Chapter 123

Yin Lishang hid behind Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe, clutching his sleeve tightly as she cautiously poked her head out. Before her lay a floor of snow-white bone fragments. Grandma's head lay horizontally in the corner, her eyes wide open in fury, staring at her, her trembling lips moving as if saying something.

Just then, a pitch-black shadow swept hurriedly past the porch and vanished.

I saw it! That's the thing; it killed Grandma!

Yin Lishang turned deathly pale with fright. Like a startled raccoon, she hugged Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's waist tightly from behind: "Brother, what do we do? Our house is haunted. There are actually ghosts in this world..."

This sentence sounded strange coming from her in this context, but Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe did not dwell on this issue. He gently comforted Yin Lishang and silently fished a single copper coin from his pocket.

Long ago, when he calculated that the life-buying money he possessed was insufficient to support his journey to the deepest part of the abyss, and realized he had no hope of unraveling the secrets of Yanglao Village, Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe had already made his plans.

A thief never leaves empty-handed; even if the puzzle-solving failed, he would never accept returning empty-handed like this.

Ding—

It was the sound of a copper coin hitting the ground.

Yin Lishang looked up at the sound and saw a copper coin tossed from her brother's hand, tracing a graceful parabola in the air before finally landing in a pale, rotting palm that exuded a foul stench, dropping into the open cloth bag held in the palm, clinking crisply against the coins already inside.

The owner of the palm was a gaunt old man draped in a wide Confucian robe, his withered, firewood-like body supporting a round, protruding belly, much like a pregnant woman six months along.

Between the old man's shoulders was the severed stump of a neck; He held a cloth money bag in one hand and his own head, which had long, graying hair, in the other.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe did not know by what means Lan Shiwen controlled the Five Wealths, but as long as he could still do business with the Five Wealths, that was enough.

The God of Wealth accepted Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's copper coin and remained standing where He was, without the slightest movement.

"Not enough money?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe frowned, then quickly understood what was going on.

—He was currently using Ji Taimei's identity to buy his life from the God of Wealth. If a person buys their life from the God of Wealth for the first time, the price for one life should be one copper coin.

But now, one copper coin could not buy Ji Taimei a life from the God of Wealth, which meant this was not Ji Taimei's first time meeting the God of Wealth; he had bought his life from Him before. As for when? How many times? Where did the life-buying money come from?

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe did not know.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe silently fished out another copper coin and tossed it into the God of Wealth's palm. At the same time, he changed his face. If Feng Yushu were standing inside the door instead of outside, she would have recognized that this person was the security guard of the Green Water Bay Manor, Tian Chengyun.

Yin Lishang, who was standing behind Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe hugging him, did not notice the change in her brother's facial features; she only saw the God of Wealth finally nod after receiving the two copper coins.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe, in the identity of Tian Chengyun, purchased one life from the God of Wealth, the Five Wealths.

In an instant, the previously dead-silent world had sound. At the same time, Grandma, who had been lying in the corner, disappeared.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe heard the rustling of wind through the bamboo forest, the croaking of toads in the kitchen, the omnipresent environmental white noise, as well as his own breathing and heartbeat. The world before his eyes was still black and white, but it now had sound.

"Back in the 'Zhen' realm." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe nodded slightly. Yin Lishang behind him was still hugging his waist tightly, and he could feel the girl's warm body temperature and steady heartbeat.

After returning from 'Xi' to 'Zhen', Ji Taimei's grandma had disappeared, but Yin Lishang had not. Did this mean that Yin Lishang actually existed in every layer of the world simultaneously?

Hmm... the God of Wealth also existed in every layer of the world.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe fished out four more copper coins and placed them into the God of Wealth's hand.

Consequently, the black-and-white world regained its color: the red paint on the door, the white putty on the walls, the gray cement floor beneath his feet, and the small red dress on Yin Lishang all became vibrant... yet there was still an indescribable oppression in the enclosed hut. This was the Underworld. Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe fished out eight more copper coins and placed them into the God of Wealth's hand.

The God of Wealth remained unmoved.

"It seems that after 4, it's not 8, but 16." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe felt slightly troubled, but fortunately, he had enough money on hand. He fished out eight more copper coins, making a total of 16, and placed them into the God of Wealth's hand.

The Five Wealths accepted the money and sent Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe back to the mortal world.

The Five Wealths vanished.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe changed his face back to Ji Taimei's appearance and looked back at Yin Lishang, who was cowering behind him, trembling all over with fear. He felt a bit puzzled.

The transaction rules of the God of Wealth, the Five Wealths, had two characteristics:

1. Arbitrary price hikes.

The price of trading with the Five Wealths becomes more expensive each time. Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe had just verified this; starting from the second transaction, the price of each trade was the square of the previous one.

2. Forced buying and selling.

Anyone who sees the Five Wealths is forcibly pulled into a transaction; you must either buy or sell. There is no third option.

More latest popular novels at/p>

"But judging from the performance just now, the Five Wealth Gods didn't seem to regard Yin Lishang as a transaction object?" Ning Zhe wondered. Why were there more and more mysteries surrounding this little girl? But the current situation also made one thing clearer to Ning Zhe—Ji Taimei's younger sister was indeed the key to unraveling the mysteries of Yanglao Village and obtaining the Yin family inheritance.

"Brother... the ghost, has the ghost gone?"

Not until Grandma and the Five Wealths had both disappeared did Yin Lishang nervously release her grip on Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's waist, tears swirling in her eyes from fear.

"Yes, the ghost has gone." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe fished a pack of tissues from his pocket and helped her wipe away the tears sliding down her cheeks to her chin, saying: "I used money to send those ghostly things away. You don't have to be afraid now."

"Mm..." Yin Lishang nodded obediently: "What about Grandma? And Grandpa, how are they?"

"They were both killed by the ghost." A look of grief appeared on Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's face, and he said softly: "I came back this time because of this. Our family has been cursed by an evil ghost."

"A curse, is it like the videotape in The Ring?" Mentioning a curse, Yin Lishang first associated it with The Ring, one of the few horror movies she had finished watching.

"Something like that." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe nodded and continued: "Dad and Mom have already met with misfortune, and Grandma and Grandpa didn't escape the evil ghost's pursuit either. Now, only we are left in the family. Before Mom died, she told me I must protect you well."

"I..." Yin Lishang was momentarily at a loss. For a young girl who had never seen the world, the shock of four relatives passing away one after another was still too great.

"Let's go. I'll take you away from here to hide somewhere else." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe took Yin Lishang's hand and walked toward the village entrance.

"Okay." Yin Lishang nodded obediently and followed closely behind Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe, leaving the small village that had given birth to and raised her.

(End of chapter)