Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor- Koneko, Proofreader- Spring Flower
“Oh?”
Bei Quan asked, “What’s strange?”
Zhu Hongtao raised his hand and knocked on the slanted wall next to him.
“As you can see, the people who live in the ‘Paper Cottage’ are all lonely ghosts who did not receive the incense offerings, with most being from poor families.”
Bei Quan nodded.
He certainly knew the rules of the Paper City.
Save for a few exceptions, after death, the ghosts who have walked through the Huangquan Road are mostly people who have not committed any major sins during their lifetime, and can be reincarnated normally.
However, before crossing the Naihe Bridge and drinking Mengpo soup to reincarnate into the next life, they still have to wait for a period of time in the underworld—— ranging from a few years to perhaps hundreds of years, with this Paper City being their temporary residence.
As for where the residents live, the paper houses, cars, and all the daily necessities they use all come from the funerary objects that were buried with them, in addition to the incense offerings from their relatives, friends, and descendants in the world.
However, not all of the deceased have people to pray for them.
Souls who have not received incense offerings for a long time, will become literal ‘poor ghosts’ without even a place to stay.
Thus, the building known as ‘Paper Cottage’ was born.
These homeless ghosts collect waste paper crafts and build a ‘room’ within this building for somewhere to live. Over the years, ‘Paper Cottage’ grew bigger and bigger, becoming the size that Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan could see in front of them.
In a sense, the ‘Paper Cottage’ is the city’s slum.
As for how many ‘people’ live in this complicated and twisted building, even the oldest of residents who have occupied a space for decades, could not give an estimate of their time.
Only the managers of Paper City may have an idea.
“But this shouldn’t be the case.”
Zhu Hongtao pointed at himself.
“Although I’m away from home and unmarried, I still have many family members who are alive. If I die, I have the right to a funeral, right? It’s been a whole year, and I didn’t even have incense offerings. This is just abnormal!”
After all, Zhu Hongtao was a scholar. Even if he was dead, his mind was still very clear.
At first, when he died inexplicably, he was really confused and was helpless about the rules of Paper City.
A year’s time however was enough for him to become familiar with and understand his current circumstances.
For example :-
- Paper City has a complete management system. Although there is no sunrise or sunset, the concept of time passing is similar to that in the human world.
- Every twelve hours, there will be ghost officials patrolling the city to ensure public safety.
- Offerings from the human world will automatically appear in the hands of Paper City residents, which is safer and more efficient than the SF Express.
- The form of offerings is diverse and not limited to a fixed pattern. In recent years, newly deceased ghosts have even brought many novel electronic devices.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Zhu Hongtao knows his family well, and he strongly feels suspicious about what happened.
Throughout the year, he never gave up collecting intelligence from various channels, to one day find out the truth and then submit the evidence to the ghost patrol.
Unfortunately, Zhu Hongtao was just a scholar after all.
Due to information asymmetry, no matter how much he speculated, he would not know that he had been possessed by someone else.
Someone used his body, impersonated his identity in the human world, lived for another year, and committed a murder and skinning case; causing three deaths in a row.
Since no one in the human world knows that he is actually “dead”, Zhu Hongtao naturally cannot reach his family and friends.
However, Bei Quan did not plan to tell him everything that had happened after his “death”.
He just smiled and said:
“I know.”
Bei Quan then stood up and was ready to say his goodbyes.
“I will take responsibility for your life here.”
Since he had obtained the information he wanted from Zhu Hongtao, it felt natural to reciprocate and repay him.
Zhu Hongtao’s body had been taken over by someone else. In the records of the underworld, he was considered a person who should have died not only a year later but also died twice. This was a huge problem.
Not only can he not receive the incense offerings that he deserves, but the sins committed by the person who took over his body may also be attributed to him, affecting his reincarnation.
Therefore, when Bei Quan promised to “take responsibility”, it not only meant taking care of Zhu Hongtao’s food, clothing, shelter, and transportation in Paper City, but also helping him deal with the impact of being possessed.
Of course, this was not an easy challenge, and would make Bei Quan owe a lot of favors to many within his network.
However, he always believed that everything has a cause and effect.
Since Zhu Hongtao confessed everything about his past without reservation, Bei Quan would fulfill his promise in return for this good cause.
Zhu Hongtao thanked Bei Quan solemnly.
He guessed that these two people came to find him from the mortal world for a reason that was more complicated than what they had told him or that he could comprehend.
However, he didn’t ask any more questions, and just stood up to escort Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan to the window.
