Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 99: Can’t be a Kept Man for a Ghost

After quite a few days had passed, the building finally welcomed a new tenant.
According to the landlady, it was a single lady; a lady who was quite bold as she specifically wanted to rent the room where Su Yu died.
Or, in other words, she’d be living right above Yan Yu.

“This young lady’s not bad.
Paid for half a year’s worth of rent all at once.
Don’t you bully her, and don’t babble about things that you shouldn’t mention, like anything about Su Yu’s affair.
Keep your mouth zipped up tight.”

Since the murder, there had been next to no one who dared to rent around here.
So, to be able to pay half a year’s rent all at once, it could only mean that she had quite a bit of money which begged the question of why would she come here to such a tiny place.
And to also specifically request the room where Su Yu died – some very strange tastes indeed.

The middle aged landlady evidently did not think up to this point, and only laughed her way away with the money in hand, sashaying off to find anyone to play mahjong with.

In the morning, that lady silently moved in, with very little luggage in hand.
Only two pieces rolling across the hallway, the sounds echoed out quite clearly through the nearly empty building.
Because of this sudden noise out in the hallway, Yan Yu peeked through a tiny gap he opened in the door.

That girl was wearing a tightly fitted short skirt, revealing a thick muscular pair of legs of a very healthy tan colour.
He could also faintly see the outline of muscles on her body.
Possibly about 170cm or taller, and even wearing stilettos.
Her long black hair, almost reaching to her waist, looked to be smoother than silk and she was effortlessly holding her two pieces of luggage as she walked up the stairs.

The dress she was wearing was limited edition and the crystal bracelet on her wrist cost at least thirty thousand, making her seem quite out of place against the backdrop of this building.
Just as Yan Yu was about to close the door, the girl seemed to sense eyes on her and turned around to smile at him.

What kind of face was that.

The area around the back of her right ear looked like it had been scorched by boiling water.
It was twisted and crooked, and paired with her thick eyebrows, hooked nose, high cheekbones and thick lips, she was uglier than anything could be.
Without a single hint of a gentleness or beauty that would only belong to women, when she smiled, she looked too rough and unladylike.

Yan Yu didn’t express any emotion at her smile and instead closed the door.

Xun Chuan sat cross legged on the bed, and took a look upstairs, 

“Someone moved in.”

Yan Yu always seemed to pick up on the most important points, 

“Hmm, a girl.
Quite tall, long hair and quite rich.”

Hearing this, Xun Chuan suddenly smiled.
His mouth tilted upwards in a menacing expression, turning into an unspeakable terror.
With a flip of his hand, a bank card appeared silently onto the table, evidently the one that Yan Yu buried in front of his grave.

Xun Chuan stared at him, coldly asking, 

“Enough for you to spend?”

The system weakly rang out: [ Ding~ ]

[ My host, please take seriously the words of being self sufficient and self reliant, and strictly follow the system’s rules.
Can’t be a kept man for a human, and definitely not for a ghost! ]

If the system was only a ghost, Yan Yu would be the first one to take care of it, shattering it into dust and blowing it all away, destroying its soul and unable to resurrect ever again.

Morning has already arrived and was moving on which meant that Yan Yu should really go tend his stall.
He cleaned up as he said, 

“Money, this kind of thing, there will never be enough to spend.”

But he never picked up that card.

He carried his backpack and prepared to head out when he turned his head and found that Xun Chuan had no inkling of following him.

Yan Yu knocked on the door with a knuckle, attracting Xun Chuan’s attention, 

“I’m going now.”

Xun Chuan rolled on the bed, 

“The sun’s too bright.
Go by yourself.”

Half of his body was hanging on the edge of the bed and he fell.
Then he floated back up, fell, then floated back up like a child with mental issues.
Yan Yu thought, if he’s not going, then fine.
At least there would be less for him to care about, and with a bang, he closed the door.

Xun Chuan didn’t move but kept an ear out to listen for Yan Yu’s footsteps.
When he sounded far away, he finally sat back up and with a snap of his fingers, the fourth drawer by the desk suddenly opened by itself, with the first sheet of paper floating into his hands.

Those who have never been in this field would never understand the diagram, and Xun Chuan was no exception.
The diagram itself had an inner and outer ring, and there were the five elements highlighted on top.

