FI Ch3: The First Client
Wei Dong had already prepared a mental script before he came.
What to ask and how to ask it?
He hadn’t figured out the situation yet and couldn’t let himself appear too apprehensive. Luckily, he was older and taller, so at the very least, he’d keep control of the conversation—
As soon as he saw Lin Su come out, he quickly spoke first:
“I’m Pei Jin’s classmate. I need to talk to you.”
Wei Dong glanced around and pointed to the functional classroom at the far end, “Shall we talk over there?”
Lin Su, tasting the medicine in his bottle, replied, “Sure.”
The functional classroom was some distance away from where they were.
The students were chatting and laughing outside in the hallways, so it was unlikely anyone would come here.
Once the door was closed, Lin Su assessed the place with satisfaction, “This spot truly is a place where a scholar should talk, with no commoners coming and going.”
Wei Dong choked on the words he was about to say.
Forcing himself not to correct Lin Su’s interpretation, he brought the topic back on track, “Junior, I saw you went to find Pei Jin today. You and…”
When mentioning Pei Jin, his voice faltered slightly, “Do you know each other?”
Lin Su turned his gaze toward him, responding lightly, “Why not ask Senior Pei himself?”
The question hit Wei Dong, leaving him at a loss for words. The feeling of unease surged back. Yet seeing Lin Su’s gentle gaze with his eyelashes casting a soft shadow like fragile porcelain, he wondered if he was just overthinking.
Suppressing his emotions, he downplayed things:
“I saw you took Pei Jin’s Wenchang Talisman. That was something the class teacher asked for on behalf of the whole class. You… you might not know, but such a talisman wouldn’t work if taken by others.”
The onlooking Xue Ni Ma couldn’t resist glancing sideways.
Lin Su’s expression didn’t change as he asked, “So, you want me to give the Wenchang Talisman back?”
“Yeah…” Wei Dong replied, then felt his words sounded odd, quickly adding, “I’ll give it back to Pei Jin. I’m the class rep, after all; I’m in charge of this kind of thing.”
The reasoning was flimsy.
But he had originally come with a probing intention:
If Lin Su returned it, then there was no issue, and he could find another opportunity to slip it back to Pei Jin. If he didn’t return it, it’d mean Pei Jin had sensed something.
He’d need to come up with another plan quickly.
After he spoke, there were two or three seconds of silence.
Lin Su said nothing; he just looked at him with a quiet smile.
For some reason, cold sweat suddenly formed on Wei Dong’s back. He opened his mouth, ready to say something else, but then heard Lin Su speak:
“All right.”
“All… right?”
Lin Su appeared completely agreeable, “I just borrowed it; I’ll return it tomorrow.”
Wei Dong hadn’t expected him to agree so readily. He was a bit suspicious but forced himself to stay calm: the person in front of him was only a seventeen-year-old boy—how capable could he be? Even if there was something, he still had a “master” behind him.
“Make sure you remember to return it.”
Lin Su smiled and promised, “I’ll do it as soon as I can.”
Just as they spoke, the warning bell rang.
Suppressing a subtle feeling, Wei Dong turned to leave.
…
When that figure disappeared around the hallway corner, Xue Ni Ma finally surfaced, studying Lin Su as it spoke:
【You seem like a kind of qiankun pouch.1乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài), a mystical “universe bag” in Chinese folklore and literature. This bag is a magical artifact that can hold an immense amount of things, regardless of its physical size. If a character is compared to this bag, it implies they have hidden depths and are mysterious.
Lin Su held his composure, “Deep and unfathomable?”
【Able to store things.】
“…” Lin Su’s gaze lightly settled on it, “Has not having anyone to talk to for seventeen years made you go stir-crazy?”
Xue Ni Ma bashfully lowered its head: 【…A little.】
After a pause, it raised its head again, a bit uncomfortably: 【This time, you actually didn’t respond with your usual harshness?】
Lin Su, hand on the doorknob, turned at these words, his expression as pure as a snowy mountain.
“This is but a humble room, yet my virtue fills it.”
【……】
Xue Ni Ma swallowed, then switched topics: 【That Wenchang Talisman—are you planning to exorcize the specters before returning it? No wonder you said not to burn it yet.】
Lin Su made no comment, curling his lips in a silent smile.
—
At ten o’clock that evening, Lin Su returned home from school.
