Chapter 99: Scent Talisman, Letting Go
“Come out, and I’ll help you fulfill your wish to eat a full meal,” Su Keke promised.
“Really?”
“Dao cultivators don’t lie.”
“‘Jiang Yueyue’” sneered. “Your Chinese is worse than mine. It’s monks who don’t lie.”
The next second, “Jiang Yueyue” rolled her eyes back and collapsed straight to the floor.
Su Keke saw the starving ghost come out of Jiang Yueyue’s body.
It was a slightly chubby girl, wearing the school uniform from three years ago.
She was actually a student from Yuehua Noble School too—about the same age as Su Keke.
The starving ghost floated in front of Su Keke and asked impatiently, “How can I feel full? Hurry and satisfy me. My only wish is to have one proper full meal—then I can let go of my obsession and go reincarnate.”
Su Keke said, “Wait a moment.”
She walked up to Bao Chen and held out her hand. “Where are the things you used to summon the ghost?”
Bao Chen gave an awkward smile and quickly pulled out a big black bag from the drawer. “A bowl of plain white rice, the leftover rooster blood, and that sheet of paper with the blood writing—everything’s inside.”
Su Keke opened the bag and took out the paper to look.
On the white sheet, three crooked lines had been written in chicken blood: the first and second lines both said “Don’t know,” and the third line had one big word: “Yes.”
After reading it, Su Keke put it back and asked them, “You all saw what was written on that blood paper?”
Bao Chen and the others nodded.
It was right there on the desk—how could they not see it?
“That thing can only be seen by the person asking the questions. After reading it, the questioner must take it to a crossroads and burn it.”
“T-then… what happens to us after seeing it?” Bao Chen could barely speak smoothly anymore. He now believed Su Keke was a mystic—one with real ability.
“You read something written by a ghost—what do you think will happen?” Su Keke snorted.
If she didn’t teach them a lesson, they’d never remember.
Bao Chen and the others stared at her in terror.
“Student Su Keke, for the sake of being classmates, you can’t just watch us die!” Bao Chen was on the verge of tears. The others were so scared their faces turned white—Lu Renjia looked especially pale.
Floating behind Su Keke, the starving ghost rolled her eyes. “I’m so cute—how could I harm people? Look at you cowards.”
Su Keke said, “After reading something a ghost wrote, your ‘eight characters’ will become lighter for the next few days. You might bump into something unclean at any time.”
Hearing that, they were even more frightened.
Then Su Keke changed her tone. “But I have a way to fix it. Tonight, the boys run ten laps around the track, the girls run five. After you go back, take a hot shower—at least half an hour. Then before bed, silently recite the exorcism incantation fifty times.”
After saying that, Su Keke copied out on her little notebook a so-called “exorcism spell” of no less than a thousand characters, tore it off, and handed it to Bao Chen.
Ten laps for boys, five for girls—and that thousand-character spell had to be recited fifty times?
They all wanted to die.
Su Keke warned them solemnly, “Don’t ever do something this suicidal again. This time you were lucky—you summoned a starving ghost. If your luck had been worse and you summoned a ghost fiend, you’d have lost your lives.”
Bao Chen asked guiltily, “Su Keke… is it really that serious?”
Su Keke gave him a serious look. “What do you think? Why would the things you summon answer your questions for free?”
Bao Chen said in a small voice, “I read on paranormal forums that once the thing you invite eats the offerings, it won’t ask for anything too excessive.”
Su Keke shot him a look. “So you actually did your homework? You’re right—when you’ve eaten someone’s food, your mouth is short; when you’ve taken someone’s gift, your hand is soft. Usually, they won’t demand anything too outrageous. But if you fail to meet the condition it sets, what it will do after that—that’s hard to say. As far as I know, the worst cases are where, a few days after holding the ghost-summoning ritual, everyone involved ended up dead.”
The students who had participated all looked shaken with fear.
“We’ll never dare again!” Bao Chen said, and the others nodded along.
Lu Renjia supported Jiang Yueyue and asked hesitantly, “Su Keke… Yueyue, she’s okay, right? There’s nothing wrong with her?”
Su Keke glanced at the unconscious Jiang Yueyue and replied, “Being possessed by a ghost weakens your own aura. And she’s been restless and unsettled these past few days. She might catch a small illness in the next day or two, but it’s nothing serious. Get some sun, go out and bounce around a bit, and she’ll be fine.”
After “fixing” this group of naughty brats, Su Keke left with that bag of things. Qin Xing and Luo Man followed, and the starving ghost drifted behind them.
“Keke, what do we do with this stuff?” Qin Xing asked.
“Just bury the bowl and the grain deep in a shaded place.”
“Ah, but what if one day someone digs it up by accident?”
“As long as it stays buried for ten days, that’s enough. After that, even if someone digs it up, it won’t matter.”
Because she had promised to satisfy the starving ghost’s wish, Su Keke went to the restaurant.
That table full of food the starving ghost had demanded earlier still hadn’t been cleared away. She took out yellow talisman paper and cinnabar from her bag, dipped a writing brush into the cinnabar, and swiftly drew a talisman pattern on the paper.
Then she fanned the completed talisman over the dishes.
This time, before the two could even ask, Su Keke explained on her own: “This is a ‘scent-collecting talisman.’ It gathers the smell of these dishes into the talisman. Then when you burn the talisman, it can ‘eat’ the food.
“Ghosts aren’t like humans—they don’t have a physical body. What makes them feel full is these smells. But ordinary ghosts can’t smell scents.”
“Tell me your name and your birth date and eight characters,” Su Keke said, turning her head to the starving ghost.
Because the starving ghost was standing right beside Qin Xing, Qin Xing thought she was being asked.
“Daxing, I’m not asking you—I’m asking the starving ghost beside you.”
Qin Xing: …
Qin Xing silently edged closer to Luo Man. No wonder she kept feeling a cold yin wind by her side.
A ghost standing right next to her… this feeling was really…
Su Keke flipped the talisman that had collected the scent, and on the back she wrote the starving ghost’s name and birth date and eight characters.
When Qin Xing saw the name, she looked slightly surprised. “I know this person. Three years ago, there was a suicide incident at our school. The girl who died was called this name. I heard it was because of love.”
The starving ghost immediately stomped her feet. “It wasn’t suicide! Not suicide! It was because I dieted too hard. Later I really couldn’t take it anymore and started eating like crazy, and then… I suddenly dropped dead. Later I found out my stomach and intestines couldn’t handle the sudden binge-eating, and I basically… did myself in like that. Sigh…”
Su Keke couldn’t help looking at her. “You’re not even that fat. If you exercised more, you would’ve slimmed down. Why did you have to starve yourself like that?”
The starving ghost lowered her head, thinking of those long-forgotten memories. “Back then I had a crush on a male idol at school. I finally worked up the courage to confess to him. He didn’t reject me outright—he just said if I could lose thirty jin in one month, he’d be my boyfriend.”
Su Keke: …
Lose thirty jin in one month—how is that any different from rejecting you outright?
