Chapter 30 The Baby Ghost
I could
feel my anger quickly rising from my stomach to my
throat.
Damn,
this beggar was turning up his nose at me.
I pointed
at this beggar and scolded him: “Damn, I understood you were poor and gave you
some money, but you thought it was beneath you. Well, I will give you
nothing. And
now get out of here, or else, I will hit you.”
But this
beggar clanged his iron rod, singing and laughing: “One two three four. My
brother, don’t get so angry, when I said I didn’t want your money, I didn’t
mean your money was beneath me. It was said, ‘even though you have gold and
silver mines, if you sit idle and eat, in time your whole fortune would be used
up’. So could I come and make a living here?”
This
beggar wanted to find a job in my studio?
I looked him
up and down, asking curiously: “How could you become a beggar if you wanted to
work?”
“Hah,
several years ago I earned some money, but now I used it up and I have to find a
job and work.” The beggar pointed at my studio and told me that this was a good
place for him to work since it belonged to Yin.
I drew in
my breath: “Were you also in this field?”
“Well,
more senior than you.” The beggar smiled and said: “Shall we go inside
and have a
chat?”
“Please.”
I thought that
this beggar might be a master so I invited him in.
This
beggar was sitting in my studio, complaining and whining. He said I had good
skill that could bring me a fortune, but I just stayed here.
I told him
I didn’t want to earn too much money and I would never do things that violated
the rules and went against my conscience.
When I
said this, the beggar immediately stuck up a thumb and said: “You are a good
guy with great skills, but you are not impetuous. What a rarity.”
Then he
said he wanted to be my membership consultant, or the receptionist of my
studio.
I stared
at him and asked: “You seem to be a capable person, so you still want to work
for me?”
“Why not?
I had been wandering for a long time, and now I want to rest.” This beggar said
and laughed.
I asked
him how much did he want for his salary.
He raised
one finger.
“One
thousand?” I asked.
He shook his
head and said: “Ten thousand.”
I got
surprised by this beggar when he demanded such an exorbitant price.There were
indeed membership consultants in the big tattoo studios, but they were usually
paid one thousand and eight hundred, some bosses paid higher, at two thousand
and two hundred per month.
This
beggar asked for ten thousand.
I shook and
told him this price was too much and I couldn’t afford it.
He said
he was worthy of this price, and he wouldn’t work for me if it was lower than
this price. Otherwise, he would go to another place to work.
He was
about to leave when I pulled him back.
I was
thinking that I hadn’t been in this field for long and I needed to find a
master to follow. Though Liu the Sixth could help me when he was free, he came
from privilege and wealth and only helped me occasionally. On the other hand, I
could make faster progress in this field if this beggar was really a capable
and experienced person.
I just
calculated, I could earn about twenty or thirty thousand Yuan per order,
and it was not so expensive to spend ten thousand per month to hire this person
for guidance. If
he was not so good, I could fire him after a month. In any
case, ten thousand was not so much, or not so little.
Thinking
about that, I gritted my teeth and said to this beggar: “Ten thousand is OK.”
“Generous.”
The beggar smiled and stood up. He asked me whether I could
provide him with a change of clothes. Otherwise, nobody would consult
him if he looked like that.
I didn’t
have any spare clothes, I only had clothes for working. So I pointed
at the wardrobe and said that there are several
working out fits and told
him to change first.
The
beggar smiled to me and said: “My name is Feng
Chunsheng, and you?”
“Yu
Shui”, I replied.
“Brother
Yu, nice to see you. Let me have a bath first and I’ll talk with you later.” He
made an obeisance to me and went into the bath room.
After the
bath, he wore the working clothes. Then I could tell this beggar was about a
forty or fifty mid-aged man. He looked decent, but with a bad
smell.
Feng
Chunsheng patted the working clothes and told me it was the first time he got new
clothes in the past ten years. Damn, what he said might nearly make me burst
into tears.
After he
cleaned up his clothes and intended to chat with me, someone came knocking
at the door.
I turned
back and found a well-dressed, beautiful lady at the door. She was
in the grey silk tunic, white-washed jeans, and Asics sports shoes which looked very clean.
It was
Bai Ling.
“Xiao
Ling, here you are.” I said hello to her.
Bai Ling
smiled sweetly. She came in, sat on the tattoo couch and said hello to me. She said,
“Shui, I got into trouble, so could you help me?”
I was
about to ask her what happened when Feng Chunsheng pulled me back to
the door and whispered, “This girl is unusual.”
Nonsense,
normal people
never came to my shop for a Yin and Yang tattoo.
I gave
him a supercilious look and was about to enter the room.
Feng
Chunsheng pulled me back again. He pointed at Bai Ling secretly
and said: “Look at that girl; she’s hunchbacked.”
I glanced
at Bai Ling and found that she was indeed bending a little, but not so much, and you
couldn’t tell if you didn’t observe carefully.
However,
common people were always slouching a bit. How could she be straight all day
like a soldier?
