Chapter Two: Addicted to the Act?

"This is..." Gao Mingyong stared in shock as the woman in white emerged from the well, then began walking forward, her figure growing larger and larger... The moment she drew near the screen— Gao Mingyong's heart began to pound violently, for he witnessed that faceless woman in white crawling out of the television. Her bloodstained, broken-nailed, pale hands grasped the edge of the TV casing, and she smoothly dragged her body through the screen...

"Help... help..." Gao Mingyong trembled uncontrollably, flailing as he tried to climb off the bed to escape, but only managed to knock his phone from the pillow to the floor.

"Beep—beep—" By some coincidence, his scrambling must have triggered the call button, and the phone began to dial. After just a few rings, the call was answered.

"Hello, Boss Gao, you need something?" Li Changqing's yawning voice sounded from the phone.

"I... I... I—" Gao Mingyong stammered, unable to form words, too terrified to retrieve the phone, his entire body no longer under his brain's command.

Fortunately, as the voice came from his phone, the ghostly woman halted her crawl towards him, hesitated a moment in her eerie pose, then—astonishingly—retreated back the way she came. As she slipped into the screen, her hair fluttered and, for the briefest instant, an eye was revealed, casting him a chilling, upside-down glance, as unsettling as a horse's eye, freezing Gao Mingyong's very blood.

From apparition to disappearance, it was but a moment, yet for Gao Mingyong, it felt like an eternity of torment...

"Hello! Hello! Boss Gao, have you fallen asleep? If you don't speak, I'm hanging up. If it's important, tell me tomorrow..." The phone still relayed Li Changqing's drowsy voice.

Suddenly jolted awake, Gao Mingyong regained control of his body and, summoning unknown strength, leapt from the bed, snatched up his phone, flung open the door, and—wearing only his underwear—ran crying into the street. "Hello, hello, don't hang up! Detective Li, help, I'll pay, fifty thousand lang coins—no, sixty thousand! Please come right now and solve this case! There's a ghost, there's really a ghost in my shop!"

"Oh?"

"And I... I want to turn myself in to the Food Safety Bureau..."

From the other end came Li Changqing's satisfied sigh: "To admit one's mistakes and correct them—there is no greater virtue."

...

Seven hours later, dawn was breaking.

After handing Boss Gao over to the janitor at the just-opening Food Safety Bureau, Li Changqing returned to the Changqing Detective Agency, expressionless, carrying a canvas bag. Once inside, he closed the door, turned, then burst out laughing as he unzipped the bag, revealing six stacks of gold-gleaming bills in various conditions.

He inhaled deeply, and at once the exhaustion of the past few days vanished without a trace.

Just as he was about to rise and warm a glass of milk, the television across from the sofa abruptly switched on—without a sound!

...

Snowy static filled the old TV screen, followed by scenes eerily reminiscent of what Boss Gao had witnessed. Before the woman in white with long black hair could crawl fully out of the well on the screen, Li Changqing, thoroughly unimpressed, grabbed a stack of bills and hurled it at her, cursing, "Still addicted to your act? Tang Xiaoyu, you penniless ghost!"

The ghost, halfway out of the screen, immediately abandoned her attempt, clumsily but deftly catching the flying money with both hands. Losing her balance, she let out a yelp and tumbled from the screen to the floor, then floated into the air, giggling.

"There’s still twenty thousand left, where’s my share? Hand it over, quick!" The ghost Tang Xiaoyu, laughing coquettishly, dove from above toward the couch where the money lay.

Li Changqing ignored her, went to the fridge, took out a box of milk, poured it into a glass, and casually pressed a talisman with a strange drawing to it. Within ten seconds, wisps of steam rose from the milk. With his cup in hand, he flopped onto the sofa beside the ghost, glanced at the delighted Xia Xiaoyu counting her money, and snapped, "What are you counting for? He was already scared out of his wits by you—just praying I'd take you away—he wouldn't dare mess with the payment!"

"Tch! I just like counting money, none of your business!"

After counting and recounting the bills dozens of times, Xia Xiaoyu finally tired of it, stacked the money neatly back in the bag, then produced a makeup mirror from who knows where, admiring her reflection from every angle, giggling again. "I have to say, your scheme this time was the most creative yet. Why weren't you this clever before? Honestly, I think you've had a breakthrough lately—your tricks are fresher, your magic better. You seem different somehow, and I like it..."

"Just doing my job, nothing more... But seriously, take off that makeup—it's creepy," Li Changqing said, trying to change the subject.

"But I really like it! Li Changqing, let's do another performance like this when we get the chance?"

"Just take off the makeup first!"

"Deal!"

