Chapter 51: Loyal Dog (Part 4)

Chen Jiu stood before Zheng Siyuan with her arms crossed, the energy radiating from her body making ghosts instinctively afraid to approach.

“Reason.” She said simply.

Zheng Siyuan stammered in explanation: “Please believe me, Boss Chen. I won’t harm him. We were very good friends before. These little pranks of mine can’t hurt him at all.”

“I believe you.” Chen Jiu said.

Zheng Siyuan quietly let out a breath of relief, just about to show a grateful expression, when unexpectedly Chen Jiu’s tone shifted: “But, reason.”

Zheng Siyuan: “…”

Chen Jiu held her peach wood sword, playing with it as she twirled a sword flower, then flicked the blade with her finger and blew on it. The threatening meaning was very obvious.

Zheng Siyuan waved his hands in terror, retreating dozens of steps backward.

“I took money to do a job. If you don’t give me a suitable reason, I can’t even find a suitable opportunity to let you off.” Chen Jiu lowered her voice.

Zheng Siyuan hugged his head and crouched in the corner, with nowhere left to retreat, so he had to say: “Fine, I won’t hide it from you. I came to repay a favor, a debt of gratitude. Once I finish repaying this debt, I should be able to leave.”

Chen Jiu looked him up and down with her eyes: “Ghosts still need to repay debts of gratitude?”

“Mm…” Zheng Siyuan was about to cry: “Boss Chen, how would I dare deceive you? At first I thought, at least now that I’m a ghost, I wouldn’t be as useless as when I was alive. But actually I completely overestimated myself from watching too many TV dramas and novels! Right now I have no abilities at all. At most I can make a little noise in the deep of night. When other ghosts come by, I hide from them.”

Chen Jiu nodded. From this point, Zheng Siyuan had no room to lie at all. If he didn’t have extremely deep obsession and resentment binding him, the staff from below would have long come to carry out official business. How could they let a weak, useless ghost remain in the human world for so long?

Probably Zheng Siyuan had accumulated a few pages of merit during his lifetime, so he could move about freely.

Seeing Chen Jiu nod, Zheng Siyuan carefully asked: “So you’ll really let me go this time? I’ll just stay here, won’t go anywhere, and I won’t scare him anymore.”

“Why?” Chen Jiu turned her face as quickly as turning a page: “My mission is to expel you from here. The fact that I haven’t made a move yet already shows great patience. Mr. Shao has to catch a flight tomorrow morning, do you know? Aren’t you purely causing trouble?”

Speaking to this point she herself paused too, then showed an expression of sudden realization: “You did it on purpose?”

Zheng Siyuan clutched his mouth tightly, staring at her, not willing to say another word.

This kind of reaction that screamed “the silver is not here” was practically a direct answer to Chen Jiu’s question.

The two looked at each other for a moment. Chen Jiu asked: “Did you see something at the instant you died?”

After death, there was a chance of seeing one’s own merit ledger. But even if Zheng Siyuan had seen his own merit ledger, what did it have to do with Shao Quan? Now that Zheng Siyuan was guarding against her so tightly, what exactly was he worried about?

Thinking for a moment, Chen Jiu tentatively said: “Did you misunderstand something? In our line of work, we generally don’t have direct contact with the staff from below. We have an oversight headquarters above us. Only high officials interact with each other. We little nobodies can’t reach that far.”

Zheng Siyuan indeed relaxed his expression, took a deep breath, and said to her: “This counts as leaking heavenly secrets, right? You absolutely must not sell me out. I still want to be human in my next life.”

Chen Jiu found it amusing: “What are you talking about? Just say what you have to say.”

Zheng Siyuan changed his sitting posture, recalling: “When I died, my whole person seemed to rise to a very strange dimension. If I had to explain it in a more scientific way, it should be the fourth dimension? In short, I saw a book in this space.”

Chen Jiu nodded. That was definitely the merit ledger. Although she had never seen one, she had seen too many dead people. There were always one or two loose-lipped ghosts who liked to spill all the stale old matters they had experienced.

“Perhaps in this space, time doesn’t flow according to the logic of our three-dimensional world either. I simultaneously saw many important scenes from my life. This should be what they call the flash of life before your eyes, right?” Zheng Siyuan stared at the ground, continuing to recall and narrate: “I thought it was quite interesting, so I wasn’t in a hurry to leave. As I flipped through, I flipped to the scenes after my death. The book said that after I died, someone kept burning things for me. Every half month, regularly burning paper money, paper cell phones, paper clothes, paper cars and paper houses, more diligent than clockwork wages. I thought this definitely wasn’t my parents burning them. They very much despised me as a son. Being willing to collect my corpse, cremate me, and find a place to bury my ashes was already quite good. And they wouldn’t even think to burn these trendy new things… So I thought, it must be Shao Quan secretly burning them for me. This guy still hasn’t planned to reconcile with me, so he didn’t burn them in front of me.”

Chen Jiu listened without saying a word, not interrupting him. She formed a rough character portrait of Zheng Siyuan, this useless ghost. Solitary personality, no great accomplishments, lived alone raising a dog, older age with no partner, had and only had Shao Quan as one friend, oh, and they had a falling out. Pitiful yet funny.