Feng
Chunsheng told me, “It is normal
like that. Have
you ever seen a
hunchbacked person who kept their neck straight?”
Then I
looked at her again, and found it unusual. She had an unusual hunchback, where she had a
straight neck but bent back and waist. Well, how could I
describe it? It was just like a person with a hunchback who tried to look at
you horizontally.
Then Feng
Chunsheng said, “Actually there is something on the two shoulders that caused
this hunchback. Usually it is baby’s ghost; it is too heavy and bends the back.”
When a
baby became a ghost,
it always rode on the person’s neck. It was
terrible.
I had
goose bumps
all over hearing what he said. Then I asked: “Really?”
“You just
go and ask her.” Feng Chunsheng said: “You shouldn’t lower the price. It should
be more than forty or fifty thousand.”
I hired
Feng Chunsheng as a membership consultant, but now he was my consultant.
However,
I didn’t fully believe what he said, so I went to
Bai Ling and asked: “Xiao Ling, what happened to you recently?”
She was
about to tell me but stopped when she saw Feng Chunsheng.
I waved
to Feng Chunsheng.
Feng
Chunsheng was a decent person; he came to me for a cigarette and
went out when it was lit.
I guessed
she might tell me something, so I just closed the door.
When I
closed the door, it was almost a confined environment. Then I
asked her: “What happened?”
Then Bai
Ling talked. She
told me she always felt something on her shoulders, so she took up
a mirror
and found she was stooped slightly, while that was not the case before. So she
tried to look up, but she could still feel something on her neck and couldn’t
get it off.
“Have you
see a doctor?
It may be a problem of the cervical
spine, lumbar spine, or shoulder joint disease. It’s said
the people working in the city will always suffer from this problem,” I told
her.
Bai Ling
shook her head and told me that she did see the doctor and did an X-ray and
an MRI, but it all showed that there was nothing wrong with her
shoulders. However,
she still couldn’t straighten up.
The
doctor also suggested that there was nothing wrong with her
shoulders, but they looked abnormal, so the doctor told her to go to the
psychology department and check whether it was because of too much
psychological pressure that caused the muscle tension and lead to the hunched back.
Bai Ling
opened her hands and said: “I went to the psychology doctor, but he couldn’t
find any reasons, either.”
This was
a rather strange issue.
Then I
remembered what Feng Chunsheng told to me. He said
that there was a baby ghost on Bai Ling’s back.
I tried
to ask her: “Xiao Ling, have you ever committed any sins…on a
child?”
“Child?
No, no, actually, I like kids very much.” When she mentioned the
child, she had blood-shot eyes and touched her belly subconsciously.
I saw no
reaction from her soI asked again: “So have you ever committed any sins against
babies?”
Hearing
the word ‘baby’, Bai Ling paused and stood up. She asked
me: “Who told you about this? Who was it?”
I didn’t even
know what Bai Ling was talking about. She backed away and her legs hit
the tattoo couch. She flipped over and crashed down to the floor from the
tattoo couch.
I went to
her quickly: “Are you ok?”
“Leave me
alone, leave me alone.” Bai Ling pushed me away. Then she pushed the door open
and unsteadily ran away.
“Oh, why
don’t we chat again? You left so early.” Feng Chunsheng called out from the
door as he smoked.
Bai Ling
didn’t respond. She was running very fast and even dropped a shoe, but
she didn’t mind and madly ran on with only
one shoe.
Damn, why
was she so sensitive when I mentioned the word ’baby’?
Feng
Chunsheng came in and opened his hands: “So the business was over just like
that? Wow, you have poor business negotiation ability.”
I told
him I didn’t know why Bai Ling ran away when I mentioned the word ‘baby’.She looked
very embarrassed.
Feng
Chunsheng slapped his thigh as if he wished iron could turn into steel and complained: “You
are such a green horn. Didn’t you remember what I had told you? This girl carries a baby
ghost on her neck, which means she had hurt a baby and felt
guilty, and that’s why she was disturbed by the baby ghost. So you were just
scaring her when you mentioned the baby.”
“Was it
true that she became a hunchback because there is a baby’s
ghost on her neck?” I asked Feng Chunsheng.
Feng
Chunsheng opened his hands: “That is the explanation in this field,
but nobody has ever
seen the real ghost. Who knows? Anyway, it must be so, according to her
reaction.”
I shook my
head and sighed: “Why did you say she offended the baby? Did you mean an abortion?”
“You
don’t need to guess when you don’t know, or else I will know how bad you are.
You see, during an abortion the baby is not fully formed yet, so there would be
no soul, and it is only dead flesh, so this couldn’t be an abortion.” Feng
Chunsheng sat on the tattoo couch and smoked freely, then he gossiped: “You know…this
woman must be very lewd.”
“How do
you know this?” I found this man was such a gossiper, and he was very wretched
too, since he had a different focus compared to other people.
“Well,
let me tell you whether this is a lewd woman or not.” When he was talking about
this, he looked so happy, he sat up quickly and wanted to share his experience with
an animated expression.
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