Chapter 38: Strange Noises: The Second Main Quest

Lu You walked out of the airport with his small travel bag, He Zhuchun at his side. From a long way off they could see a young man hoisting a sign high and waving it about.

The sign read, in large characters: WE WELCOME GRANDMASTER LU TO GRACE US WITH HIS GUIDANCE.

Honestly, it was mortifying.

Expressionless, Lu You fished a disposable mask of unknown vintage out of his pocket, tore open the packaging, and hooked it over his ears.

He Zhuchun found this endlessly entertaining. Laughing loudly with total disregard for the spectacle, he marveled, “Where did they dig up this piece of work to pick us up?”

Halfway through his laughter, the man flipped the sign over. The back read: WE WELCOME TEACHER HE ZHUCHUN TO GRACE US WITH HIS GUIDANCE.

He Zhuchun: “…”

He Zhuchun had long known that instant karma existed in this world — he just hadn’t expected it to arrive quite this fast.

He reined in his smile, poked Lu You, and asked, “Got another mask?”

Lu You dug through his pocket again and handed over a second disposable mask.

The two of them then trudged toward the young man, masks on, heads down.

The young man’s name was Zhao Xiaochen. He wasn’t bad-looking — a pair of big, double-lidded eyes, moist and glossy, set in a face that read as thoroughly kindhearted. At first glance you’d take him for the good-tempered, honest type; his voice was hoarse and soft, so mild that he came across like a born pushover.

By his own introduction, he was currently employed as the personal assistant to that well-known influencer, and he smiled and told Lu You to just call him Little Zhao.

His manner was certainly humble.

He Zhuchun stood waiting at a distance while they talked, only relaxing once he saw the man put the sign away. Then he leaned in and asked, “Are you taking us to see your boss now?”

“Not yet possible, Mr. He.” Zhao Xiaochen stowed the sign carefully, eyes curving with his smile. “Our boss said there’s a matter she’d like to ask you two for help with first. Only after that’s settled can I take you to see her.”

Lu You was very good at catching key words. “‘The matter here’?”

“Yes.” When Zhao Xiaochen spoke to people, he had a habit of looking them straight in the eye. “Our boss has been away on business recently, so she’s not in this city. Once you two have finished, I’ll personally deliver you to her, and the rest can be discussed then.”

Pretty words. Work reasons, please — she hadn’t left minutes ago; she could simply have sent them the new address. Instead she’d waited until now. Wasn’t this, at its core, doubting Lu You’s abilities, setting up an entrance exam to give the two of them a show of force?

He Zhuchun’s smile turned none too friendly: “Sure, we know your boss is an influencer. If we didn’t, we’d think she was Tathagata Buddha himself — do we have to get through eighty-one tribulations just to meet her? What do you take us for, Tang Xuanzang and Monkey Sun Wukong? And after all that, do we at least get to bring home the real scriptures?”

The smile on Zhao Xiaochen’s face went strained on the spot, his voice shrinking further: “Mr. He, please don’t be angry. To be honest, on this matter I’m actually on your side — but the point is, I’m not the one in charge. I’m just a personal assistant. The boss’s wishes aren’t mine to change. Never mind something this big — whether she drinks coffee or milk tea today, even that isn’t my call.”

He Zhuchun had only been blowing off steam and had no intention of truly making things hard for him. He gave a light snort, gestured Lu You in front of him, and said, “Enough talk. Lead the way. Let’s have your real-and-fake Monkey Sun Wukong parade for us first.”

Lu You wasn’t fond of that metaphor, and shot him a cool glance.

Zhao Xiaochen, all apologetic smiles, ushered them to the car he’d parked. It was a Mercedes in the modest hundred-thousand-yuan bracket — for an influencer, a genuinely low-key ride.

Lu You took the back seat beside He Zhuchun, and only after the car started moving did he ask:

“Your boss wants us to deal with something. Did she brief you in advance?”

“Yes, yes, she did.” Zhao Xiaochen glanced back through the rearview mirror. “The boss recently bought a new property here in town. The renovation only just finished — but when she sent someone to inspect the place recently, they found a problem.”

Lu You asked, “What kind of problem?”

Zhao Xiaochen said, “It was actually discovered by pure chance. One of the boss’s friends came here traveling recently with nowhere to stay, and our boss is warmhearted, so she put him up in the new house for the time being. That friend stayed three days, and before he left, he told our boss that the house was always making noise at night.”

He Zhuchun asked, “What kind of noise?”

“I couldn’t say exactly.” Zhao Xiaochen smiled apologetically.

“According to that friend, it sounded like someone below, hitting the ceiling over and over — a thudding, starting at eleven-thirty at night and going until three in the morning, without a single second’s pause. Right on schedule, every day, for three days straight. Apparently the friend had originally planned to stay ten days or half a month, but this infuriated him so much that on the fourth day he packed up and left without so much as a goodbye.”

He Zhuchun said, “Your boss’s friend is a real character. Moves into her freshly renovated new house first, then pulls faces at her when it doesn’t suit him. Is your boss a pushover too?”

Zhao Xiaochen missed the “too” entirely and explained, “Actually, our boss has a wonderful temper. All her friends and colleagues know it. I’ve worked with her for years and never once seen her get short with anyone.”

He Zhuchun plainly did not believe that the boss who had deliberately made things difficult for them was a good-tempered person.

