Chapter 1: He Thought She Was a Demon, She Thought He Was a Ghost

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: He Thought She Was a Demon, She Thought He Was a Ghost

July in Sea City was shrouded in sweltering heat. The sun-baked ground was probably hot enough to fry an egg.

Inside the Good Fortune Supermarket in the ancient town, Hua Buwan set the air conditioner to twenty-three degrees Celsius and opened her computer to play the *Calabash Brothers* cartoon. Suddenly, the motion sensor at the door chimed, "Welcome."

"Feel free to browse. Just bring your items to the counter when you’re ready to pay." Hua Buwan didn’t look up, her attention entirely captivated by the animation.

But after waiting for a long while without hearing any movement in the supermarket, she looked up in suspicion.

"Holy crap!" Seeing the man standing there—who looked like he could give Su Qiqi a run for his money—Hua Buwan couldn’t help but let out a friendly exclamation.

The man before her had long, messy hair cascading over his shoulders. His face was filthy and stained with blood. The rags he wore could hardly be called clothes; they were just a few strips of cloth clinging to his body. More importantly, those rags were also covered in bloodstains.

"Are you cosplaying?" Hua Buwan gulped.

She didn’t know if her timidity was causing hallucinations, but at that very moment, she caught the pungent metallic scent of blood in the air. The reason she didn’t immediately assume he was a beggar was because the man stood about 1.8 meters tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Through the torn strips of cloth, she could faintly see his eight-pack abs, not to mention his deeply striking, battle-worn face.

Ling Qianjun didn’t understand the strange word the woman had just said. He wondered, "Cosplay? Does she mean ’corpse play’? What do corpses have to do with playing?"

Maintaining his composure, he asked in a hoarse voice, "Excuse me, miss, is this a general store? Do you sell food and tea?"

As Ling Qianjun spoke, he observed his surroundings. Everything in this shop felt completely alien to him. The items on the shelves were actually printed with various portraits, all incredibly lifelike. He feared that even the Painters in the Imperial Palace didn’t possess such skills. They looked more as if they had been trapped inside by a Soul capturing technique. Moreover, the shop was wonderfully cool, as if he had stepped into an ice cellar. It was utterly miraculous.

He had clearly been framed by villains for embezzling military funds, resulting in the Ling family being exiled to Lingnan. Just now, while taking a brief moment to relieve himself at the edge of the woods, he had discovered a door appearing right in front of him. Guided by some mysterious force, he had pushed the door open and walked in, never expecting to find such a bizarre world on the other side!

He suspected this place was built by mountain spirits and Demons using an Illusion Technique, solely to harvest human souls!

Right at that moment, a shrill voice shrieked, "Demon! Let my grandpa go! Let my grandpa go!"

Ling Qianjun’s pupils shrank, and he shot a sharp, fierce glare at Hua Buwan, who was sitting there. He watched as a wicked smile curled onto Hua Buwan’s lips. She tapped her finger on a black rectangular board, and the young boy’s cries instantly vanished!

"Sorry about that, the volume was too loud. You just said you wanted to buy water and snacks, right?" Hua Buwan asked, her features softening into a gentle expression.

Ling Qianjun was alarmed. He thought, "This Demon before me has profound cultivation! She must have cast an Immobilization Technique to silence that boy! And she even kidnapped his grandfather!"

Hearing the man fully committing to his immersive cosplay by speaking in such an archaic manner, Hua Buwan relaxed quite a bit. She pointed at the bottled mineral water in front of her. "The large bottles are two yuan, the small ones are one-fifty, and the big bucket of water is ten yuan. See which one you want.

"The snacks and cookies are all on that shelf by the wall. Pick them out yourself." She gestured toward the side shelf, signaling for Ling Qianjun to head over.

Ling Qianjun was quickly captivated by the pure water contained in the transparent bottles. His eyes lit up with brilliance. Over the past few days of exile, they had been constantly on the move. The government officers only gave them one bowl of water and two coarse cornbread buns each day. The elderly, weak, women, and children in his family were already at their breaking point.

