“Depending on the standard you choose, ghosts can be classified in many different ways. What we’re discussing now draws the line by the ghost’s own awareness.”
At a clamorous street-food stall, Lu You sat at a table, left hand resting on the somewhat sticky tabletop, fingers tapping it lightly now and then; his right hand extended its index and middle fingers.
“Under this standard, we usually divide ghosts into two classes. The first class: those who already know they have died. Remember the Terrace of Homeward Longing we crossed when we went down to the Netherworld? Before the Terrace of Homeward Longing, a soul does not know it has died. Only upon reaching the Terrace and looking down — seeing its family, its own grave mound, a crowd of people weeping over its burial — does it suddenly awaken, formally passing from Living Soul to Dead Soul.”
He Zhuchun, a fried dough stick held in his teeth, nodded.
“The first class has two further cases besides. Whether a soul slipped out on its own back when it was at the Earth God Temple, or, its Grievance Qi too heavy to descend to the Netherworld, became a Wandering Soul — such souls know the fact of their own death, and deliberately remain in the world of the living, unwilling to leave. Or else the span of their death has been so long that somewhere in the transition from living to dead, they already clearly understood they were about to become a dead thing. These two cases also produce ghosts with full self-awareness of their own death.”
He Zhuchun drained a cup of soy milk and nodded along again. Apparently feeling his level of participation too weak, he extrapolated in turn: “So what you’re saying is, Zhang Yin belongs to the second class of ghost.”
“Right.” Lu You nodded and continued:
“Ghosts of the second class are usually those who died too suddenly to register the fact of their own death — or whose dying was so agonizing that the soul tripped its own protective mechanism, making it forget it had died. With Zhang Yin, I lean toward the second.”
He Zhuchun raised a hand: “I have a question, Teacher Lu.”
“Go ahead.”
“But if Zhang Yin really is a ghost, why can other people see him? It’s not one or two witnesses, either — by our old neighbor’s account, half this building must have seen him by now. Don’t tell me every single person in this building carries a pair of Yin-Yang Eyes.”
Lu You didn’t answer his question directly. He only said, “Do you know Seeking Enfeoffment?”
“Of course.” He Zhuchun pointed at Huang Kuaipao perched on his shoulder. “It’s Brother Kuaipao and company’s signature move.”
Lu You asked, “What’s the principle behind it?”
He Zhuchun was forever the type to know the first half of nothing and none of the second; at the question he shook his head: “What?”
Lu You said, “Remember back at the shop, when Qin Shuheng was reading Liu Yingying’s Fate Chart and you asked why her mere intention could rewrite her own Fate Chart out of thin air? Remember how Qin Shuheng answered you?”
“I remember.” He Zhuchun dug back through his memory: “He used taboo-avoidance as his example — said human words have power…”
He Zhuchun’s words stopped dead — he seemed suddenly to have grasped the crux of it.
Lu You explained, unhurried: “In this world, living things have always been sorted into ranks. Deities above humans, humans above beasts, beasts above fish and insects, fish and insects above plants, plants above lifeless things. Humans looking up to deities is the same as lesser creatures looking up to humans: in Spiritual Aptitude, humans are born a cut above every other thing. So when a creature like a Yellow Weasel cultivates to a certain level, it must perform Seeking Enfeoffment — it must win a human’s recognition.”
He Zhuchun then recalled that famous line from the clips about Yellow Weasels seeking enfeoffment that circulated online: “Neighbor, take a look — am I more a man or a god?”
“If a human recognizes it, its cultivation climbs another tier — and from then on it owes you a debt of grace, to be repaid when it reaches the next stage of cultivation. If the human refuses, then years upon years of its Dao Attainment are ruined — and a feud is born. Before the practice was widely abandoned, that is exactly how many households came to have their Vengeful Immortals.” Lu You paused, then continued:
“The world is vast, and nothing under heaven is truly strange. Apply the principle of that act to a ghost’s soul, and it may hold just as well.”
He Zhuchun slapped his thighs twice. The crux was already clear to him — still, he waited for Lu You to walk it through from the top.
Sure enough, Lu You went on, unhurried: “Besides Yin-Yang Sight, there are in fact several other conditions in which ordinary people can come to see ghosts.”
His fingers tapping the tabletop stopped for a beat — then resumed in time with his words.
Lu You’s every syllable landed with weight: “The old. The young. The sick. The weak.”
“Old: those whose years have mounted and whose allotted span draws near. Young: children within the first few years of life, whose hearts are still clean. Sick: those long ill and unhealed, chronically ailing. Weak: those whose Eight Characters of Birth runs Yin-deficient, too frail to suppress the Yin and the malign. These four kinds of people stand between the ordinary and the Yin-Yang-eyed — unable to see spirits year-round, yet seeing them often.”
And as it happened, the unit building where Zhang Yin dwelled was populated mostly by the elderly, people grown old and settled there for their retirement.
Lu You’s expression stayed mild; he took a small sip of soy milk to moisten his throat: “At first, perhaps only a few residents could see Zhang Yin’s soul. But if every encounter meant a greeting, a conversation — does that not count as one successful ‘enfeoffment’?”
“Given time, the successful enfeoffments mount, and he draws closer and closer to being human; more and more people can see him; and so the successes multiply further, round and round — until we arrive at today’s result: even a grown man in his prime can see him, can touch his body.”
