Wandering Spirit Tavern

Dawn was fast approaching, and the ghosts on the streets had not yet dispersed. Everyone was anxiously staring at the unassuming tavern.

At the entrance of the tavern, two little ghosts were perched on the door, trying to catch any sound from inside, but it was eerily quiet.

Inside, Feng Bei was sitting next to Lin You, facing the two owners of the tavern. Everyone was solemn, and no one spoke.

Everyone, both living and dead, was waiting for Feng Bei’s decision.

But Feng Bei had just heard a story from the tavern owner that had overturned many of his understandings, and he was struggling to process all the information, so he couldn’t make any decision yet.

The story went like this.

Long ago, two young Taoists were following an old Taoist priest in their mountain training. One day, feeling that they had learned enough, they decided to go down the mountain to experience real demons and ghosts and to test their skills.

So, they sneaked down the mountain without their master’s knowledge.

The world below was indeed full of demons. The first village they arrived at was tormented by a malevolent ghost. Everyone lived in fear-the ghost would possess people when they let their guard down and then control them to harm their own families. A girl was controlled by the ghost and killed her entire family, including her parents, grandparents, and her ten-year-old brother.

The two young Taoists decided to rid the villagers of this menace and set out to capture the ghost.

However, despite all their knowledge, they couldn’t find a single ghost in the village.

The junior brother thought that the ghosts had fled because they were afraid of them.

But the senior brother suspected there was more to it. The possessed girl was strange, her words jumbled-one moment she claimed to remember nothing after being possessed, the next she described being possessed as excruciatingly painful and that she had killed her relatives against her will.

The senior brother decided to talk to the girl again, but before the conversation, he placed a talisman on her and told her it was a true word talisman from Taoism. Anyone who lied with the talisman on would slowly rot away until they died in agony.

Of course, the talisman wasn’t real; it was just an amulet smeared with itching powder. Eventually, it would cause slight itching regardless of whether the wearer lied.

This itching terrified the girl.

Just when the young Taoists thought they might uncover some truth, the girl was possessed again-this time by a real ghost. The ghost took control of her to try to kill the two Taoists. Using all their skills, they finally forced the ghost out of the girl and sealed it into a wine jar.

They then decided to destroy the jar to disperse the evil spirit for good.

The girl collapsed upon hearing their plan, desperately trying to stop them, and then revealed the truth.

Indeed, she had been willingly possessed to kill her family because the ghost had promised to help her. She had been mistreated by her family from a young age, and when her arranged marriage fell through because the groom unexpectedly died, her family blamed her, calling her a jinx. Her situation became unbearable, and when she was about to be killed by her family, she encountered the ghost, which had a similar fate and took pity on her. The ghost possessed her to kill her family.

Afterward, to help her escape blame, the ghost possessed several others in the village, making it seem like the work of a malevolent spirit.

The two Taoists were at a loss after hearing her story.

But the girl’s confession angered the villagers, who wanted to execute her.

The Taoists ultimately decided to save her, leading to a violent clash with the villagers.

In the end, the junior brother was killed by the villagers while protecting the girl, and the senior brother escaped with her to a small town called Luo’an, where she started a new life. The senior brother built a Taoist temple on the mountain.

One day, the girl encountered the spirit of the Taoist junior brother, who, burdened with guilt over her situation, hadn’t descended to hell but wandered the human world in agony. During this time, he met many other spirits, each with their own sorrows, wandering together.

The Taoist, the girl, and the junior brother reunited and decided to establish a tavern to shelter wandering spirits.

The woman and the junior brother managed the dealings with the living and the dead, respectively, while the Taoist took responsibility for protecting the tavern, overseeing transactions and the behavior of the spirits to prevent any untoward incidents that could cause trouble for the tavern.

Thus, the tavern operated for a hundred years. As the woman and the Taoist neared death, all three owners became spirits and decided to enter reincarnation together. They sought successors for the tavern, which led them to Lin You and Feng Bei.

