NTNH CH.4

*apr. 21, still buggy, trying to fix notes link, will remove when done*

Arresting Evil Ghosts

Yu Zhengdu was startled by what the two girls had said. Right at that moment, the girl who stood on the left gave him a strange smile. Then her eyes rolled up into her skull until only the whites showed, blue veins running through them. At the same time, both of her eyes began to drip bright red blood. White eyes, red tears of blood and on top of that a malicious smile. This scene was a very strange one indeed.

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

For the first time, Yu Zhengdu was thankful he worked at the ghost company. After enduring several days of psychological training, when faced with such a scene as this one he was still able to keep his face from showing his true thoughts.

He calmly said to the short-haired girl “You weren’t scared. Even so, I think my performance was quite realistic.”

The short-haired girl pursed her lips and smiled, “It was pretty realistic, but the act’s a bit overused.”

The girl ghost saw that Yu Zhengdu wasn’t acting frightened but also was't sure whether he could see her or not.

It just so happened the three of them found a table to sit down at. In an attempt to feel out Yu Zhengdu, the female ghost rushed through him to reach the seat he was headed for, strutting over and sitting down first. She looked smugly at Yu Zhengdu, waiting for his reaction.

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Time to pull out those acting skills.

His face didn’t change expression, and while talking to the two girls he calmly started to sit down on the ghost's lap.

Female Ghost: *smile slowly disappears*

Fortunately at last minute, the female ghost decided she couldn’t accept a living person sitting on her thighs. The moment Yu Zhengdu was about to press down upon her, she quickly got up and ran away.

Yu Zhengdu inwardly let out a sigh of relief. Being honest, that would have been a lot of psychological pressure if he actually had to sit on the ghost’s lap.

Probably because she was sure he couldn’t see her, the female ghost didn’t harass Yu Zhengdu any longer. She returned to the short haired girl’s side, sticking closely to her.

Yu Zhengdu and the two girls introduced themselves to each other. The girl with the short hair was named Li Tiantian, and her friend was Jiang Hong. The two of them worked at a gaming company in another building on the park.

Li Tiantian smiled and said “every time I see you, you’re by yourself. Why don’t you eat your meals with your colleagues?”

Yu Zhengdu said vaguely “My colleagues and I have differing tastes, so we don’t eat at the same place.”

Jiang Hong sneaked a glance at Yu Zhengdu’s plate and said “your appetite doesn't seem unusual.”

“En,” Yu Zhengdu replied, “it’s more like they don't eat here every day.”

The three of them chatted while they ate. Li Tiantian and Jiang Hong learned that Yu Zhengdu had come to work there not long ago, and they eagerly explained the situation of the Science and Technology Park to him. Overall the atmosphere between them wasn’t awkward at all.

From time to time, Li Tiantian stretched back, kneading her shoulders while grumbling, “I don’t why but in the last while I’ve been feeling so exhausted. My shoulders ache so much too, like they’re constantly being pressed down by something.”

Jiang Hong said “it’s probably an occupational hazard[B6] , ba. Office work is the most likely career to get frozen shoulders and cervical spondylosis[B7] or something like that.”

“I sat like this all the time before, and I was never tired,” Li Tiantian muttered, “My neck also hasn’t been good recently and I'm getting the chills from time to time.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He could see the female ghost currently throwing her arm around Li Tiantian’s shoulder and blowing onto her neck.

“How about you request some time off to go see a doctor?” Jiang Hong asked.

“I think it’s Mercury Retrograde[B8] ,” Li Tiantian said, “Not only have I been feeling off lately, I’ve also been having poor luck. I almost got hit by a car when I went out two days ago, and even though it obviously wasn’t raining yesterday I managed to step in a puddle, I’m not sure how that happened, and I made some small mistakes at work too and got scolded by my supervisor……”

She went on for a while until she realized Yu Zhengdu was still with them. Blushing a bright red, she stopped quickly and apologized, “I’m sorry, that came out all at once.”

Yu Zhengdu smiled and said “It’s all right, though it may not be a bad idea to go see a doctor if you’re not well.”

They finished eating quickly, and when they were about to depart Li Tiantian added Yu Zhengdu’s WeChat, saying “we all work at the same park, we should get together for a meal when we have the time.”

Yu Zhengdu nodded, “Of course.”

He was calm as he watched Li Tiantian and Jiang Hong leave, and he was also calm as he turned around and walked back to his company. It was only when he was completely sure the female ghost could no longer see him that Yu Zhengdu finally let out a howl and ran back like a madman[B9] .

