CH 95.2

“So apart from being a little noisier, there’s not really any dangers?” Pang Ziqi asked.

“Yes,” Bai Yuehu answered. It was clear that the meal Hu Shu had treated him to had moved him, causing him to speak more than normal, “I have never seen this type of creature before, but based on its aura, it shouldn’t be an evil creature.”

“When you say it’s not an evil creature, does that mean it won’t hurt anyone?” Hu Shu tried to confirm again.

Bai Yuehu nodded his head.

Lu Qingjiu could guess from the conversation between Hu Shu and Pang Ziqi the plan of action they wanted to take. As expected, the two looked at each other, then revealed blinding smiles.

“Since there’s no danger, then we can get its owner to take it home,” Pang Ziqi continued. “After all, we can’t keep leaving it in the police station, it would destroy the image of the police station.”

Hu Shu followed up, “Exactly, since he is an adult, he should be braver. It’s just a person inside a jar, at the most he just has one more mouth to feed.”

Pang Ziqi: “Then let’s get him to come reclaim it tomorrow.”

Hu Shu: “It’s decided then.”

Lu Qingjiu: …

He was stunned speechless by this act being played out by the two in front of him. It was even weirder that they were so practiced like a well-oiled machine, who knew how many times they would have experienced such matters.

Since the matter was resolved in this way, Hu Shu and Pang Ziqi couldn’t stop smiling.

Bai Yuehu continued to silently inhale his mutton skewers, from the expression on his face, he had already been entranced by this type of food.

The mutton skewers prepared by this restaurant were really not bad, Lu Qingjiu ate as he chatted, and before he knew it, night had fallen. Since it wasn’t Lu Qingjiu who was footing the bill, Bai Yuehu stretched the limits of his belly to eat more, ultimately finishing off the restaurant’s stock.

Luckily, Hu Shu and Pang Ziqi had already known of Bai Yuehu’s big appetite, and thus had come prepared. If not, the big basin of wooden skewer sticks would have given them heart attacks when they had to settle the bill.

“I really have to thank you for your help with that case last time.”

Pang Ziqi had a little much to drink, but upon being reminded by Hu Shu, expressed his thanks to Lu Qingjiu before they parted ways.

“You’re welcome,” Lu Qingjiu responded, “I wasn’t really much help, it’s all thanks to Yuehu.”

Hearing this, Hu Shu smiled while saying nothing. To tell the truth, although Bai Yuehu was the actual person helping out, without Lu Qingjiu acting as a go-between, things would not work out that smoothly. One glance at Bai Yuehu would tell you that he was someone who was hard to get close to, were it not for Lu Qingjiu, he definitely wouldn’t dare to follow-up with Bai Yuehu. Furthermore, after having worked for some time with Pang Ziqi, he had a few inklings about Bai Yuehu’s identity. Bai Yuehu was most definitely not human, but as to his true identity, Hu Shu had no way of confirming.

Before leaving, Bai Yuehu gave Hu Shu a look and offered for the first time since they became acquainted, “If you find yourself unable to deal with the matter of the jar, you may call upon me.”

Hu Shu was overwhelmed by the favour Bai Yuehu had granted him and immediately expressed his gratitude.

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“Let’s make some braised meat to eat,” Lu Qingjiu declared. “We’ll braise the pig’s trotters and also make some seasoned steamed pork.”

Xiao Hua had some logic when it said that one shouldn’t make their child suffer too much. Since his family’s fox spirit was akin to receiving riches, he should take care to maintain a good relationship, lest he was cheated away by someone preparing a meal of lamb skewers.

Going back to Hu Shu and Pang Ziqi, after Bai Yuehu personally reassured them that the jar had no danger, they finally relaxed. Hu Shu sent Pang Ziqi back to the dorms, and prepared for a good night’s sleep after cleaning up.

Unfortunately, just as he was lying down, his mobile phone started ringing. Hu Shu blearily picked up the phone, and saw that it was his colleague calling.

