Wait, Don't Eat This (GL) - Chapter 1

The early summer weather was already starting to feel a bit hot. Xie Chi walked out of the train station with the crowd and spotted her disciple’s son from a distance. The boy was holding a sign high with Xie Chi’s name written in red, bolded, and underlined.

Xie Chi sighed in relief and walked toward him. When she got there, the boy still hadn’t recognized her. Xie Chi pointed to herself, then to the sign.

“Little Junior Uncle!” He hadn’t recognized her at all! He’d expected Xie Chi to be wearing her robes and carrying the famous Demon-Slaying Sword. He never would’ve thought his Little Junior Uncle would be in a white T-shirt and ripped jeans. She looked so young, just like a college student.

“Little Junior Uncle, why aren’t you carrying the Demon-Slaying Sword? I didn’t recognize you.” The boy scratched his head awkwardly. After all, this was his first time meeting his high-ranking junior uncle who was so young.

Xie Chi looked a little wronged. “They took it at security. My senior brother said he’d get it for me and mail it to me later.”

The boy: “…”

Oh, right. The Demon-Slaying Sword is a controlled weapon. It’s completely normal for it to be confiscated at security.

Xie Chi didn’t mention that the sword was unsharpened, and the security staff thought she’d bought a tourist souvenir. Otherwise, she might have been detained, too.

“Okay, I have a thunder-struck peach wood sword. I’ll get you one to use for… to prevent your hands from feeling empty and uncomfortable,” the boy said, almost saying “self-defense” before he remembered his junior uncle’s track record and quickly changed his words.

“Thank you.” Xie Chi nodded and said, “My master told me to come down the mountain and help you with some kind of live stream? I don’t really understand. Could you explain it to me in detail?”

Knowing that his Little Junior Uncle grew up on the mountain and didn’t understand these things, the boy quickly explained, “It’s like this, Little Junior Uncle. Not long ago, there was a big incident in the capital that we couldn’t handle right away. The stories about ghosts spread pretty widely. Someone from the Taoist Association contacted us to help put on a show and debunk the superstition.”

But aren’t they the ones who promote superstition? Xie Chi was confused.

“It’s a live ghost hunt, but we have to make everyone watching believe that ghosts don’t exist and that all supernatural occurrences are man-made. You can think of it like that ‘Approaching Science’ TV show. Our peers guided that whole series,” the boy coughed and said, “We have to. It’s for a harmonious society.”

Xie Chi finally understood. She was pretty quick on the uptake. “I get it. When do we start?”

“No rush. You should rest first, Little Junior Uncle. We have to contact the streaming site first.” The boy took Xie Chi outside to his car and quickly opened the door for her.

As Xie Chi got in, she asked, “Will anyone even watch it?”

“Yeah, they will. There are a lot of people who love watching those live streams where people go adventuring in haunted places. The website is promoting us, and besides, you’re pretty, Little Junior Uncle. You might even become an internet celebrity,” he chuckled. “You’ll be famous in no time!”

They had the internet on the mountain, but Xie Chi rarely used it. She only had a vague understanding of the terminology, so she asked her grand-nephew questions. Slowly, she began to understand what a live stream was.

She had assumed they chose her to come down the mountain because she was the best at “transcending” evil spirits among her age group. After a while, she realized they picked her because she was young and pretty and didn’t look like a ghost hunter, making it easy for people to believe she was a fraud.

Xie Chi was speechless for a moment, but she didn’t get angry. She opened her small bag and took out a box.

The box was black and made of an unknown material. It was so dark that the sunlight seemed to be absorbed by it. It was a rectangle, shaped like a coffin, a bit shorter than a normal person’s forearm.

She bit her finger, and a drop of blood landed on the box and was quickly absorbed.

The boy, who was driving, glanced over and gasped quietly. “Little Junior Uncle, are you raising a ghost?”

“I found it on the road,” Xie Chi said, gently caressing the box. Her eyes softened a bit. “My master never let me have pets, but now that I’m down the mountain, no one can stop me.”

The box was, in fact, a miniature coffin. Inside, there was a palm-sized jade. The jade looked like it was soaked in blood, with tiny red specks. She found a ghost on the road that was on the verge of fading away. Its soul was so weak it couldn’t even maintain a physical form, so she was using the jade to nourish it. She fed it blood twice a day. She figured it would only take about a month for the soul to become solid again.

