A Guest in a Ghost House Chapter 47 The familiar child

When I walked out of the gate of the community, there was a blackout notice on the bulletin board. I stopped to read it. It simply said: electric wires were on overhaul, power should be back up tomorrow.

I rushed to ghost house and arrived there just in time for work. When I entered the hall, there still weren't any guests. Sister Hua was scolding the beauties as if they had done something wrong the previous night.

I tiptoed from the entrance over to the bar, and sister Hua's head immediately turned in a way an average person could not hope to do, and spoke to me in serious tone, "Come here."

I was feeling a little afraid as I looked at sister Hua. Although I had become acustomed to the ghosts enough to stop fearing them, I was still very uncomfortable hearing sister Hua speak to me in that tone.

I walked over and stood in line with the female ghosts. Xiao Lingdang stood next to me and blinked towards me as a quiet greeting. I responded to her by greeting her with my eyes too.

Seeing me standing there in line with the others, sister Hua said, "What happened yesterday was a disgrace to the Fan house name...."

I was completely confused, since I didn't know what had happened. However, I decided it was best not to ask. I was not stupid enough to direct sister Hua's attention towards me.

Sister Hua did not smile until the first guest showed up. Her scolding quickly finished. I followed Lulu to the bar and asked in a low voice, "Lulu, what's going on here today?"

Lulu looked at the red jade bracelet I was still wearing and replied, "Last night Yan'er fought with the long gown man and caused the power failure."

I was stunned, I did not know how to respond. The secret of the bathroom had not yet been found, and here was a random fight affecting my life all of a sudden. After a moment of selfishly sulking about my rotten luck, I sighed and asked, "Why did they fight?"

I remembered that the long gown man kept a little white bug himself, the same way that Yan'er kept Little Pang, I assumed this meant he would have a good relationship with Yan'er.

Lulu hesitated, "Well, you can ask Yan'er. It's her business, after all."

I turned to look at Yan'er and saw her looking at and quietly greeting the guests as they came in, all with an indifferent expression. That expression made most of the guests keep their distance from her.

I decided I'd rather not ask her about the fighting that had occurred last night, she was clearly not in a good mood.

As the number of guests continued to increas, I started getting pretty busy myself. I had already gotten used to working in ghost house. In fact, I was quite good at it. My increase in tips was a good indicator of how much better I'd gotten. My hard working was praised and noticed by most of the staff in the ghost house, especially Lulu, Yan'er and Xiao Lingdang.

It would have been a very ordinary night until one guy came in. He had a gray face with two dark eye sockets and no eyes ball inside them. Blood was slowly flowing out from his eye sockets. Instead of a nose, there were only two holes in the center of his face. Here he was, the long gown man.

Yan'er, who was sitting still suddenly stood up and said in a cold voice, "Did you bring little Pang with you?"

The long gown man shook his head. Before Yan'er had a chance to get angry, he continued, "little Pang and little Shou were taken away by a little ghost who collected trash. I have been looking for a long time, but I haven't found them."

"A little ghost? What kind of ghost is he?" she replied.

"It's the same one who has been picking up garbage and appearing everywhere these past few years."

"Let's go and find this little ghost." Immediately after saying that, Yan'er floated into the air. She grabbed the man by the collar and took him out of the ghost house as if in a hurry.

Little Pang was gone? That was why Yan'er was so anxious, but who was little Shou? I suddenly thought about the worm that often moved in the eyes of the long gown man. It's name was probably little Shou.

Alas, they are both pet-lovers. I hope if they fight again later they don't cause another power failure.

As I saw them them float away, I felt a sense of relief, thinking the ghost house would be safe tonight.

As expected, everything went well in ghost house. I finished up my duties and on my way out, I cam across Lulu standing by the door way. She looked at the bracelet on my hand, and said, "Keep that bracelet safe."

I nodded and was about to ask Lulu what exactly the bracelet was for, but Lulu left before I could say anything else. I had opened my mouth, but didn't even get a chance to make a sound.

I walked out of the ghost house. I stood still and thought for a moment, then I began heading home. It was a quite night, nothing could be heard except for my footsteps. Quiet nights no longer scared me, instead they often made me feel a bit more relaxed after a busy day.

I walked slowly, at wandering speed, neither too fast nor too slow. I tried not to think too much about anything to take a break from the world, but then the sound of broken glass of woke me from my daydream.

I looked towards the direction of the sound, it had come from a huge trash can on the roadside. I realized my mind was playing tricks on me, it was not the trash can that was large, it was the boy rummaging through it that was small, making it seem bigger by comparison.

The boy reached his head into the trash can, I couldn't see his face from where I was standing. Judging from his thin arms and height, he appeared to be a 15 year old boy. Poor child!

Walking toward the child, I took out a little pocket money with the intention to give it to him. I did not have too much cash with me, since I took full advantage of the convenience of online payments.

He seemed to hear my footsteps and poked out his head to looked at me. He was muttering something that was not clear to me, but I knew he was muttering about something.

I slowly approached him, he leaned backward and flinched as reaction, he seemed a bit afraid. I got a peek of his face, half covered with oily hair. I smiled, passed the money over to him, "Don't be afraid, take the money."

He was still in whispers, as if something had not been found. I noticed that the child was timid and in low spirits. I reached my hand over to him further and said "Take it, get yourself something to eat."

He took the money and kept on muttering. He tried not to touch my hand when getting the money, he was such a polite child! It seemed everything was ok with him except for his muttering. I could faintly understand what he was muttering, he was repeating the words, "I haven't found it, I don't think I can."

He put the money somewhere for safe keeping and looked at me deeply, as if he was staring into my very soul. Then he put his head back into the trash can to search for something once again. I sighed and shook my head, continued to walk my way home. But even after a few steps, I couldn't stop thinking about his face, it seemed so familiar for some reason. I thought of his face all the way, which was familiar for some reason.

Not far away from where we had just met, I turned back to look at the child.

I couldn't help but ask myself, "Do I know that kid?"

Chapter end