86: Chapter 86 Deliveryman and Starving Ghost

Inside the guesthouse.

Empty plastic boxes of braised chicken rice were piled up in a stack on the coffee table.

Ayugu leaned against the sofa cushions without any grace, letting out a hearty burp uninhibitedly.

She rubbed her round belly and narrowed her eyes in contentment.

The silver collar hanging around her neck made a crisp clinking sound with her movements.

Having eaten and drunk her fill, her confidence returned.

The Miao girl nimbly crawled up from the carpet, patted the biscuit crumbs off her jeans, grabbed the ragged cloth bag containing dead bugs, and swaggered toward the door of the guesthouse.

"The meal is finished, and the money has been paid as compensation. This young lady won't play with you city people anymore."

She grasped the door handle and dropped a parting remark without looking back.

Lin Ye leaned back in the single-seat sofa with his legs crossed.

He lit a cigarette, held it between his fingers, exhaled a grayish-white smoke ring, and stared calmly at that door.

"Take care, and remember to turn left after going out. There's an overpass over there, and the cardboard boxes under the bridge are quite soft and provide good wind and warmth protection." Lin Ye said in a lazy tone.

Ayugu's motion of pulling open the door froze instantly.

She turned her head back with a vigilant look on her face: "What do you mean? This young lady has five hundred thousand in her card, who wants to sleep under the overpass!"

Fatty Wang sat nearby picking his teeth and grinned cheerfully: "Little sister, is this your first time coming down the mountain? Staying in a hotel in this city requires swiping an ID card. Judging by your look, you definitely don't have one. Plus with this outfit of yours, which proper hotel would dare take you in?"

"If you run into patrol officers checking temporary residence permits, they'll send you straight to a detention center to be locked up for ten days or half a month. Room and board are covered there, and you'll operate a sewing machine until your feet cramp up."

Upon hearing "operating a sewing machine", genuine panic flashed across the depths of Ayugu's eyes.

That was indeed the case. She had snuck out from the Ten Thousand Mountains without bringing any identification documents at all.

Thinking back on this period of time, she had always been sleeping in the open and eating in the wind, except for occasionally running into some shady inns that didn't require ID cards...

Ayugu bit her lower lip, caught in a dilemma, and finally could only trudge back to the side of the coffee table sluggishly.

"Then you... what on earth do you guys want to do?"

She covered the phone in her pocket, fearing that Lin Ye would demand that five hundred thousand back.

Lin Ye extinguished his cigarette butt and leaned forward slightly.

"When I do business, I value equivalent exchange. You understand Gu poison and can identify unorthodox evil objects. Stay and be a technical consultant for me, room and board included, plus your unregistered resident status will be resolved."

"And I'll also give you a base salary every month, with extra commissions for major jobs."

He pointed at the floor beneath his feet and offered his conditions: "During the renovation of the Funeral Shop, the second bedroom of this guesthouse belongs to you."

Ayugu's eyeballs rolled around twice.

This deal was a guaranteed profit with no loss, and being all alone in the city, she truly found it hard to move a single step.

She immediately puffed out her chest and cleared her throat: "Deal! But let's make it clear first, there must be a commission, otherwise I'm not doing it!"

Although Ayugu sounded tough on the surface, her gaze kept drifting toward various parts of the living room.

Then, she sat down on the sofa seemingly at ease, but actually hid her right hand in her wide cuff, gently twisting her fingertips, letting a few wispy strands of purple powder quietly scatter at the edge of the carpet.

"Don't set up hidden sentries here with me."

Lin Ye didn't even raise his head, smoke curling around his fingers.

"That is Frost Star's territory. If those little darlings of yours are eaten as snacks by her, I won't compensate you a second time."

Ayugu's expression stiffened, and she awkwardly withdrew her hand, secretly startled in her heart.

This man clearly hadn't turned back, yet it was as if he had eyes on the back of his head, able to accurately perceive the flow of Gu energy.

She pouted unconvincedly: "This is my occupational habit! There is reinforced concrete everywhere in the big city, and those little guys of mine easily get lost, so I have to leave some markers for them."

Although she said that, she still obediently reined in her thoughts.

Furthermore, she discovered that in this guesthouse, besides the scorching sun-like pure Yang oppressive feeling on Lin Ye's body,

the purity of the death energy radiating from the black-clothed woman who had hardly spoken all this time was frighteningly high.

According to the ancient records of the Miao region, that was the "Absolute Territory" possessed only by a Corpse King that had remained uncorrupted for a thousand years.

"Remember that."

Lin Ye flicked his cigarette ash and continued speaking.

"You are not allowed to casually cast curses on people on the streets. The city has the city's rules. If you break the rules, I can give you five hundred thousand, and I can also make you spit it back out."

Stared at by his cold gaze, Ayugu felt a chill run down her spine. She shrank her neck, completely losing her previous shrewish vigor, and honestly peeled a chocolate and shoved it into her mouth, mumbling vaguely: "Got it."

"Buzz buzz — The sky is blue, the autumn grass is fragrant, it is the paradise in my heart ~"

Right at this moment, the phone Fatty Wang placed on the table vibrated violently.

An incoming call display with the remark [Tenant Little Chen] flashed on the screen.