“My dearest coworkers[B10] ,” Y Zhengdu threw open the doors to Luofeng Life Management and said “I-I-I, I ran into a ghost—”

His office colleagues, who were in fact, ghosts, raised their heads and looked at him in confusion: “……”

An awkward silence filled the air.

Yu Zhengdu kept silent for a while; his frantic movements weakened. He added, “Other than you guys, I’m absolutely terrified if I bump into a ghost.”

At that moment, one of his coworkers who heard the disturbance stuck his head out of the break room while holding a bowl, asking “what type of terrifying?”

Yu Zhengdu: "She can roll her eyes back into her head, and uh, they bleed a really vibrant red..." [B11]

He stopped in the middle of his words. The colleague he was talking to had deep black sockets, no eyeballs in sight.

Yu Zhengdu: “…what happened to your eyes?”

The colleague held the bowl in front of him. Looking down, Yu Zhengdu could see two round orbs soaking in there…eyeballs. The black pupils were staring right up at him through the clear water.

“I’d been staring at a computer all day,” the colleague explained. “My eyes got a little sore so I decided to go soak them in eye drops.”

Yu Zhengdu felt his soul had been through a rite of passage. He pressed his hands to his chest and said sincerely, “Thank you for strengthening my psychological state. I don’t think the ghost is that scary anymore.”

Hearing all the commotion, Shang Que came out of his office and asked “How did you bump into the ghost?”

Yu Zhengdu told him about the situation with the female ghost, and finally asked “Why was I able to see the ghost? I didn’t have that ability before.”

Shang Que said “Oh, that’s because you signed the contract and are an employee of the underworld. It’s our staff benefit.”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

He shouldn’t have wanted that social insurance so much in the first place!

Shang Que added on “The ghost you ran into was a substitution [B12] ghost. She’s in the process of consuming the girl you spoke of, intending to snatch her body.”

Even though Yu Zhengdu wasn’t sure how ghosts were classified, after listening to the description he knew it was definitely not a good ghost. Immediately after Shang Que told him that he nervously asked him “In that case what should I do? Is Li Tiantian going to be in danger?”

Shang Que deserved to be called the ghost’s boss, his expression was cool as he said “Catch her and take her back.”

Yu Zhengdu was surprised: “Our company also catches ghosts?”

Shang Que gave a slight smile: “We’re professionals.”

The day after, Yu Zhengdu messaged Li Tiantian with an excuse to meet up and asked them to meet at the cafeteria. Then, he took Shang Que with him and went along with valor and bravery to catch a ghost.

Sure enough, the female ghost was still pestering Li Tiantian. Yu Zhengdu exchanged a look of understanding with Shang Que, tacitly letting him take the lead. Introducing him to the two girls he said “This is my boss, he’s come to eat with us today.”

Li Tiantian and Jiang Hong’s eyes instantly lit up: “Your boss looks so handsome.”

Shang Que looked at them coolly, “Thank you.”

As they went to eat together, Yu Zhengdu whispered to Shang Que lowly, “Why hasn’t the ghost found out you two are the both the same?”

Shang Que’s smile was a little disdainful. “Judging by her abilities, she won’t be able to find out as long as I want it.”

Yu Zhengdu was awestruck, giving him a thumbs up. “Boss is definitely worthy of being the bully of ghosts, so powerful.”

Shang Que: “… it’s the King of Ghosts.”

Yu Zhengdu: “Tomato tomato[B13] .”

When they had finished their meal, Li Tiantian looked at Yu Zhengdu embarrassed and said “On WeChat, you said you had something to give me? What was it?”

It was just then that Yu Zhengdu remembered the excuse he gave, and quickly took a small box from out of his pocket. Handing it over he said “It’s this.”

“You’re too kind,” Li Tiantian unwrapped it, opening the box with anticipation before-

“…”

Yu Zhendu: “Didn’t you think it was Mercury retrograde? Our company helps with health management. This is a magnet from us, it changes luck and promotes good health.”

Li Tiantian: “……”

Jiang Hong: “……”

Sitting in the box was an undoubtedly plain pebble. At the most, it had been smoothed and washed a bit.

Li Tiantian’s smile was frozen. “Thank you.”

The female ghost also seemed to think Yu Zhengdu’s words were especially ridiculous. She deliberately approached Li Tiantian again, blowing straight into her face in obvious provocation.

Li Tiantian subconsciously touched her face, and Yu Zhengdu poked Shang Que’s thigh underneath the table. Shang Que turned his head towards him, somewhat confused as to what the reason was.

