Now that I’ve left home and ventured out on my own, I realize that everyday life is not easy.

 

“You should rest first. I’m going to find the director and discuss something with him,” Zhong Jiudao said after entering the room and putting down his briefcase.

“Okay. The directors’ rooms are on the 15th floor, so they’re not on the same floor as us. Here, take the room key card,” Luo Huai said.

Luo Huai gave Zhong Jiudao the room key card because he was worried that without one, Zhong Jiudao would be unable to take the elevator. Luo Huai had only one key card, so after Zhong Jiudao took it, Luo Huai temporarily could not leave the room.

“Thank you,” Zhong Jiudao said.

“Don’t mention it. Come back and get some rest early,” Luo Huai said happily.

Zhong Jiudao did not actually go to the directors’ rooms. Instead, following the yin energy of the paper person, he arrived at Room 1401 on the same floor as Luo Huai and stood outside the door, constantly monitoring Qi Wanlian.

He employed the technique of sensory connection, which allowed him to link his five senses to those of the ghost servant under his control. However, by doing this, Zhong Jiudao’s own five senses temporarily became unusable, so he leaned against the door and stood there with his eyes closed.

Once his five senses were connected to the paper person, what Zhong Jiudao saw was not the female lead resting inside the room, but an illusory dreamscape. It seemed that Qi Wanlian did not want to reveal her identity as a ghost and intended to resolve this matter by entering a dream.

Doing so would allow the infant spirit to see its mother while also avoiding exposing her identity as an evil ghost. It was a solution that achieved the best of both worlds. However, this was not Qi Wanlian’s style.

The ghosts in their villa all had personalities that were utterly afraid of nothing more than peace and quiet. Back when Qi Wanlian possessed Pang Xinhao, she had never considered hiding her identity. During filming, she constantly went on about how “you humans” were this and that, and how “when we were alive” they had done this and that. She practically wished for everyone on the production team to realize that they were ghosts, become so frightened that their minds would lose control, and have all their life energy become food on the plates of the powerful ghosts.

If the human actors at the time had not mistaken their behaviour and words for acting in character, and if Zhong Jiudao had not suppressed them again and again, those ghosts would never have been able to endure it for so long.

At this moment, Qi Wanlian clearly had an opportunity to reveal her identity, yet she had chosen the gentler method of entering a dream. Clearly, this was not her usual style.

Thinking further about the fact that Qi Wanlian possessed two souls within one body, Zhong Jiudao vaguely guessed how she had died.

In the dream, Qi Wanlian was holding an infant whose gender could not be determined as she walked toward the female lead, Ji Pan. The scene resembled Ji Pan’s bedroom. She was sitting at a table, following a tutorial and painstakingly making a small pink pig by hand.

Ji Pan’s movements were clumsy, clearly showing that she had absolutely no experience with handicrafts. It was also unclear why she had suddenly had the whim to make such an ugly little toy.

Qi Wanlian stood behind Ji Pan, holding the child, and watched her for a while before asking, “Why are you making this?”

Because it was a dream, nothing strange happening was unexpected. Ji Pan stopped and unconsciously placed her palm over her lower abdomen before letting out a long sigh. “I’m not really sure. I suppose it’s because I’ve become so sentimental since getting pregnant.”

In the dream, she did not need to hide anything and could speak about the secret in her heart.

“I’m 25 years old this year, right at the peak of my career, and I’ve just taken on this major-investment xianxia drama. I really can’t stop now,” Ji Pan said. “Besides, I don’t really have any feelings for this child’s father. We were simply each getting what we needed from the other. It… came at the wrong time.”

Qi Wanlian sat beside her and gently stroked her long hair, offering words of comfort. “I understand. It cannot be called love, nor can it be called hatred. We simply were not fated to be together.”

“I understand all that in theory, but recently I keep hearing the child crying in my ears, and I keep hearing someone asking me why I didn’t want him. I feel terrible.” Tears slowly rolled down Ji Pan’s face.

“The child was merely used by bad people,” Qi Wanlian said, placing the child in Ji Pan’s arms. “Ask him yourself. Does he blame you?”

Ji Pan awkwardly took the child into her arms and gently touched his cheek.

