After Marrying the Lord of the Underworld

Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian came to Ye Feng’s room.

Talisman papers spread all over the floor could be seen, as well as various pens and scissors. It was a mess like a robber had just come in, and there was almost no place to stand on.

The half-person-high cardboard box had been opened, and Ye Feng took out the contents and placed them outside.

A slip of paper.

A bronze key.

And also a…..small green crocodile doll.

There were only three items in total, and they didn’t seem to weigh much.

Ye Feng first unfolded the note, and the four of them huddled together to read it.

The slip of paper had turned yellow and the handwriting was old.

[103486]

Xiao Li said, “Brother Ye Feng, is this the bank card password left by your second grandfather? You are going to get rich.”

“What get rich, the second grandfather didn’t leave any savings, he donated all the money he could donate.” Ye Feng said, “It’s called ‘keeping one’s life clean, being poor, being honest and serving one’s public affairs’.”

Ye Deyong was married before, yet his wife passed away early, leaving no heirs. He regarded Ye Feng as his own grandson.

When dealing with his funeral, although Ye Feng was young, the Ye family should have explained everything to him clearly, including the whereabouts of the inheritance.

Xiao Li asked, “Then what could this be?”

“Not sure.” Ye Feng shook his head, “He never mentioned it to me.”

“Is it possible that it is private savings?”

“I really don’t know.” Ye Feng still shook his head.

He picked up the second object.

The bronze key was very heavy and a little longer than his palm, corresponding to a huge door.

Xiao Li: “Brother Ye Feng, what is this?”

Ye Feng studied the key for a long time and said, “I don’t know.”

Lu Yingjiu said, “Why don’t you know anything, isn’t the second grandpa close to you?”

Ye Feng scratched his head vigorously, “But he has a weird temper! No one knows what he is thinking! He is extremely bad at expressing himself. It’s hard to explain it to you clearly. For example, this sentence “Last night’s meal was terrible”, he can beat around the bush and pull you back and forth eighteen times, from Qin Shihuang to Liu Guanzhang, and you know, last night’s meal was really bad.”

“In other words, he tends to digress when talking.” Lu Yingjiu summed it up for him.

“That’s right!” Ye Feng patted his thigh, “In short, he is very good at talking, and his brain circuit is novel.”

Xiao Li also took the key, looked at it, and interjected, “I understand, this key must be used to open the safe. After opening it, enter the password on the note.”

Lu Yingjiu said, “Has Chu Banyang not paid you salary recently? Look at you, saying three sentences without leaving out the word money.”

“Oh,” Xiao Li said with an embarrassed smile, “I haven’t become a full-time employee yet, and I only get 3,000 a month. I’m really struggling recently.”

Over there, Ye Feng gave up thinking and put the key and the note together for the time being.

He picked up the last thing again.

The crocodile doll didn’t look big, but it was very heavy. He just picked it up, and his arms bulged with veins.

Most of the weight of the cardboard box came from it.

Lu Yingjiu said, “You know what it is, right?”

“I know this.” Ye Feng put the doll in front of him that made a muffled “thud”. “It was my toy when I was young. I like it the most. When I was in elementary school, I slept with it every day, and cried when it was taken away. Later, when our family moved, at that time, it disappeared. I thought it was lost. I cried for a long time, but I didn’t expect it to be here with the second grandpa.”

He touched the crocodile doll, the texture felt by his hands was fluffy, and it was still the familiar feeling from his childhood memory.

He said, “Why is it so heavy…..Is there something inside it?”

Xiao Li’s eyes lit up, “A safe is installed!”

Lu Yingjiu said, “I’ll tell Chu Banyang later and let him give you a raise in salary.”

Ye Feng weighed the crocodile again, and after a few seconds, reluctantly said, “I’ll cut it open and have a look.”

When he was a child, Ye Feng would never have imagined that after many years, he would cut off his beloved little crocodile with his own hands.

Ye Feng picked up a pair of scissors, turned the crocodile over, and cut a small hole in the middle of the abdomen.