“Hey, wassup?” Hu Shu blearily picked up the phone.

“Hu Shu!” His colleague’s voice  floated across the phone, “What have you and Pang Ziqi brought back this time? I’m about to be deafened from the thunderous noises!”

Listening to those words, Hu Shu was momentarily shocked before reacting to his colleague’s words, rushing to say, “Calm down, you didn’t peek inside that room right?”

“I didn’t! Come quickly to handle that thing, I am about to go crazy here!”

Hu Shu rebutted, “I can’t do anything about this now, it has to wait till daylight tomorrow. How about you try this, block both of your ears for now…”

The two of them argued back and forth for quite a while on this problem. In the end, it was only after getting a promise from Hu Shu that he would definitely handle the matter come morning, that the colleague let Hu Shu off. Though from his tone of voice that was on the verge of a breakdown, one could only imagine how dire the situation was for those colleagues currently on duty.

Hu Shu slept soundly that night as soon as his head touched his pillow. The next morning, he energetically fetched Pang Ziqi to work. Pang Ziqi drank till he blacked out, so he was still feeling a little groggy when he followed Hu Shu into the police station, only to see dark eye circles under the eyes of his colleagues who had been on night duty and who were now fixing them both with unbelievably vengeful stares.

“Good…good morning?” Pang Ziqi didn’t understand what was going on, but as being stared made him ill at ease, he tried waving his hand in greeting.

“It is a shit morning.” The colleague painfully pulled out the paper balls that had been stuffed into his ears, “Quickly handle that matter, my ears are almost going deaf. Further the police station chief is almost here, if he hears this…”

“Yes yes yes, I’ll immediately handle this matter,” Hu Shu threw up both arms in surrender, since he didn’t dare let the chief know they had once again been involved with something troublesome.

He pulled out his mobile phone and called the person who reported the matter, asking him to make a trip to the police station.

The person who had reported this matter was a young lad called Chen Xuyang. Upon hearing Hu Shu’s suggestion, his first reaction was refusal. However, when Hu Shu threatened to deliver the jar to his door in the case he decided not to come, with no other choice, Chen Xuyang could only agree to come.

However it was clear that he was full of fear towards the jars, although he said that he would come, he dragged it out waiting as long as he could before arriving at the police station.

On the other hand, Hu Shu had proactively tidied up everything, packing the two jars together with the intention of having Chen Xuyang take them away.

“Can I not want them anymore?” holding the jars brought Chen Xuyang close to tears.

Hu Shu mercilessly said, “You can’t, this is your item, the people’s police can’t just accept anything from the public willy nilly.”

Chen Xuyang: “…”

Hu Shu continued, “Furthermore, these are your family heirlooms, you definitely can’t just leave them anywhere.”

Apparently, these items dated back to the Ming period, making their price not low. Of course, this was something that Chen Xuyang had said.

Chen Xuyang wrinkled his brows in thought as he stared at the jars asking, “Then can I donate them to the museum, they are actual cultural artifacts.” Otherwise he would have chosen to dispose of these items a long time ago instead of keeping them around till now.

“You can contact the museum to see if they are willing to accept your donation.”

Chen Xuyang brought up, “Then before the museum accepts them…”

“You should bring them home and look after the jars.”

“…”

Recalling the crying sounds that were as loud as thunder, Hu Shu hid his conscience while praising, “It is a good jar.”

Chen Xuyang’s facial expression spasmed, as if wanting to demand, if the jar was such a good jar, why would Hu Shu not help him look after it, instead forcing him to take both jars home.

Although he was extremely unwilling, seeing the professional look on Hu Shu’s face, Chen Xuyang was forced to bring the two jars back home with him. Once he left, the police station regained serenity, the thundering noises completely disappearing.

“What do you think about the jars yesterday,” Pang Ziqi massaged his temple.

Hu Shu used his hands to gesture that he was also unfamiliar.