He Zhuchun gaped: “It can work like that?”
Lu You smiled: “What exists can be explained. His case only closes this way.”
While Lu You talked, He Zhuchun had long since stuffed himself full. Now he nudged the steamer basket of soup dumplings toward Lu You’s side of the table: “Say we confirm Zhang Yin isn’t living. Where do we go to find his cause of death? He’s completely loopy — he hardly seems the type who could remember the affairs of his life.”
Lu You pulled out a smile that wasn’t entirely righteous: “Then we simply make him aware that he isn’t alive. Done.”
He Zhuchun was uniquely gifted in the brewing of mischief; inspiration struck: “We should call our biggest client first. Can’t just start demolition without approval.”
Lu You said, “True. Otherwise we’ll be paying damages.”
“The money’s nothing — it’s the lawsuit that would stain your reputation.” He Zhuchun laughed. “Our Teacher Lu is a law-abiding model citizen, after all.”
He Zhuchun placed a video call to Zhao Xiaochen.
It connected fast; from the framing, the man was still in a car, destination unknown. When he looked into the camera, the first thing to arrive was his trademark harmless smile.
“Mr. He! What brings you to call me? Are things finished up on your end with Grandmaster Lu?”
He Zhuchun watched him and smiled, friendly: “We’ve already found a lead on things here. It’s just that the process has snagged on something, and we need a nod from your side before we can continue.”
“A lead already? That’s Grandmaster Lu for you.” Zhao Xiaochen asked, “Whatever you need, just say the word — short of money or short of hands, I’ll support your work with everything I’ve got.”
The conversation having reached this point, He Zhuchun didn’t stand on ceremony with him; he was direct: “There should be something buried underneath your boss’s house. I need your nod before I can dig it open and have a look.”
“…Dig it open?” Zhao Xiaochen’s smile stiffened; before disbelief could even form, he could only ask carefully: “Dig open what?”
He Zhuchun said, “The house.”
This time the smile on Zhao Xiaochen’s face turned laborious: “Mr. He, this is no small matter of yours. I can’t make this call…”
“I know.” He Zhuchun swept a glance at Lu You and said, careless: “Which is why you’ll have to trouble yourself to ask the boss a word, won’t you? Without you two nodding, the two of us daren’t touch a thing. And if we don’t touch anything — well, then this business simply can’t move forward, can it?”
Lu You, unhurried, put away the soup dumplings three to a bite, wiped his hands, and took up his own cup of soy milk again.
Zhao Xiaochen hesitated a good long while before finally saying, “Give you two a moment. I’ll call our boss right now.”
The call ended. He Zhuchun watched Lu You eat in peace for a while — before long, the phone rang again.
He Zhuchun answered, steady. Behind the screen was Zhao Xiaochen’s face, still weak as ever, saying timidly: “The boss has hired professional demolition men. They’ll be waiting below the building with their tools for you two.”
He Zhuchun smiled: “Good.”
The workers came fast. By the time Lu You had eaten his fill, the two of them strolled downstairs to walk off the meal, legging it at their leisure — and from far off they could see several masters in work uniforms waiting below.
He Zhuchun hurried over and roughly indicated the spot to be demolished.
“One look and the distances are all wrong. Between the third floor and the fifth floor, there is absolutely a gap.” The workmaster measured out the direction with his fingers.
Professionals, through and through — the problem spotted at a glance.
He Zhuchun asked, “You mean the floor sitting above the third isn’t the fifth?”
“Absolutely not.” The master’s voice was iron-firm. “Your building never built a fourth floor — but they would still leave the space for one. Normal floors keep three meters of clearance, yes?”
He Zhuchun nodded: “Right.”
The workmaster said, “So that gap up there keeps roughly a meter’s worth of space inside. Bosses around here all believe in these things — no fourth floor in their buildings. But if three and five sat flush together, then wouldn’t your fifth floor effectively BE the fourth? So they leave the fourth floor a small half-story of space.”
He Zhuchun asked, “So right now we’re opening a hole from the fifth floor downward to look into the fourth. Easy to do?”
“Easy — what’s hard about it?” The master said, “Only, it means your floor’s getting punched through.”
He Zhuchun grinned like a man without a care in the world: “Small matters.”
The group went up and into the apartment one after another. Lu You stood to one side watching the workers make their preparations; the crew knocked and measured their way across the floor, and one of them turned back: “We open the hole here — does that work for you?”
He Zhuchun leaned in, studied it over with feigned care, and said, “Works.”
“Then we’re opening it!”
The floor tiles were smashed and tossed aside. Lu You and He Zhuchun stood by and waited, until the workers huffed and pounded their way through the floor and the first small hole opened up.
As the hole was dug wider and wider, a strange smell came welling up into everyone’s noses.
— The main note was the rank-sweet rot of decaying organic matter, threaded through with mold and the peculiar scent of wall materials, drifting light and thin through the room.
Honestly, the smell was foul.
The workers wrinkled their noses. One of them, curiosity stronger than fear, stepped up first to look down — and at the sight of what lay below, screamed, staggered backward several steps, and crashed down hard on his backside.
Lu You, drawn by the commotion, walked over to help him up.
The worker looked at him — and clung like a drowning man to driftwood, gripping his arm so hard he could barely get the words out, nothing but stammer:
“Down there… down there… there’s something down there!”