Sure enough, the crocodile had something in it.

He reached in, squeezed it out—

Then clouds of ash drifted profusely and disorderly in the air.

Seeing that the ashes were about to rush towards him, Lu Yingjiu only felt a gust of wind blowing in front of him.

The wind swept away all the ash, it went in the opposite direction, and didn’t fall on him even a little bit, making Ye Feng and Xiao Li choke and cough again and again.

Lu Yingjiu: “……”

He turned back to look at Jing Xian.

Jing Xian looked innocent, as if what happened just now had nothing to do with him.

He pretended too much, Lu Yingjiu subconsciously wanted to poke him, but stopped before he stretched out his hand.

Then he retracted his hand secretly.

Good thing he didn’t poke, he thought. After knowing Jing Xian’s identity, the meaning of this little gesture seemed to have changed a bit, and was hard to explain.

…He felt like he was flirting with Jing Xian.

Ye Feng, who was finished coughing, said, “What is this thing!”

Xiao Li while still coughing, “Cough cough cough, Isn’t this what your second grandpa left!”

“I told you he has a weird temper!” Ye Feng shouted, “Do normal people put ashes in toys! This is still my favorite toy!”

Lu Yingjiu took a closer look at the dust that fell on the ground, and felt that it didn’t look like ordinary ash. But he obviously had no way to identify what these were with the naked eye.

He casually asked Jing Xian, “Do you know what this is?”

Jing Xian didn’t even bat an eye, and answered fluently, “Ashes.”

He had seen this thing a lot in the ghost world.

Lu Yingjiu: “…..”

Xiao Li and Ye Feng: “…….”

When the two of them called to mind being choked, and probably ate a lot of ashes, they both looked like they were about to vomit.

Xiao Li’s face contorted, he retched a few times, supported himself by Ye Feng and said, “I believe now that you are close to your second grandpa, even if the second grandpa dies, he will bury himself in your favorite toy.”

“Nonsense!” Ye Feng also had a distorted face, “This is definitely not my second grandfather. I shoveled his ashes with my own hands, buried some of them, and spilled the rest into the sea! Sprinkled neatly and tidily!”

“Then whose ashes are these! Can you find out!” Xiao Li was about to collapse.

“The ashes cannot be identified, and they are not bones.” Lu Yingjiu sat down in front of the crocodile doll, without hesitation, picked up some ashes and rubbed them.

Nothing unusual.

It’s just ordinary ashes, without Yin energy or resentment.

Lu Yingjiu said again, “Ye Feng, are you completely unfamiliar with these three things?”

Ye Feng: “I really don’t know anything. I can ask my family, but I don’t think they know.”

Ye Feng went to ask his family members, and the elders expressed that they had no idea.

They all said: “Since it belongs to your second grandfather, just bring it back, don’t look into it so much.”

Everyone knew that Ye Deyong had a weird temper and had messed with everything before. Stuffing ashes into toys also sounds like something he would do.

It seemed that such an investigation would not bear fruit.

Ye Feng breathed out, “If possible, I would like to visit the nursing home again. The second grandfather worked there for decades before his death. If there is any clue, it is probably there.”

“It’s still early.” Lu Yingjiu looked out the window, and the afternoon sun was still bright, “If you want to go, we can go today.”

“Okay.” Ye Feng stood up.

As soon as he got up, he heard the sound of “thump thump thump!”

There was a heavy knock from outside the door.

Everyone looked at each other, Xiao Li got up and went to the door.

There was a young man outside, wearing a peaked cap and jeans, with a disturbed look on his face. “Hello, I want to ask, are you exorcists…”

Xiao Li didn’t answer directly, but asked, “Do you need any help?”

He hadn’t done many commissions himself, but Ye Feng and Lu Yingjiu, especially Lu Yingjiu, if recognized, then it was perfectly normal.

“Oh, that’s right,” the young man pressed his hat to relieve his uneasiness, “I just saw you in the restaurant. I didn’t want to disturb you, but after thinking about it, I still think I should come over.”