Lin You was to take over the woman’s role, while Feng Bei, whose master had always seen potential in him despite his rebellious nature and flaws, was believed to be capable of becoming the new protector of the tavern. It all depended on whether he was willing.

After hearing the story, Feng Bei was initially in disbelief. His kind and benevolent master had secretly been a protector of evil spirits and, in his youth, had devised such cruel interrogation methods, yet he always criticized Feng Bei for having a “crooked mind.”

But these were all things of the past, and there was nothing Feng Bei could do about them. Now, he faced the dilemma of whether to abandon his hard-earned achievements to become this thankless protector of spirits.

Biting his finger, a habit from his nervous childhood, Feng Bei pondered the problem.

Seeing him bite his hand, the old man across (the male tavern owner) smiled warmly, “Still haven’t kicked that habit, huh?”

Feng Bei then realized his fingers were in his mouth and quickly withdrew them, wiping off the saliva on his clothes, “Why didn’t my master tell me himself?”

“Your master had completed his duties and went to the netherworld without any attachments.”

Feng Bei scoffed, “Leaving such a mess behind without attachments, okay then. If I agreed to help you, would you seek revenge?”

The tavern owner replied, “No, we respect your decision. But before he left, your master divined that all the Feng Shui arrangements you made previously were flawed. Soon, all your clients will encounter problems and come looking for you…”

Feng Bei mockingly said, “Damn, you are tough.”

Naturally, Feng Bei didn’t believe it was a problem with Feng Shui. After the recent story, he was more inclined to believe it was his master’s underhanded tactics; he never showed up because he was too embarrassed.

As the sky began to brighten, Lin You and Feng Bei drank the tavern’s wine, officially becoming the new owners of the Wandering Spirit Tavern. The wandering spirits outside, hearing the news, dispersed peacefully.

The female tavern owner died at dawn, bidding farewell to both her mother and “aunt.” Lin You was about to take over, ready to start serving wandering spirits and to begin the search for the third tavern owner.

But before work began, Lin You had one more thing to do-to test whether she could be lucky without her mother’s blessings.

“Change three hundred yuan.”

In the town’s only commercial street, at the only arcade, surrounded by children, Lin You stood in the middle, inserting coin after coin into the claw machine, failing again and again.

Not far away, Feng Bei was also playing a game. When troubled, he would play shooting games, imagining his adversaries as people he disliked and shooting them down.

Usually, he would be the one getting shot, like today, when he imagined being killed by his master over a hundred times, so frustrated he wanted to smash the machine but too cautious about the cost.

Just then, he noticed a crowd gathered around something and went to check it out, squeezing through to find Lin You, in pajamas and disheveled hair, frantically playing the claw machine, without any success.

“Want me to try?” offered Feng Bei.

“Pay for it yourself.”

“Don’t be so stingy.”

While they talked, Feng Bei took Lin You’s coins and tried his luck at the claw machine. He failed, tried again, and still failed.

Then, they took turns, each trying once, but neither succeeded. Soon, they were down to their last coin.

Both stared at the coin, hesitant to use it.

“Why are we so unlucky?” Lin You was drained.

Feng Bei tried to comfort her, “It’s not us; it’s this machine. Each machine is allocated a certain amount of luck by heaven, which must be replenished over time. Before us, this machine’s luck must have run out. We’ve accumulated quite a bit; next time, we’ll definitely have better luck.”

“Next round’s on you,” Lin You handed over the last coin to Feng Bei.

“No, no, let’s save the good luck for you.”

As they were insisting, a girl with a shaved head snatched the coin: “Let me try.”

The girl inserted the coin, skillfully manipulated the joystick, shaking it back and forth, suddenly pressed the grab button, and the metal claw spun and latched onto a plush toy, using the spinning momentum to fling the toy to the machine’s exit.

The girl retrieved the toy and handed it to Lin You.

“There’s a knack to winning at claw machines. I’ll teach you next time,” the girl said before walking away through the crowd, leaving Lin You and Feng Bei standing there, dumbfounded.

After a while.

Lin You asked, “Hey, can you predict when she’s going to die?”