El misterio del periódico K

Capítulo 4

"..."

"..."

"How about 2500? I've already taken on a job that nobody else would take."

"Can."

"..."

"..."

"Gu Ming, are you sure you can pay my salary?"

"nonsense."

In the afternoon, I went back to school and had dinner with Xiao Bi and Deng Fei. They were strongly against me accepting the job. Bi Xiaofeng said there's no such thing as a free lunch, and Deng Fei said the people in that bar were all too weird. I reluctantly told them that I had already signed a two-month contract, so they decided that I would pay for the meal.

At nine o'clock in the evening, I took the last bus to Moonlight. Gu Ming appeared at the station right on time, like a ghost. I asked him if he had calculated my arrival time with his fingers. He said it wasn't that complicated. As long as I was about to appear, the big yellow dog in the alley next door would bark wildly for a while.

Even under the moonlight, business was still slow. A few people sat in twos and threes, drinking their own drinks. The silence was eerily quiet. I idly wiped the table and touched my wine glass. By almost eleven o'clock, there was no one left. I asked Gu Ming if we were closing up shop. Gu Ming asked me if I wanted a pay cut. So we both dozed off at the bar.

Around midnight, the wind chimes at the bar entrance tinkled. I looked up, saw no one, and was about to doze off again when I suddenly felt a chill on my head, and goosebumps inexplicably rose all over my body. I quickly stood up, and sat down in front of me a man bundled up tightly—hat, scarf, and an oversized pair of sunglasses. I always thought people who wore sunglasses at night were either blind or crazy, but for the sake of my 2500 yuan salary, I still forced a smile and asked, "What would you like, sir?"

"A human life is precious." The man mumbled those words from his throat. I was sure I hadn't misheard. I turned to look at Gu Ming, who shrugged and didn't say anything.

"Um... I'm sorry, we don't seem to have that kind of alcohol." A cold, damp air swirled around me, and I realized my voice was trembling slightly.

"I want him to pay with his life! I want him to pay with his life!!!" A pair of hands slammed on the bar, the loud bang startling me. I was sure we had encountered a lunatic, so I quickly dodged behind Gu Ming.

"I died so tragically... I died so tragically! They killed me! I want them to pay with their lives... I want them to pay with their lives..." The man suddenly screamed, and the sound coming from deep in his throat sent chills down my spine. I grabbed Gu Ming's sleeve and whispered to him if we should call the police. To my surprise, Gu Ming sat down opposite the man with a smile and then ripped off the man's hat and glasses.

Rotten bits of flesh hung from the skull, and a pair of blood-red eyeballs sat in the empty eye sockets. Black and yellow teeth were stained with someone's blood. The roaring man sat in front of Gu Ming with his mouth wide open. For a moment, my stomach cramped, and before I could vomit, I was plunged into darkness. Oh God, I knew I had fainted.

March 12, 2005: There's no such thing as a free lunch.

I woke up at four in the morning in an unfamiliar room.

Gu Ming sat on the sofa opposite the bed, lost in thought. Suddenly remembering the disgusting thing from last night, his stomach churned violently. Gu Ming looked up at me, then pointed to the small door next to him. I ran over without even putting on my shoes and vomited violently until my stomach was completely empty.

When I got back to the room, there was a glass of milk and a small cake on the table. I felt nauseous after just one look, shook my head, and collapsed onto the bed.

"Gu Ming, is that a person?"

"No, it's a rotting corpse."

"Shouldn't you give me an explanation? Although Xia Canyue isn't human, she still looks like one. But if I see something like that in a bar every day, I doubt the wages you pay me will be enough to cover my medical expenses."

"I didn't expect a rotting corpse to come. Usually, it's ghosts or demons that come. You can only say you're unlucky."

What is the explanation for this?

“Didn’t I tell you that ‘Moonlight’ doesn’t just sell alcohol? We also do business with the dead.” Gu Ming yawned and said lazily, “From 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next day, the yin energy is at its heaviest, and those ghosts who haven’t gone through reincarnation will appear, so we do another kind of business at night.”

Could you explain it more clearly?

"It's those ghosts who come to me to help them solve some problems from their previous lives. Sometimes people also come to us to help them solve ghost problems. If they ask for peace and good fortune, we won't refuse if the red envelope is generous."

"..."

"..."

