Chapter 005
When I looked at this business card, my first feeling was that I had met a lunatic. Who at such an old age would still write a business card for fun...
Ding Ding said, keep it, and call me if you have any problem, I will come to see you.
I immediately understood that this guy was still trying to defraud money! He just used an unusual method.
I asked, didn’t you just say that I can only wait to die, then why do you need my phone call?
Ding Ding smiled and said, "I haven't seen the Yin Banner yet. I'm a little curious and want to get in touch with it more. It will give me experience if I see it in the future."
I slapped my thigh and cursed, "You kid, you treat me as a guinea pig!"
He scratched his head embarrassedly and said, "That's not the case. Think about it, if you encounter a little ghost, I can help you drive it away. Maybe you can live longer. It's such a good deal."
I was too lazy to pay attention to him, and just at that moment the door opened again.
Lin Tian came out, his face looked very bad, and he was holding a paper man in his hand. When I saw him like this, I suddenly remembered the dream I had last night.
In the dream, he seemed to have a gloomy face, exactly the same as the current scene.
I noticed that he looked strange, so I asked him what was wrong?
He shook his head and said it was nothing.
I wondered, why are you holding this damn thing?
Lin Tian thought about it for a while before telling me that Madam Jiu said that paper figurines were originally burned when the dead were buried. But now many places prohibit fire, so people usually just put paper figurines next to the grave and wait for them to disappear naturally over time. This is originally a matter of course. But things in the graveyard, over time, will be more or less tainted with some ghost spirits.
He stopped talking halfway through his words.
I was very puzzled and told him to continue.
Lin Tian thought about it for a long time, and hesitantly said, "Nothing is wrong at ordinary times. When a stranger encounters it, the yang energy rushes in and the ghost energy on these things will dissipate. But...
Having said this, he closed his mouth again.
I hate it when people only say half of what they want to say, so I got annoyed. Seeing that I was about to get angry, Lin Tian hurriedly pulled me aside to explain that it was all said by Madam Jiu. She said that because you have too much ghost energy, you will attract ghosts. So when we came back that day, we were targeted by those unburned paper figures in the mountains, who wanted us to help them clear the way to find their master in the underworld.
Tintin was listening on the side, and at the end, he suddenly nodded seriously and continued , "Yes, if you weren't lucky, this car would have driven straight to the road to hell."
Lin Tian nodded repeatedly, looking at me innocently. I suddenly understood that he was so shy just now because he was afraid that I would feel guilty if he said it. In the final analysis, it was still similar to what Ding Ding meant before. In short, all this happened because of me.
I had my suspicions to begin with, but I just wasn't sure. If it were Lin Tian, I probably wouldn't know how to explain it to him, not only to let him know that I didn't blame him, but also to explain the general reasons for the incident.
Thinking of this, I suddenly felt relieved. My anger just now also dissipated. Anyway, I am a single person, unlike Lin Tian who has a perfect family. It is better for me to be the source of the incident than Lin Tian.
Seeing that I was silent, Lin Tian thought I was still angry, so he quickly pulled me back and said, "Don't get me wrong. I was half-believing what you said anyway. No matter what the reason is, I still treat you as a brother."
I smiled and understood what he meant. I just didn't want to continue this topic, so I asked, "Then what are you going to do with this paper man?"
Lin Tian said that Madam Jiu asked him to take the paper figurine to the place where we had the car accident and burn it. She also mentioned that he should go alone and not let me follow him.
I asked casually, what should I do? Didn't I also encounter a ghost?
Ding Ding came up and said, "It doesn't matter whether you burn it or not. There are still many ghosts you will run into. If you follow him, you might even drag him down."
After saying this, I was fine, but Lin Tian was unhappy. He looked at Ding Ding with disdain and scolded, "Why do you interfere in our brothers' affairs? What does it have to do with you whether it is a burden or not?"
Ding Ding didn't dare to answer. He blinked his big eyes and hid behind me like a wronged child.
I advised, "Okay, okay, he is just telling the truth. Anyway, you should do whatever Madam Jiu says. It's because we don't understand these things."
Lin Tian glared at Ding Ding fiercely, then he said "En", pointed at the paper figure in his arms and said, "I'll send you back first, and then I'll deal with this thing. If I don't burn it, I'll be worried."
I nodded, and didn't go into the house to greet Lin Tian's mother and Mrs. Jiu. I guess they didn't want to see me either. I just waved to Ding Ding and said bye.
When Ding Ding saw that we were leaving, he kept reminding me not to forget to call him.
I smiled and ignored him.
After getting in the car, Lin Tian threw the paper man on the back seat. It felt the same as the last time I encountered a ghost. The two of us sat in the front and the paper man lay in the back. The atmosphere was weird.
Lin Tian also noticed it. Maybe it was because of the last experience that we were all a little scared. He turned back and put the paper man in the trunk. This made him feel more comfortable.
On the way back, Lin Tian and I didn't talk. I knew that although Lin Tian didn't mind, I felt guilty. So after thinking for a long time, I decided not to associate with him in the future, lest something really happened, I would be blamed. Even if I didn't want to die, his mother wouldn't let me go.
I said to Lin Tian, "You'd better take me to the company now. I shouldn't have anything to do with Mrs. Jiu anymore, and I have to go back to the company to tell my boss and explain why I didn't go back to work."
I work at a passenger station. A group of employees recently retired, and we are a little short of staff. New employees are still in the recruitment stage, so our workload has increased a lot.
