I Rule Fortune-Telling Livestreams-Chapter 66: There’s a Ghost

Even without looking back, she could feel the young girl’s resentful gaze on her, like thorns against her back.

Shen Zhiyao sighed. "She’s a pitiable soul. She was horribly tortured in life, and now she can’t be reincarnated after death... She’s just trapped in the drum, forced to go wherever it goes..."

Everyone fears ghosts, but who ever considers that ghosts were once people?

And when people turn vicious, they are far more terrifying than any ghost.

A hundred years ago, the Tibetan Area was still a slave society ruled by the aristocracy. Nobles reveled in using human skin drums, made from human skin and bone, which they called "weapons"...

At first, people believed the remains of spiritually powerful High Monks possessed a special energy.

Many High Monks even had a dying wish to have their bones fashioned into Spiritual Artifacts.

But in time, the demand for Bone Artifacts grew, while the number of enlightened High Monks willing to donate their remains became vanishingly small.

Driven by profit, this practice gradually devolved into using the bodies of slaves to create Magic Artifacts. The human skin drum in Zhang Xiaoxue’s hands, for instance, was made from the bones of a slave.

These slaves were raised in temples from childhood. To keep them "pure," they were muted with poison and deafened by piercing their eardrums, and were taught nothing but the Buddhist Law.

Upon turning sixteen, they would be flayed and have their tendons removed, their bodies turned into Magic Artifacts.

In the eyes of the aristocracy, such Magic Artifacts possessed a spiritual quality that could ward off evil and ensure the family’s safety when kept in the home.

It was a strange sort of logic. They murdered, harvested bones, and flayed people; they should have considered themselves lucky not to be killed in retribution by a Fierce Ghost, yet they still hoped for protection.

Zhang Xiaoxue never imagined that a trinket she’d bought on a whim could harbor such a bloody history.

At the moment, she was in no mood to feel sympathy for anyone else. She just asked Shen Zhiyao, her voice trembling with fear, "Streamer, she doesn’t think I’m the one who killed her, does she? She’s not going to come after me for revenge, is she?"

Shen Zhiyao replied, "Don’t worry. She has no intention of harming anyone. Just treat her like you would any ordinary person."

Zhang Xiaoxue was on the verge of tears. "Even if she won’t hurt me, she’s still wandering around my room all the time! I’m terrified! Can’t you help her pass on? *Sob sob*... Streamer, please save me..."

Helping souls pass on was, of course, something Shen Zhiyao could do.

She said, "The Rebirth Mantra isn’t very effective when chanted through a screen. How about this: send me your address, and I’ll come to your place tomorrow to help her soul find peace."

"Thank you, thank you!"

Zhang Xiaoxue said, thanking her profusely.

With the three consultations finished, Shen Zhiyao ended the stream.

The moment the stream ended, the room plunged into a heavy darkness, and Zhang Xiaoxue felt a chill run down her spine.

Then it hit her. ’She’s not coming to perform the rite until tomorrow, so what am I supposed to do tonight?! There’s a ghost in my house watching me, and no one’s coming to help!’

Zhang Xiaoxue tried to flee the room, but the door wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard she tried to open it.

The sound of the drum echoed once more. "DUM DUM DUM, DUM DUM DUM!"

The once mournful drumbeat now had a light, cheerful rhythm.

But no matter how cheerful it sounded, it did nothing to ease her terror.

Without a second thought, Zhang Xiaoxue dropped to her knees and began to beg. "Oh, crap... Sis... you’re my big sister, please don’t scare me! I’m scared to death! Please, let me go, miss!"

The drumming stopped. For a long while, there was only silence.

Crouching with her hands over her head, Zhang Xiaoxue slowly opened her eyes. She found herself face-to-face with a pale, innocent-looking girl.

All this time, she had only ever seen the girl’s fleeting shadow from afar. This was the first time she had seen her face clearly.

The girl’s dark, lively eyes stared at her unblinkingly. The corners of her lips were turned up in a shy smile.

