Cyber Ghosts

“Hao Ning,” Xiao Hong’s voice rose again, “Don’t badger with Grannie Meng anymore. We have no much time left. We should hurry up.”

“I’d rather so as well,” Hao Ning said with a bitter face, “but how! Do you have money with you?”

“You—are talking to whom?” The male Grannie Meng felt confused watching Hao Ning murmuring to himself and got impatient, “Will you pay the money? If not, go back and queue!”

“Your grandfather I have no money!” Xiao Hong’s voice was roared out by Hao Ning. Hao Ning’s hand trembled, and then the whole counter was on fire in a boom. So powerful was Samadhi True Fire that the whole counter disappeared, “Your grandfather I want to drink it now, so give it to me!”

Before the male Grannie Meng reacted, from the back of Hao Ning came countless voices, “Jesus! There are burglars here!”

Hao Ning turned back, only to find none.

“Where are they?” Hao Ning asked, bewildered, “Why did they disappear all of a sudden?”

“They were frightened by you.” The male Grannie Meng said easily, “Why didn’t they hide, seeing you so fierce?”

“Then why didn’t you escape?” Hao Ning, peering at the moveless male Grannie Meng, felt admirable in his heart, “So brave you are! For that, I won’t bully you anymore. Ah, you’re done with the soup. But no one is queueing, anyway. I don’t need to pay in this case, do I? Give me the soup, OK?”

“Hum, nice delusions of you!” The male Grannie Meng said, “I didn’t escape because—I was scared to pee by you. It would be shameful if I rushed out before all the souls got dispersed. So finally, I can run away now—Help! Someone’s provoking the nether world! Help!”

Then the male Grannie Meng rushed out like a nut, with some liquid dripping from his trousers. The male Grannie Meng dashed out of the shop to a restaurant-like place nearby, and he didn’t come out again.

“How does it taste?” Hao Ning, seeing that everyone had fled, didn’t care about too much and took the soup, meant to have a sniff. It suddenly occurred to him that the result of sniffing it was still unknown, so he said urgently, “Xiao Hong, release Zhou Yuan’s parents now!”

As he talked, something flashed before his eyes and Zhou Yuan’s parents appeared. Hao Ning hastily handed them two cups of lemon-flavored Lethe Water, “Uncle and aunt, drink this and go for your reincarnation…”

“I don’t like lemon flavor.” Auntie Zhou held Lethe Water and frowned, “Is there some in soybean-milk-flavor?”

“I don’t like lemon flavor, either.” Uncle Zhou put down Lethe Water, “I want some in tofu flavor. The salty one, please.”

“No way, it should be sweet!” auntie Zhou groaned, “How are you going to enjoy the salt tofu! It’s unbearable!”

“Such a grannie as you!” Uncle Zhou said angrily, too, “I love the salty one. You’ve divorced me, so why do you keep dictating such trifles?”

“You two!” Hao Ning, seeing the two funny olds quarreling here, got mad and took two cups of Lethe Water in both hands separately and fed the two, leaving them no time for contradicting, “Where did you get so many craps? Drink it up!”

“Who’s there? Who dares to provocate the nether world?” Hao Ning had scarcely pushed the two to drain the Lethe Water when a voice came from his back, “You feel impatient about your tedious life? Are you courting death?”

“Niu, they come here for reincarnations because they’ve got enough of their lives.” Another voice said, “Such craps of you. Meanwhile, they’re not courting death. They’re dead already.”

“Ma, stop your craps!” The voice before said, “You lost the stone scissor paper. Remember you go first later!”

Hao Ning understood instantly that ox-headed and horse-faced demons were coming. He hurriedly asked in his head, “Xiao Hong, can you deal with it?”

“I can.” Xiao Hong’s voice was hesitant, “But it’s not good to displease nether world. We’d better be more submissive. After all, we come with our request.”

“You, I say you. Turn back!” The two voiced said in sync, “You frightened our Little Meng, and you ruined our shop!”

Hao Ning could do nothing but turn back in a nervous face. The moment he saw the two demons, he busted into laughter. The ox-headed and horse-faced demons were actually two people wearing masks made of white cardboard, with the two words ox-headed and horse-faced written on them respectively!

“You nether world has such difficult financial condition…” Hao Ning failed to hold back his teasing, “They don’t offer you a headgear?”

“No craps!” The two asked, “What are you doing here? Why did you destroy our shop?”

“As to that…” Hao Ning got nervous and stepped back. His mobile phone fell to the ground with a crackle and the screen lightened instantly.

“What’s this?” Ox-headed saw the mobile on the ground and asked. He stretched out his hand and the mobile flew into his hand, “Which magic weapon is this?”

“Don’t you know the mobile?” Hao Ning asked in confusion, “You’ve got the tea for mourning, but you don’t know about mobile? You’ve got the screen for the emission of ads, but you don’t know about mobile?”

“No.” The two said in sync, “What’s it for?”

Hao Ning scratched his head, seeing that the two had wrapped up the topic about the shop, “Em… Do you know about making a phone call?”

“No.”

“Telecommuting?” Hao Ning had a think and went on.

“Shagging the males remotely?” The two glimpsed at each other and shook their heads, “No way. We’re both males. No matter how remote it is, we don’t want to shag a male. Is there anything about shagging a female remotely?”

Hao Ning was near a breakdown. He was like a cock talking to a duck. Something suddenly occurred to him and he smiled to say, “It’s for games.”

“Games?” The two glanced at each other and asked Hao Ning, “Is it even funnier than stone, paper, and scissors?”

