Stranger Danger

Ye Qing pondered for a moment. “I’m not sure. For now, I’m going to find an inn!”

“Haha, sure. Do notify me after you’ve found a place to stay, okay? When I’m free, I would like to treat you to a drink and thank you for all the help you’ve given us during our trip!” Yan Yufei said with a smile. Personally, he would’ve treated Ye Qing to a drink this instant, but as the newly appointed magistrate of Anyang there were many things he had to busy himself with. He could only promise to repay Ye Qing at a later date.

Ye Qing replied, “Did I mention you are too courteous, my lord? Don’t worry! I promise I’ll visit you myself as soon as your schedule is open!”

“It’s a promise then!” Yan Yufei laughed heartily and saluted him one last time. “Then, until we meet again!”

“Until we meet again!” Ye Qing saluted back before walking over to Yan Feng, Yang Guan and the rest of the guards and bid them goodbye as well.

After everyone was gone, the young man looked at Kung Fu Frog and said, “It’s just the two of us now. Let us find a place to stay first, shall we?”

“Croak croak!” Kung Fu Frog responded affirmatively.

And so the one human and one frog slowly wandered through the streets, taking in the sights and finding an inn to stay. However, they quickly realized that the simple task wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Every inn they visited had refused to accept them not because they were full, or even because a stereotypical young master had bought out the place. No, it was because of Kung Fu Frog. No one wanted to take in a Stranger no matter how harmless it looked, and their excuses were virtually the same: a Stranger would frighten their guests, negatively impact their business, so on and so on. As a result, they were unable to find lodging despite having seen over half of Anyang already!

“Okay, this is a problem,” Ye Qing let out a little sigh. He and Kung Fu Frog were currently sitting underneath a stone bridge and staring gloomily at the clear waters.

In fact, there were plenty of people in the county who kept Strangers as pets. That didn’t mean that your ordinary citizen wasn’t afraid of Strangers, however. It wasn’t like he couldn’t sympathize with the innkeepers either. The problem was, he still didn’t have a fucking place to stay!

Am I, a Vessel Augmentor, actually going to have to sleep on the streets?

No! I won’t accept this!

Suddenly, a light bulb appeared on Ye Qing’s head. “Wait, I know! We can just buy a shop or a house!”

Both Prayer and Zheng Tianyuan carried a lot of silvers with them. This was especially true for Prayer, who might very well have kept his life’s savings in the storage artifact. As the inheritor of their wealth, Ye Qing could buy a house in Anyang and still have a lot to spare.

“Croak croak…” said Kung Fu Frog while nodding.

“Okay then. Let’s move!” Ye Qing wasted no time in putting his thoughts into action. 𝚋𝚎ｄｎｏｖ𝚎𝚕．𝚌ｏｍ

First things first, they needed to find a middleman. Just like in the other world, a middleman acted as a broker, go-between, or intermediary for requests and business opportunities in return for a commission or a fee. After asking a pedestrian about it and receiving an address, Ye Qing went straight to a shop named Yijun Brokerage.

As soon as Ye Qing stepped through the door, a silver-tongued assistant greeted him immediately, “Welcome to our shop, customer! Would you like to buy, mail, or sell? Yijun Brokerage offers all the relevant services at a fair and affordable price! We guarantee you’ll be satisfied with our services!”

Wow. Look at him go like a modern age advertisement! Ye Qing thought while answering, “I would like to buy a house or a cheap shop!”

The assistant’s eyes lit up immediately. Brokering a house sale was a big deal. Assuming everything went smoothly, he was guaranteed to earn a hefty commission. He asked with a wide smile on his face, “Before I go get you what you need, do you have any specific requirements? For example, what kind of house or shop are you looking for?”

Ye Qing thought for a moment before answering, “I want a quiet place with a good environment, and the price should be reasonable, of course!”

“Okay! Please wait a moment!”

The assistant poured Ye Qing a cup of tea before opening a notebook and going through the list carefully. A while later, he said, “I’ve found two houses and one shop that fit your criteria, dear customer!” He proceeded to describe the places in great detail.

Ye Qing frowned after the assistant was done talking. Frankly, none of the options really appealed to him.

The two houses were a courtyard house and a massive residence. The courtyard house was expanded four times and was owned by a destitute licentiate [1]. He wanted to travel to the capital to attend the imperial examination, so he was selling his ancestral home to cover his travel expenses. The problem was the house had been in a state of disrepair for years due to lack of maintenance. Overall, it was slightly below Ye Qing’s expectations.

The massive residence belonged to a wealthy family. It was huge, ornate, and beautiful. The owner wanted to sell the place because he was going into business elsewhere. The building was great and frankly above Ye Qing’s expectations, but there was a problem: the residence was too big and thus, too expensive. Even if he could afford it, it was ridiculously wasteful to buy a residence that could fit up to a hundred people just to accommodate himself!

As for the shop, he had struck it from his head as soon as the assistant said, “pork butcher’s shop”. Now why on earth would he want to stay in a bloody butcher’s shop, not to mention that a handsome man like him did not belong to such a place? This was a hundred percent a one-star option! Boo!

“Are there no other options?” Ye Qing asked.

.

The assistant scrunched up his face. “These are the only ones I can find, dear customer. Unless…”

His eyes suddenly lit up as he recalled something. “There is a bookstore with a beautiful environment that is on sale for an amazing price. However…”

“However, what? Spit it out, man!” Ye Qing sipped his tea and said.