"Why did you make me work the night shift?" I suddenly felt like I had been tricked.

"You chose the night shift yourself, I didn't force you."

"You...you..."

"If everything's alright, you should get some rest. This is the bar's backyard; you can stay in this room from now on. Come find me when you've had enough rest. I've already taken on the case of the rotting corpse from yesterday; you should take a look at it."

…………

I woke up at noon, ate the cold milk and small cakes on the table, and then continued to lie in bed in a daze.

Gu Ming came by once around 1:30 pm. I pretended to be asleep, and he turned around and left.

Gu Ming came over for the second time at 4 pm. I pretended to be asleep. He walked around the room once and then left.

At 6 p.m., I got hungry. I searched the room but found nothing. Finally, I found half a chocolate and a White Rabbit candy in my bag, ate them, and went back to bed.

At 8 p.m., Gu Ming came over for the third time. I pretended to be asleep. He sat on the sofa for a while and then left.

At midnight, Gu Ming came over for the fourth time. I pretended to be asleep. He sat there for a long time, and my stomach growled many times before he turned and left.

At 2 a.m., Gu Ming came over for the fifth time. I pretended to be asleep, but my stomach kept growling loudly. He sat for 2:30 a.m. and then said, "Xiao Mo, you've been off work for half an hour, but we don't provide food outside of working hours."

I suddenly felt that Gu Ming was very sinister!

March 13, 2005, cloudy

I was so hungry that I pulled out a bag of instant noodles from the kitchen under the moonlight. Gu Ming said that instant noodles taste better when they are cooked. I said that I couldn't even wait three minutes to make instant noodles. So he rummaged through the cupboard and threw some ham and cherry tomatoes at me. I devoured them in one go, and then finished off the instant noodles that hadn't even been soaked yet, leaving not a drop of soup. Only then did I let out a satisfied burp.

Gu Ming sat next to me the whole time, occasionally calculating with his fingers, looking like a charlatan. I asked him if he was calculating about the rotting corpse, and he shook his head and said, "You ate two hams, thirty cherry tomatoes, and a pack of braised beef noodles. It cost ten yuan in total, not counting the hot water."

So I've come to realize that sometimes charlatans are just as annoying as stingy men.

Gu Ming told me about the case of the rotting corpse. It turned out that when I fainted yesterday, the rotting corpse had entrusted Gu Ming to help him clear his name, with a three-day period.

The Corpse's original name was Wang Weize, a native of Shanxi. He had been working here for over a year. Uneducated, he could only do odd jobs on construction sites. Because he died unjustly, he harbored resentment in his chest, and his soul could not leave his body. After forty-nine days, he became a Corpse. Corpses are extremely yin in nature, cannot be exposed to sunlight, cannot enter people's homes, cannot be reincarnated, and only feed on rotting animal carcasses.

Gu Ming explained that Wang Weize was able to reach Moonlight because of its special location and the guiding spell his uncle cast, which allowed the rotting corpse to enter. I asked him what a guiding spell was, and Gu Ming said it was just an advertisement. His uncle had erected a large billboard in the alley in front of Moonlight a long time ago, which read: "Services include guiding the way, reincarnation, and catching criminals. We resolve complex issues like past life grudges and present life karmic entanglements in one go, and offer free predictions on relationships, career, family, and health. Price: 10,000 RMB/item."

He said this with a very serious expression, and I felt my lips twitching violently. Just as I was about to speak, my phone rang, and Bi Xiaofeng roared at me, "Where the hell have you been?! ...

I told her I was so scared by a rotting corpse that I was unconscious all day, and Xiao Bi yelled rudely, "You're kidding me! Even if you were unconscious all day, your stomach wouldn't be unconscious all day!!!!"

I'm speechless. Sometimes you can't speak the truth out loud.

I went home for lunch with Xiao Bi. My mom called to ask if the postgraduate entrance exam scores had been released yet. I said it was still a long way off. She then said that the weather had been fluctuating between hot and cold lately and that I should be careful not to catch a cold. She also said that she heard some chickens in Southeast Asia had caught colds and that I should never eat chickens that had caught colds.

I nodded and gave all the spicy chicken pieces on the plate to Xiao Bi, who ate them with great relish and a smile.

In the afternoon, Gu Ming called and said I needed to work overtime today for 100 yuan per hour. I immediately felt like I was seeing stacks of banknotes floating in front of me, and I agreed without thinking.