’Damn... she’s gorgeous... way prettier than me.’

Just then, the eerie drumming started up again. "DUM DUM DUM."

That snapped Zhang Xiaoxue back to reality. ’No matter how pretty she is, she’s still a ghost!’

She spent the entire night in terror, right up until Shen Zhiyao arrived the next day.

Seeing Zhang Xiaoxue’s dark circles, haggard expression, and overall listless appearance, Shen Zhiyao found it a bit odd. "That ghost soul isn’t malicious. How did you end up like this?"

Zhang Xiaoxue said plaintively, "She may not be harmful, but she sat at my bedside all night! She nearly scared me to death! I felt like my heart was going to stop!"

Shen Zhiyao just said, "Oh. I forgot you were afraid of ghosts. Had I known, I would have come sooner!"

Zhang Xiaoxue: "..."

’Isn’t that obvious?’

’Who in the world isn’t afraid of ghosts!?’

"Where’s the drum?"

Zhang Xiaoxue frantically pointed to the small drum lying in a corner of the room. She hadn’t dared to touch it.

Since it was daytime, the girl’s ghost soul was hiding inside the drum, not daring to appear.

Shen Zhiyao walked over and tapped the drum’s surface. "Why did you frighten her?"

The human skin drum just sounded twice. "DUM DUM."

Shen Zhiyao turned to Zhang Xiaoxue. "She was excited when she heard you say you were going to find someone to help her pass on. She kept watching you because she wanted to express her gratitude and affection. She says you’re a very kind young woman, and she wishes you well from the bottom of her heart!"

Zhang Xiaoxue was still a little afraid, but hearing that last part, she was overcome with a powerful sense of guilt.

Zhang Xiaoxue had never said a single word to the girl. Her only reason for wanting to help her pass on was to get her out of the house.

’And she actually thought I was a good person...’

’How cruel must the people she met before have been?’

’Then again, if it weren’t for people like that, how would she have been turned into a human skin drum in the first place?’

Recalling the girl’s innocent face from the night before, and then her past suffering, a pang of sympathy went through Zhang Xiaoxue’s heart.

"Miss Shen, please, help her find peace quickly! She’s so pitiful!"

Shen Zhiyao said, "There’s one thing I need to make clear first. My on-stream consultations are one thousand each. Off-stream services are charged differently."

Zhang Xiaoxue nodded. "I get it, I get it! Sister Li told me. Eleven million. She said it’s a fair price, a real bargain!"

Shen Zhiyao: "..."

The truth was, when Shen Zhiyao had helped Li Kerun, she had only intended to charge fifty thousand.

But she was misunderstood by Li Kerun’s assistant, who added three extra zeros to the payment. Li Kerun later gave her an additional million on top of that.

Shen Zhiyao had tried to explain the mistake to Li Kerun at the time, but Li Kerun just said, "As long as you have real talent, charging tens of millions is perfectly normal! Charging less would just make you seem low-class."

And so, when recommending Shen Zhiyao to this new client, Li Kerun had directly quoted Zhang Xiaoxue a price of eleven million.

With the price settled, she began the rite.

Since daylight was not ideal for helping a ghost soul move on, Shen Zhiyao had Zhang Xiaoxue draw the curtains.

The room grew dim, with not a sliver of light piercing the gloom. Shen Zhiyao began to chant the Rebirth Spell.

A golden light slowly began to emanate from the small drum. The light grew blurry before Zhang Xiaoxue’s eyes, until at last, it vanished completely.

When she "woke up" again, the room had vanished. She was standing on a boundless prairie, under a vast, azure sky, watching fine stallions gallop freely across the plains.

’This place... it’s so familiar, but I can’t remember ever being here...’

Then she remembered. This was the Tibetan Area she had visited once.

The beautiful grasslands there... it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.

The innocent, carefree young girl appeared on the prairie.

Her eyes crinkled with a smile. Dressed in white Tibetan robes with a round veil on her head, she danced endlessly across the prairie.

Zhang Xiaoxue murmured, "So beautiful..."