Chapter 1 Car Accident 01

  At night, in the quiet alley, a hurried footsteps came. Qin Fei walked quickly, out of the alley, to the edge of the pedestrian path, standing under the dim yellow light before stopping, leaning against the street lamp and panting heavily.

  The night wind was cool, but Qin Fei felt more than just the coolness of the wind on his body, there was also a chilling coldness that made his hair stand on end.

  It's still there! It hasn't left yet!

  Qin Fei took a deep breath and calmed himself down before pulling out his phone and dialing the number.

  The phone was answered with a hissing sound of an unstable signal.

  "Third Uncle, I'm near the street lamp at No. 23 Qi Xi Road."

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and then Qin Fei heard a familiar loud shout: "Damn it! Are those things bothering you again?!"

  Those things - commonly known as "ghosts", the spirits formed by people's obsession after death, do not belong to the world of the living. Qin Fei had lived for 25 years and never believed in these things, he was a firm materialist.

  When he was born, his grandfather in the countryside found a fortune teller who was said to be very powerful to read his fate. The fortune teller's verdict said that this child had ten generations of merit and virtue weighing on him, four yang energies converging, and a heavenly blessed fate. However, with such an extraordinary fate, he fell into a river at the age of eight during a severe winter and contracted a serious illness, completely forgetting how he ended up in the river. His life was then filled with one misfortune after another. Various spiritual masters and Taoist priests said that he had a low fire spirit, his soul was unstable, so from childhood to adulthood, he never lacked various protective charms on his body. However, his path in life remained bumpy and difficult, heart-wrenchingly sad.

  Qin Fei didn't believe in ghosts and gods until a month ago when he started running into them, and some things couldn't be denied. Even his third uncle, who lived under the same roof but had an unclear familial relationship with him, was previously thought to be just a good cook, but now appeared to be a Taoist priest with culinary skills and the ability to catch ghosts.

  Not long after the phone was hung up, a Taoist priest who claimed to have the power to catch ghosts with his cooking appeared in Qin Fei's line of sight, riding a bicycle recklessly. After an emergency brake, the man threw his bicycle aside and stared straight at the small alley behind Qin Fei without looking at him. He took out a crumpled talisman from his pocket, muttered to himself as he approached the alley, and then shouted, causing the talisman to spontaneously combust.

  When the ashes of the talisman paper had all fallen to the ground, he finally let out a breath and turned his head to Qin Fei, saying: "It's done, it's been driven away."

  Qin Fei turned around to look at the man, who was his third uncle, Zhang Zhi Xin. He was a small old man with a goat beard, and he was now nervously examining Qin Fei's face, afraid of seeing any injuries on him.

  "Third Uncle, I'm fine," Qin Fei reassured him aloud.

  Zhang Zhi Xin still didn't feel at ease and circled around him once, muttering: "Don't always be so careless, don't think that those things will only follow you, the more powerful ones can directly harm people, it's just that you haven't encountered them yet."

  "I know, you've said it many times before." Qin Fei said as he walked to the side, picked up the bicycle that Zhang Zhixin had left behind earlier, and started pushing it forward. "Let's go. Let's head back."

  Qin Fei wasn't affected by the thing he encountered at night, but his body had been weakened since he fell into the river when he was eight years old. He caught a chill after running around outside in the cold weather that evening.

  It was just past nine in the morning, the sky was gray and misty, with rain threads floating in the air, carrying a deep autumn chill. Qin Fei walked on the sidewalk, holding a plastic bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

  This is a slightly off-center area of the city, and there isn't usually much traffic. It's rare for cars to get stuck in jams. But today, when Qin Fei turned the corner, he saw two private cars parked diagonally in the middle of the road near the intersection.

  However, it was not a traffic jam but an accident.

  The traffic police have arrived at the scene, and the owners of the two cars involved in the accident are explaining the situation to them. Many people nearby are stopping to watch. Qin Fei walked into the crowd and saw that the two cars in the middle of the road were severely damaged - both cars' front ends had been badly deformed, with one car's hood completely flipped over, revealing the engine inside. Qin Fei guessed that it was probably because there were fewer vehicles on this stretch of road, which is also relatively wide, and both drivers were speeding, combined with poor visibility due to the rain, resulting in a head-on collision that caused the severe deformation of both cars' front ends.

  His gaze shifted from the deformed parts of the two cars, and Qin Fei's line of sight fell on the car with its hood flipped open. The rear window of that car was rolled down from the inside, and at first, he saw a young woman looking out anxiously, then his gaze passed over her, and he saw a girl about four or five years old, leaning sideways against the unopened door on the other side of the window. She wore a red coat, with blood streaming down her forehead, and one of her pigtails had come undone.