The child, whose gender could not be determined, grasped Ji Pan’s finger, opened his eyes, and smiled at her.

The bitterness in Ji Pan’s heart was indescribable. Tears fell one after another, and she could not say whether they were tears of remorse or something else.

The child reached out and wiped away one of Ji Pan’s tears.

“Your bond has run its course. I’m going to take him with me,” Qi Wanlian said, taking the child back into her arms.

Ji Pan unconsciously reached out toward the child, only for Qi Wanlian to slap her hand away.

“If you truly cannot let go of this bond, then take good care of yourself. Don’t easily make a promise involving a life. Then, when the time is right, preferably after you have made sufficient mental preparations, reach out and take hold of this bond again. If he is still willing to wait for you, he will come find you then,” Qi Wanlian said to Ji Pan.

“Besides, he really likes this toy. Can you give it to him?” Qi Wanlian pointed toward the ugly little pig toy on the table.

“I made it while thinking about that child with whom I had no fate. If he can like it, that would be wonderful.” Ji Pan picked up the little pig toy and placed it in the child’s clothes.

“That’s enough,” Qi Wanlian said.

Seeing her turn to leave, Ji Pan hurriedly asked, “Who are you? Thank you for bringing him to see me.”

“Me? A ghost who is usually vicious but occasionally has a moment of kindness,” Qi Wanlian said with a smile before leaving Ji Pan’s dream with the child.

Zhong Jiudao immediately severed the sensory connection with the paper person. He abruptly opened his eyes and saw Luo Huai’s temporary assistant staring at him.

Zhong Jiudao: “…”

Assistant: “…”

Someone who had said he was going to stay at another hotel tonight had suddenly appeared at their hotel, and was now leaning against a female lead’s door with his eyes closed as though he were eavesdropping. Was this really Director Zhong, whom Luo Huai greatly admired and liked? And he was—he was even a graduate of a directing program? The assistant felt as though his entire mind was about to split apart.

With a stiff expression, Zhong Jiudao picked up a paper person and a little pig toy from the floor. Without any expression on his face, he nodded at the assistant, turned around, and walked toward Luo Huai’s room, opening the door with the key card.

Assistant: “…”

No way. Was Zhong Jiudao actually going to stay in Luo Huai’s room tonight?

The assistant lowered his head and glanced at the bedsheets and duvet covers he was carrying. A moment ago, Luo Huai had sent him a message asking him to bring over a new set of sheets and duvet covers. He was a conscientious assistant and had worked with quite a few entertainers before, so he knew that celebrities could be particular and that many things had to be prepared in advance. When Luo Huai moved into the hotel, the assistant had prepared several different four-piece bedding sets, partly because he was worried Luo Huai might dislike the hotel’s sheets and duvet covers.

Luo Huai was not particularly fussy, but of course, having new sheets was even better, so he had casually chosen a set and changed them. Zhong Jiudao was also staying at the hotel today, so Luo Huai naturally thought of changing his sheets for a new set as well. After all, the assistant still had some spares.

The assistant stood there in a daze for a while. After Luo Huai’s door had been closed for some time, he finally walked over and knocked.

Luo Huai opened the door. The assistant poked his head inside and cautiously entered. Hearing the “splashing” sound of water coming from the bathroom, his gaze involuntarily drifted in that direction.

Luo Huai said frankly, “It’s Director Zhong. I invited him to stay here. I happen to have two beds in my room, so there’s no need for him to spend money booking another room.”

“Oh.” Like someone sleepwalking, the assistant helped Luo Huai change the sheets. Seeing Luo Huai’s completely clueless, innocent expression, he finally could not help saying, “He just…”

“He just went upstairs to find the directors. Did you see him?” Luo Huai asked.

Assistant: “…”

He had seen him, but not on the directors’ floor. He had seen him outside the female lead’s room.

The assistant knew very well that relationships between men and women in the entertainment industry could be complicated. There were many things that, once seen through, were better left unspoken. As a mere assistant who wanted to do his job properly, he had learned to keep silent.

Just then, Zhong Jiudao came out of the bathroom after taking a shower. The collar of his pyjamas hung open, revealing his firm chest muscles. He looked as though he could fight ten people by himself.