But living alone and still raising a dog, this lifestyle was quite similar to hers. If not viewed through the eyes of the older generation, it was actually quite comfortable.

Zheng Siyuan rambled on recalling for a while longer. Chen Jiu finally realized this kid was stalling for time, and quickly interrupted: “Stop stop stop. We can chat about these things later. Right now can you tell me, why are you interfering with Shao Quan’s itinerary for tomorrow?”

Zheng Siyuan let out a dry laugh, his fingers helplessly rubbing together for a moment, finally making up his mind: “Then I’ll say it.”

Chen Jiu worked hard to reveal a patient, gentle smile: “Please speak.”

“The merit ledger only wrote up to these two days. After that, there was nothing.” Zheng Siyuan said in a low voice, his tone becoming very dejected: “I’m very afraid.”

Chen Jiu didn’t quite react: “Afraid of what? That no one will burn things for you? Actually that doesn’t matter. Since you were fortunate enough to glimpse the merit ledger once, just find a way to send him a dream, wouldn’t that work?”

“No one burning things for me, that’s not a big deal. It doesn’t matter.” Zheng Siyuan was still rubbing his fingers, saying: “Don’t look at how Shao Quan always has a stinky face normally. Actually he’s the most loyal and righteous person. It’s impossible that he would say he won’t burn and then just stop burning. He must have encountered something, he had no way, that’s why he didn’t continue burning. I understand this person.”

After saying this last sentence, he sorrowfully lowered his head a bit more.

Chen Jiu finally understood. She turned her head to look at the tightly closed door. There was no movement. It seemed Shao Quan was working hard to rest up, striving to enter his work state tomorrow with the best mental outlook.

“You think the problem lies with that airplane?” Chen Jiu’s expression became somewhat serious.

Deliberately altering another person’s fate, the karmic backlash in between was not something a small useless ghost like Zheng Siyuan could withstand. Once sanctioned by the heavenly dao, whether he would be human or dog in his next life would become empty talk. Whether he even had a next life was uncertain.

Zheng Siyuan said blankly: “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the airplane, or perhaps it’s the car going to the airport, or perhaps it’s… I don’t know. But staying at home is always safe. As long as I let him get through this day, I can leave with peace of mind.”

“I didn’t expect that you look so useless, yet you would do something so earth-shakingly big.” Chen Jiu leaned on her sword, crouched down, and asked him in a lowered voice: “The cycle of cause and effect isn’t something you can change just because you want to. Do you know what consequences you’ll face for doing this? This offense is much more serious than leaking heavenly secrets. Still wanting to be human in your next life? There might not even be a spot for you as a dog.”

Zheng Siyuan was almost scolded to tears by her: “Boss Chen, can you please accumulate some verbal merit…”

“…” Chen Jiu seeing him in this useless state, was practically furious beyond words. She wanted to say something more, when the door behind her opened.

Shao Quan came out wearing a bathrobe, his complexion still not very good, his spirit dispirited as he asked Chen Jiu: “Boss Chen, how is your handling going? Is there any timely and efficient method? Tomorrow I really do have a rather important client.”

Chen Jiu slowed her movements, inwardly cursing the two of them. Oh no, this one human and one ghost going back and forth eight hundred times. So it turned out they couldn’t communicate with each other and couldn’t even argue. Ha ha, both of them were happy again, leaving her alone roasting over the fire.

She successfully stood up, pretending her leg was numb, and paused for a moment. Zheng Siyuan directly bent both knees and knelt to her, then bowed down in a grand kneeling salute, pleading: “Help me, help me! Boss Chen, I beg you!”

“Ah… is that so?” Chen Jiu scratched her chin, looking left and right while speaking of other things: “Tomorrow’s weather might not be very good. Not very suitable for taking a plane, don’t you think?”

Shao Quan looked at the time, helplessly saying: “If you really have no way, I can go out and find a place to make do for the night.”

“…” Chen Jiu: “No.”

Shao Quan: “?”

“These two days, it’s best you stay at home.” Chen Jiu sighed deeply in her heart, persuading herself to let it go.

Whatever happened, Zheng Siyuan would bear it himself. What did it have to do with her? Whatever.

Shao Quan puzzledly raised one eyebrow: “Boss Chen, can you give me a sufficient reason? If this business deal doesn’t go through, it’s almost a loss at the ten million level.”

Chen Jiu closed both eyes, went all out, and said with forceful conviction: “Fine, I ask you. Is life important or is money important!”

Shao Quan: “Huh?”

Zheng Siyuan knelt on the ground, his energy body unable to shed tears. He only shrugged his shoulders. If he were in human form, he would probably already be streaming with tears and snot.

“Your friend… former friend just sent me a dream.” Chen Jiu said: “Saying these two days the weather is very bad, especially bad. In short, you should go out less.”

Shao Quan: “A dream? Just now?”

Chen Jiu’s face didn’t redden and her heart didn’t skip a beat, making up nonsense as she spoke: “Mm yes. In our line of work, we can enter deep sleep anytime, anywhere.”