The “gold” on the outer ring faced the inner ring’s “wood”, and the inner ring’s “wood” was also facing the outer ring’s “ground”.
“Ground” to “water”, “water” to “fire”, “fire” back to “gold”, invisibly forming a clash.

Xun Chuan soundlessly left the bed and pulled open the first drawer.
In there lay a fortune telling book and he roughly skimmed through it.
He only knew that this kind of diagram was the most basic shape, but he learned nothing else.

He wanted to ask Yan Yu but felt that the other may not tell the honest truth, and so he could only put the things back to their original places.

A more expensive residential area would most likely be in the perfect feng shui spot.
And at this time of day, with the sun shining brightly, the chance of ghosts spawning was just a tiny bit smaller. 

But compared to this kind of crowded, dirty apartment building — like the place where Yan Yu lived, day in and day out, rotten, gloomy, evil was spawning, mixing in with all sorts of things and people. 

Ghosts were no doubt the most common, and this included malicious ghosts.
And although there were no crazed or aggressive ghosts, it was not hard to imagine that there were some lurking about.

Xun Chuan pulled open the curtains a bit, and he spotted the window across from their building, the window that always had a shadow of a man drawing. 

That shadow was a 50 year old artist and he died of a heart attack, without being able to wait for his name to become widespread.
By chance, he became a wandering spirit, and everyday, all he would do is draw.

That room was the most beautiful out of the entire building, and the walls were always filled with beautiful, colourful paintings.
But for a drawing to appear out of nowhere, that is not normal and all the more terrifying.
So before long, the tenants who used to live there moved away.

Life was like this however, coming and going without a rest.

As time passed, the sunlight started to weaken.
As Xun Chuan had nothing to do, he floated over and that old artist was still drawing.
Across the snow white wall appeared a painting of a sunflower welcoming the bright sun, with its petals opening so brightly.

Full of white hair and color spotted all over his clothes, with a pair of glasses on his nose, his entire focus was on using the stolen materials from an art store, painting slowly on the wall.

This kind of spirit was the lowest of the wandering spirits, without a lick of consciousness, only blindly repeating what they loved to do the most when they were alive.

Xun Chuan floated away, and created a mirage of a stranger’s face.
He looked exactly like a normal human.
Grabbing the bank card on the table, he walked downstairs and walked right alongside the pedestrians on the road, without shying away, as if he was one of the many many regular people in the crowd.

At this moment, no one knew he had died, just another face in the crowd.

When the sun was finally setting, Xun Chuan slowly made his way back.
He had gone to cash out a bunch of money from the bank and bought quite a few things with it, filling his hands to the brim.
When he reached the alleyway entrance of Yan Yu’s apartment building, there was an old granny with a cane walking around.
She was also a wandering spirit, walking everywhere everyday, mouth always mumbling, 

“Guo Feng…… Have you seen Guo Feng…… He should be returning home now……”

Guo Feng was her husband, but he had already moved away two years ago.
As a low level wandering spirit, they could not leave their place of death, and so she was trapped in this tiny spot.

Xun Chuan looked on coldly, and suddenly felt that he should count himself as lucky, but then thought that he wasn’t that lucky.

Yan Yu came back much earlier than expected, and the moment he came back, he was greeted with the many piles of bags on the table.
He looked at Xun Chuan, 

“You went out today.”

A statement, not a question.

“Hmm.”

Xun Chuan offhandedly hummed an acknowledgement and then continued to lie on the bed watching the TV.
Yan Yu didn’t say anything else and pulled open the curtain to take a look outside the window.
He then closed it up and pasted a few yellow talismans on top.

Seeing this, Xun Chuan blinked and wanted to say something when there was a sudden knock on the door.
The knock was light and slow, evidently not the landlady.
Yan Yu stopped what he was doing and looked to be contemplating if he should open the door.

Xun Chuan rolled around on the bed, 

“It’s a human, not a ghost.”

Yan Yu had the feeling then on who it was and opened the door.
Right outside was, without a doubt, the newly moved in neighbour.

“Hello.
I’m Su Qing who just moved in upstairs,” 

The girl smiled slightly, but her face made her look quite terrifying.
Her voice, in contrast to her appearance, was quite warm and gentle.
Without looking at her face, perhaps you would think she was a beauty that was out of this world just from her voice, 

“We will be neighbours from here on out and I don’t really have any greeting gift, but here are some cookies I baked myself.
I hope you will like it.”

