Tang Yuan didn"t know about that though. He just felt that after he initiated his spirit, his body became a lot lighter. The pores all over his body discharged a lot of waste, which smelled really bad. He felt a little embarra.s.sed, but Xie Yu was very happy, “I told you that you"re a genius.” Just initiating his spiritual consciousness had been earth-shattering.

“I"m really a genius?” Tang Yuan didn"t dare to believe it.

Xie Yu nodded, “Tianshi quality is generally divided into low grade, mid grade, top grade, excellent grade, and superb grade. Excellent grade would already be considered genius, but you are a superb grade.”

Tang Yuan felt his head spinning. He asked cautiously, “So then, I"m a genius among geniuses?”

“Mmm,” Xie Yu thought he was a little amusing like this, so the corners of his lips quirked up in a smile. “The tianshi community hasn"t encountered a superb grade qualification in over 100 years.”

Originally, his own excellent grade had shocked the tianshi community. So Tang Yuan"s superb grade qualification, well, who knew how much this story would rock the community.

Tang Yuan was stunned into silence for a long time. Then his mood slowly calmed and he smelled the stench on his body and his face suddenly flushed red with embarra.s.sment.

“I"m going to take a shower then.”

Xie Yu held back his laugh and said calmly, “Go ahead. Remember to come to me later, I"ll teach you how to use your spiritual power.”

“Good,” Tang Yuan quickly responded, then he quickly ran off to take a shower.

Then he went to Xie Yu to learn how to use the spiritual power and spells and after, Xie Yu rushed him off to Zhao Zheng"s household to catch the ghost.

Tang Yuan arrived at Zhao Zheng"s home with a guilty conscious. When he told Zhao Zong about it, Zhao Zheng"s jaw dropped. “The dashi really wants you to help me catch the ghost?”

Tang Yuan nodded, “Yes.” Then he explained to Zhao Zheng, “The dashi said that it was just an ordinary ghost, so I can handle it.”

Zhao Zheng asked, “Have you ever caught a ghost?”

Tang Yuan shook his head, “No.”

Zhao Zheng: “…”

Tang Yuan said, “But I already totally beat up a stronger ghost, and then made that ghost be my little underling.”

Zhao Zheng stared at him with wide eyes, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tang Yuan replied, while taking out the oil-paper umbrella. He opened it with a “shh” brush sound and said, “I brought my underling, I will let you see her later. Oh yeah, my underling is called Miao.”

(t/n: Miao can mean sprout/seedling or baby animal; it"s also a surname)

This oil-paper umbrella was a spiritual weapon that Xie Yu had given him. It included both defensive and offensive capabilities and it could hold ghosts. That"s how Tang Yuan brought Miao, in the umbrella.

Tang Yuan took a pomelo leaf1 and rubbed it over Zhao Zheng"s eyelids a few times. This action made Zhao Zheng"s expression go blank as he asked, “What the h.e.l.l is this?”

“Purifying your eyes, so that you can see things that you couldn"t see before,” Tang Yuan said and then paused. He suddenly shouted, “Miao, come over.”

Before Zhao Zheng could react, suddenly a ghostly face appeared in front of him and he was almost scared to death.

“Ghost! Help!” he yelled as he ran behind Tang Yuan.

Tang Yuan quickly comforted him. “Don"t be afraid, this is Miao, my underling. Without my order, Miao can"t hurt humans.”

Zhao Zheng shivered as he glanced at the female ghost. He got scared and shrunk back again, “You……you"re sure?”

Tang Yuan nodded and Zhao Zheng saw that how calm he looked and thought about how he had said that he could catch ghosts - it seemed that he really should be able to do so.

But there was no way he could just immediately become as calm as Tang Yuan, so he hid behind him and shivered.

Tang Yuan laughed and mocked him, “Ha ha ha, I thought you had a lot of guts? Turned out you"re such a coward.”

Zhao Zheng replied angrily, “s.h.i.t, who wouldn"t react the same as me? You think everyone"s as strange as you are.”

Tang Yuan snarled, “Just now were you not abnormal?”

