Chapter 45: Friend

Just as Zhou You was lost in thought, a ringtone suddenly sounded beside his ear.

It was Ode to Joy.

Only after more than ten seconds did he realize that it was his phone ringing.

“Damn, these last few scenarios have made me forget that technology even exists in this world...”

Zhou You hurriedly searched all around him.

After quite a bit of effort, he finally found his phone tucked away in some forgotten corner.

He answered the call.

A familiar voice immediately came through the speaker.

“Hello? Old Zhou? You still alive?”

Hearing that voice, Zhou You froze for a moment, then could not help smiling.

He knew the person on the other end.

The man had been his university roommate.

They had gotten along quite well.

Unlike Zhou You, however, this fellow came from a relatively comfortable family.

His father was a small-scale construction contractor.

After graduation, he had never bothered finding a job.

Instead, he inherited the family business and spent his days running from construction site to construction site.

He had only recently returned.

“Isn’t this Li Sanli, Big Head Li? Weren’t you busy building your commercial empire? What gave a busy man like you the time to call me?”

The other side let out an awkward laugh.

“I just missed you guys. I’ve been hanging around construction workers for too long and started wondering how my sons are doing. By the way, when are the boys free to get together again?”

He rambled on about a pile of unrelated topics, just like old friends catching up.

Yet Zhou You noticed something.

For some reason, there was always a trace of unease hidden beneath Li Sanli’s words.

Only after talking for quite a while did the man finally reveal his true purpose.

“Say, Old Zhou, if I remember correctly, your grandfather... used to study folk customs and culture, right?”

Zhou You was startled.

His grandfather had indeed been interested in such things.

He had mentioned it casually while chatting with his roommates before.

The problem was that the old man had only been an enthusiast at best.

And he had already passed away.

Why was Li Sanli asking about this now?

Li Sanli continued.

“Well, since he studied folklore, he should’ve known some experts, right? Could you... introduce me to one?”

Zhou You did not answer immediately.

Instead, he frowned and asked back,

“What do you need an expert for? Don’t tell me your place is haunted.”

There was a brief pause on the other end.

Then came a bitter laugh.

“Yes.”

“You guessed right.”

“I’ve really run into a ghost recently.”

The next day, noon.

At a Starbucks near the university, Zhou You sat with an iced coffee in front of him, looking hesitantly at the man across the table.

In Zhou You’s memory, this former roommate had always been slightly overweight, according to his own description.

He weighed around 110 kilograms (~242 lb).

His physique had steadily evolved in the direction of an oval.

Yet after only a short time apart, the man had become almost unrecognizable.

He had lost so much weight that his body now resembled a willow branch swaying in the wind.

Just standing there made him look as though he might collapse at any moment.

“Uh... you’re Li Sanli, Big Head Li, right?”

To make sure he was not remembering wrong, Zhou You asked again.

“What, you can’t even recognize your own roommate anymore?”

The man replied.

But after glancing down at himself, the bitterness in his smile deepened.

“Well, honestly, that’s understandable. Looking like this, even my old man probably wouldn’t recognize me.”

Seeing his gloomy expression, Zhou You could not help asking,

“What exactly happened to you recently? What do you mean by running into a ghost?”

Li Sanli first took a large gulp of iced coffee, letting the bitter taste spread through his mouth.

Only then did he raise his utterly exhausted face and speak.

“Old Zhou, remember how I got a girlfriend a few months ago?”

Zhou You nodded.

That had indeed happened.

Back then, this fat bastard had spent days showing off to all of them.

His face had practically screamed petty triumph.

Zhou You had even seen the girl’s photo.

She was not some once-in-a-generation beauty, but she was unquestionably attractive.

He and the other roommates had spent quite a while lamenting that such a flower had somehow ended up planted in a pile of cow dung.

The fat bastard must have stumbled into some unbelievable luck to land a beauty like that.

But what did any of that have to do with ghosts?

Seeing the confusion on Zhou You’s face, Li Sanli continued miserably.

“The thing is... this ghost business is related to my girlfriend.”

“You hooked up with a ghost girl?”

“...No.”

“Your girlfriend came back to claim your life?”

“...Also no.”

“Then why?”

Li Sanli wore an agonized expression.

After carefully considering his words, he finally said,

“How should I put it... Xuanxuan is great in every way. Gentle, considerate, beautiful, kind. Practically the ideal girlfriend...”

Noticing the increasingly hostile look in Zhou You’s eyes, Li Sanli quickly stopped flaunting his relationship in front of a single man.

“But she does have one flaw. She’s obsessed with supernatural and ghost-related stuff. She’s always buying things related to witchcraft, curses, and all kinds of strange practices. Nothing had ever gone wrong before, so I never interfered. The problem is...”

“Recently, I think she bought something real.”

“What do you mean?”

Hearing Zhou You’s question, Li Sanli continued with a miserable expression.

“About three months ago, she got hold of a table through some contact. Supposedly it came from a murder scene. I thought it looked creepy as hell, but it was her hobby, so I didn’t say much.”

“Then a few days later, she suddenly came to me and said... she’d seen a ghost.”

“You know how people who constantly deal with that kind of stuff can get a little neurotic. I was busy with work at the time and figured she was just being overly sensitive. I comforted her casually, told her to throw the table away, and left it at that.”

“But two days later, she came looking for me again, completely terrified.”

“She told me the table had come back.”

Li Sanli swallowed hard.

Fear appeared on his face.

“I was baffled. How could something that had already been thrown away come back? A broken table couldn’t exactly grow legs, right?”

“So I temporarily put my work aside. I accompanied her to throw it out again, then stayed with her for several days.”

“Nothing happened at first.”

“Just when I thought the whole thing was over, one morning I suddenly saw that table sitting inside the house again.”

“Both of us were scared half to death. We immediately threw it away again.”

“But after that, it started coming back more and more often.”

“And strange things kept happening around the house.”

“The lights would suddenly switch on by themselves even though nobody touched them.”

“Sometimes we’d hear laughter in the hallway and have no idea who it belonged to.”

“There were even bloody handprints appearing on the windows.”

“Later, I found out that once someone brought that thing into their home, it latched onto them and refused to leave.”

“And when we tried to return it, the seller had already disappeared.”

“Didn’t you hire someone to take a look at it?”

Zhou You suddenly interrupted Li Sanli’s increasingly frantic narration.

The man froze briefly.

Then his bitter smile deepened further.

“I did.”

“I started looking for help the very first time the table came back.”

“Who would’ve thought that all those supposedly enlightened monks and masters were complete frauds?”

“Every single one was more useless than the last.”

“One of them was even scared badly enough to end up in the hospital.”

“Otherwise I wouldn’t have been driven to such desperation that I came looking for you, hoping your grandfather might’ve known some genuine expert.”

“...Sorry. My grandfather was a pretty solitary person.”

“Forget experts. Aside from his coworkers, I barely ever saw any relatives visit while I was growing up.”

The disappointment on Li Sanli’s face was impossible to miss.

He sighed and was just about to head to the counter to pay.

At that moment, however, Zhou You suddenly stopped him.

“Although I don’t know any experts...”

“...I do happen to have one best friend.”

“How about I come take a look with you first?”