Secrets of the Secondhand Shop - Chapter 3

The guy in the checkered shirt suddenly cut the red string tied to my wrist—completely catching me off guard. Bai Yue had told me to follow the direction of the red string after completing the task, and now this unexpected twist had me internally screaming.

Damn it, man, couldn’t you have warned me?

“Seriously, bro, could you not be so efficient? Could you maybe tone down the genius level a bit!?” I cried out, anxiety bubbling up as I tried to think of any way to salvage the situation. Bai Yue, you unreliable bastard. You didn’t even assess the risks before tossing me into this. Now I’m probably screwed.

Right after cutting the red string, the checkered shirt guy raised his hand and jabbed the pliers at me. Luckily, I dodged in time. The tool slammed into the ground, sending up a spray of sparks. My heart nearly stopped. If that had landed, I’d be dead meat.

What now?

No way I could fight him head-on. I was too scrawny to win in a brawl. If I’d known it would come to this, maybe I should’ve started hitting the gym instead of relying on dumb luck. It was too late to regret now—I had to think my way out.

From the way he’d fought earlier, this guy was a total psycho—decisive and quick. There was no room for hesitation. Right now, my only chance might be that move. No idea if it’ll work, but it’s do-or-die. I didn’t hesitate. I shouted at him:

“If you kill me, you’ll never see that woman again!”

It worked. Checkered shirt froze like someone had hit pause.

He looked like he was weighing his options. Looks like I bet on the right horse.

“Let me go, and I’ll take you to her!” I followed up quickly, keeping it short and direct.

Still, he didn’t move. His body looked stiff, twisted unnaturally like some grotesque statue.

Darkness settled over us. All I could hear was my own ragged breathing. He stayed hunched, staring straight at me. The silence made every ache in my body stand out even more. I was flat on the ground, barely able to move. Time seemed to grind to a halt. If this bluff doesn’t work, I’m a dead man tonight.

Suddenly, he slowly straightened up. His lips moved, as if about to say something. Three words. Looks like I’m not doomed after all—

Just as I was straining to hear, a wave of heat hit my back. A red shadow burst from the ground beneath me, wrapping itself around my body in an instant. I looked down—an entire mass of red threads had surged up from below. They were alive, moving and squirming, tightening around me, pulling me downward. I was sinking.

Through the gaps in the red thread, I saw Checkered Shirt’s expression twist in shock. He scrambled to grab his pliers and stabbed madly at the threads. More and more of them surged up, until my entire vision was swallowed by darkness. I sank into an unknown abyss.

Then—suddenly—I landed in something warm. It felt like a pool of water, but bright. Almost painfully bright. The light pierced through me. Then I heard someone calling my name. The voice grew louder and closer.

I gasped and jolted awake.

Right in front of me was Bai Yue’s pale, pretty face. Smack—he slapped me across the cheek.

“Wu Qi! Wu Qi! Wake up!” Smack—another slap. He raised his hand again, but I grabbed his wrist.

“What the hell are you doing!?”

Seeing me awake, Bai Yue grinned shamelessly and pulled his hand back. Just seeing his smug face made my bl00d boil. I opened my mouth to curse him out for throwing me into that nightmare with zero warning, but before I could get a word out—

Splash

A thick, sticky liquid splattered across my face. A metallic, bloody smell hit me straight on.

“What the hell?!” I wiped my face, only to find my hands covered in sticky, bright red bl00d. I nearly threw up.

“Dog’s bl00d. Wards off evil,” Bai Yue said casually.

Given what just happened… maybe I do need some evil-warding. If that thing followed me home, it’d be a nightmare come true. Bai Yue knew how to handle stuff like this. He was the expert—I could only suck it up. But with that smirk on his face, I couldn’t shake the feeling he was messing with me on purpose.

I was still sitting on the bus, only now I was wrapped in red thread from head to toe. Probably Bai Yue’s doing to save me in the dream. He was now collecting the threads, muttering as he did so about how I’d managed to get the red string cut in the first place.

“You think I wanted that? That psycho just snip—cut it like it was nothing.” I checked my body. Thank god it was just a dream. I was still in one piece. If it had been real, I’d be in the ER right now—or the morgue.