Seeing his expression, Zhao Xiaochen insisted, “Please don’t doubt it. Once you meet our boss, you’ll understand. She really is a very, very good-tempered person.”

He Zhuchun had no interest in arguing over something so useless. He tugged his mask up to cover his eyes and settled in for a nap.

Lu You thought for a long while, then asked suddenly, “That friend of your boss’s said there was thumping from eleven-thirty until three in the morning. Did he ever investigate what was actually causing it? Could it really just be neighbors messing around, or some other mundane reason?”

Lu You knew that certain buildings produced thumping noises for purely structural reasons — water hammer in the pipes, thermal expansion and contraction of floor slabs, slight deformation of the framework, low-frequency vibration from pressurized pumps or running elevators. Any of these were possible.

Zhao Xiaochen shook his head: “To be honest with you both, that friend left in the middle of the night the day before yesterday, and I only received the notice to pick you up yesterday. The interval was too short — there simply wasn’t time to work out whether this is science or metaphysics. So I can only trouble you to go and find out.”

As they spoke, the car rolled to a stop in front of the apartment building.

Zhao Xiaochen leaned back with a smile: “Here we are.”

He Zhuchun pulled the mask off his eyes and leaned toward the window — without shifting his backside an inch — and asked, “The complex doesn’t look big. Not expensive, I take it?”

Zhao Xiaochen answered, “A little over a million.”

He Zhuchun glanced up at him, his expression unreadable. Zhao Xiaochen couldn’t parse the look, scratched his head, and chuckled: “Any advice about the property? You can tell me in detail and I’ll pass it along to our boss.”

“None.” He Zhuchun folded up his mask, stuffed it in his pocket, and said with a smile, “Excellent purchase.”

Lu You got out first, standing at the complex gate to survey the surroundings, brow faintly creased, saying nothing.

He Zhuchun followed him out.

Zhao Xiaochen climbed down too and handed Lu You a key ring with an Elevator Access Card and the house keys attached: “Unit 0502. Swipe the card to the fifth floor, and you’ll see it the moment you step out of the elevator. There’s still work the boss left with me, so I won’t see you two up.”

Lu You took the key ring and nodded: “Go ahead, then.”

“Well then — wishing you both smooth work!” Zhao Xiaochen’s face was still all warm smiles as he waved and drove off.

He Zhuchun watched him disappear, then turned and pointed at the building entrance: “Shall we?”

Lu You stepped into the building.

The interior construction wasn’t anything impressive — passable, at best. Once inside the elevator, Lu You found it plastered with little advertisements, and casually stopped in front of one to read it in earnest.

He Zhuchun was a born busybody, and squeezed in beside him: “What are you reading so intently?”

Lu You pointed at an ad for fresh live fish, free home delivery.

At the word “fish,” He Zhuchun remembered the Old Ghost at Qi Feng’s doorway from before, and the smell of fish instantly rose in his nose, impossible to wave away. His face soured at once: “You mean someone here is rearing ghosts too? Buying fish to feed little ghosts?”

“No.” Lu You was silent a moment, speechless. “It’s not as if ghosts are the only ones who eat fish — people eat it too. What I mainly wanted you to look at is the ad’s category.”

“You mean…” He Zhuchun stalled a second, then got it in a flash: “You’re talking about the target demographic for this kind of wet-market advertisement?”

“Mm.”

Lu You lightly brushed the corner of the ad, then pointed at several others beside it one by one. “The ads in an elevator bay usually correspond to the residents’ age range or spending bracket. Marketing like this — wet markets, health supplements, neighborhood services — generally means the majority of people living here are middle-aged and elderly. And the age range is already very obvious.”

He Zhuchun thought a moment and added, “And this one makes a point of mentioning home delivery — which means even more that these units skew elderly.”

“Clever.”

Lu You said, “I have a feeling this information will turn out to be crucial. Keep it in mind — we may need it later.”

Ding—

The elevator doors opened. Lu You stepped out, He Zhuchun trailing behind him.

The building was the two-units-per-stairwell type. Lu You found the door plate matching the unit number, unlocked it with the key, and the two of them peered inside together.

— The decor inside ran retro: the whole apartment steeped in dark tones, nearly everything wooden at a glance. But it wasn’t the kind of wooden furniture young people love — much of it looked like it belonged to the turn of the century, extremely old-model wooden tables and cabinets.

He Zhuchun wandered in, and halfway through found a treadle sewing machine on the balcony. He hadn’t seen one of those in over a decade — only remembered his grandmother using one, after which they seemed to have gone extinct; nobody’s home had one anymore.

The strangest thing of all was the mechanical clock on the wall, the size of a washbasin, wooden frame, its hands still turning — and loudly. If no one in the room was speaking, its ceaseless “tick — tock — tick — tock —” came through with perfect clarity.

It wasn’t a sound you could listen to for long. Too much of it and your ears started ringing.

He Zhuchun couldn’t help saying, “This style — even grannies don’t use it anymore. Still, living day after day in decor like this, with that rhythmic thudding in the dead of night — it really is creepy. Great Immortal Lu, do you think whatever’s making that sound is a person, or a ghost?”

Lu You said nothing at first. He inspected the living room, set his travel bag on the hard wooden sofa, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, and held it between his fingers without smoking.

After another while, those long, pale fingers shifted, tipping a little ash loose. Amber eyes settled on the moving clock face, and Lu You’s voice came, mild at last:

“Person or ghost — won’t we know once night falls and we take a look?”