Yu Zhengdu gave him a smile, his eyes franticly saying that he should get to work quickly.

For all the talents Shang Que cultivated in his past life, tacit understanding through eye contact was not on that list of strengths and he looked blanky at Yu Zhengdu: “……”

Yu Zhengdu had to get near his ear, lowering his voice as much as possible before saying “Why haven’t you done it yet? That ghost is too aggressive.”

Shang Que had been a ghost for ages, yet it was the first time someone had come and spoken to him so close. The warm breath of a living person sweeping past his ears was an experience he had never had before.

He gently patted the back of Yu Zhengdu’s hand and said, “Stay calm, don’t be impatient.”

After he spoke those words, he suddenly smiled in the direction of the female ghost.

The ghost was stunned for a second, not too sure if he was looking at her, but when she saw him raise his chin again, the female ghost looked towards the direction his eyes were gazing.

There she saw two ghosts holding sticks in the distance, crossing through the crown and rushing to this side with great momentum. One of them shouted at the female ghost “That one over there, that ghost, you have been arrested.”

The other one also shouted “Face the wall and squat down, hands behind your head, the male ghost on the right and the female ghost on the left-”

At first the female ghost was still clinging to Li Tiantian. After seeing this though she gave a blood curdling screech, bounding up sharply and running in the direction of the cafeteria exit while shouting: “I didn’t do anything bad, I was just passing by—”

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

His two ghostly colleagues chased after her relentlessly, getting a bit mouthy towards the female ghost:

“Franky if you say you didn’t do anything bad, why are you running!”

“Follow us back for interrogation, you won’t be able to get away-“

Yu Zhengdu: “……”

If he hadn’t known these people were ghosts he’d have thought he hit an anti-pornography crackdown.

Shang Que then smiled at him and said “This is a minor issue. I need not take matters into my own hands.”

Yu Zhengdu nodded at him numbly, before adding his braised pork to Shang Que’s plate reverently. “Laoban’s [B14] worked hard, eat some more pork.”

Jiang Hong who was sitting opposite them finally couldn’t help it. She took out her phone and secretly sent a WeChat to Li Tiantian.

Jiang Hong: [I can’t take it any more, this guy’s not only a stingy stone man but also a sycophant.]

Li Tiantan: [Don’t mention it. I want to kms[B15] .]

While that was going on, Shang Que looked down at the braised pork in front of him, falling deep into thought.

Yu Zhengdu saw this and reacted quickly, grabbing the pork on his chopsticks again. “I almost forgot, you don’t eat this…”

Halfway through saying thins the braised pork on his chopsticks was blocked.

Shang Que: “In that case, I’ll give it a taste.”

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TN: aight so after eight hours of sleep it's obvious what the girl says at the end of chapter three, basically "lol you're naughty, trying to scare a person you just met" (my own words), I'll fix that up in a moment. Secondly omg I didn't notice that the setting had switched so notes opened in a new tab, I'm gonna have to go all the way back and fix everything wuwuwu [B3] So to clarify, there are two girls and one ghost (hehe like the podcast), one with long hair and one with short hair, and the ghost with long hair. [B6]Lit. occupational disease, we usually say occupational hazard to mean something similar, basically a risk you run getting when working a particular job. And from now on I'll be keeping 'ba', 'la', 'ah' etc in sentence ends. [B7]I have no clue about any medical terminology, but in baidu we trust. (even in english I was like wtf is cervical spondylosis? Is that a fancy name for cervix prolaspe? I was wrong, it's like a fancy hernia. maybe. Med students are free to clarify) [B8]I think that's what it says? I don't actually know anything about astronomy but a quick google search did say that mercury retrograde brought about a murphy's law type of luck. [B9]Now it also says his hands were in the position that you see professional sprinters use, flat and cutting through the wind like a knife. [B10] He says 您们, the polite form of y'all. [B11]Ugh. So this says that Yu Zhengdu (who feels a bit bad from his earlier outburst) is describing the ghost with flowery language, sort of padding it a bit. [B12]Do we have any substitution ghosts in english? I think the closest thing is a doppelganger, or permanent possession ghost. [B13]Yu Zhengdu says 差不多, or chabuduo, meaning 'good enough', ( Same same could fit, I may change it to something similar but I thought tomato tomato sounded funnier) [B14]I have decided that going forward, if YZD is talking to SQ he'll use Laoban, if he's talking about Shang Que, he'll use boss. Easier to understand. [B15]Don't actually write that shit. Say 'I want to die' like a proper person dumbass