  Qin Fei slightly furrowed his brow, this girl was obviously injured in the car accident. Although it's not unexpected that someone would get hurt given the state of the two cars, seeing someone bleeding from an injury is still not something to be happy about, unless you have a deep grudge against the person who got hurt.

  That young woman was probably the little girl's mother, so she looked anxious. However, soon the anxious expression on her face eased up. The sound of a police siren came from afar and approached, and before long, an ambulance with flashing lights appeared in Qin Fei's line of sight. The ambulance stopped near the two cars that had been involved in the accident, and medical personnel quickly got out of the ambulance, carrying stretchers towards the car that had flipped over.

  Watching the busy medical staff, Qin Fei stopped looking and some bloody scenes always made him feel uncomfortable, his temples throbbed with pain, Zhang Zhi Xin had told him that bloodiness would bring evil spirits, which could affect people like him whose souls were unstable.

  Just as Qin Fei was about to turn around and leave, he felt a cold wind with rain blowing past his ear, as if something had brushed against his face. Qin Fei reflexively shivered and looked around, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

  After a moment's pause, Qin Fei furrowed his brow, tilted the umbrella forward to block the rain, and stepped away.

  Cross the road at the intersection ahead and continue straight. At the corner of the next intersection, there is a two-story shop. The second floor is rented to two weirdos who opened a detective agency. The first floor is a bookstore called "Micro Dust", which is owned by Qin Fei.

  A year ago, after graduating from university, Qin Fei was full of ambition and wanted to start his own business, just like any other ordinary university graduate. However, his rare enthusiasm was immediately met with strong opposition from his family members - the reason being that he was not in good health, so he had to find a relaxed job with a suitable environment. Then, his elder cousin quickly converted the storefront that was originally intended for a restaurant into a bookstore. After hiring someone to manage everything, his elder cousin promptly packed him off to this bookstore.

  So when others graduated from university and started fighting for their ideals, Qin Fei became a small boss of a bookstore and began to live the life of a retired old man ahead of time.

  At the entrance of Weichen Book Bar, Qin Fei stopped and closed his umbrella. He pushed open the door and the copper wind chime above the door emitted a crisp sound. As he walked into the book bar, along the aisle separated by the bookshelves, before he even approached the counter, Shen Wei's head popped out from behind it, smiling and waving at him: "Boss, you're back."

  Shen Wei is the cashier little sister of Shu Ba, a pretty girl with an outgoing and likable personality, mainly responsible for the cashier work at Shu Ba.

  "I'm back, I brought you some snacks." Qin Fei said in a nasal voice, then turned around and put the umbrella on the umbrella stand next to the bar, took out the cold medicine from the plastic bag containing the snacks, and placed it on the bar. The remaining snacks were all handed over to Shen Wei. Qin Fei's physique was indeed very weak, like in this cold weather, Shen Wei, who dared to wear a thin shirt and run around, was still full of energy, while he, who always wore thicker clothes than Shen Wei, unfortunately caught a cold.

  Qin Fei was about to go to the counter to pour himself a glass of boiling water, and first took the cold medicine he had just bought. He turned his head and found that there was someone sitting in the reading area where he thought no one would be.

  That was a tall man, and although he was sitting on the sofa in the reading area at the moment, Qin Fei could still guarantee that he would be absolutely taller than himself if he stood up. His legs were crossed as he sat in the chair, looking elegant and casual. The man's profile looked somewhat cold and hard, but it didn't detract from the original charm of his face. He gazed down at the magazine in his hand, his eyelashes casting a faint shadow at the corner of his eye, exuding a deep meaning, yet with an irresistible allure that made people unable to look away. Qin Fei felt as if he was under the spell of that image, and after his gaze fell on the man's face, he couldn't tear his eyes away.

  However, Qin Fei's gaze didn't linger on the man for too long, just a slight pause before meeting the man's displeased stare. Qin Fei snapped back to reality, awkwardly withdrawing his gaze, but soon turned it back to the man again. This wasn't because the man was so good-looking that Qin Fei couldn't help himself - no matter how handsome he was, he was still a man, and didn't fit Qin Fei's sexual orientation. Qin Fei continued staring at the man simply because after seeing his full face, he suddenly felt like this person looked somewhat familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before.

  Just as Qin Fei was thinking hard, trying to recall where he had seen the man before, the man got up from the sofa, put the magazine back in its original position, and walked to the checkout counter to pay.