The assistant swallowed the words he had been about to say, silently finished tidying Luo Huai’s bed, and then turned to leave.

Sigh, his conscience felt a little uneasy. But paper cannot wrap fire forever [NT: idiom, truth cannot remain hidden forever]. When Director Zhong’s true nature was exposed in the future, he would certainly patiently listen to Luo Huai’s complaints and comfort him properly.

Zhong Jiudao stared at the assistant’s departing back. In an instant, ten thousand ways to make the assistant keep quiet flashed through his mind.

A silencing spell, erasing his memories, having a powerful ghost enter his dreams to frighten him, ghost possession, extracting his soul and refining it into a living human puppet…

Ahem. The last one would not do. He had read too many books, and his knowledge had become rather jumbled.

After thinking it over from every angle, Zhong Jiudao ultimately decided to let nature take its course. Whether or not the assistant had seen the strange paper person and suspected that he kept ghosts, Zhong Jiudao no longer intended to pursue the matter.

After all, Luo Huai was the only human employee in their company. Working alongside the colleagues in the wallets, this secret probably could not remain hidden for very long. Sooner or later, it would be exposed.

Given Luo Huai’s constitution, once it was truly exposed, he would probably see ghosts every day, which was extremely unsafe. Before that happened, Zhong Jiudao had to work hard to make money, buy a piece of high-quality spiritual jade, and use it to refine an indestructible protective talisman for Luo Huai. That way, he would be protected from a hundred ghosts.

Ordinary jewelry could not withstand too much spiritual power. Like that previous pile of cheap pieces costing 9.9 yuans each, they would break as soon as yin energy and spiritual power exerted even the slightest force on them. But high-quality jade was different. Jade itself contained spiritual energy, and once properly set, it was both sturdy and beautiful. Unless someone took the wrong path and ended up entering the underworld, no matter how powerful a ghost might be in the human world, it would be unable to shatter the finest spiritual jade.

It was just a pity that jade suitable for bearing Zhong Jiudao’s spiritual power was far too expensive. Even the lowest-grade piece could fetch enough at auction to make dozens of Fallen Home, and Director Zhong simply could not afford it at present.

The Zhong family, on the other hand, had quite a lot of jade. Zhong Jiudao’s ability to inscribe talismans and create magical artifacts had been developed using that pile of jade at home. Back then, he would make one and toss one aside, having absolutely no idea how valuable these things were. He had lived an extremely extravagant life.

Only after leaving home and venturing out on his own did he realize how difficult everyday life could be.

Zhong Jiudao lay on the bed Luo Huai had made and quietly waited for a while. When he heard Luo Huai’s even breathing and knew that he had fallen asleep, he quietly got up and performed a ritual to help the infant spirit pass on, while also burning the little pig toy.

Only after sending off the infant spirit did Zhong Jiudao finally rest at ease.

Before falling asleep, he vaguely thought that it was time to update his short-video account. He could use this period to film several videos about ghosts from the old society encountering the modern era, taking the comedic horror route.

The several horror and bizarre short videos he had made previously had been very popular, and the account already had more than a million followers. People were constantly sending him private messages asking whether he accepted advertising deals, while some fans asked him to livestream. Zhong Jiudao had ignored every single one of them.

He knew that accepting advertisements and starting livestreams could earn a great deal of money, but he was a director with principles and ideals. The first advertisement on his short-video account had to be promotion for Fallen Home. As for all other advertisements, no matter how much money they offered, they would have to make way for his film.

For the sake of this ideal, Zhong Jiudao had to keep the account popular. He could no longer think of any new tricks for horror and bizarre content recently, so he might as well make a series about the past and the present.

When making short videos, one had to constantly maintain a sense of freshness.

Zhong Jiudao fell into a deep sleep. After he had fallen asleep, the wallet on the desk bounced vigorously several times, and one of the paper slips even desperately poked its head out of the wallet.

Unfortunately, Zhong Jiudao had drawn a talisman on the wallet. No matter how much the paper slips tumbled, they could not escape from that tiny wallet.