When I arrived at Moonlight by car, Gu Ming was wearing a very handsome outfit and carrying a very cool bag, standing in front of a very cool sports car waiting for me. If I didn't know him, I would definitely think he was some rich young master. But unfortunately, I know that he is actually a charlatan.

"Where are we going to work overtime?" I asked, sitting comfortably in the car.

"The place where Wang Weize had the accident."

An hour later, we got off the bus on a small road in the suburbs. Gu Ming rummaged through his very stylish bag and pulled out a few pieces of yellow paper with messy drawings. I muttered, "What kind of weird talismans are these?"

Gu Ming said, "It wasn't drawn by a ghost, it was drawn by me."

Then he pulled out one of the talismans, lit it, and the yellow talisman released a ball of blue flame with a bang. The ball of fire flew away into the woods not far away. I stared at this strange scene with wide eyes. Gu Ming sighed and pulled me, who was stunned, to follow the ball of blue flame.

After running for about ten minutes, the fire stopped beside a tree and then suddenly went out, leaving only a wisp of black ash drifting down. Gu Ming frowned beside the tree and said, "This is it."

I squatted down too, and he pointed to a small patch of dark red on the tree root and said, "Wang Weize's blood is from when he was alive. Blood from a dead person will turn bluish."

"What's the meaning?"

“He did die here.” Gu Ming said with a furrowed brow, then took out a talisman, stuck it on the bloodstain, and lit it. This time, a golden flame appeared. I quickly got up and chased after the flame. Gu Ming called my name helplessly and said, “Xiao Mo, you don’t need to run this time.”

When I got to the car, the fire was still there. Gu Ming drove off, and the fire suddenly jumped, rolled onto the ground, and turned into a golden line. I shouted, "Oh no, Gu Ming, your magic has failed!"

As Gu Ming started the car, he said casually, "This is a tracking symbol. Just follow that line."

As we walked, the golden line indeed led the way. When we were almost in the city, I asked him what would happen if someone else saw it. Gu Ming said that no one else could see it, and even if they did, they would think they were seeing things.

Then we drove along that line to the entrance of Hospital A. Gu Ming told me to stay in the car and went into the hospital alone. We didn't come out until it was dark.

On the way back to Moonlight, Gu Ming didn't say anything, and I wisely didn't ask. Sometimes I didn't know what he was doing, and I couldn't even understand why he paid me to work at Moonlight. But I always had a strange sense of closeness to Xia Canyue and Gu Ming, and I inexplicably trusted them. Perhaps I had already decided that they weren't bad people after what happened with Jia Yanji.

When the car stopped, I realized it wasn't moonlight here. I turned to look at Gu Ming, who smiled and said, "Let's eat."

So we ate a wonderful meal at an inconspicuous little shop. The dishes were exquisite and tasted special, but when we saw the bill, we were shocked. Three dishes and a soup cost three hundred yuan. This... this is clearly robbery.

Fortunately, Gu Ming paid the bill, and my guilt immediately disappeared.

The bar doesn't open until 7 PM tonight, but for Moonlight, it doesn't really matter whether it opens early or late, since hardly anyone comes anyway. So I just wiped the tables and washed the glasses to pass the time until midnight. I was dozing off when the wind chimes started ringing, and a familiar chill washed over me. Without thinking, I jumped behind Gu Ming, not even daring to open my eyes.

“They’re from Hospital A,” Gu Ming said in a cold voice.

"No...no, no." The voice that came from my throat was indeed that of the rotting corpse. My fingers trembled as I gripped Gu Ming's clothes.

"I understand. I'll give you an explanation tomorrow," Gu Ming said, and then the wind chimes rang again, and the gloom disappeared.

"I'm leaving." A helpless voice sounded overhead. "Xiao Mo, go and rest. We close at 12 o'clock today."

"Oh." I walked to the back door and then suddenly turned around. "By the way, Gu Ming, my overtime pay."

Gu Ming looked at me strangely for a while, then said in a very innocent voice, "I ate it."

"Eaten? What did you eat?"

"Dinner."

"Wasn't dinner your treat?"

"When did I say I was treating? Do you think I would spend 300 yuan on three dishes? How sinful."

"..."

I'm certain that Gu Ming, that charlatan, is extremely insidious!

Light rain on March 14, 2005