Chapter 204: Ye Weilong

In my streams so far, I had seen all sorts of ghosts and vengeful spirits. The lowest among them were blurry shadows flickering like ghost fire. They could barely even be called ghosts, merely clusters of memory lingering briefly in the mortal world because a person's obsession before death hadn't entirely dissipated.

They usually posed no threat to anyone and lacked the power to harm the living.

A step above them were the souls that maintained their living appearance and mingled within crowds. Strictly speaking, they didn't fit the standard definition of a ghost either. For whatever reason, they had simply forgotten they were dead and carried on with all their human habits.

These two types were relatively common. They didn't deliberately hurt the living or disrupt the order between the worlds of the living and the dead. Sometimes, they even helped those who had shown them kindness or watched over their descendants.

Only after these did you reach what people typically called ghosts—like the pregnant woman in red I encountered on the Route 14 Spirit Bus, or the green-faced, fanged fiend formed by the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends at Xinhu High School. Entities steeped in such deep resentment that they could reform from their own hatred even after being shattered were the hardest to deal with.

I hadn't thought much of Jiang Fei's initial description, but as she elaborated, I realized the situation was far from simple.

"It looked like a baby's shadow. It had a massive head and a broad forehead. When I shined my phone flashlight on it, it scrambled across the room. I screamed. My sister-in-law was sleeping next door, and when she heard me, she rushed into my room and turned on the light."

"Ye Bing is staying with you?" The moment I heard the word "sister-in-law," my mind instinctively jumped to Ye Bing.

"Yeah. I have no idea what happened between her and my brother, but around eight or nine that night, my sister-in-law suddenly showed up at my house. She said she couldn't take it anymore and wanted to crash at my place for the night."

Jiang Fei recounted exactly what had happened, and her explanation quickly put the pieces together in my head.

Jiang Chen was keeping a Little Ghost at home. Ye Bing couldn't bear it any longer and fled to Jiang Fei's place, but who could have expected the Little Ghost to follow her there?

"I'm afraid Jiang Chen isn't just keeping a Little Ghost for wealth and good fortune. He probably had an ulterior motive for marrying Ye Bing, too." I couldn't guess his exact reasoning yet. I had noticed at the wedding reception that his intentions toward her weren't pure, but I never expected him to actually use a Little Ghost to torment his own wife.

"Tell me, how do you want me to help?" I asked, looking at Jiang Fei. I still hadn't touched the barbecue on my plate.

Her eyes dimmed slightly. After a brief pause, she spoke slowly, "I want you to come over to my house and catch that Little Ghost."

From watching my stream at the asylum, she knew I had some grasp of Daoist arts, which was why she was turning to me for help now.

"No problem, but you have to promise me one thing: never open that app again. Your viewings are never truly free—it's just that you can't sense what the other party is taking from you."

"Watching your stream costs something?" Jiang Fei's beautiful eyes widened, her full lips parting in surprise. "But I haven't felt like I've lost anything."

"I haven't figured that out yet either," I said, leaning my head back against the wall of the booth. "It could be your lifespan, your fortune, or even your soul."

"Alright, I understand. I won't open the app anymore." Jiang Fei busied herself with the barbecue. Just as she placed a piece of freshly grilled meat onto my plate, the screech of slamming brakes pierced the air outside.

The restaurant door was shoved open, and a man decked out head-to-toe in designer clothes and a dark suit strode in.

He stood 1.9 meters tall, heavily built, and undeniably handsome. The top two buttons of his white shirt were undone, perfectly exposing his robust chest. His bronze skin exuded a healthy vitality and strength, and his long legs could have effortlessly put any Korean heartthrob to shame.

"Jiang Fei, what are you doing in a place like this?" He wore a brilliant, sunny smile. He was young, and compared to him, I felt like a beat-up, secondhand Alto parked next to a brand-new Lamborghini.

"Ye Weilong?" A flash of disgust instantly surfaced in Jiang Fei's eyes. "Didn't your dad just read you the riot act? Why did you sneak off to Jiangcheng again?"

The name Ye Weilong sounded familiar. I was pretty sure I had seen him on the news before. This guy was only nineteen this year, hot-blooded and arrogant. His father was a major shareholder of Meiwei Electric Appliances in Xinhu City, but Ye Weilong's fame didn't come from his family wealth. Instead, he had made headlines recently when his car was impounded for drag racing, and he actually got into a massive brawl with the traffic police, causing a terrible public uproar.