After being ridiculed by Tang Yuan like this, Zhao Zheng wasn"t as scared anymore, so he snuck a glance at the female ghost. After looking at her for a long time, his courage finally grew and he whispered his thoughts, “That ghost is really ugly!”

Miao had the standard female ghost face from horror movies, pale skin, no white left in her eyes, long messy hair, and a b.l.o.o.d.y mouth. Well, it was pretty ugly, but to say that in front of a certain someone, was that really okay?

Female ghost: “……” Vengeance.

After such an incident, Zhao Zheng finally believed in Tang Yuan, so he officially entrusted the role of catching the ghost to Tang Yuan and said that he would be paid his fee, but Tang Yuan refused. Not even mentioning that he was friends with Zhao Zheng and that he wouldn"t take money from his friends, just speaking of his own situation, he was also embarra.s.sed to accept Zhao Zheng"s money.

After all, he was now just a trainee. Zhao Zheng was willing to trust him and give him a chance to gain experience, so that was already enough for him.

Since initiating his spiritual consciousness, Tang Yuan"s eyes could see things that ordinary people couldn"t see, such as the yin qi (energy) of ghosts. The color of the yin qi was black and people and things haunted by ghosts would also carry black yin qi. For example, Zhao Zheng had a black aura around him.

Tang Yuan had at least learned some things about ghosts, like knowing that although they could see ghosts more easily than ordinary people, if a ghost wasn"t actually present, low rank tianshi wouldn"t be able to see the ghost. So Tang Yuan wasn"t going to be able to find this ghost directly.

Therefore, he decided to rely on this black aura to find out the ghost. This ghost was a low-level ghost and low-level ghosts couldn"t hide their black yin qi. However, Tang Yuan soon discovered that he was too naive, because he discovered that the Zhao family house was full of black yin.

This situation was too damaging to a certain someone"s enthusiasm. Tang Yuan wasn"t very confident at all and now he felt even worse. But, he didn"t let Zhao Zheng see this and instead stubbornly looked for traces of the ghost in Zhao Zheng"s home.

After looking all over the upstairs and downstairs, he asked Zhao Zheng to look at his and his parents" rooms.

He first went to Zhao Zheng"s room to take a look. He found that Zhao Zheng"s room wasn"t very black. Tang Yuan thought about what Zhao Zheng had said, and he realized that the ghost had only very recently been haunting Zhao Zheng, so naturally the black aura wouldn"t be very heavy.

Tang Yuan lacked experience, but he could also judge that there wasn"t anything suspicious about this room. So he left Zhao Zheng"s room and entered his parents" room.

Zhao Zheng"s parents" room was the master bedroom, which included a bathroom and a large closet. The bathroom and closet were both designed with hidden doors, so if he hadn"t known about them, he wouldn"t have found them.

He glanced around the bedroom and found that the black aura was really heavy, but he couldn"t rely on this to judge if the ghost was in this room, so he carefully examined it again. When he finally noticed a locked cabinet, he asked, “How is this cabinet locked? Can you open it?”

Zhao Zheng shook his head, “No, the key is probably with my mom.”

“Okay.”

He couldn"t see the inside of the cabinet, but the cabinet didn"t have a heavy black aura, so Tang Yuan felt that the ghost probably wasn"t inside.

Then he checked the bathroom. The bathroom was very clean and there was no black aura. That didn"t make sense. Doesn"t that mean that ghosts didn"t like to stay in the bathroom? He decided to ask Miao about it later.

Since there was no problem in the bathroom, he began to look in the closet. Zhao Feng and Ye Lan"s clothes were out and, through Tang Yuan"s eyes, Zhao Feng"s clothes were covered with thick, black qi, so black that he couldn"t even see how the clothes originally looked. However, Ye Lan"s clothes didn"t have much black aura, which was a good indication that the one the female ghost was haunting was Zhao Feng.

But why was the female ghost haunting Zhao Feng? Was the death of the female ghost related to Zhao Feng? Or had Zhao Feng triggered some kind of medium?

“Xiao ZhengZi2, before your father was haunted by the female ghost, did he behave unusually in any way?”