He hurriedly scooped up several small bottles of mineral water and placed them on the counter before turning back to the shelf to marvel at the dazzling array of goods. He only recognized a few of the characters on the packaging; the rest were completely foreign to him. Fortunately, there were pictures on the wrappers. Relying on guesswork, he grabbed a pack of waffles, a pack of soda crackers, and a pack of Swiss rolls, then brought them to the counter.

"Just these. Please tally up how much I owe, miss," Ling Qianjun said, his hands balled into fists as his heart pounded uncontrollably. He wondered, "How much is one ’yuan’ exactly? Do Demons accept Gold Leaves?" ℯ

Hua Buwan picked up the barcode scanner and scanned the items one by one. The machine let out a series of sharp sounds: BEEP, BEEP, BEEP...

Strangely, with every beep, the body of the man in front of her shuddered.

Hua Buwan raised an eyebrow in amusement. She thought, "Is this sound really that scary?"

Meanwhile, Ling Qianjun was terrified. He wondered, "Could the object in her hand be the legendary Soul capturing device?"

"All right, the total comes to seventy-eight yuan and twenty fen. WeChat or Alipay?" Hua Buwan asked. Glancing at Ling Qianjun and noticing he didn’t have a bag on him, she added, "Do you need a shopping bag? Small is twenty fen, medium is thirty fen, and large is fifty fen."

"...Yes," Ling Qianjun replied in a deep voice, staring at the items before him.

Ling Qianjun’s ancient understanding mistranslated her unfamiliar terms into something far more sinister. He thought, "These mountain spirits and Demons are truly bizarre. Do they collect human hair as payment? Fifty strands for a large bag? I wonder if she wants arm hair or leg hair... She wouldn’t want armpit hair, would she?"

At the same time, he lowered his head and glanced at his own arm hair. His dark, ink-like eyes deepened.

Hua Buwan nodded slightly, pulling out a large bag and placing it on the counter. "That’s seventy-eight yuan and seventy fen in total."

"Okay," Ling Qianjun replied. He then reached around to the back of his head and fished out a Gold Leaf. "Is this enough?"

Although exile typically involved the confiscation of family property and thorough body searches, the general who had come to raid the Ling family’s estate was someone Ling Qianjun had once saved. Because of this, the general had turned a blind eye and granted them some leniency. Their family members had all managed to hide a few valuables on their persons, planning to wait until they were far away from the Capital City before finding an opportunity to use them. This Gold Leaf was exactly what he had hidden in his hair bun at the time.

Hua Buwan’s brows instantly scrunched together. She thought, "For real? People still use Gold Leaves to buy things nowadays? Is this guy too deep into his character, or is he trying to scam me with a toy?"

Seeing that she wasn’t taking it, Ling Qianjun felt even more anxious. He wondered, "Does the Shopkeeper think it’s too little? But a single Gold Leaf can buy quite a lot of things in Dongxuan Country."

Hua Buwan’s gaze deepened slightly as she parted her lips to ask, "Is it real gold?"

Hearing this, Ling Qianjun finally relaxed. He raised three fingers and declared, "If you don’t believe me, miss, I can swear an oath."

"No need, no need. There’s a pawnshop right next door. Do you mind if I take this over there to get it checked?" Hua Buwan stood up and pointed toward the adjacent building.

Ling Qianjun wasn’t offended; it was only natural for people to be a bit cautious. He was confident that there was no issue with his Gold Leaf. After all, he had taken it from the Tartar Palace a few years ago while fighting the Tartars. It was guaranteed to be authentic.

"Yes, please do as you see fit, miss," Ling Qianjun said, offering a slight nod while standing in place.

Only then did Hua Buwan step out from behind the counter, fully exposing a pair of beautiful legs to his view.

A flush of crimson instantly rushed to Ling Qianjun’s face, spreading so deeply that even his earlobes were dyed a bright, ripe red. He thought, "Why is this girl wearing such short pants! I can see her white jade-like thighs right at a glance! And she’s actually wearing clog-like shoes on her bare feet?!"

In their Dongxuan Country, a woman’s feet were absolutely not to be casually shown to men outside her family!

He thought, "She... She..."

Ling Qianjun hastily turned around, averting his gaze from Hua Buwan, though his face remained as red as a ripe peach.

Naturally, none of this escaped Hua Buwan’s eyes. She couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from curling into a smile. She thought, "This handsome guy is quite innocent."