“Million times funnier!” Hao Ning thought in his mind that so dull the life was in the nether world that the two were still playing the game from ancient times. He said, and he opened one game on his mobile, “This!”

“Hey hey, such fun!” The two learned fast. Hao Ning had to admit that they had a gift in games. But one phone wasn’t enough for two. After a while, they said to Hao Ning, “Do you still have another mobile?”

“Yes.” Hao Ning, seeing the two ask such a question, since he worked on the Internet, he prepared two mobiles with him usually, but he didn’t expect the extra one would be useful under such a circumstance. He took it out. Something struck him, and he held the mobile in his grip, not intended to give them, and said slowly, “Is it funny?”

“Quite funny!” The two nodded and said.

“Do you want more?”

“Yes, we do.” The two continued to nod.

“So, about the counter and the affair just now…” Hao Ning said. As he noticed the two hesitant, he turned on the mobile in his hand and assumed to murmur to himself, “There are many games inside. By the way, the hitting beans one is quite impressive…”

“Niu,” The Ma listened to him and was tempted. He asked seriously right away, “Did you see anyone destroy our shop?”

“What do you mean by destroying the shop?” Niu got him and said, “The counter was of bad quality, so it got burned itself just now.”

Hao Ning, seeing the two making nonsense so seriously, handed his mobile over with a smile.

“Ah, by the way, why don’t you drink Lethe Water?” The two asked while playing with mobiles, “Drink it and go for your reincarnation. We’ll find you a good husband—No, a good match.”

“I won’t drink it, but they will—” Hao Ning pointed at Zhou Yuan’s parents whose eyes got blank after drinking the Lethe Water, “They’ve drunk it already.”

“Then you won’t drink it?” The two feel it odd after they finished. They raised their heads and looked at Hao Ning, feeling more and more perplexed, “Aren’t you—alive?”

“Eh, no, I leaked it out…” It occurred to Hao Ning that nether world wasn’t open to the living people. He was in trouble. “You two listen to me…”

“Ah ya!” The two had a high five, “We’ve been locked here for so long, and finally we meet someone alive!”

Then the two dragged Hao Ning to sit aside, where they could spot the ads. Hao Ning didn’t dare to look at the ads, so he had his back to it. The two demons asked eagerly, “Is it fun upside? Ah, I heard that the policies there changed, so we are not allowed to go there as we want. Even the animals are prohibited from cultivating and becoming elves. We haven’t been upside to play for too long, can you tell us about it?”

“You…” Hao Ning, peering at their honest faces, hesitated and asked, “How long has it been since you went up last time?”

“After May 4th Seal God event…” The two raised their heads and recalled, “Around that time. The timeline here doesn’t correspond to the one on the earth, so we don’t know about the specific time.”

“So, this stuff…” Hao Ning figured it out the moment he raised the question. Maybe such people with a special identity like Yan that could travel through Yin and Yang brought them down when they went up. Hao Ning felt amused at his thought. Yan loved the games so much, but he never let other people here know about that. Such a greedy and selfish guy. At the point, Hao Ning sensed vaguely that he’d better reserve his questions on Yan first and send Hao Ning’s parents to sway.

So, Hao Ning went over the whole incident briefly without mentioning Zhou Yuan’s power. He just said that the two old people needed to be reincarnated to when they were newly born and live their lives again.

Hearing that, the two put down the mobiles, wordless.

“What’s it?” Hao Ning was a bit stressed, “Does it break the rule? Is there any problem?”

“It doesn’t break the rule.” The two glanced at each other and said, “But people rarely request that.”

“Then can you help?” Hao Ning asked tentatively. After all, he didn’t know much about the reincarnation stuff.

“As for that, yes.” Niu lowered his head, glimpsed at his mobile and said hesitantly, “But it will be troublesome…”

“The mobiles are yours now, as a gift.” Hao Ning said straightforwardly.

“Okay!” Niu rose to his feet and said, “Bring their memories here.”

“Memories?” Hao Ning was stunned, “Which memories?”

“You didn’t make a copy of their memories before feeding them Lethe Water?” Niu was stunned, too, “Then how to bring them back to the bodies in which they dwelled before?”

“What do you mean?” Hao Ning was bewildered, “I thought they go for reincarnation, and it works out?”

“Who told you that?” Ma was amused, “You ever believe in such ridiculous saying?”

“He.” Hao Ning pointed at Xiao Hong who was now settled between his brows, “It was him.”

Niu, seeing Hao Ning speaking while pointing at himself, manifested an understanding face, “Oh, you invented it yourself! No wonder you look uninformed.”

“What the hell!” Hao Ning was about to explain that Xiao Hong told him all the things, but Xiao Hong’s voice came out, “Brother Hao Ning, they’re getting close to you now. If I show up, they may hold some doubts about us. We’d rather let it be and ask them how to deal with it!”

“Alright, I invented it myself.” Hao Ning bit his teeth, “So what’s the system?”

“In the nether world, time is changeable. So, when you are reincarnated, you are likely to be put into any possibility in the messy time stream.” Ma explained, “To find a specific person, some traits are needed. To be reincarnated to oneself, the soul should know who he is, at least, right? —But you, well, you let them drain the Lethe Water at one time with no memories remaining, and you don’t have a backup with you, either. Fine, such high-tech terms as backup must be unknown to you. We newly learned it, too—So in your opinion, how to help you find the two old people’s bodies and locate them?”

“As for that…” Hao Ning didn’t understand until then that why Xiao Hong said before that they needed to maintain the memories of the two old people before Zhou Yuan exerted his power. That was what it was for. He didn’t know about the causality but had got rid of the most important thing out of his imaginative smartness!