Zhao Zheng tried to think back and, a little ashamed, said, “I can"t remember.”

Tang Yuan was so upset he wanted to cry, catching a ghost is so hard!

He felt wronged in his heart, but he had to keep up the bluff4. “Miao, what do you think?”

Miao said, “I don"t know.” Although she was a sly old ghost, she was still a low-level ghost, so she wasn"t able to help Tang Yuan find a ghost of the same level.

Tang Yuan thought to himself that this female ghost was unreliable, so he could only rely on himself to think this over. The existence of the ghost was a certainty. The biggest victim was Zhao Zheng"s dad, Zhao Feng. These things could be determined from Zhao Feng"s residence and those clothes haunted with a black aura, but he still felt like something was wrong.

It seemed that relying on black yin qi to find a ghost wasn"t a reliable method. He blamed himself for studying too little. Otherwise, he"d easily be able to find the ghost. He couldn"t rely on the black aura, so he decided to use his brain to a.n.a.lyze it.

“Xiao ZhengZi, did you have any lipstick marks on your clothes today?”

Zhao Zheng shook his head, “I didn"t.”

Was the ghost gone?

Tang Yuan thought it over again. According to Zhao Zheng"s narrative, Zhao Feng had lipstick marks every time he came home, so Tang Yuan guessed that the ghost might have been met Zhao Feng outside. Because it had been haunting somewhere for a long time, it followed him back to the Zhao family home and affected Zhao Zheng.

But right now, he couldn"t find this ghost. He guessed that was because the man it had been haunting had left the Zhao family household, so it left as well. So it was possible it went back to where it had been originally.

That was a good thing for the Zhao family, because it had probably left them, but Tang Yuan still had to find it, so that it wouldn"t hurt anyone again. So now he needed to know where Zhao Feng had become haunted by the ghost

“Xiao ZhengZi, I have some questions to ask your father.”

Zhao Zheng"s expression was a bit unsightly, obviously he was worried about his father. "My dad has been in a coma. I don"t know if he"s awake right now. Let me call and ask."

Tang Yuan nodded and when Zhao Zheng was on the phone, he couldn"t help but sigh, not knowing if his theory was really correct.

Ghost catching or whatever, it"s really difficult!

As he shouted that in his heart, Zhao Zheng hung up and said, “My dad woke up, let"s go to the hospital.”

“Yeah.” After Tang Yuan responded, the two went to the hospital. Of course, he didn"t forget to put Miao into his umbrella. Otherwise, Miao would have had to stay there alone, which was very pitiful.

When they got to the hospital, Zhao Feng was drinking water and he was in surprisingly good spirits. When he saw that Tang Yuan had come, he greeted him very kindly, “YuanYuan has come. Sit, sit.”

Tang Yuan blushed. He was most afraid of Zhao Zheng"s parents calling him that, because he always remembered the pandas TuanTuan and YuanYuan.

(t/n, like ZZ, ZZ"s parents call him by a h.o.m.ophone nickname. They use the character for Yuan that means round, which was the name of a panda sent to Taiwan from China, along with a panda TuanTuan)

“Hey, YuanYuan, come, sit, sit.” Zhao Zheng"s mother, Ye Lan, had just brought back washed fruit and was very enthusiastic when she saw Tang Yuan.

For a while, Tang Yuan was stuffed with several pieces of fruit and his face was pinched several times too. Out of his wits, Tang Yuan quickly motioned to Zhao Zheng to tell them about their intentions.

Zhao Zheng nodded tacitly and said, “Ma, Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

His expression was very serious, so Zhao Feng and his wife became serious too. Then he said everything regarding Tang Yuan"s speculations about the ghost. The Zhao couple seemed to have guessed the same thing, because they weren"t surprised. Zhao Feng just said with a sad face, “So how do we deal with that ghost? The dashi we found before was just a liar.”

Zhao Zheng immediately pushed Tang Yuan forward. The couple refused to believe that Tang Yuan was a tianshi, so Zhao Zheng had to swear to ensure them that he wasn"t teasing them. In the end, their mouths all wore out from arguing before they decided to let Tang Yuan give it a try.

