People of the past used to say there are three great joys in life:
Passing the imperial examinations.
Reuniting with an old friend in a distant place.
Spending the bridal night in the nuptial chamber.
Li Daonian figured he would never experience the first two.
Yet right now, he inexplicably felt a strong sense of déjà vu reminiscent of a bridal night.
Inside a fifteen-square-meter rented room, four red candles crackled and burned on a wooden table.
On the bed opposite the table, a girl in pajamas tossed and turned beneath her quilt.
Her calves and feet protruded from beneath the covers, periodically retracting and extending. Her skin was fair and her figure was fine, but her upper body was buried under the quilt, obscuring her face.
Li Daonian felt a slight urge to laugh. With the lights off and only the faint candle glow illuminating the room, the atmosphere felt both quiet and eerie, yet filled with a romantic allure.
"If you're hot, you don't need to cover up with the quilt," he said with a smile.
Yet the girl seemed stubbornly petulant; she yanked the quilt as if in protest, then covered her head once more.
Could she actually be a bit prideful and coy?
He chuckled dryly, sat down on the stool beside the table, and waited quietly.
This absurd scene began yesterday.
Lying on the bed was Xu Shuangning from the sophomore class of the Academy of Music and Dance. She majored in ethnic dance, and because she was pretty, well-figured, and sweet-voiced, she frequently appeared on the stages of major events.
At yesterday's welcome gala, the girl performed a medley of ethnic dances. Dressed in a Dunhuang glazed tight-fitting dress with a crop top, her graceful dance moves drove the crowd of guys wild.
While his roommates were merrily discussing the "fine arts of dance," Li Daonian had frowned.
Noticing him staring fixedly at the girl's body while wearing a deeply worried expression, his roommates cursed him in unison: "Who the hell are you putting on an act for?"
Although Li Daonian had also been appreciating her dancing, he had noticed something amiss: the girl's spirit was poor, and the area between her eyebrows was darkened to a shade that foundation couldn't hide.
So he had wandered all around the stage, staring at Xu Shuangning as she twisted her waist.
The audience all thought he was a fool. A normal guy with lust on his mind would at least try to hide it—how could this bro circle around to watch, staring until the girl on stage even grew a little shy?
Li Daonian couldn't care less about any of that, because he sensed that extra cash was coming his way.
After circling five times, he finally confirmed that this girl had run into a ghost.
He wasn't just talking nonsense out of thin air; his family made their living doing precisely this. Some people would say, "Ah! What era is this? How can you still talk about ghosts and spirits? It's all feudal superstition!"
Li Daonian had no good response to such talk, but having been immersed in it since childhood, he knew the truth of the matter. Most people rarely encounter a ghost in a lifetime.
Therefore, whenever most people asked him, he could only resort to the phrase: "If you believe, it exists; if you don't, it doesn't."
But for families like Li Daonian's, they got to witness all sorts of different demons and monsters. Case in point: this past summer vacation, he had even gone home to help his grandmother with ghost-catching work.
Before Li Daonian went to university, his old man had told him to learn the craft so he could eventually inherit the family business. But he didn't want to do this shit at all—at least not until university.
His old man gave him a thousand yuan a living stipend every month. Was it little? It was enough to stay alive, but that was all—just staying alive.
That was until his psychology teacher ran into a ghost.
During class that day, the psychology teacher had casually mentioned that he had a headache. He had gone to the hospital and nothing was wrong, but he simply lacked energy, so he told them to behave in class.
Li Daonian sensed something was wrong. After class, he went up to ask him, "Teacher, did something happen to you recently?"
The psychology teacher asked in confusion, "How did you know?"
It turned out that two days prior, while driving, the psychology teacher had run over three little wild piglets at the entrance of a tunnel, mashing them into pulp, with blood covering the entire bumper.
Li Daonian asked, "Was the big wild boar nearby?"
The psychology teacher replied, "There was a big wild boar that kept circling those three dead little wild piglets and wailing; it must have been their mother."
"That makes things easy."
That very night, Li Daonian led the psychology teacher back through that tunnel, parking on the road shoulder where the carcasses of the three pulpy little wild piglets could be seen in the grass.
He inserted three sticks of incense, set down the corn and apples the teacher had bought, and began to communicate with the wild boar's soul.
Three minutes later, the psychology teacher was astonished to see that large wild boar actually run over from behind the road, take a look at them, and walk away carrying the corn, the apples, and the bodies of the three little wild piglets.
He hurriedly asked Li Daonian for the reason.
Li Daonian only shook his head and sighed, "This big wild boar was a human in its past life," and said no more.
That night when the psychology teacher went back, his headache was gone and he felt refreshed and clear-headed, privately slipping him two thousand yuan.
Li Daonian hadn't wanted to accept it at first, but thinking about how he needed to save up money to buy a camera, he took it.
Ever since then, he discovered that relying on his family's craft could actually earn him some money to supplement his living expenses.
The study of ghosts and spirits that he used to find so annoying now slapped him heavily and resonantly across the face.
He couldn't help exclaiming: "Sweet, truly sweet!"
Afterward, he often paid close attention to life around him and picked up small jobs everywhere. He had also helped a few school teachers and classmates at the behest of his psychology teacher, gradually gaining some renown.
Thinking back to last year's wild boar incident, the truth was that the reincarnated big wild boar had been a rural woman who became pregnant with triplets, but her husband was an alcoholic and a gambler who turned their household upside down.
Filled with despair and depression, the depressed woman climbed to the twentieth floor, prepared to leap, only to regret it as she hung over the edge of the rooftop.
She thought of the children in her belly.
However,
everything was already too late.
The woman, along with the three children in her belly, perished together.
Her final lingering obsession before death was her guilt toward her three children, so she reincarnated as a wild boar, preparing to properly raise these three little wild piglets to atone for her sins.
Little did she expect to be run over and killed head-on by the psychology teacher's car.
That big wild boar carried a deep resentment, which infected the three dead little piglets, causing the souls of the three little wild piglets to linger around the psychology teacher.
This made him experience the sensation of a splitting headache as well.
In the end, Li Daonian had a conversation with those little piglets and persuaded them to let go of their obsession.
In reality, the lingering obsessions carried by deceased souls are involuntary, making them quite easy to communicate with unless their obsession runs terribly deep.
Therefore, whenever a problem could be solved through conversation, he never dealt ruthless blows or scattered their souls to the winds, so as to give them a chance to reincarnate.
Unless he encountered those stubborn, lingering obsessions where he ultimately had no choice but to strike and shatter the soul.
That big wild boar indeed held an attachment to its reincarnated beloved children; while he was talking with the little piglets, it actually listened from the side, even if it couldn't understand.
Yet it could sense the three little souls letting go of their obsessions.
In the end, it picked up the corn and apples and left with the corpses of the little pigs...
This matter was quite wondrous. Normally, people thought ghosts and the like were all fierce and terrifying, but in truth, they also possessed their own human warmth.
Therefore, Li Daonian needed not only to hone his craft, but also to learn the ways of human society.
How fucking hilarious.
...
Returning to yesterday.
Over the past few days, having nothing much to do, Li Daonian had thought about coming to see the welcome gala, посмотреть at pretty girls, and feast his eyes, only to spot this girl whose space between her eyebrows was darkened.
Though her long legs and plump rear end were eye-catching enough, he kept his focus firmly on her forehead.
The moment she stepped off the stage, Li Daonian—the very image of a lecherous wolf in everyone else's eyes—hurriedly went to greet her.
Hehehe, extra cash, here I come!