The apartment he now lived in was a large flat.
The place he’d previously lived in, after seventeen years, had turned into an old neighborhood. If he had woken up two or three years later, he probably would have been relocated along with the building.
All his wooden furniture had been moved into the new home.
The traditional Chinese decor didn’t clash among the surrounding modern high-rises; instead, it felt like a hidden mansion.
But now, a guest was in this mansion.
Lin Su stood in the living room, calmly watching as a man in white robes and a tall hat sat elegantly on the sofa, blending in perfectly with the Chinese-style furniture, as though he were the actual owner of the home.
“Bai Wuchang.”
Bai Wuchang took a sip of tea, gesturing, “Sit, it’s your own house.”
Xue Ni Ma marveled: 【Turns out he even knows this is your place…】
Lin Su had no desire to delve into this absurd charade.
He casually took a dark blue outer robe from the coat rack and draped it over his shirt before sitting beside Bai Wuchang.
“What got into you today to break into someone’s private residence?”
Bai Wuchang choked for a moment, setting down his teacup, “Recently, everyone’s heard you’ve woken up.”
Lin Su nodded. The “everyone” Bai Wuchang referred to likely included colleagues from the upper, middle, and lower realms. The Three Thousand Worlds had a vast array of positions: roles like Wuchang, Chenghuang, and the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak were all official titles.
“A Fate Immortal” was a rather high position among them.
“I wanted to come see you, but I couldn’t find the time.” Bai Wuchang rubbed his forehead with a wry smile, “Today, I’m only able to sneak out to see you because Master Ba took over my shift.”
Master Ba was his partner Hei Wuchang.
“A day off?”
After seventeen years, Lin Su was a bit out of sync with the times. He pulled out his phone to check and was profoundly shocked. This “day off” thing didn’t even spare ghosts!
Utterly ridiculous.
The two of them fiercely condemned it for a while.
Lin Su’s mouth went dry from talking, so he stopped to drink his treasured Maojian tea from 1982. Just after he downed a couple of gulps, a dramatic sigh drifted over from beside him.
Bai Wuchang, seeming casual, spoke up:
“Sigh… So, anyway, recently there’ve been a lot of people altering their fates to avoid ghostly summons, which has left His Highness, the King of Hell, with quite the headache. I know you have your own assignments, but if you could spare some time to review the Fate Records, it’d really speed things up for us…”
Lin Su paused, looking at him with a side-eye, “So even on your day off, you’re not exactly off-duty.”
He’d come with work after all.
“It’s a paying job, a paying job…” Bai Wuchang said placatingly, “His Highness said he’d give you three hundred thousand in paper money.”
“…” Lin Su declined, “I happen to still be living in the mortal realm.” Let’s not get ridiculous.
But he didn’t have much to do during the day lately.
After a brief calculation, Lin Su agreed, “Let’s discuss payment later.”
Bai Wuchang nodded, “Sure, there’ll be plenty of chances for officials to cover for each other in the future.”
Lin Su, “…”
He pushed the window open to usher his visitor out. “It’s late; time to leave.”
Bai Wuchang was just about to elegantly climb out the window when he was stopped. Lin Su said, “Hold on. Since you’re heading out, take something with you for me.”
“?”
—
Nightfall hung low, and the windless summer night felt stuffy.
Wei Dong sat at his desk, feeling restless.
He had just lost his temper at the housekeeper. He’d told her not to touch the items he had arranged, so why couldn’t she understand plain words?
His room was filled with various “feng shui objects”: statues, wall scrolls, talismans, osmanthus leaves… all for invoking blessings and improving his luck, and each item’s direction and placement had specific significance.
But when the housekeeper came to bring him some milk, she’d knocked one of his statues out of alignment!
Didn’t she realize it could affect his exams and ruin his future?
He sent the housekeeper away and reset the statue.
Though he cowered outside, at home, he was more arrogant than anyone. Especially remembering what happened at school today, the unease in him grew, morphing into malice.
Come the weekend… no, tomorrow. Tomorrow, after getting the talisman back, he’d go see the “master.”
He had to make sure there was no chance for error.
Simply lowering Pei Jin’s grades wasn’t safe enough… In fact, he wanted an accident. Like a broken arm or a blind eye—something to keep Pei Jin from taking the exam at all. Let him try to steal his guaranteed spot then.
Just as Wei Dong was mulling over these thoughts, a sudden breeze picked up.
