Feng Liu revealed a lecherous smile and suggested, "Young Master has played with countless women of all kinds, but have you ever had a girl dressed as a ghost?"
Master Yuan felt a tickle in his heart—this was truly something he had never tried before!
So, the next night, Master Yuan brought two lackeys and sneaked over to the old tailor’s house.
It was a dark and windy night, and the old tailor’s place was in a remote, deep alley.
Master Yuan felt a drumbeat of unease in his heart, wondering if he wouldn’t be playing with a girl dressed as a ghost, but instead end up truly encountering a ghost.
If that happened, wouldn’t his young life end here?
Master Yuan stepped on Liu Cai’s shoulder, climbing up the wall, feeling the chilling wind; the place was entirely an abandoned courtyard, nothing like a widow’s residence.
As he looked at the overgrown weeds in the yard, Master Yuan cursed silently and ordered Liu Cai to let him down.
Outside the wall, Feng Liu asked why Master Yuan didn’t climb in. Master Yuan, feeling annoyed, said, "Inside is even more desolate than the nunneries we’ve been to before, where’s the pretty widow? I really shouldn’t have believed your ghostly talk, coming here to suffer in the middle of the night..."
Hearing this, Feng Liu hurriedly said, "Master Yuan, how would I dare lie to you? I scouted in advance with you yesterday, and heard the sound of someone working a loom from behind the wall. How could there be no one?"
Master Yuan hesitated for a moment, then said, "I’ll wait outside. You two go check it out. If there’s really a girl, open the door from inside, and I’ll come in!"
Feng Liu and Liu Cai, seeing no other choice, climbed over the wall into the old tailor’s courtyard.
Creeping around the front yard for a while, Liu Cai said suspiciously, "Liu, did you hear wrong? This doesn’t seem like it’s inhabited."
"Could I have really heard wrong?"
Feng Liu frowned. Just as the two were unsure, a sound suddenly came from the back courtyard: someone working a loom.
Feng Liu, hearing this, said happily, "Didn’t I tell you? The girl must be hiding inside, secretly weaving."
"Who weaves in the middle of the night? Could there really be a ghost?"
"Don’t talk nonsense. Would you rather believe in ghosts or believe in the silver Master Yuan gives?"
Money emboldens men. The two hesitated only briefly, deeming it disrespectful to the silver if they wavered.
As they got closer to the back courtyard, the sound of the loom became louder and clearer.
The weaving room’s door was ajar, not completely closed.
The two removed their shoes and tiptoed barefoot into the room, where only the moonlight streamed through the door and window cracks.
"Liu, Liu, this... this isn’t right, is it?" Liu Cai was the first to come to the loom, but he pointed at it, stammering, unable to say a coherent word.
"What’s not right?" Feng Liu stepped forward to have a look.
He saw the loom operating with no one there, only a dust-covered stool bathed in moonlight.
At this moment, Xu Qing, observing through their perspective, also found the situation odd.
He had never heard of the weaving technology in Yong dynasty advancing to the point of being fully automated.
At that very moment, everyone feeling puzzled felt a cold, eerie touch on the back of their necks, as if someone was breathing on them or a feather brushing against them.
Instinctively, Liu Cai and Feng Liu turned around.
There was nothing there.
"Scared me to death."
They breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back, fixing their eyes on the loom.
There, before the self-operating machine, somehow stood a fierce-looking woman, facing them with a smile.
In the funeral shop, Xu Qing stood up abruptly, nearly flinging the corpse he was holding away.
This was his first encounter with a ghostly face appearing so close in his perspective!