Midnight Bookstore

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

Zhou Ze sat down instead of beating the man up further. It was true that he did not have a reason to beat the man up. The man had the freedom to decide if he wanted to have the kid. It was his right, too.

Besides, the victim was stopping him from beating him up, too.

“Huh…” Zhou Ze lit up a cigarette.

Sun Tao rose to his feet and pointed at Zhou Ze, “Are you out of your mind? I’m going to call the cops. These wounds on me will serve as the evidence!”

“You deserved it,” Zhou Ze took a puff of the cigarette without raising his head.

“You…you…you…” Sun Tao pointed at Zhou Ze before he shoved the door open and left while murmuring about what kind of bad luck he was in. How did he end up in this bookstore?

The infant wanted to follow too, yet Zhou Ze quickly grabbed him.

The infant struggled. He seemed agitated, yet Zhou Ze ignored him and pressed him down on the ground.

“Why do you still want to follow him? You’re only going to lose your chance at being reincarnated,” Zhou Ze said.

The infant was still struggling. He was unwilling to take Zhou Ze’s advice.

“Your Excellency,” the woman came up to Zhou Ze and gave him a seductive look, as if she was trying to fawn over him. She assumed Zhou Ze had kept the infant for her.

Didn’t most men share the dream of raising sugar daughters? The woman believed she had ticked all the boxes, in terms of her age and her appearance.

“Your Excellency… mm… come on… daddy…mm…”

The woman’s body shook her hips a little. She tried to control herself, yet her desires said otherwise. It was a fascinating sight.

“I can still grow, with the right nutrients.”

“Piss off.”

“…”

“Look after him for me, don’t let him escape. If you dare eat him, you will die with him too,” Zhou Ze stood up expressionlessly.

“Yes, boss.” The woman crouched down and held the infant with both hands. “Boss, is the man going to call the cops?” The woman was afraid of troubles.

“He won’t. A man like him wouldn’t dare to make a fuss, since the whole world would know he was beaten up while he was drunk.”

“Ha, men with their pride,” the woman scoffed.

However, Zhou Ze did not mention one thing. The man was actually similar to his old self in terms of personality.

Zhou Ze looked at his right palm and closed his eyes. He murmured something in his heart and opened his eyes.

Mm, nothing happened still.

Zhou Ze crouched and reached his hand toward the infant.

Mm, nothing happened still.

The woman who was holding the infant on the ground was utterly confused. However, she soon realized what Zhou Ze was trying to do. She began to tremble, as if she was holding back the urge to laugh.

Zhou Ze glanced at her. “Just laugh if you can’t hold it back.” Zhou Ze felt like laughing at himself too.

The little girl mentioned that she had placed the key to the Gate of Hell in his hand. However, he suddenly realized he had no idea how to use it when he was trying to send a ghost to Hell for the first time.

Either way, it was unlikely that the little girl was pulling a prank on him after imprinting a Seal that looked like some kind of tattoo on his palm.

“HAHAHA!… how can I laugh at my boss… HAHAHA!… I wouldn’t dare to disrespect you… HAHAHA!…”

“That’s enough. Do you know how to open it?” Zhou Ze asked.

The woman shook her head, “Boss, I really have no idea. Perhaps there are certain phrases that would trigger it?”

Zhou Ze began to recall what Xu Qinglang told him about how the little girl had retrieved his parents’ souls.

He opened his palm and said in a deep voice, “The order of Hell has to be maintained, the deceased must depart.”

Dried yellow leaves drifted in the wind outside the windows. It felt like a crow had just flown past while cawing.

The bookstore fell silent.

Nothing happened…

“Perhaps it’s something else?” the woman suggested. “Everyone has their own catchphrase, right?”

“You’re asking me to say ‘open sesame’?” Zhou Ze asked in return.

“Well, it depends on what posture you prefer,” the woman answered blatantly.

Zhou Ze remembered Xu Qinglang screaming out “Wuji of the Heavens and Earth, Laws of the Taoist Doctrine!” when he took out the runic papers and the mirror during the fight the other night.

However, Xu Qinglang did clarify that they were only some cool-sounding catchphrases he learned from watching dramas. It was similar to the background music played when the protagonist showed up in a film.

It was completely useless.

Now that he thought about it, the little girl might only say the phrase just so she sounded cool. It seemed like the little girl was similar to Xu Qinglang in certain areas, even though she was an experienced Envoy of Hell.

A thought crossed Zhou Ze’s mind. The nail on his left index finger began to elongate.

The woman was a little frightened. She was wary of Zhou Ze mainly because of his nails. She could sense an intimidating aura from them.

Zhou Ze suspected that the old man who had died in front of him was no ordinary person!

There were two kinds of ‘illegal immigrants’. The first kind were like him, who had to live with their tails between their legs. The second kind was like the person from Chengdu that the little girl mentioned; the kind that stirred up a lot of troubles, the kind that even the Envoys of Hell had trouble dealing with!