As they looked at him with a skeptical eye, Tang Yuan felt a little guilty too, but he thought of what Xie Yu had said and was filled with self-confidence.

So he began to ask Zhao Feng questions, “Uncle, the day the lipstick mark first appeared on your body, had you been anywhere?”

Zhao Feng remembered the details of that day quite clearly, so after a moment, he declared firmly, “I went to work at nine o"clock that day. There were no delays in my commute and I went straight to the company. There was nothing special at work that day, but I had some things I needed to deal with, so I worked overtime until nine o"clock. Then I went home from work.”

Ye Lan said, “Our household is about half an hour from the company. He returned home at ten o"clock.”

Zhao Feng nodded. “Yes. I could have made it home by 9,40, but I was delayed on the road for a little while.” He glanced at his wife and, seeing she had no reaction, continued, “I was driving at the time and when I turned on a road without a street lights, my car seemed to hit something. But I could see clearly that there was nothing in front of me. I still got out of the car and checked it out. Then, I noticed a woman standing on the side of the road.”

He used to be pretty open-minded and upright, so he hadn"t thought it was strange, but now, the more he thought about it, the more afraid he became.

He went on to say, “I thought she needed help and asked her if she wanted any help. Then the woman nodded and said that she wanted to go to the grove a few kilometers away from my house. I didn"t think it was too far away, so I escorted her there, then I went home.”

After returning home, Ye Lan found the lipstick mark on him and then interrogated him. As a result, he mentioned that the woman and Ye Lan became even more angry, convinced of his infidelity.

Although he fought with his wife, he coaxed her back to happiness overnight, and went to work the next day happily. But it turned out that he went home with another lipstick mark that night, even though he didn"t encounter that woman again, so he didn"t connect the dots. It took many days for him to figure out that the woman might be a ghost.

After that, he didn"t go down that road again, but strange things continued to happen, so he knew that he was being haunted by that female ghost. Then he had looked all around and found that fake dashi and finally tossed himself into the hospital.

After listening to Zhao Feng"s words, Tang Yuan felt that his previous speculations were correct. The female ghost must have started haunting Zhao Feng who pa.s.sed in front of her every day and in the end, she followed him to the Zhao family household. He decided to go to the place that Uncle Zhao had mentioned to catch the female ghost.

He and Zhao Zheng discussed it. Just as he was preparing to go, the phone suddenly rang. When he saw the ID ‘Xie Yu". he got nervous. He took the call and stood up straight as he answered, “Hey, Xie……” He suddenly paused, remembering the last time when a guest who came to the Xie household told him not to call Xie Yu directly by name. It was better to refer to Xie Yu deferentially, so he started over, “h.e.l.lo, Shushu, do you need something from me?”

Xie Yu spit up a mouthful of blood and thought to himself, a May-December marriage is not good for precisely this reason.

He wiped the blood from the corners of his mouth and asked in a gentle tone, “How is it going?  Are you having any trouble?”

Tang Yuan"s heart felt super moved. He shook his head hard, “No, no, it"s going very well. Don"t worry, Shushu.”

Xie Yu spat up another mouthful of blood and shouted in his heart, irritating!

“That"s good.” His voice was calm and gentle, not revealing that he was weak from spitting up blood. “But you still have to be careful, ghosts are very cunning. Don"t be deceived by its appearance.”

Tang Yuan nodded, “Mhm. Got it, Shushu.”

Shushu three times in a row, Xie Yu ran out of blood.

—

Footnotes:
1. pomelo leaf (张柚子叶): this leaf is specifically a cotyledon, the first leaf of a seedling plant originating in the embryo; this pomelo leaf is a superst.i.tious item, used to wash as a folk custom to bring luck or a good aura for example, after a funeral or before an exam ↩
2. Xiao ZhengZi (小正子): basically calling him Little Zheng boy, a playful way to call him since he"s pretending he"s a client ↩
3. bluff (装b): slang, to talk yourself up and then have to keep up the role in order to posture ↩

—

have mercy on the man, he"s not that old T_T