129: Chapter 129 New Business for Funeral Shops

Taiping Old Street, Lins Funeral Shop.

The front hall, renovated and upgraded at a cost of tens of millions, did away with the gloomy and oppressive paper-craft shop style of the older generation, adopting a minimalist industrial design instead.

Large expanses of fair-faced concrete walls were paired with matte black steel lines, illuminated by cool-toned spotlights overhead.

If one ignored the century-old lightning-struck wood array disks, cinnabar yellow talismans, and ancient copper coin swords displayed on the curio shelves,

outsiders would mostly mistake it for a high-end private art gallery.

At this moment, an object completely out of place with its surroundings rested on the reception tea table carved from a single piece of Phoebe zhennan wood.

It was a smart speaker that had been smashed beyond recognition.

The outer black engineering plastic casing was completely shattered, exposing the twisted copper wires and broken green circuit boards inside.

"Is it true?! Boss Lin!"

"Thank you... I've really been driven nearly crazy these past few days."

Zhao Xue's voice carried both exhaustion and pleasant surprise.

Lin Ye leaned back in a spacious leather swivel chair, his long legs crossed.

He twirled a dull, lustrous Five Emperors Corpse-Suppressing Coin in his hand, his thumb rubbing against the rust on the edge of the copper coin.

Sweeping his gaze twice over that pile of scrap metal, his tone was calm without a single ripple.

"Miss Zhao, rest assured. Once you cross the threshold of my Lins Funeral Shop, as long as your account balance is sufficient, even if the sky falls, I can prop it back up for you."

"However, I need specific details. Have a sip of tea first and catch your breath."

Zhao Xue gulped down a mouthful of hot tea; the scalding tea seemed to finally inject a hint of warmth into her cold body.

She took a deep breath, her voice carrying an unmistakable urge to cry:

"It started a week ago. Due to working overtime continuously, I suffered from severe insomnia, so I bought this smart speaker on a second-hand trading platform to play some white noise at night to help me sleep."

"The seller was an anonymous local user, and the price was very cheap, only fifty yuan."

"Everything was normal for the first three days. On the fourth night, around two in the morning, while I was half-asleep, I suddenly heard someone talking in the bedroom."

Speaking up to this point, Zhao Xue's pupils contracted sharply. Her hand holding the teacup trembled so violently that tea spilled out, dripping onto the Phoebe zhennan tabletop.

"It was a woman's voice... very mechanical, very rigid. She was right by my bed, reciting my ID number word by word."

"I was startled awake. When I turned on the light, there was no one in the room at all. Only the indicator light on that smart speaker was flashing, emitting an eerie green glow."

"At the time, I thought it was a system glitch or that it had been hacked. I immediately unplugged it and turned off the wireless router at home. Then I threw it into the trash can in the living room."

She swallowed hard, making a dry sound in her throat, her terrified eyes fixed on the ruined speaker on the table.

"But... on the fifth night, at exactly three in the morning, that voice came from the living room again."

"In the dark, it said to me with that mechanical voice: [Hello, Zhao Xue. The shroud you ordered has been placed and is expected to arrive tonight.]"

"I went completely numb right then. When I rushed into the living room to look, it wasn't plugged in at all! It didn't have batteries either!"

"It was just lying there alone among banana peels and waste paper, its green indicator light flashing. I broke down. I grabbed the ashtray from the coffee table and smashed it like crazy, beating it into the state it is now!"

"And then?" Lin Ye shifted into a more comfortable position and asked, "Did the package arrive?"

Zhao Xue covered her face, tears streaming down between her fingers, her voice near total collapse:

"It arrived... This morning, as soon as I opened the door, a huge black plastic courier bag was sitting at my doorstep."

"The recipient bore my name and phone number. I cut it open with scissors to look, and inside... inside was a set of bright red silk shroud, as well as a pair of paper-craft boy and girl figures painted with pale, ghostly smiles!"

"The dimensions of those clothes were custom-made exactly according to my height and weight!"

"I called the police. They checked the residential community's surveillance footage, which showed that at three in the morning, no delivery person came upstairs at all. That black courier bag seemed to appear outside my door out of thin air."

"The police comforted me, saying it might be a prank, and told me to go home and rest. But... but this afternoon, while I was working at the office, my phone received a text message."

Zhao Xue tremblingly pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked the screen, and slid it over to Lin Ye.

On the screen was a text message showing garbled characters for the sender.

The content was just a short sentence: [Your paper villa and hell money have been dispatched and will be delivered tonight at midnight sharp. Please check and receive.]

Lin Ye glanced at the screen without touching the phone.

He turned his head and looked at Leng Yue, who had been standing silently behind him.

Today, Leng Yue wore a black cinched trench coat, and beneath it, the neckline edge of the [Succubus Lace Defense Robe] rewarded by the system faintly revealed a hint of exquisite, fair skin.

Her tall, 1.82-meter frame combined with ankle-length silver hair exhaled a terrifying aura that warned strangers to stay away.

Those dark golden eyes held no trace of human emotion.

Sensing Lin Ye's gaze, Leng Yue lowered her head slightly, her cool long hair brushing past Lin Ye's shoulder.

She reached out a pale, flawless hand to grab at the air, then spoke in a clear, cold voice:

"Husband, this object is tainted with a dense aura of death and a fishy stench of water. It is no ordinary wandering ghost, but something that died a violent death."

As a Drought Demon, Leng Yue's perception of sinister energy was ten thousand times more precise than any high-tech instrument.

Hearing Leng Yue's form of address for Lin Ye, Zhao Xue froze for a moment.

Looking at this woman whose powerful aura made one afraid to look directly at her, and then looking at the overly young Lin Ye, she couldn't help but feel a tinge of doubt in her heart.

This kind of address and outfit looked like some weird cosplay no matter how one viewed it.

"Boss Lin... can you two really help me?"

"I checked the reviews of your Funeral Shop online. That exploration streamer Ms. Jiang said you were the most capable experts in Jiangzhou, which is why I mustered the nerve to come here. I truly have no other choice..."

Lin Ye withdrew his gaze and lightly tapped his fingers three times on the Phoebe zhennan tabletop.

"Miss Zhao, as I said, there is no need to doubt my professionalism. Since it starts haunting at exactly three in the morning, we still have plenty of time."

As Lin Ye spoke, he opened a drawer, pulled out a piece of yellow talisman paper, and dipped his fingertip into a bit of premium cinnabar.

Closing his eyes, his finger rapidly traced patterns on the yellow paper.

Pure True Qi from the [Pure Yang Dao Body] flowed along his fingertips and into the cinnabar.

The moment the dull red cinnabar touched the yellow paper, it faintly glinted with a flowing light of soft gold.

"Supreme Sovereign Laozi, grant me the spell to slay ghosts and bestow upon me divine incantations. Call above to the Jade Maidens to capture and subdue all misfortune. Swiftly as decreed!"

The instant the incantation concluded, Lin Ye flicked his finger.

The drawn [Yin-Detecting Talisman] fell lightly onto the shattered smart speaker.