Thinking about this a little after bringing the jars back home, Chen Xuyang didn’t dare to display them in the living room, instead leaving them in a dark storage room. His family had always been interested in these types of items – pottery, jade ornaments and other ancient items were all targets for their collection.

When their family had been at its peak, these ancient souvenirs were plentiful enough that they could fill up a few storage rooms. As their reputation declined, most of the large-ticket items had been sold, leaving only a few small items that he couldn’t bear selling off, keeping them as a memory.

This pair of jars had been left to him by his father.

The patterns on the jars were quite strange, being totally different from the patterns from the Ming dynasty, making it hard to sell as everyone assumed that they were shoddily made counterfeits. In actuality, the jars had been passed down over the generations. Even at their lowest point, Chen Xuyang had never thought of selling them, until the strange occurrences started happening in his house.

At first it was small animal corpses appearing inside the house, then there was someone who started walking about inside the room. These occurrences kept getting worse until one day when Chen Xuyang opened his eyes after waking up, he saw a person squatting on his sofa watching him with a green beady stare.

At that time Chen Xuyang fainted out of shock. Upon reviving, he immediately reported this to the police. However even after coming to his house, the police didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Just when Chen Xuyang was worried that the police would treat him as a crazy person, these two police officers very kindly helped take away those two jars, though this kindness… didn’t last that long is all.

Looking at the jars, Chen Xuyang was full of worries. Judging by the look of the jars, they didn’t even have a maker’s name, even the museum would probably not want them. However it would be such a waste to just throw them away.

“Aiya, what should I do with you…” Chen Xuyang reached out, full of bitter worry, to touch the jars, “If you really have some intelligence, please don’t scare me anymore.”

The jars didn’t move an inch.

Feeling a little foolish, Chen Xuyang sucked in a breath, switched off the lights and walked out of the storage room.

In the next few days, Hu Shu kept worrying whether Chen Xuyang would once again make a police report. Unexpectedly, the Chen Xuyang who had taken away the jars didn’t contact them again. When Hu Shu called to asked him about the situation, apparently after Chen Xuyang had brought the jars back home, there were no longer any strange occurrences as before.

“So it sounds like there’s nothing wrong anymore?” Hu Shu asked.

“Yes,” Chen Xuyang replied, “At the very least there’s nothing happening now.”

As he reached his flat building and pressed the elevator call button, Chen Xuyang continued, “Officer Hu, can you be honest with me, why were you so adamant about me bringing the jars away that time, is there anything not right about these jars?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Are you sure about that?”

In his heart, Hu Shu was crying out ‘I can’t really tell you that your jar kept crying when we brought it to the police station, to the point that someone’s ear were about to get inflamed’ and thus could only double down and maintain his position, “There’s nothing wrong.”

“Ok, in that case I’m about to get in the lift, so I’m going to hang up first.”

“Fine, if anything happens you can always call me,” Hu Shu ended the call.

Chen Xuyang stowed his mobile phone in his pocket and pressed the button for his floor. He watched as the lift rose up the floors, followed by a “ding” sound as the lift doors opened. Taking out his keys, Chen Xuyang unlocked the door to his house.

With a light creak, the front door opened. As it opened, Chen Xuyang was shocked by the sight that greeted him. Inside his house, the floors and walls were covered all over by dark red bloody handprints. There was also a human shaped thing squatting on the ground, roughly chewing something. The thing seemingly heard some movement and slowly turned around to look at him. As Chen Xuyang’s vision faded to black, his last image was that of those green beady eyes and that mouth full of sharp white teeth chewing on bloody meat.

Hu Shu, you bitch, you actually lied to me, Chen Xuyang used the last of his strength to angrily curse out Hu Shu in his heart.

Author’s note:

Lu Qingjiu: Today we don’t have many scenes

Bai Yuehu: En

Lu Qingjiu: we can go home earlier

Bai Yuehu: En

Lu Qingjiu: what should we do when we go home?

Bai Yuehu: let’s do Lu Qingjiu then

Lu Qingjiu: ?????