Put simply, he was an immature brat whose only talent was dragging his father's name through the mud.

"You two know each other?" I asked casually as I prepared to get up and leave. Being targeted by Jiang Chen was already enough of a headache; I had no interest in earning someone else's inexplicable grudge over a misunderstanding.

"Not at all. We've only met a few times." Jiang Fei shot me a look pleading for help, her hand gripping the hem of my shirt and refusing to let go.

"Hey, don't do that. It's not like we're very close either, right?" I stood up, intending to head back to my own seat, but Ye Weilong strode over and planted himself right in front of me.

The guy had half a head of height on me. His eyes were spitting fire as he stared down at me. When he spoke, one side of his lip curled up in an insufferably arrogant sneer.

"Who the hell are you?" He looked me up and down, scanning me like the security camera at the restaurant entrance.

"I'm just a passerby." Ignoring Ye Weilong, I picked up my black cloth bundle and headed for the door.

"Gao Jian! Wait for me!"

Jiang Fei grabbed her handbag and hurried after me. If I could have just walked away right then, that would have been the end of it. But I had barely taken two steps when the restaurant door swung open again, and a woman with bleached blonde hair and heavy makeup came rushing in.

"Weilong, please, come back with me! If your dad finds out you snuck out, he's going to be furious!"

The woman looked to be around Ye Weilong's age. She was decent-looking, but her makeup was caked on way too thick; she didn't look like a girl from a respectable family.

She ran in in a panic, but the moment she saw Ye Weilong standing with Jiang Fei, she blinked, and without any buildup, tears instantly streamed down her cheeks. "You really did come looking for her! I just don't get what's so great about this old woman!"

She pointed at Jiang Fei and wailed, acting as if she had suffered some massive injustice. The diners all around us perked up, eager to watch the drama unfold.

"Your social circles are a total mess." I quickened my pace, doing my best to pretend I didn't know either of them.

"Gao Jian, let's just go to my place first," Jiang Fei said, completely ignoring the woman. She waved to a waiter, ready to settle the bill.

"Sister Fei, what's all this about going to your place? Last I checked, you live alone in a detached villa. What if this bastard tries to get handsy with you?" Ye Weilong blocked Jiang Fei's path. "Besides, I just rushed all the way here from Xinhu just for you. At the very least, let's go find a classy place to eat."

"Ye Weilong! Is she the only one in your heart?! Do I mean nothing to you?! Say something! Speak!" The heavily made-up woman threw a massive tantrum, and the situation rapidly spiraled out of control. Ultimately, the restaurant owner had to step in and mediate, dragging all of us back to our seats.

...

An intensely awkward atmosphere filled the small booth. Jiang Fei and I were squeezed onto one side, while Ye Weilong and the heavily made-up woman were crammed onto the other. As we sat there, I managed to piece together the tangled web of their relationships.

Ye Weilong and Jiang Fei had met about two or three months ago. Both of them were overbearing, arrogant, and entirely self-centered. During a street race, Jiang Fei had overtaken him on a sharp turn and ruthlessly dominated the rest of the race, delivering a brutal blow to Ye Weilong's pride.

Infuriated, the young Master Ye had rounded up a gang of his friends from Xinhu to go cause trouble for her. But who was Jiang Fei? She was the beloved jewel of Jiangjin Real Estate. In all of Jiangcheng, there might be plenty of women who didn't know Jiang Chen, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a man who didn't know Jiang Fei.

After she made a few phone calls, people from both the criminal underworld and legitimate circles swarmed the scene. Over the course of a single night, they had beaten Ye Weilong into absolute submission until he was practically begging on his knees to call her "Big Sister."

Afterward, Ye Weilong's feelings toward Jiang Fei had undergone a subtle shift. His initial resentment had morphed into fear, which had then blossomed into worship. Finally, that worship mutated into an inescapable, obsessive infatuation.

He had even dumped his previous girlfriend for Jiang Fei. Day in and day out, he lost his appetite, dedicating all his mental energy to figuring out how he could end up with this fiery older woman.

Truthfully, the one worthy of the most pity was the woman with the heavy makeup. She was a second-tier actress who had been dating Ye Weilong. They had promised to grow old together, yet less than six months later, Ye Weilong had a change of heart, falling for a woman three or four years his senior. This nearly pushed her to the brink of a breakdown.

Looking at the explosive tension and the incredibly messy dynamic between the three of them, I rubbed the tip of my nose in sheer awkwardness. "Why don't I leave you guys to chat? I'll be taking my leave now."