Chapter 93: Her Summoning Ritual
Chi Lisen: ? What kind of outfit shows bare shoulders? Sounds cold and impractical.
Chi Fengxiao and Chi Chaoshen: !!!
Absolutely not!
You’re still a child! Your uncles forbid you from wearing such outrageous clothes!
But before they could stop her, Chi Qian had already dashed upstairs.
Ten minutes later, the lights in the dining room went out.
A spotlight lit up the doorway, and Chi Qian bounced in, making a dramatic entrance.
Chi Lisen’s mouth twitched.
Chi Fengxiao and Chi Chaoshen’s eyes nearly fell out of their heads.
What the heck was this?!
Wasn’t that… the Snake Queen from Calabash Brothers[1]?!
Chi Qian had her hair tied up in twin loops, wore a yellow tight-fitting strappy apron, and a snake tail trailed behind her as she stood there, hands on hips, striking a pose.
“Grandpa, Second Uncle, Third Uncle—well? Don’t I look pretty?”
Chi Chaoshen and Chi Fengxiao: “……”
Pretty or not, they couldn’t say. But crazy? Definitely crazy.
They could only console themselves—better a Snake Queen costume than something even worse.
Chi Lisen: “This is the surprise you prepared for us?”
“Of course not, that’s not all. Just wait a sec!” Chi Qian snapped her fingers, and the dining room lights came back on.
As soon as Butler Nan, who had been in charge of shining the flashlight for her, saw the signal, he immediately turned on the speakers.
Somehow, Chi Qian was already holding a mini microphone in her hand. “Next, I will sing a song for everyone. It carries a very serious warning, let’s take it as encouragement together!”
Hearing this, Chi Lisen’s expression softened with relief. Finally, for once, she seemed a little normal.
But in the very next second, that relief shattered completely.
Chi Qian opened her mouth to sing:
“Huluwa, Huluwa—”
“Seven flowers on one vine—”
“This little vine is my home—”
“La la la la—”
Chi Lisen pressed his hand against his forehead.
Chi Fengxiao and Chi Chaoshen’s eyes glazed over.
Chi Muze, who had just walked out of the kitchen carrying a bowl of longevity noodles, froze for half a second, his hands trembling, before silently turning back inside.
So awful.
How could it sound this awful?
How could she manage to sing every single note off-key, and still sound so confident and natural—sometimes even bending the high notes like mountain switchbacks?
Luckily all the guests had already gone home.
Otherwise, after the “Turtle Hermit,” the Chi family would now also have been known for producing a “snake spirit” who sings.
Thanks to Chi Qian’s singing, no one in the entire villa slept a wink that night.
The moment they closed their eyes…
“La la la la Huluwa…”
That demonic little tune would automatically play in their heads, over and over again.
The next morning, Chi Qian came downstairs for breakfast, bright-eyed and well-rested. Seeing her grandfather and three uncles all wearing the same sleepless, haggard expressions, she asked curiously: “Family, did you not sleep well last night?”
Chi Lisen gave her a long, meaningful look. “What do you think?”
Thanks to her, his mind had been filled with things entirely unrelated to work for the first time ever—so noisy he hadn’t slept a single wink.
Chi Qian: “Huh?”
Chi Fengxiao, his eyes half-shut, spread jam on his bread and took a bite. “It’s over. I think I’ve lost my sense of taste. I can’t even taste the sweetness of the jam.”
Chi Muze’s eye twitched. “Wake up. What you spread is plain water.”
Chi Chaoshen added, “Big brother, you’re holding the knife and fork the wrong way around.”
Chi Muze: “…”
Chi Qian’s head was full of question marks. What on earth was going on?
Surely they hadn’t all gone out together last night to steal pigs, right?
After breakfast, she went to check her little piggy in its cozy nest. Fortunately, it was still there and hadn’t been stolen.
But her turtle… who knew where that had wandered off to.
“Miss Qian.” Jiang Zhuzhi came over carrying something. “Although it’s a little late, I still want to wish you a happy birthday. This is a small gift from me. Please don’t mind.”