He continued, “I came here with my friend. His name is Zhou Liang, and he is a spirit detective anchor. You can find his live broadcast room on ‘Two-faced Buddha’. It was probably yesterday afternoon. He and a few assistants went up the mountain and went to the nursing home. Afterwards, I couldn’t reach them anymore, no one answered the phone, and it’s no use sending text messages either.”

Lu Yingjiu got up and came to the door. “Is the signal not good on the mountain?”

“No, it’s not.” The young man shook his head again and again, “Look.”

He turned on the phone, and there were other anchors on the screen, two or three of which were broadcasting live in the nursing home.

The young man said, “The other live broadcast rooms are all good, the signal on the mountain should be fine. Zhou Liang went up to do a live broadcast, his live broadcast was also cut off yesterday.”

It did sound like something went wrong.

Lu Yingjiu: “We are just about to go up the mountain, you can give us your friend’s contact information, it is also best if you send a picture.”

“Good, good, good.” The young man hastily agreed, “I’ll send it now. Is there anything else I need to do?”

“No need.” Lu Yingjiu thought for a while, and then added, “Try your best to persuade people to go up the mountain less.”

The young man became somewhat embarrassed. “This is difficult, where would they listen to me? I don’t have any evidence to prove that the mountain is dangerous.” His voice became smaller and smaller.

“It’s okay, just try your best.” Lu Yingjiu said.

He didn’t have any hope at all, but he could try one at a time.

Inside the room, Ye Feng had already picked up the hiking bag and was ready to go.

****

20 minutes later.

The path up the mountain was not easy to walk, full of potholes, and there were many footprints left by the anchors these days. The soil was soft, leaves rustled overhead, birds were alive and kicking, and the wind smelled of wood and grass.

The environment of this mountain was very good, it had not been developed, and even the roads were so primitive.

There was originally a driveway to the nursing home, but it had been in disrepair for a long time, and now was completely impossible to walk on.

Pa!

Xiao Li slapped his calf fiercely, and when he opened his palm again, it was bright red.

He frowned. “There are so many mosquitoes here!”

Ye Feng also said. “My legs are covered with lumps.”

Lu Yingjiu looked at Ye Feng’s legs, and sure enough there were several bumps, even his hands were not spared, the battle was extremely tragic.

In just a few seconds of speaking, two more mosquitoes stopped behind his legs.

Lu Yingjiu said, “Jing Xian, take out the mosquito repellent spray.”

Jing Xian said, “I didn’t bring it.” He lowered his voice, “I don’t attract bugs, you come closer.”

Lu Yingjiu walked with him all the way, and it was true that he was not bitten.

It’s just that……

Lu Yingjiu couldn’t bear it any longer, and lowered his voice, “I’ve seen that you have mosquito repellent in your bag, you’re still pretending, take it out quickly.”

Jing Xian was exposed, so he took out the mosquito repellent spray with regret and handed it to him.

Lu Yingjiu sprayed it on his body, then handed the bottle to Ye Feng and Xiao Li.

The two of them sprayed indiscriminately, and when they sprayed on the bitten places, they all gritted in pain.

Although the mosquitoes on this mountain were many and poisonous, and some were not afraid of mosquito repellent spray at all, the situation had improved anyway.

After walking like this for ten minutes, Ye Feng said, “Why did it start to fog?”

Mist surged down the mountain, like milk being poured down, and surrounded them in the blink of an eye.

It came abruptly and quickly.

Lu Yingjiu looked around, his vision was very blurred, only the blurred outlines of trees could be seen. He took a deep breath, feeling as if he had sucked in a mouthful of water, and the moisture filled his lungs.

Xiao Li scratched his head. “It’s strange that there is fog in the afternoon. Could there be ghosts… But the range in the mountains is too large, and the yin energy is scattered, we don’t have a simple way to verify it either.”

“There is a simple way.” Ye Feng turned his head, “Lu Yingjiu, is there a ghost here?”