The curtains fluttered slightly, and a few pages of his book rustled as they turned.
He pulled his mind back and stood to close the window.
The moment he sat down again, his gaze froze.
A Wenchang Talisman had appeared on his desk.
Wei Dong held his breath: hadn’t he put the Wenchang Talisman in the side pocket of his bag? When had it ended up on the desk? Could it have fallen out when he was taking something else out?
Heart pounding, he reached to put it back.
He opened the side pocket.
Clink! A pen fell to the ground.
In the silent room, his pupils contracted, and it felt as though his blood had turned to ice—
Inside his bag, there already lay a Wenchang Talisman.
He blanked for two seconds, then swiftly flung the talisman in his hand across the room! The bright red talisman landed on the floor, and in the silence of the room, his heartbeat was painfully loud.
Whose was the extra talisman?
How did it end up in his room? His thoughts were a mess, and a creepy, terrifying answer slowly surfaced in his heart.
In a dazed state, Wei Dong glanced aside.
He just happened to catch a glimpse of the clock on the desk: it was just past midnight.
“…I’ll return it tomorrow.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I can.”
A sharp fear shot straight to his throat in an instant.
Before he could even find an excuse to comfort himself, a sudden bang! sounded nearby.
The idol he’d just carefully arranged had fallen to the floor.
As if his last mental defense had shattered, Wei Dong finally let out a bone-chilling scream, his whole body trembling, his face drained of all color.
…
The next morning, Lin Su arrived at school.
He walked through the hallway toward the classroom, replying to a message along the way.
In their line of work, they had a dedicated chat app called “Wei Xin.” No one knew which genius developed it, but every time a new message arrived, it would pop up with the phrase: [Hey, message.] It sounded incredibly rude.
Xue Ni Ma craned his head to take a look: 【What are you looking at?】
“A reply to Bai Wuchang, telling him that the item has already been delivered.” Lin Su put his phone away, “But he mentioned that Wei Dong’s place was so full of clutter that he knocked something over while making his graceful exit.”
Xue Ni Ma didn’t care: 【Not an issue.】
Lin Su didn’t pay it much mind either: if it fell, it fell—just pick it up, problem solved.
On the bright side, his thought power was recovering well this time. Wei Dong was already fully convinced…
…of his devilry.
【By the way, you’re still as thorough as ever. Before returning the talisman yesterday, you purified it.】
“Since it’s an item I’ve ‘received,’ I can’t allow it to carry any malicious energy before ‘sending’ it back, regardless of whether the curse was placed by me. Otherwise, it would go against the Dao.”
Lin Su continued walking up the stairs, “Especially now that we’ve got a new inspector, and I have no idea what kind of person they are.”
Xue Ni Ma let a hint slip this time: 【I hear they’re extremely cold, totally lacking in empathy.】
It looked at him with a trace of regret: 【Right now, you’re broke as can be, so if something happens, you’ll have to rely on your looks.】
“…”
Lin Su grabbed it with one hand and lectured, “I am pure and spotless, both in body and heart.”
As he spoke, he reached the top of the stairs.
A familiar figure suddenly passed through his line of sight, causing both him and his spirit to stop.
In the office for the second-year students.
It was still early for the self-study period, so no teachers had arrived yet, leaving the office empty.
Wei Dong, his face pale, hurriedly approached a desk, rummaging through it inside and out.
It was too eerie. That second-year student was just too eerie…!
He was a believer in these things; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so scared.
Stacks of documents were left in disarray as Wei Dong temporarily ignored them. Until, from the bottom of a drawer, he retrieved a “student file,” finally breathing a sigh of relief.
He flipped to a specific page and took a photo of it with his phone.
Without realizing it, a mad, creepy grin crept onto Wei Dong’s face.
After finishing, he roughly stacked the materials back together and quickly left the office.
…
His figure quickly disappeared down the stairwell.
At the other end of the hallway.
Dim light wrapped around the stairwell as Lin Su and a spirit leaned quietly against the wall, watching the hardworking figure head off.
After a moment, Xue Ni Ma was the first to speak:
【…He’s even earlier than an 8 a.m. start.】
Lin Su remarked, “In matters of harming others, he always believes in the virtue of hard work.”
Xue Ni Ma agreed: 【Just like in matters of failure, he’s always very successful.】
Footnotes:
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