Either way, there had to be something else about the old man. The man was definitely not as simple as he had looked…

Zhou Ze poked the seal on his right palm with his nail. When Zhou Ze pulled the nail out, it dragged a black string along with it.

It was sticky but flexible, like boiling caramel.

Zhou Ze drew a square with the string. It floated in the air, while its inside started to turn black. It was empty, and a cold wind started blowing out from it.

The infant began to struggle again to break free from the woman’s hands. It was clear that he did not want to go to Hell.

The death of a human was like a light going out, yet not many people could get over it easily.

Many older folks, especially those that had done bad things for their whole lives, would try their best to live another second longer, let alone an infant.

However, Zhou Ze knew it was the right thing to send the infant off, so he could be reincarnated and start over again.

Zhou Ze believed it was unnecessary to ask the infant for his consent in a situation like this. He snatched the infant from the woman and threw him into the black square.

The square slowly disappeared. There was a faint burned smell in the air.

The woman smacked her lips, not saying anything.

—

Zhou Ze was lost in his thoughts. It was his first time sending a ghost to Hell. He had not done the same thing to the woman who had come back to keep her son company until he was done with his entrance exam.

“Have you been to Hell before?” Zhou Ze asked.

“No,” the woman said honestly, “And I can’t go down there.”

The woman did not have a soul. A gyonshi was not of the Five Elements, nor could she enter reincarnation.

It sounded cool, but there was another expression for it: Detested by the living, loathed by the ghosts, and abandoned by the Heavens!

It meant that if the woman wanted to take a stroll in boredom, there was a certain chance that a lightning bolt would appear from the clear sky and blast her into ashes. The world was that unkind to her!

Humans belonged to the living world, the ghosts had their Hell. Any other existence was heresy!

Zhou Ze sat behind the counter. He was not feeling any joy, but burdened and bored.

If the living world was a production line, he was basically throwing faulty goods back into the furnace to be reforged!

“Boss, there’s a stack of these things here.”

The woman picked up a few pieces of joss papers and handed them to Zhou Ze.

Zhou Ze was a little surprised. He never thought he would be rewarded.

“The ruler of Hell is kind, but his subordinates are trouble.” The woman regretted a little after saying that, yet she still added, “It’s quite common for the Envoys to take some commission after sending the dead on their way. I believe it is the joss papers that the baby’s mother burned for him.”

Zhou Ze nodded, and put the joss papers aside. He still had some left in the drawer from last time, but it was still too little.

“Do you know any friends? Will they have some business for me? As a human… oh no, as a ghost, I must study more to strive for excellence too.”

“Boss, I only know some lonely ghosts. They are no longer receiving joss papers, so they are basically broke. Besides, they wouldn’t dare to come close to you, since they would simply be sacrificing themselves to improve your performance numbers.”

“Performance?” It was Zhou Ze’s first time hearing about it, “The Envoys are evaluated based on the performance too?”

“Aren’t you?” The woman was confused.

“I have no idea,” Zhou Ze shrugged. He really was clueless about everything, since the little girl had vanished right after she said that he was the most sensible person she had met.

She had not left him with a “Ghost Envoy Manual” or “How to be an Ambitious Envoy of Hell”.

“I believe there is,” the woman said with a troubled look. “Like the madam, who stayed in the living world for two hundred years to look after the village, just so she could redeem herself for overstaying in the world and secure herself a position when she went to Hell. If her shrine was not destroyed so the people could keep burning incense sticks for her, it wouldn’t have taken so long.”

“Do you know any other Envoys?” Zhou Ze asked.

“There’s no chance I would come into contact with them.”

“Oh,” Zhou Ze nodded. It turned out he would have to ask an expert instead.

—

The sound of an electric scooter came from the outside. It was Xu Qinglang.

“Oh mama, I’m so tired,” Xu Qinglang walked into the bookstore and threw a cigarette at Zhou Ze.

“Didn’t you go to place an order for the signboard?” Zhou Ze asked.

“I already did. I conveniently went to buy some stock for my restaurant, too. There are pretty nice discounts over at the Wanchai Ferry, so I bought heaps of dumplings back. It was more tiring than I thought.”

{TL Note: Wanchai Ferry is a brand of Chinese food dinner kits currently owned by General Mills.}

“You don’t make them yourself?”

“Hehe, the Coke at a fast food restaurant is actually bought from the supermarket next door. Do you seriously think I have the time to make the dumplings myself?”

“Wanchai Ferry, it suits you.”

“Right? I like the brand too… heh, enough talk for now. I should put them in the fridge first,” Xu Qinglang waved at Zhou Ze and went back to his restaurant.

The woman giggled after Xu Qinglang left.

Zhou Ze was a little surprised. “You got it?”

The woman said smilingly, “He’s indeed good-looking. I believe most men would become homosexual if they spent too much time with him, hence Wanchai Ferry.”

{TL Note: Wanchai （湾仔）consists of the words (湾) ‘wan’ which means bent / not straight, and (仔) ‘zai’, which means young man or kid.}