“Wow, thank you, Uncle Jiang.” Chi Qian accepted the gift. “But why didn’t you come to my birthday party last night?”
Jiang Zhuzhi explained, “My son ate the wrong thing and was unconscious for two days. When he woke up, he was listless, like his soul wasn’t there. I really couldn’t get away.”
“Lost his soul, huh? Do you need someone to call it back? To be honest, I know a little about that.”
Jiang Zhuzhi was torn between disbelief and temptation. “Really?”
“Of course! I’ve seen it plenty of times on TV!” Chi Qian patted her chest. In her mind, calling back a soul couldn’t possibly be harder than writing homework.
“…Huh?”
Half an hour later—
Wearing a long, wide-sleeved white dress, Chi Qian was standing in Jiang Heyi’s room, ringing a bronze bell and dancing like a shaman.
How best to describe her dancing?
About as bad as her singing.
She bounced here, skipped there, shaking the bell while chanting: “Spirits of heaven and earth, any god will do, just show yourself!”
It was… overwhelmingly hopeless.
Jiang Zhuzhi stood by, opening and closing his mouth but not knowing what to say.
He had thought that no matter how strange her “soul-calling” might be, it couldn’t be too far off.
But she hadn’t mentioned that her method was literally dancing like a shaman!
“Miss Qian, perhaps I should—” The “forget it” stuck in his throat when he suddenly saw his son Jiang Heyi’s eyelids twitch.
“Water…” Jiang Heyi murmured weakly.
Jiang Zhuzhi rushed out to fetch some.
Chi Qian stopped her dance, smug. “See? I told you. The method doesn’t matter—as long as it works!”
Didn’t TV always show it like this?
If it worked for others, why not her?
Jiang Heyi opened his eyes to the sound of the bell.
The first thing he saw was Chi Qian—dressed all in white with her hair loose, walking toward him, locking eyes.
His eyes flew wide, pupils shrinking. “Y-y-y-you…”
Chi Qian leaned closer. “What did you say?”
Confronted so suddenly with what looked like a ghost, Jiang Heyi’s eyes rolled back and he fainted.
But Chi Qian wasn’t about to let him. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “I know you want to pass out, but don’t yet!”
“You promised to help me write my observation diary. If you haven’t written it yet, you can faint after you finish!”
She wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.
Terrified, Jiang Heyi hiccupped and pointed a trembling finger toward his desk.
Chi Qian let go happily and ran over to check.
With a thud, Jiang Heyi finally collapsed onto his pillow, fainting for real this time.
When he woke again, the “ghost girl” was still there.
Sitting calmly at his dining table.
To thank Chi Qian for “calling his son’s soul back,” Jiang Zhuzhi had personally cooked a meal for her.
“Heyi, come sit.”
But Jiang Heyi didn’t dare move—because Chi Qian was sitting right next to his seat.
Chi Qian waved cheerfully. “Come on, hurry, it’s time to eat.”
In his ears, the words twisted themselves into: Come sit with me, I’m about to eat you.
But remembering that they were supposed to be friends, he didn’t want to make her sad by acting scared.
So Jiang Heyi braced himself… and sat down beside his father.
Jiang Zhuzhi’s face lit up with surprise—his son hadn’t been willing to sit close to him since he entered his rebellious phase.
Chi Qian polished off two bowls of rice, then noticed Jiang Heyi staring at her. She flashed him a friendly smile.
She happened to be eating mulberries, her mouth stained black-red. When she smiled, she looked scarier than a ghost.
She herself had no idea—her mind was filled only with these mulberries are so sweet.
Jiang Heyi’s hands shook like a sieve. He had already helped her write the herring food review and the observation diary. She shouldn’t hurt him now, right?
…Wait a second. Why could she eat food?
Footnotes:
[1] Calabash Brothers or Hulu Brothers (Chinese: 葫芦兄弟; pinyin: Húlu Xiōngdì) is a Chinese animation TV series produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio.
Snake Queen (金蛇夫人): One of the spirits who was imprisoned in and escaped from the Calabash Mountain.
