Chapter 3

Then I swiped to the photographs of the cinnabar codes.

“This batch was burned last night. Master Qin says he can trace it. Shall we wait for the results together?”

Zhou Li’s expression flickered, but she quickly recovered her defiance.

“We don’t understand any of that. And I’ll say it again: you’re a university student. Aren’t you ashamed to have people call you superstitious?”

I nodded, then dialed Master Qin right in front of them.

“Master Qin, could you come to the Zhou family’s gate tonight? We can summon their mother and question her face-to-face.”

The courtyard went silent.

Zhou Qiang shot to his feet. “Don’t you dare!”

I met his eyes.

“What are you scared of? I thought you didn’t believe.”

**5**

By nine that evening, plenty of neighbors had gathered outside the Zhou courtyard.

Some stood in their doorways holding rice bowls. Others had brought stools to the mouth of the alley. A few elderly women huddled together, whispering very quietly while their eyes kept sliding our way.

News never traveled slowly back home.

Master Qin set up an altar at the gate. He spread a yellow cloth on the stone step and calmly arranged an incense burner, brass bell, and talismans.

As soon as the bell rang, the air turned cold.

Zhou Qiang swore loudly until Zhou Li pulled him back. Her face was pale, her lips bloodless, but she kept her chin high.

“A load of theatrical nonsense.”

Master Qin ignored her. He lit three sticks of incense. Instead of rising, the smoke flowed straight into the courtyard.

The shadow of the courtyard’s scholar tree twisted.

A woman’s ghost slowly emerged: tight curls, purple jacket, a mahjong tile in her hand.

Zhou Guifen.

The spectators recoiled together. Someone knocked over a stool. Someone nearly dropped a rice bowl. The elderly women shuffled backward, their soles scraping the ground.

Zhou Qiang turned green. “Mom?”

Auntie Zhou sighed at me.

“Wanwan, must you bring a fuss to our doorstep over such a little money?”

I gave a cold laugh. “A little? I burned eighty-eight billion in ghost money. You make it sound like eight eighty.”

Her kindly smile disappeared.

“Your mother owes me money. What’s wrong with collecting a few offerings toward her debt?”

“Several things.” I held her gaze. “First, my mother never signed an authorization. Second, debts need a proper accounting, not a talisman stuck on a grave in secret. Third, is loan-sharking legal down there?”

She sneered and drew a black-bordered contract from her sleeve.

The moment it appeared, the temperature seemed to fall several more degrees.

Mom’s name was written plainly on it. Beneath it sat a red thumbprint.

“Look carefully. Chen Yulan put her own thumbprint on this collection agreement. The underworld recognizes it.”

Master Qin summoned Mom too.

She looked far more bedraggled than Auntie Zhou. At the sight of the paper, she shook her head frantically.

“I never signed that! I thought it was the New Ghosts’ Mutual Aid Association registration form!”

Auntie Zhou smirked. “A thumbprint is a thumbprint. The dead don’t get to change their minds.”

Mom’s ghostly outline trembled with rage.

“Zhou Guifen, you tricked me!”

Auntie Zhou turned back to me, her voice chilling.

“Keep causing trouble, Wanwan, and I’ll sell your mother to an evil ghost. It’ll torment her until there’s nothing left of her soul.”

I went cold all over.

She wasn’t merely a greedy ghost. She’d laid the whole trap long ago.

I clenched my fists.

“You’d better keep that contract safe, Zhou Guifen. Very soon, it’ll be evidence against you.”

She looked as though she’d heard a joke.

“You’ll sue me? You’re alive. Do you even know where to find the underworld court?”

**6**

Now that she’d been exposed, Auntie Zhou dropped the pretense entirely.

That very night, I’d barely drifted off when mahjong tiles rattled beside my ear.

My eyes flew open.

Four blurred figures stood at the head of my bed. The one in front, with tight curls, was Auntie Zhou.

She smiled at me. “Wanwan, we need a fourth. Want to play?”

I tried to sit up. I couldn’t move.

Something like an icy boulder pressed against my chest. Even breathing hurt.

She’d crushed the boundary between dreaming and waking.

Slowly, she produced a mahjong tile.

“Such a dutiful daughter, aren’t you? Keep burning. Whatever you send, I’ll collect.”

In the darkness, two debt-collector ghosts held Mom between them, her feet suspended above the floor.

She saw me and shook her head desperately.

“Wanwan, don’t worry about me.”

Auntie Zhou counted money beside her.

“Chen Yulan, your daughter certainly isn’t stingy. Pity it’s all going into furnishing my new house down here.”

Anger burned behind my eyes.