Before leaving, Zhu Hongtao reminded them:
“The time for the ghost patrol to patrol the city is coming. Be careful not to be detected by them.”
——————————-
After leaving the ‘Paper Cottage’, Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan did not take the same road as when they came.
They were delayed a bit at Grandma’s place and Zhu Hongtao’s place, so now they only had less than forty minutes left of the one-hour time limit.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t use the ghostly blue flame to take shortcuts in the Paper City. They could only walk honestly with their two legs.
The two passed through the densely packed paper houses, avoiding the main roads with heavy traffic, and took the less crowded paths, so that they wouldn’t have to run on the road.
However, suddenly, they heard the sound of bells and wooden drums.
“Ding a ling a ling -”
“Dong – dong -”
Two kinds of instruments, and two kinds of rhythms.
One fast and one slow, one high and one low, one clear and one deep. When combined, they create a wonderful sense of harmony that makes people want to stop and listen.
Wei Fuyuan was so distracted that he also stopped.
“Wei Fuyuan!”
Bei Quan pinched him hard, leaned in close to his ear and reminded him in a low voice.
Wei Fuyuan was startled and suddenly came back to his senses.
In the two seconds that he was stunned, the sound of bells and wooden drums had gotten much closer than before, clearly coming towards them.
“We’ve run into the patrolling ghosts of the city!”
Bei Quan grabbed Wei Fuyuan’s hand and ran as fast as he could:
“They can recognize the anger of the living, and our disguise is not enough!”
As he ran, he said:
“There are many of them, if we’re discovered, it’ll be hard for the two of us to escape!”
Wei Fuyuan: “!!!”
From Bei Quan’s much faster-than-usual speech speed and slightly anxious tone, it was clear that this was a very serious situation.
He wanted to ask what they should do now, but he remembered Bei Quan’s warning and didn’t dare to speak.
“Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring”
“Dong – dong -”
The sound of bells and drums grew closer and closer.
In the dead silence of the paper city, the sound of bells and drums could be heard from far, far away.
The rhythm of the two sounds mixing seemed to carry some kind of magic. The closer they got, the more they could feel the power of that soul-stirring sound.
Wei Fuyuan noticed that all the pedestrians and vehicles on the road had stopped and were standing still, just like mud and wooden puppets, blending in with the paper background.
Soon, Wei Fuyuan felt like he and Bei Quan were the only ones still moving in the whole city.
“Over here!”
Bei Quan then pulled Wei Fuyuan into an alleyway with force.
Strictly speaking, this couldn’t even be called an “alleyway,” it was just a gap between two paper buildings.
The space was filled with random paper-wrapped items, such as old clothes, broken baskets and broken lounge chairs, making the already narrow passage completely impassable.
Without a word, Bei Quan suddenly pushed Wei Fuyuan to the ground and lay down next to him. Then he reached out and pulled over one of the baskets, placing it on top of them, and grabbed a tattered old blanket, piling it in front of the basket.
The light in the alleyway was already very dim, and with the addition of the new items and their placement, it became so dark that visibility became almost impossible.
Wei Fuyuan understood Beiquan’s intentions, but he was still worried about how this alone could help them hide.
“Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-”
“Dong – dong -”
The ringing and drumming sounds were getting closer.
Wei Fuyuan finally experienced what it meant to “lose one’s mind” in the Cthulhu world.
He felt unconsciously drawn to the monotonous but rhythmic sound, almost wanting to run towards the source of the sound at all costs.
The ringing and drumming sounds had no effect on Bei Quan, but he knew the power that the ghost patrol possessed.
Bei Quan firmly pressed Wei Fuyuan to the ground while tightly gripping his hand, as if trying to use pain to drive away the spiritual interference that had been imposed onto his little boyfriend.
The continuous ringing and drumming sounds echoed in his ears, while Bei Quan’s weight pressed down on him, and a faint pain spread throughout his palm.
Wei Fuyuan struggled to maintain his consciousness.
Through the gap between the broken basket and the old blanket, he saw a large group of people passing by the exit of the alleyway.
Since the light was too dim and there was too great a distance, Wei Fuyuan couldn’t see the appearance of the ghost patrol at all, only able to judge from the silhouette of one after another passing by. There were probably many strange and non-humanoid things among them.
Just as Wei Fuyuan was thinking vaguely, a figure stopped at the entrance of the alleyway.
It didn’t walk into the alleyway, but unusually stretched its neck more than ten times longer and swayed in the air like a snake.
Unexpectedly, a head along with its long neck below, suddenly plunged into the narrow and cramped alleyway!