Xia Xiaoyu grinned, snapped her fingers, and with a crisp sound, her entire aura shifted. She pulled back her long, straight, black hair, revealing a girl with a ponytail, perfect features, a lovely face, dressed in a white sundress—seventeen or eighteen at most, a school beauty by any standard. Her complexion remained hauntingly pale, though.

"By the way, are you just going to let that guy off? After all he's done, after hurting so many people?"

"Hurt people? You believe that script too?"

Li Changqing rolled his eyes. "Yinsu powder has narcotic and hallucinogenic effects, but as for being lethal, I found no evidence of that in my investigation. He added it to the coffee mainly for flavor, to get customers hooked, not to harm them. The information in that report? I pieced it together. The deaths mentioned in the file—yinsu powder wasn't the main cause. Otherwise, the federal police would've come knocking long ago."

"I doubt he'll have the guts to run a café or do anything shady again."

"So that's how it is! Li Changqing, I never knew you were such a skilled liar..."

When the milk was gone, Li Changqing stood up, impatient. "Alright, enough. This case wore me out for days—I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep. Guard the money, watch for fire and thieves, and by the way, we're closed for today—no clients!"

With that, he strode into the small adjoining bedroom and slammed the door.

"Got it!" Xia Xiaoyu rolled her eyes, then looked back at the shining stacks of lang coins and was happy all over again. After a moment's thought, she let her body fade and slipped into the canvas bag with the money.

A holiday—how wonderful. She'd long wanted to experience the feeling of sleeping with a bag full of money.

...

The Changqing Detective Agency was not well situated, standing on the outskirts of the city next to a vocational school for trades. Its premises were small—less than fifty square meters by the old world's measurements—arranged like a typical family apartment: a twenty-five-square-meter living room, a ten-square-meter master bedroom, an eight-square-meter secondary bedroom, and a five-square-meter bathroom.

The living room, simply renovated, served as a somewhat secluded office for meeting clients. Among the nearly a hundred detective agencies in Nanlin City, its shabbiness was certainly among the worst.

In the early days, such an agency could attract only students in need or clients short on cash—half of whom turned away before even knocking.

Back in the master bedroom, Li Changqing lay half-reclined, hands behind his head. Despite having just earned a fortune, he felt no drowsiness. It had been less than two weeks since he transmigrated to this world, and he was still weighed down by longing for the life he'd left behind.

Li Changqing had been a senior in high school, about to take the college entrance exam. To win a place at Fudan University in Shanghai, where his longtime crush—the school beauty—had been admitted, he needed an extraordinary performance...

He would often lie awake at night, imagining himself finding her at Fudan and confessing his love. As for his chances of success—well, that had never occurred to the straight-laced Li Changqing; all he knew was that during three years of high school, the school beauty had smiled at him three times.

And as the saying goes, three smiles seal a romance...

Thus, driven by adolescent hormones and unable to sleep, Li Changqing decided, two days before the exam, to sneak into his grandfather's study late at night. His grandfather, a retired yin-yang master of forty-nine years, had a collection of magical treasures, including three white dice.

He'd learned from his grandfather as a child that these dice were used for divination, always accurate: given a person's birth date, their current dilemma, and six possible choices, his grandfather would have them throw the dice to select the right answer.

Li Changqing only intended to use the dice to help with multiple-choice and true-false questions on the exam—when all else failed, perhaps mysticism would prevail. Who could have guessed...

He managed to steal the dice, but in his excitement, stumbled and knocked over the three-meter bookshelf beside him.

Then—struck hard on the forehead by the corner of the shelf—Li Changqing, in the final moments before losing consciousness in his old world, glimpsed the three blood-stained dice rolling from his hand, glowing faintly, and landing with three sixes...

Damn, triple sixes!

Who knows how much time passed before Li Changqing opened his eyes again—his soul had inexplicably merged with that of an older man, a professional detective sharing the same name, in a strange new world.

The Vermilion Bird Federation, Nanlin City—a struggling little detective agency, with an assistant more beautiful than the girl of his dreams: a ghostly woman who could float, change shape, walk through walls, even bask in sunlight.

As for family, this body came with an older sister and a younger one...

Because he had transmigrated, his inherited memories were intermittent and vague. Thankfully, his predecessor had the habit of keeping a journal.

So, though he couldn't be sure he'd recognize everyone, at least from the journal, this new Li Changqing learned that his "parents" had long since passed away.

He learned that during their illness, the family had accrued a debt of 180,000 lang coins to relatives, friends, and neighbors.

He learned that his "sister" had taken over the family bun shop to raise him and his younger sister, and to pay off the debt.

He learned that after graduating from university, he had stubbornly refused to inherit the bun shop, storming out in anger to open the Changqing Detective Agency.

He learned that his beloved "younger sister" was very fond of pretty things, and every month he would bring her inexpensive but beautiful clothes or jewelry, and give his sister five hundred lang coins to help pay the family debt...