Lend Me Six Yuan

After telling himself again and again to have willpower, to hold on, to endure, Zhou You took a bite of the Poverty Ghost. The taste was indeed different from the Eye-blocking Ghost's. It had a flavor all its own. Another taste? No, no. One bite was enough. I'm a good student. I have to have perseverance. For the first time, fear showed in the Poverty Ghost's eyes. This person was eating it! The look Zhou You turned on the Poverty Ghost had completely changed, full of greed, and it frightened the Poverty Ghost into trembling without stop. The fortune-teller said I would face one more calamity even after death. It has finally come true. "I'll fight you to the death!" the Poverty Ghost roared. Its body gradually began to glow. Resentment twisted its face, and its voice was like an evil ghost that had crawled up from the ninefold netherworld to claim a life. "I curse you to be bound by a life of poverty, forever cut off from money!" Zhou You tensed the instant he heard it. This ghost was vicious! The curse turned into a mass of black light and touched Zhou You. It shattered at a touch. The curse had failed. Disbelief showed on the Poverty Ghost's face. This was a curse it had bought with its life. How could it fail? ... "Fellow Daoist Su, you're not going up to help Fellow Daoist Zhou?" Seeing Zhou You go upstairs alone, Kong Fan was quite surprised. He had seen the two of them arrive together and thought they meant to join forces against the Poverty Ghost. Su Tingxue shook her head. "He alone is enough. And only he can deal with it." As if. Su Tingxue had no wish to face the Poverty Ghost again. Yesterday, after only a few encounters with it, she had ordered two hundred thousand copies of a one-mao "Einstein's brain"! All of that money was what she had earned through hard work exorcising spirits. Lose any more, and she was of a mind to go see Einstein herself. Kong Fan was astonished by Su Tingxue's assessment of Zhou You. She actually thought Zhou You alone could deal with the Poverty Ghost? Su Tingxue was a Celestial Master of Mount Longhu, and even she had failed to deal with the Poverty Ghost yesterday. As he saw it, Zhou You was the same as himself, only just entered the Qi Refining stage. How could he be this strong? Was this the gap between a hidden great sect and a small sect like theirs? "Might I ask about the Carefree Sect Fellow Daoist Zhou belongs to..." Su Tingxue shook her head. "Don't ask. I don't know much either. It's only a small sect." Anyone who could go alone at the Qi Refining stage to deal with a new-era ghost must have extraordinary origins. How could he come from a small sect? Kong Fan caught what lay behind Su Tingxue's words. The Carefree Sect was a matter of great weight. Even a disciple of Mount Longhu was unwilling to say more. Even if it was a small sect, it was a small sect with a great expert presiding over it. Su Tingxue suddenly remembered that she had only given Zhou You the talisman and forgotten to teach him the incantation. Without an incantation to empower it, a talisman could seal only very weak ghosts. It was quite troublesome to use. The ghost had to be weakened until its soul grew dim before the talisman would take effect. She had better go upstairs and remind him. Just as she thought this, she heard footsteps in the stairwell. The sound-activated light came on, illuminating Zhou You's steady figure. "Done." "So fast." Kong Fan and Su Tingxue exclaimed at the same time. Kong Fan said it aloud. Su Tingxue's cry was silent. "But there's a problem. The Poverty Ghost wasn't sealed. I don't know why. It was ready to throw its life away just to curse me. Take a look for me." Zhou You was a little tense. "A curse?" Su Tingxue grew tense as well. She was the one who had asked Zhou You to come and help. If anything was wrong with him, she could hardly escape the blame. She hurriedly opened her Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye to examine his condition. If the curse was too severe, she would have no choice but to ask Zhou You to make a trip to Mount Longhu. Her master and the others would surely have a way. "Hm? You weren't cursed." Su Tingxue was puzzled. A curse laid by a vengeful ghost of the Poverty Ghost's level could not escape her Heavenly Eye. "I wasn't?" Zhou You was baffled. That couldn't be. The Poverty Ghost had gone all out. However you looked at that expression, it felt like it was about to do something huge. "Tell me carefully what happened at the end." Zhou You had no choice but to recount it all: how the Poverty Ghost had tempted him to eat, how he had been unable to resist and taken a bite, and how the Poverty Ghost had cursed him. Su Tingxue's expression turned odd. Hadn't he said, before they set out, that he wouldn't eat it? Forget it. That wasn't the point now. "From your account, the Poverty Ghost did curse you. As for why the curse didn't succeed... it should be because you're poorer than it is." Su Tingxue felt this was a new discovery. The Celestial Masters of Mount Longhu had dealt with ancient Poverty Ghosts many times and had run into their curses before. Some Celestial Masters dodged the curses. Some dispelled them. Immunity to a curse was something she was seeing for the first time. After all, no Celestial Master was poorer than a Poverty Ghost. Zhou You: "..." He didn't know why. He had clearly been immune to the curse, yet he couldn't feel the least bit happy. "Worthy of you indeed, Fellow Daoist Zhou. Content in honest poverty, joyful in the Dao, perfectly at ease, a body of righteous qi that fears no vengeful ghost's curse." Kong Fan gripped Zhou You's hand tightly. At last that damned Poverty Ghost was dealt with. He could move into his home with his mind at ease. Zhou You shot Su Tingxue a look. Look at someone who knows how to talk. Then look at you. Kong Fan asked again, "Shall I