Luo Huai had no idea that he had spent the entire night resting together with all his coworkers. The next day, he put on the knotted cord and went to work.

Zhong Jiudao had originally used the excuse of entering the production team to drive out the evil spirits. Now that the matter was settled, he should have left. But he had already agreed to help the assistant director, and it would not do to go back on his word, so he continued working alongside Luo Huai. It was also a good opportunity to learn.

It was absolutely not because the production team had all the necessary equipment, and because no one dared enter the set at night due to the haunting, making it convenient for Zhong Jiudao to borrow the production equipment to shoot short videos. It absolutely was not for that reason!

After several days of working during the day and filming short videos at night, the first video of the new series was finally completed. That evening, Zhong Jiudao opened his short-video account to upload the video. He had not posted anything for several days, and his message inbox was already about to explode.

Zhong Jiudao had not disabled private messages. He still wanted to see what netizens thought of his work so that he could take in suggestions from more perspectives.

He patiently went through them one by one, ignoring the advertising and business cooperation requests as well as meaningless comments such as “Hahaha” and “Update soon,” while writing down the useful suggestions.

Suddenly, Zhong Jiudao saw a comment from an account with tens of millions of followers saying that they wanted to meet the qipao beauty in the video. Zhong Jiudao looked closely and discovered that the person was actually Ji Pan.

It was truly a small world. While taking a break from filming, Ji Pan had been browsing short videos and happened to come across Qi Wanlian’s video. The more she watched, the more the woman resembled the person who had helped her emerge from her psychological trauma in her dream, so she could not help sending her a private message.

Ji Pan had a faint feeling in her heart that she owed this woman a debt of gratitude that had to be repaid. Even if she could not repay it in this lifetime, she would have to repay it in the next.

After sending the private message, Ji Pan logged in every day to check her messages, but she waited and waited without receiving a response.

Until tonight, before going to bed, she opened the short-video app again, unwilling to give up. At last, she saw a reply: “The actress is an artist under our company, so it is not very convenient for her to meet outsiders. May I ask what Ms. Ji wants with her? I can pass the message along.”

Ji Pan immediately replied: “Are you her manager? It’s nothing in particular. I simply have a favourable impression of her and wanted to ask whether there is anything she needs help with. As long as it is something I can do, I will do my best.”

Seeing the reply, Zhong Jiudao understood that Ji Pan had become entangled in a karmic connection and therefore had to repay the debt. Although Qi Wanlian had no intention of asking for anything in return, once one had formed a karmic connection with a powerful ghost, it was best to repay it as soon as possible. Otherwise, carrying it into the next life would cause trouble.

After thinking for a moment, he replied: “She has just finished acting in a film, which has just been submitted for review. When it is released, Ms. Ji could help promote it.”

Ji Pan was a currently popular young actress with enormous online traffic. If she helped promote the film, she could attract a considerable amount of attention, saving them a large sum in promotional expenses.

“Just submitted for review? It will take at least half a year to get approval,” Ji Pan replied.

“Does it really take half a year?” Zhong Jiudao asked. In his impression, his mentor’s films had always passed review very quickly.

“Countless films are submitted for review every year. Half of them cannot pass review and never get released, while some spend a whole year waiting without even being reviewed. Do you have any connections in this area?” Ji Pan asked.

Zhong Jiudao replied: “I don’t think so.”

Ji Pan replied: “Tell me the name of the film. I’ll give it a try.”

She had been noticed by a major director and cast as the female lead in a film when she was only sixteen, and she had just won the Best Actress award the previous year, so she did have some connections.

In particular, Ji Pan could not help touching her lower abdomen. The father of that child should also do his part for the child.

Zhong Jiudao replied: “Fallen Home. I’ll have to trouble you, Ms. Ji.”

--

The author has something to say:

Celestial Master Zhong Jiudao: A family fortune worth tens of thousands of gold, fine clothes and exquisite food, tossing jade ornaments around as toys.

Director Zhong Jiudao: A poor, shabby director, recruiting actors through brute force, buying gifts through Pinduoduo (NT: e-commerce platform, especially known for very cheap products), and even mooching off his own artist just to stay at a hotel.

 

Translator : DarNan