The assistant answered, “It is rumored that the bookstore is haunted by something. Every night, the voice of someone reading aloud could be heard from the bookstore. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was soft, sometimes it was happy, and sometimes it was sad. However, the voice would stop as soon as someone enters the bookstore, and to this day no one is able to find the culprit behind the voices. It’s very strange!”

“The hauntings eventually became so infamous that almost everyone in Anyang had heard about it. Terrified for their lives, the shop assistants left one after another until the owner was the only one left in the bookstore. The bookstore was decades old and incredibly famous in Anyang until this happened. The owner was extremely reluctant to part with it as a matter of course, but he was old and weak, and he did not have any children he could pass the store to. Unable to run the business any longer, he had no choice but to put it on sale including all the books and orphan works.”

“But as I said, practically everyone has heard of the hauntings, and so no one was willing to buy the bookstore despite the owner lowering its price again and again. To this day, it is still waiting for a new owner. The bookstore owner came to us for help later, and truth be told, we would’ve rejected him if not for the fact that the hauntings had not claimed any lives to this day.”

“A haunted bookstore, you say?” Now this sounded perfect for Ye Qing. An ordinary person might be afraid of a haunting, but he hadn’t been an ordinary person for a long time, had he? “What is its name? Where is it located? And how much does it cost?”

“The bookstore is called Endless Horizons. It is taken from the proverb, ‘The sea of learning has no horizons’. Endless Horizons is located in the intersection between Anyang Street and Rainflower Alley, an extremely strategic location, and it is currently selling for just the cheap, cheap price of a hundred silvers. I would say that it is excellent value for money considering that shops located in this district usually sell for way more.”

The assistant, like all competent salespeople, was going to say more to build up the bookstore and encourage a sale. However, he shut his mouth when he recalled that the bookstore was, no matter how valuable it really was, haunted. He doubted that Ye Qing would be interested in buying it.

Of course, he was wrong. Ye Qing declared immediately, “I’ve made my decision! I’m going to buy this bookstore!”

“I thought so. In that case, pl—wait, what? You… you want to buy Endless Horizons?” The assistant was going to go back to his notebook when he realized what Ye Qing said and exclaimed in utter disbelief.

Ye Qing nodded. “You did a good job praising its good points to hell and back. I would be an idiot not to buy such an excellent place.”

The assistant was more than a little befuddled to put it mildly. His introduction was no different from all the introductions he had done for the bookstore previously, but none of his customers had fallen for his sales pitch so to speak. What are the chances that everyone who has reviewed the bookstore until the young man before is an idiot? He thought. He didn’t say his thoughts out loud, of course.

Out of good conscience, the assistant reminded Ye Qing, “I shouldn’t say this, customer, but you do remember that the place is haunted, do you?”

Ye Qing chuckled. “In that case, I just have to make it not haunted anymore! Anyway, get me started on the procedure already. I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. You don’t want me to change my mind, do you?”

“Er, sure! Right away, customer!” The assistant nodded a couple of times in excitement and did as Ye Qing ordered. Then, he personally took Ye Qing to the original owner of Endless Horizons. Ye Qing paid everything he was due in one go, the owner handed him the keys, the deed and everything else. They both signed the contract, and the deal was done.

Ye Qing looked both happy and excited as he looked up at the wooden building in front of him. He declared, “From now on, this is our turf!”

Endless Horizons was a three-storey building with bronze bells hanging underneath flying eaves. It looked interesting, appealing, and very tasteful.

The first thing he saw after pushing open the door and stepping inside was a neat and tidy hall. The tables and chairs were all placed in neat rows next to the walls, and a ring of bookshelves filled with books of all kinds surrounded the place. There had to be thousands of books in this hall alone.

The tables and chairs were clearly prepared for the customers. They enabled both buyers and non-buyers to enjoy the books in relative comfort. It was a very customer-friendly setting to say the least.

The second floor was split into a number of small rooms, and most of the rooms contained all kinds of orphan works or rare books sorted based on their categories. Ye Qing could tell at first glance that some of the books were quite valuable. Besides that, there were a couple of ornately designed guest rooms that were meant to be used by important guests.

The third floor was the floor where the owner used to live. The outer room was the tea room used to serve very important guests, and the innermost room was the bedroom. There was a study to the left, and a kitchen to the right. The floor was fully furnished and equipped with everything a person might need to live comfortably. This was definitely something he very much appreciated.

“What an incredible place this is! That assistant had no idea how right he was when he said this place is excellent value for money!” Forget its strategic location, the installations and the books alone were absolutely worth more than a hundred silvers. No wonder the original owner looked so reluctant when he handed over the deed just now.

Ye Qing arranged the bedroom for a bit before going downstairs and wiping the place until it was more or less shiny. Ye Qing looked at the reborn bookstore and smiled in satisfaction.

“Now, all that’s left to do is to deal with the ghost who loves to read!”

One way or another, he was going to find out exactly who the mysterious reader was.

……

It was a moonless, windless night. When the gongs rang thrice, and the fourth watch of the night began, the sound of reading abruptly broke the silence shrouding Endless Horizons.

The reading voice was crisp and melodious. Sometimes, it climbed up the notes as if to reflect the joy etched in a certain passage. Sometimes, it softened to reflect the sadness of the text. Like a Confucian sage reciting a sagely work, its cadence of speech was more or less perfect, and it sounded both rhythmic and beautiful.

There was just one tiny problem. Not a soul could be seen in the first two floors. This one variable transformed what was a soothing recital into a horror show!

1. referring to 秀才 or scholar. I didn’t translate this as scholar because I’ve used the term 书生 earlier. 👈