s just that feng shui mister…”
Nan Yuanman looked at Jiang Beishu’s facial physiognomy, then took out five copper coins for him to cast. After reading the divination result, she said: “Your dad knows a pretty reliable feng shui master; just find him directly, he won’t cheat your family.”
Jiang Father somewhat bewilderedly pointed at himself: “Me? I don’t know any feng shui…”
Before he finished speaking, he suddenly remembered that a while ago when he went to the chessboard room to play chess, he really did meet a new card friend!
That card friend didn’t know why, but had terrible luck, losing every hand, yet was addicted. Unable to watch, he helped him play a few times, and they got familiar over time.
Seeing Jiang Father’s expression, Nan Yuanman knew he remembered who it was, and nodded: “It’s him. He’s the noble person you met; find him this time, and your son’s crisis can pass safely.”
“Okay, I’ll contact him and ask.” Jiang Father said in a dazed manner.
Jiang Beishu settled the coffin payment and consultation fee with Nan Yuanman, and also bought three amulets from her, paying a total of eighty-eight thousand eight hundred eighty in total.
Nan Yuanman gave him a luck-boosting amulet as a gift and said: “If there’s anything you can’t handle, call me.”
Jiang Beishu: “Okay.”
After resolving Jiang Beishu’s matter, Nan Yuanman went back to pack her luggage, and the next day flew to Shangjing with Feng Congqian.
–
Shangjing International Airport.
Nan Yuanman sat on the luggage cart, swinging her little feet, with a lollipop in her mouth, curiously looking around.
The moment they exited the airport, an invisible power in the air trembled slightly.
At that time, in a certain high-end villa, inside an ancient-style pavilion, an old man and a young one were seriously playing chess.
“Crack—”
After a slight sound, a chess piece on the chessboard instantly cracked.
The old man lightly pinched the fragments, his voice low and hoarse: “She’s here.”
Map changed!