transfer the reward straight to you? What's your account?" Zhou You blanked. "What account?" Kong Fan blanked as well. "The Immortal Cultivation Forum account, of course." The Immortal Cultivation Forum. What was that? Zhou You and Kong Fan both looked toward Su Tingxue. Su Tingxue explained to Zhou You, "The Immortal Cultivation Forum is a forum only immortal cultivators can enter, where cultivators talk things over and exchange supplies. Fellow Daoist Kong posted the bounty for catching the Poverty Ghost on the forum." "When we get back tonight, I'll send you the link." Aside from the Eye-blocking Ghost job, which Mount Longhu had assigned as an obligation with no reward—and cases like that were few, since Mount Longhu was only one sect and did not have so many sources of news— the Immortal Cultivation Forum was the main place Su Tingxue looked for work exorcising spirits, and the pay was very handsome. Only then did Zhou You learn that catching ghosts came with a reward. "Transfer the reward to me first, and I'll pass it on to Fellow Daoist Zhou," Su Tingxue said. Kong Fan nodded. It seemed Fellow Daoist Zhou had never come into contact with the Immortal Cultivation Forum. What a well-hidden reclusive sect. They didn't even have the internet. Then he warmly saw the two of them into a taxi. "Fellow Daoists, we'll talk again when there's a chance." Su Tingxue had called the car. Kong Fan was now too poor to call a taxi himself. He could only see them off with warmth, as a token of regard. "Where are you headed? Shall I take you home?" Su Tingxue asked. Zhou You glanced at the time on Su Tingxue's phone. "At this hour, if I go back to school I can still make one more evening study period. Back to school." Su Tingxue had always thought of herself as a hardworking good student, until she met Zhou You. In the taxi. "Speaking of which, I just learned a new divine ability. Mind if I try it on you?" Zhou You had eaten only one bite of the Poverty Ghost and hadn't dared eat more. It was soon mostly digested, and he faintly sensed that he had gained an extra divine ability. "Sure." Zhou You said nothing more. He quietly watched Su Tingxue's eyes. Just as Su Tingxue was wondering what he was doing, she heard her phone ding. A text had come in. She opened it. A spending alert. "I bought something?" Su Tingxue opened Taobao and checked her orders. It showed she had just placed an order for hand-painted Mount Longhu peace-and-wealth talisman paper, 9.9 yuan a sheet. "?" A question mark slowly rose above Su Tingxue's head. Why would she buy something this fake? Even at a thousand yuan a sheet, you couldn't buy a real one. She tapped to return it. The return wouldn't go through. The Poverty Ghost's grudge still hanging on? No. Su Tingxue realized the reason and looked at Zhou You in astonishment. "You did this?" Zhou You nodded. This was a method he had grasped after eating the Poverty Ghost. Perhaps because he had eaten only one bite, he was still unskilled with the spell. Its effect was to randomly make the other person buy useless things. Su Tingxue was even more astonished. Wasn't this the Poverty Ghost's ability? How had Zhou You mastered it? What was going on with Zhou You? Eating a ghost was one thing, but he could pick up a ghost's skills too? Zhou You withdrew the spell. "You can return it now." Su Tingxue tried. Sure enough, she could. Su Tingxue stared blankly for a long while, looking at Zhou You as if he were a rare animal. Only after quite some time did she get out two words. "So amazing." The two got out at the school gate. The moment they left the air conditioning in the car, the stifling, humid heat hit them. Even breathing grew difficult. Cicadas buzzed on and on in the trees. Zhou You looked toward the school gate and felt that starting the third year of high school early wasn't such a bad idea. He could have so many rich experiences. "Can you lend me six yuan? I'll pay you back tomorrow." Zhou You reached into his pocket on instinct, then remembered he had spent all his money today. He had deliberately chosen to deal with the Poverty Ghost at night so he could spend every bit of today's twenty-five yuan in meal money. Three meals—morning, noon, and evening—and once dinner was finished it was spent exactly, not a fen left. "Why such an awkward amount?" Su Tingxue fished out ten yuan and handed it to Zhou You. "No need to pay it back." Zhou You smiled and walked straight to the auntie selling shaved ice at the gate. "Auntie, four bowls of the one-yuan-fifty shaved ice." "Right away." Before long the four bowls were ready. Zhou You packed three and handed the other to Su Tingxue. "My treat. Want a taste?" Su Tingxue had treated him to so many things. He couldn't afford to treat her to anything that expensive, so he could only start paying her back with something cheap. Su Tingxue saw the auntie selling shaved ice at the school gate every day, but she had never once bought any. In her view, only a bowl of ten-odd yuan deserved to be called shaved ice. This kind, at one or two yuan, was nothing but colored ice. Without quite knowing why, she took the shaved ice. Still, since Zhou You was treating her, there was no harm in a taste. "Average," Su Tingxue said after tasting it. The flavor wasn't as good as what she usually ate. But it was edible. After the two parted, he arrived just in time for the break before the last evening study period. "Sect Master, I kept your fifty yuan safe!" Nuomi flew over to claim the credit. Chu Xiaoyao opened her pencil case. The fifty yuan lay quietly inside, perfectly unharmed. "You really did keep it safe." Zhou You was surprised. This truly was an unexpected delight. He could pay Su Tingxue back tomorrow, and of the fifty yuan there would still be forty-four left. He held up the three bowls of shaved ice he was carrying. "I bought shaved ice. Want some?"