Fatty answered the phone.

A male voice carrying a heavy crying tone came out from the earpiece.

The voice was trembling violently, and the background noise was mixed with the howling wind and the electric current sound of an e-bike.

"Brother Wang! Help, Brother Wang! I've encountered something evil!"

Fatty frowned, pressed the speakerphone button, and placed the phone on the tabletop.

"Don't panic! Speak properly, tell me slowly, what evil did you encounter?"

Little Chen was a young fellow who delivered takeouts, usually renting a dilapidated subdivided room under Fatty's name.

He was honest and obedient, getting up early and working late every day just to earn a few more bucks in delivery fees.

Little Chen on the other end of the phone swallowed hard, his voice intermittent.

"I took an errand order tonight. A customer ordered one hundred yuan worth of barbecue and asked for it to be delivered to the abandoned machinery factory staff quarters in the southern part of the city."

"You have to know that place was demolished three years ago, and there aren't even streetlights. But for that fifty yuan errand fee, I bit the bullet and took the order."

"I rode my bike to that ruin, and the navigation showed it was right beneath my feet! I was holding the bag of barbecue, just about to call the customer. That bag suddenly became extremely heavy, dead heavy! I lowered my head to look, and the grilled meat skewers inside only had bare bamboo sticks left! All the meat was gone!"

When Little Chen reached this point, his emotions completely collapsed, and he wailed loudly.

"I was scared to death back then, and I rode my bike and fled, but..."

"But that bag is now hanging on my handlebar, and I can't untie it! And I've been riding for half an hour, the scenery all around is completely identical ruins. I've run into a ghost maze!"

After hearing Little Chen's narration, a trace of interest flashed across the depths of Lin Ye's eyes.

"Fatty, have him share his real-time location and send the coordinates to my phone."

Lin Ye stood up and grabbed the black coat draped over the back of the chair.

He looked at Frost Star, who was about to go to the refrigerator to get ice cream, and the newly hired Miao consultant Ayugu.

"Let's go. I'll take you guys to catch a thief who eats a dine-and-dash meal."

Night had fallen deeply over the old site of the abandoned machinery factory staff quarters in the south of the city.

This area had long been cut off from water and electricity.

A massive amount of construction waste left behind by the demolition had piled up like mountains.

Weeds grew rampantly, and as the wind blew past, the rusted tin signboards emitted a harsh swaying sound.

Lin Ye and his group followed the coordinates and stepped into this dead silence of ruins in the dark.

Ayugu walked in the middle of the group.

She pinched a small glass bottle emitting a faint green fluorescence in her hand to illuminate the road beneath her feet.

The bottle contained a few glowing mutant fireflies.

Leng Yue did not follow along; she was in the critical period of fusing with the source origin of the Drought Demon and stayed in the guesthouse in seclusion tonight.

But to deal with an imp of this level, taking these few people along was more than enough for Lin Ye.

"Brother-in-law, there isn't even a ghost's shadow here. Will that delivery driver have been eaten?"

Frost Star tugged at the corner of Lin Ye's clothes, looking around.

Lin Ye paused his footsteps, casting his gaze toward the back of a collapsed red brick wall ahead.

"He hasn't been eaten, but he's almost scared out of his wits."

He quickly walked around the brick wall.

A yellow food delivery e-bike had fallen into a pile of broken bricks.

A plastic bag was tightly wrapped around the handlebars.

The packaging boxes inside the bag were already completely empty, leaving only a pile of greasy bamboo sticks.

Little Chen hugged his head and shrank in the corner of the wall, his whole body shaking like a sieve, incessantly chanting the names of various deities in his mouth.

Hearing the footsteps, Little Chen raised his head in terror.

Seeing clearly that it was Fatty Wang, he immediately pounced over, hugging Fatty's thigh tightly, his tears and snot rubbing all over Fatty's trouser leg.

"Brother Wang! You've finally come! Just now, there was a shadow clinging onto my back all along, and it was chewing on bones! After it finishes eating the barbecue, it's definitely going to eat me!"

Lin Ye ignored the crying and howling Little Chen.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and golden-red light of Yang fire emerged deep within his pupils.

The Qi-Observing Technique activated.

Piercing through the darkness with his sight, Lin Ye clearly saw that floating above the backseat of the e-bike was a translucent giant outline.

That was a male ghost who was unusually obese.

He was wearing a loose vest, and his belly hung down in layers around his waist.

He was clutching a handful of illusory bamboo sticks in his hand, greedily licking the leftover cumin and chili powder on them.

Because he ate too hurriedly, droplet after droplet of dark gray illusory grease dripped down his chin.

This looked like it should be a starving ghost.

Its obsession lingered after death, wandering in the demolished ruins, using the illusion trick of ordering takeout to swindle offerings from the living.

Just as Lin Ye was about to make a move to disperse this gluttonous ghost, the "My Lord, Please Behave Yourself" System's voice crisp-popped in his mind.

"Ding! "My Lord, Please Behave Yourself" System prompt: Urban ghost story [Gluttonous Starving Ghost] detected. Times are developing, and the underworld also needs KPI evaluations. Please Host determine an action plan within three minutes and give this freeloader a little shock!"

The light screen unfolded with a swish, and three options jumped into view...