I was about to give him a piece of my mind when Bai Yue gave me a look, telling me to shut up. At the next stop, we got off the bus. As we stepped off, I heard the driver mutter, “Freaks.”

The moment we got off, Bai Yue got straight to the point.

“What did you see?”

I told him everything—every weird thing I could remember. As I spoke, his face darkened. He raised his thumb to his lips—that was his thinking pose.

“So? Can I be saved?” I asked, nervous from the look on his face.

“Any other clues?”

Clues? I thought for a moment. When I was getting dragged away by the red threads, I think the guy in the checkered shirt said something… It was all so chaotic, I didn’t hear clearly, but it sounded like: Chen Xiaocheng.

Bai Yue and I guessed that Chen Xiaocheng was probably the name of that wide-eyed woman.

“What the hell is going on? Why did this happen to me? And who is that psycho guy?” I was full of questions.

But Bai Yue just waved them off, saying it wasn’t the time for explanations. He told me to go home. Considering my bloody, disgusting appearance, he wasn’t wrong.

By the time we drove back to my place, it was already 1:30 AM.

At my door, Bai Yue scattered a handful of rice, then shut the door behind us. He took my watch, wrapped it in a red cloth, and pressed it under a sharpening stone. After all that, he finally let out a breath of relief.

“You won’t fall asleep by accident tonight,” he said. “After seeing that thing, the boundary between you and it has been opened. The dog bl00d should’ve injured it badly—at least enough that it can’t do anything tonight. Now I can explain everything.”

“I warned you before—you have to find out where these secondhand items come from. Otherwise, you’re just asking for trouble.” He stared at me seriously. I had no excuse—I was definitely at fault.

Then Bai Yue finally began explaining what had just happened.

Like he’d said before, doing secondhand trades meant you had to be sure the items were clean. If someone had died in a violent or tragic way, you shouldn’t accept anything connected to them. Spirits often attach themselves to objects they loved in life. That attachment can curse the next owner.

And this time, I’d run into exactly that. The man had clearly died unnaturally, and now his spirit was stuck in the watch. Based on what we could piece together, he was probably obsessed with a woman named Chen Xiaocheng. The guy wouldn’t let go, even in death. That woman must’ve realized something was wrong with the watch and sold it—and I ended up being the poor sucker who picked it up.

When I called Bai Yue, he already suspected what was going on. That’s why he told me to meet him at midnight—zi shi, the hour when yin energy is strongest. That’s also when ghosts are most active.

Buses are common haunts for spirits, especially empty ones at night. Seats are meant for people, but when they’re empty, they attract all kinds of unclean things.

By taking me on an empty bus at midnight, Bai Yue had all the conditions lined up. When we met, he patted my shoulder—a traditional belief says people have two lanterns on their shoulders that protect their yang energy. By patting my shoulder, he dimmed mine. Combined with the cursed watch, it was no surprise I encountered the spirit inside.

I suggested we just copy what that woman did—sell the watch and pass the problem on.

But Bai Yue shot it down. If I’d sold it within three days of receiving it, I might’ve been in the clear. But I’d already had it for six days—it was too late to pass it off. And the method he used to stop me from falling asleep tonight? It would only work once. Starting tomorrow, we were out of options.

To solve the problem, we had to “untie the knot where it began.” In other words, we needed to find that woman. Only then could Bai Yue figure out how to exorcise the ghost from the watch.

So now, my one and only mission… was to find a woman whose name I only knew the sound of.

“What if I go back into the dream and ask that guy directly?” I asked.

“If you’ve got a death wish, sure,” Bai Yue said flatly.

He admitted he’d misjudged this one. He hadn’t expected the ghost to be that vicious. I’d barely made it out alive, and I hadn’t learned much. The ghost was now severely weakened, but it would take a long time to recover. Until then, I had to wear red underwear for protection and carry talismans to protect my yang energy. If I met that thing again now, I’d probably die.

So our only option now… was to investigate in the real world.

“Right—when I was trying to find out where the watch came from, the woman told me she bought it at Beijing S Department Store,” I said.

I looked at Bai Yue. He looked at me.

We both knew what we had to do next.