And then she openly gave Yan Yu a box of cookies as her eyes casually glanced over the room.
She met eyes with Xun Chuan and she smiled, 

“Ah, what a beautiful young little brother.
Why is your neck bleeding though, you should wipe it up.”

Hearing this, Xun Chuan’s face immediately changed slightly.

Yan Yu emotionlessly looked at Su Qing but the other only smiled and waved her hand, 

“I’m taking my leave now.
Please take care of me in the future.”

Seeing her leave, Xun Chuan soundlessly covered the injury on his throat.
With his eyes darkening, he didn’t understand how Su Qing could see him.
Or perhaps, was she like Yan Yu, a shu-shi?

Yan Yu seemed to know what he was thinking and closed the door, 

“She’s not a normal human being.
Let’s see what the situation is first.”

And then continued to paste the remaining talismans on the door.

His actions were a bit unusual, and Xun Chuan couldn’t help but take a glance.
Yet he could only see a bazillion wandering spirits cramped around the window, looking like they would fight each other to swarm in.
Not long after, even the hallway was filled with noise, noises normal people would never be able to hear.

There were the sounds of women crying, hammers hitting on shells, and some kind of freakish laugh.
All sorts of sounds and noises were clustered together, much like a hodgepodge.
Yan Yu’s body structure all too easily attracted ghosts but it shouldn’t be this crazy.
With two fingers on his eyes and swiping across, he found that all the souls outside were wandering spirits, each next to the other, with quite some formality, as if lining up to go upstairs with their goal as the fourth floor.

Xun Chuan’s face darkened as he could clearly sense how troublesome that woman was going to be, 

“Do you want to go up and check up on the situation?”

Yan Yu honestly said, 

“No.
I can’t fight that many ghosts.”

A master within the normals, yet a misstep in the spirit world and that mistake could turn him into the same species as Xun Chuan.

There was a broken head ghost and he was just using a hammer to hit his own skull.
The sound was heavy and those who heard it could feel the pain rocketing through their own heads. 

Xun Chuan and Yan Yu stood behind the door and silently observed the movements outside.
Finding that those ghosts had furrowed and frowning expressions on their faces as they queued but the moment they stepped upstairs, they would absolutely be happy when they came down.

Xun Chuan sharply spotted an old granny with a cane standing in the queue.
It was the exact same one who wanders back and forth by the entryway, searching for her husband.
A thought quickly came to his mind, but he wasn’t quite sure.

Xun Chuan said, 

“I’m heading out to take a look.”

Yan Yu: “No.”

Xun Chuan: “Then you go and take a look?”

Yan Yu: “No.”

Xun Chuan closed his eyes and silently felt the surroundings.
He found that in the queue of wandering spirits, none of them had as high of a level of resentment as him.
He said to Yan Yu, 

“They’re all low level spirits, so there should be no problem.”

And then with a flash, he went through the door.

Resentment was surrounding Xun Chuan and it was not weak, so there was a sense of power to be feared.
Those wandering spirits unconsciously retreated, keeping a certain distance away from him.
Xun Chuan took a look around and followed the line all the way up.
To no surprise, it was Su Qing’s mess.

Her door was wide open and she was sitting quietly on the table.
In front of her was a stool and sitting there was a female wandering spirit.
He couldn’t see what she was doing, but her hands held a turtle shell, and she was waving it back and forth with the copper coin inside clanking, even more like a charlatan of a fortune teller than Yan Yu.

Notes:

Apologies to everyone who experienced the issue with last chapter ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´(00)`ﾟ)ﾟ｡ Currently, Plum and I have fixed some tags on the back end (and also thank you very much to the NovelUpdates Team who fixed the issue so very quickly!!) and everything seemed to have been resolved /crosses fingers/ But lessons learned! We’ll take this in our backpacks and continue the hike onwards with this in mind! Thank you to everyone who was very positively receptive to the idea we had and I’m very happy that for those of you who were interested found it quite interesting and neat (glad to know my time was worthwhile hahaha) In any case, hope you Galactic Judges had a great and safe weekend, and see you Thursday 

Also… a little teaser(?) – the author has put a lot of foreshadowing in this volume  I think some readers have caught onto some parts (and by all accounts, Plum too haha) but a few more surprises to be thrown in our way ✧⁺⸜(●′▾‵●)⸝⁺✧