Jade can nourish a soul, but not just any jade has that effect. The jade used for this must be a single piece without any holes, or the spiritual energy would leak out and the effect would be minimal.

The boy didn’t dare say anything, only thinking to himself, Little Junior Uncle is something else. Other people raise cats and dogs, but she raises a ghost…

There were many in their line of work who raised ghosts, but they usually did so to command them. He had never heard of anyone raising one as a pet.

After feeding the ghost its daily dose of blood, Xie Chi held the box for a while before reluctantly putting it back in her backpack. They had arrived. The boy was quite wealthy; he lived in a detached villa with a garden bigger than most people’s houses.

He parked the car, and as he and Xie Chi walked toward the house, he noticed her looking around. He smiled. “Do you like it, Little Junior Uncle? If you do, I’ll give it to you.”

“No need,” Xie Chi shook her head. “I’m going back to the mountain when this is over. What would I do with a house?”

“You can just leave it here. If you like cats and dogs, you could raise a bunch of them here and hire someone to take care of them,” the boy said, leading Xie Chi inside. He didn’t have a housekeeper, but he did have two young ghosts living there who were more useful than any human servant.

It was a shame ghosts and dogs had a hard time coexisting, or he’d have a ghost take care of his dogs, too.

Xie Chi patted her bag. “I can’t take care of too many. My senior brother said that you have to take care of your own pets, or there’s no point.”

The boy couldn’t help but be amused. He found her serious demeanor endearing. He led her to a room on the second floor that his house-ghosts had already prepared.

“You must be tired from the train ride, Little Junior Uncle. Do you want to rest or eat first?”

Xie Chi had only brought a small bag. She set it on the bed and took out the coffin-like box, placing it on the nightstand. “First, bring me an incense burner and some offerings. I’m not hungry right now. I’ll eat later. I want to take a bath and sleep for a bit.”

“Okay, I’ll have someone bring over an incense burner and the rest. Please rest well, Little Junior Uncle.” As a young man, he didn’t feel it was right to stay while Xie Chi was about to bathe, so he quickly left.

About two minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The door creaked open, and a female ghost came in carrying an incense burner, candles, and some offerings. She timidly asked, “Should I set this up for you?”

Xie Chi nodded. “Set up the incense burner and offerings. I’ll light the incense myself. Then you can go.”

The ghost quickly stepped forward and arranged the items. As soon as she finished, she heard a muffled thump, like someone tapping the table from underneath. As the ghost leaned over to see, a hand suddenly shot out of the box on the table. With its pale fingers and dark, gray nails, it grabbed the ghost’s wrist and began to forcefully drag her into the box.

The ghost shrieked and tried to pull away, but the hand’s strength was uncanny. She couldn’t break free and was slowly being dragged into the box. Just then, Xie Chi grabbed the hand’s wrist. “That’s not for you to eat!”

The hand paused for a moment before quickly retreating into the box. The female ghost was terrified, but not because of the hand—she was terrified of Xie Chi.

So… that thing was going to eat her? It doesn’t even spare other ghosts? How cruel!

“You can go now.” Seeing how frightened the ghost was, Xie Chi patted her shoulder to comfort her. “I’ll burn you some paper money to calm your nerves another day.”

The ghost didn’t dare stay a moment longer. She ran out of the room, so fast she forgot to open the door, and instead, just slipped through the crack.

Once the ghost was gone, Xie Chi stroked the box and said earnestly, “Didn’t I tell you before? You can’t just eat things randomly. Why won’t you listen?”

The box wiggled, and a single finger poked out, scratching at Xie Chi’s palm. Her eyes softened. She bit her finger again and dropped two more drops of blood on the box. After the blood was absorbed, she said patiently, “Eating randomly will give you a stomachache. Once you’re feeling better, I’ll find you something else to eat, okay?”

After soothing her little darling, she took a bath. Afterward, she went back to the table, took out a pen and paper, and prepared to write a letter back home.

After all, this was her first time raising a ghost, and she didn’t have much experience. She figured she’d ask the experienced people back home for advice.

After she finished the letter, she burned some paper money to pay a young ghost to deliver it. In two or three days, her senior brothers and other fellow disciples at the sect would receive her letter.

Three idiots are better than one wise person, as the saying goes. With so many people at home, there had to be a few who were good at raising ghosts. Surely they could give her some pointers?