Lu Yingjiu: “Yes.”

Ye Feng turned around. “You see, that’s enough to know.“

Xiao Li: “…..”

The visibility dropped rapidly.

Ten meters, five meters, three meters, one meter…

Xiao Li whispered, “I almost can’t see your faces clearly.”

“Anyway, we’re almost there.” Ye Feng said, “Come closer, come one.” After speaking, he leaned closer to Xiao Li.

The road ahead got steeper.

Originally, the soil here was very soft, and it was not easy to exert force when stepping on it. They continued to move forward with one deep foot and one shallow foot.

When they reached a short slope, they had to grab the roots of the trees next to them to climb up. Jing Xian went up after a few steps, turned around with ease, and then reached his hand towards Lu Yingjiu.

Visibility had reached the lowest level, from Lu Yingjiu viewpoint, Jing Xian’s face was blurry, and was immersed in the white mist.

He took Jing Xian’s hand.

Jing Xian easily pulled him up.

Xiao Li then shouted from behind, “Give me a hand too!”

As soon as Lu Yingjiu turned his head and wanted to pull the person, he simply saw that there was no one at the bottom of the slope.

Both Ye Feng and Xiao Li disappeared.

The fog got thicker and thicker, and Lu Yingjiu couldn’t see anything.

In the mist, Jing Xian still held his hand tightly, as if he was afraid that he would get lost.

Being held by him like this, Lu Yingjiu felt a little…a little uncomfortable.

He pretended to break away from Jing Xian’s hand unintentionally, and lit a piece of talisman paper.

The paper talisman ignited and floated beside him.

The heat drove back the thick white mist, like raging fire melting ice and snow, and the visibility improved all of a sudden.

Lu Yingjiu walked forward and said, “The center of the mist is just ahead. After solving the ghosts there, the mist will dissipate.”

Jing Xian nodded and said, “En.”

They walked in the fog one after the other.

There was another small soil slope ahead. This time, Lu Yingjiu stepped on the soft soil, took a quick half-step and went up first.

After going up, he turned his head to look at Jing Xian, but before he could see clearly, he was completely hugged.

Lu Yingjiu suddenly froze——

The man’s chest had a warm temperature, even if Jing Xian suppressed it no matter how much, whether in terms of body shape or the aggressiveness of his breath, he could still clearly recognize that the other party was of same-sex that was taller than himself.

He obviously wasn’t close to the left chest, but he seemed to be able to hear the beating of his heart.

It was the first time Lu Yingjiu knew that ghosts would have such a heartbeat.

He felt himself stiffened from neck to back, and struggled slightly, trying to resist.

Until Jing Xian buried his head in his neck and said in a muffled voice, “Don’t avoid me on purpose.”

“……” Lu Yingjiu stopped and took a deep breath, “I didn’t.”

“You have been all the way. Just now too, you deliberately walked a few steps faster to avoid me, right.”

This sentence was not an interrogative sentence.

Lu Yingjiu stopped talking.

If one looked at it from the side, one would find that his expression, which had always been extremely well controlled, was slightly tense.

It could almost be called nervousness.

Jing Xian spoke next to his ear, and the heat made the auricles hot. “I won’t do anything to you.”

Lu Yingjiu took a deep breath and wanted to support his forehead. “This is broad daylight…”

“That’s right.” Jing Xian said, “Like pressing against the wall, kissing above a heatable brick bed, cuddling to sleep, forcibly plundering and imprisoning, I never thought about it.”

Lu Yingjiu: “…..”

Lu Yingjiu: “You sound like you’ve thought about it all over again!”

He began to struggle again.

But Jing Xian had great strength, and simply didn’t struggle.

A few seconds later, Lu Yingjiu tactfully gave up and stopped. “Let go of me first. The ghost hasn’t been solved yet.”

“No hurry, it won’t dare do anything, I’m here.” Jing Xian said casually.

The surrounding milky white mist was rolling, like some kind of weird wave, and was thick with humidity.