In addition, now the bus station has almost been moved outside the city, Lin Tian can arrive in a short time by car. It saves a lot of time compared to sending me home.
Lin Tian had no objection. After all, for me, even if this was just a low-paying job, I had to support my family and could not ignore it.
It didn't take long for us to arrive.
I got out of the car and said hello to Lin Tian. He said, if you have any problems, call me. My dad has some connections and can help you solve it.
I said "yeah" and told him not to worry, I just needed to talk to my leader and nothing would happen.
Lin Tian started the car. I stood by the road and watched him walk away, but he never came into the office. To be honest, I was still quite nervous. After all, I was just trying to make a living and I had to look at the boss's face. I thought about what to explain for a long time. Of course, I couldn't talk about the ghost encounter, so I could only talk about the previous car accident.
After thinking clearly about how to start the conversation, I walked towards the office, feeling very uneasy. I realized that sometimes dealing with people feels like encountering a ghost, which makes you nervous and sensitive.
It is summer vacation now, but the peak period for students to go home has passed. The flow of people at the station is not as much as expected, but there is still a constant flow of people coming and going.
I walked into the office building, intending to go straight to the boss's office. But not far away, I ran into an employee from the same department. His surname was Wang, and he was already in his forties, so we usually called him Brother Wang. He was holding a report, and when he saw me, he hurriedly greeted me, "Hey, Xiao Tan is here, you're discharged so soon?"
I thought I hadn’t told anyone at work about my hospitalization, so how did Brother Wang know about it?
Brother Wang said that the leader knew about your hospitalization a few days ago, but you also knew about it in the past few days. Everyone was too busy and planned to visit you in a day or two. I didn't expect you to be discharged so soon. It seems that nothing serious happened, right?
I smiled and said it was okay, just a few scrapes.
I don't want to say anything else. If you really want to visit a patient, you can definitely find time. But I don't interact with my colleagues much except for work, so I don't care whether they come or not. In Lin Tian's words, I am not commercial enough and I don't know how to get along with people, so I don't have many friends in the past year.
But after hearing what Brother Wang said, I felt a little more relieved. Since the leader also knew about it, there was no need for me to make up stories.
I said a few perfunctory words to him and left on the pretext of something, and went straight to the leader's office. I knocked on the door and there was a response from inside. I walked in and saw the leader sitting at his desk, buried in the documents on the table.
He looked not very well, probably because he was exhausted recently. Seeing that it was me, he took some time off from the documents on his desk, forced a smile, and said, "Xiao Tan, you are here? Why are you discharged from the hospital? I have been busy these two days, and I was planning to visit you in a day or two."
These words were almost printed out from the same template as Brother Wang's, but they were just polite words, and it was always the same few sentences.
I said I was fine and had been discharged from the hospital. I missed a day at work and came to apologize to my boss.
The boss said it was okay, it was a special case, and he was planning to give you a few more days off. But seeing that you are in good spirits now, it should not be necessary.
After hearing this, I really wanted to slap myself in the face. It was my fault for running here to report!
I forced myself to smile and said, I didn’t receive any notice of holiday either…
The leader remained calm and said, "Xiao Tan, you know that we are short of staff recently and some problems have happened to the employees. We leaders are also very troubled and sometimes we can't take care of everything at once. But you are fine now, take a good rest today and come to work tomorrow."
I guess the employee he mentioned was me, and he also secretly thought that I was holding the company back. I was so angry, but I didn't dare to express it openly, so I could only say, "It's okay, I'll leave first, and I'll come on time tomorrow."
The leader nodded and said, "Okay, you should have a good rest at night so that you will be energetic for work tomorrow."
As I walked out of the office, my face immediately turned sullen. I was so angry that I had no place to vent it and felt very unhappy.
At this time, I heard someone calling my name again. When I saw it was Brother Wang, I didn't want to put on a good face.
Brother Wang came closer, raised the report in his hand, and said, "Look, Xiao Tan, I am really confused because of my old age. I wanted to give it to you just now, but I forgot it after a few words. This is the financial report you made before you took leave. My part has been processed. You can take a look at it. If there is no problem, you can teach it to the leader."
I said "Oh", but I really didn't feel like reading it now, so I said, Brother Wang, I'll take it home and read it in the evening. If there are any problems, I can modify it and hand it to my leader when I go to work tomorrow.
Brother Wang nodded repeatedly and said it was okay and just take your time to watch it.
After saying that, he followed me downstairs one after the other.
Downstairs of the office building is actually the ticketing and boarding area of the bus station. After a long time, you can see all kinds of people here.
As soon as Brother Wang and I walked out, we felt it was very noisy, and all we could hear were loud and noisy sounds.
Just as I went downstairs, I saw a few drunk men quarreling in the waiting room. It was obvious that they were arguing about something while waiting for the bus.
They cursed at each other, attracting many people to watch from afar.
I couldn't help but take a curious look and saw that one of the men had taken off his shirt and was bare-chested. Because he had been drinking, his face was as red as a monkey's butt.
But what attracted me was not their argument, but a little girl no more than three years old lying on the man's back. Her skin looked a little gray, as if she had not seen the sun for a long time and was lacking blood. Her hands were wrapped around the man's neck, tightly clasped together.
The man seemed unconscious. Every movement he made to fight was very large, but he just couldn't throw the child off his back.
As if she sensed my gaze, the child suddenly turned around, her face pale as well. She looked at me and suddenly smiled grimly.