They just stood in the mist, not speaking to each other, each with their own thoughts.

Jing Xian hesitated for a few seconds before speaking again, “I know, I may be very different from what you expected…”

Lu Yingjiu thought to himself: absolutely too different.

The gorgeous female ghost turned into gorgeous Jing Xian overnight, although according to the trend and the difference in physique between the two, he felt that it would be himself who would be the “gorgeous” in the end.

Jing Xian backed away a little, looked at him and asked seriously. “So I want to know, do you hate me?”

“……..” Lu Yingjiu pursed his lips slightly.

The light in Jing Xian’s eyes dimmed a little visibly with the naked eye.

Further questioning, it seemed meaningless either.

This reunion after 13 years was indeed quite embarrassing, perhaps even unsatisfactory – it was inevitable, everything came too abruptly for Lu Yingjiu. Not everyone could accept such an existence around them.

Jing Xian was about to let go, but his arm was held down.

Lu Yingjiu didn’t use much strength, it was just to stop Jing Xian’s movements.

He looked up at Jing Xian. “Jing Xian, I will never hate you.”

Jing Xian’s expression changed.

Lu Yingjiu took a deep breath and continued. “You’re right, I am the problem. I am avoiding you on purpose. But I didn’t do it because I hate you, I just, I just need a little time to straighten out my thoughts.”

“For the past 13 years, I have been imagining whether the ghost I married actually exists – what kind of ghost would she be, what would her name be, what kind of personality would she have, what would she like? Would she have the same hobbies as me?”

“Sometimes I also think, if it weren’t for this ghost marriage, where would I be today. Or maybe I wouldn’t be able to live today at all, and I would have died at the hands of some ghost long ago.”

“Although reason tells me that you may never show up in this life, but every Ghost Festival, I still subconsciously wait.”

“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a particularly emotional person, but this matter will always be my exception.”

Lu Yingjiu paused for a few seconds, and the slender fingers that landed on Jing Xian’s arm exerted a little force.

He said: “Everyone, including the master who advocated ghost marriage for me, all told me that the one I married was a female ghost, and I naturally felt the same way. So in my imagination, you appeared as a female, which caused me to be stunned and at a loss at present.”

“But that doesn’t mean that I ‘expect’ you to be a woman. It’s just my wishful thinking. How can I ask you to satisfy me?”

“No matter what image you appear in, I will accept it.”

“Because I’ve always been, looking forward to meeting you.”

Lu Yingjiu looked at Jing Xian with a soft light in his brown eyes.

“After so many years, I finally met you.”

“Thank you, Jing Xian.”

When he said this, Jing Xian kept looking at him intently.

After a long time, Jing Xian said, “…I don’t need any thanks. It’s enough that you don’t hate me.” He hooked the corner of his mouth, “But ghosts are always greedy, and are not satisfied with small gains. At present, you don’t like me, right?”

When he said this, there was undisguised desire and longing in his eyes.

This kind of strong and fiery obsession was the true face of ghosts – both of them knew what kind of liking the “like” he was referring to.

Lu Yingjiu took a long breath and replied. “Yes. I really can’t fall in love with someone who has been around for decades. I haven’t thought about this before, and,” he hesitated for a moment, “Jing Xian, I don’t want to lie to you, and I don’t want to give you illusory promises either, I’m really not sure if I’ll fall in love with the same sex, to be honest, I’ve never thought about this kind of problem…”

“En.” Jing Xian said, “I understand.”

Lu Yingjiu said, “I’m sorry. I know what you want most from me, but I can’t guarantee it. I always thought I was a fair person, but every time I met you, I seemed to be quite selfish.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jing Xian still smiled, “You’re not the only one who is wishful thinking—you never asked me for anything, didn’t you, everything was voluntarily done by me. Our fate, it began much earlier than you imagined.”

He lowered his head slightly, and placed his forehead against Lu Yingjiu’s, his eyes were bright.

He said, “You did not expect this kind of me, but what I like–have always been this kind of you.”