Inside the old wooden box, there was a long bamboo tube, on which a puffy and yellowed woman's face seemed to float. It wrinkled grotesquely and grinned at me, scaring me nearly to the point of throwing the whole box away. But in the blink of an eye, the visage mysteriously disappeared.
I wasn't sure what it was, and it took me quite some time to gather the courage to touch it again. When I picked it up, I saw a line of characters carved on the bamboo: "Ink for Yin tattoos, a ghost!"
Another line on the other side read: "Date of death: April 8, 2019. Cause of death: drowning. Betrayed by her boyfriend and pushed into the water by her best friend, she drowned. Her resentment did not dissipate and turned into a water ghost."
Is this... a ghost? There was a water ghost hiding in this bamboo tube!
I was so frightened that I hastily put it far away, not daring to look at it again. The ink for Yang tattoos uses the blood, ashes, and corpse oil of the dead, while Yin tattoo ink uses ghosts—it seems this ghost in the bamboo tube was the ink my grandfather used.
I knew how to tattoo with Yin, but I had never dared to use it. The ghost inside that bamboo tube was something I couldn't bear to touch again, as I felt an inexplicable terror of ghosts.
Apart from the ghost-containing tube, there was also a black box inside which had a key and a piece of paper with addresses written on it.
There were two addresses: one for the tattoo shop in Zhonghai City and one for Zhao Donglai's home.
My grandfather said Zhao Donglai had lost his daughter to him as a potential wife, and they were twins to boot. The thought was quite pleasing, though I wondered how plausible it was.
Twins, the dream of every man!
After indulging in daydreams for a while, I started packing to leave my old home for Zhonghai City. It was a large city, six hours away by bus.
Bored on the bus, I began to reminisce about my grandfather's words. The most perplexing was the instruction to kill my parents if they came looking for me, then burn their bodies. It was outrageous; I'd been hoping for their return after years of absence, not their death.
I couldn't make sense of it, and tired, I drifted to sleep.
When I woke up, we were almost at Zhonghai City. After getting off the bus, I found the tattoo shop according to the address.
The tattoo parlor was in a dark alley, two stories high, but it was very old. Its crumbling, moss-covered walls showed years of neglect. The signboard at the entrance read "Ghost Tattoo," but even that looked perilously worn, swaying in the wind and seeming as if it could collapse at any moment.
The lock was so rusty it took ages to open. Considering the dilapidated state of the house, locking it seemed pointless—it looked like a haunted house that no one would willingly visit.
I spent the first day cleaning just so I could sleep; otherwise, everything was covered in dust. The next day, I freshened up the exterior walls and made some simple renovations. I decided to use the first floor for tattooing and live on the second floor.
The main issue was money—I had used up almost all of it. I hadn't found a dime of my grandfather's money, not even a bank card or passbook.
Standing at the door waiting for business, I didn't even attract flies, let alone customers. The alley was so secluded that no one passed by during the day, though some women of the night wandered through after dark.
Just as I was about to give up hope, my WeChat rang. It was a message from Xu Meng, a girl from my village. She asked where I had moved because she couldn't find me for a tattoo.
Overjoyed, I hurried to send her the address.
It turned out Xu Meng was also in Zhonghai. Lucky for her, she had inquired with folks back home. In no time, a Honda stopped at the entrance of the alley, and a fashionable woman emerged.
"Hey, Hǎozi, why did you move to this ghostly place?" Xu Meng walked in, her high heels clicking indignantly against the pavement as she lamented the poor conditions compared to even our rustic village.
I invited her in, served tea, and made sure to be welcoming—I couldn't let this first business opportunity go awry.
Soon, Xu Meng asked where my grandfather was. I lied, saying he was on a trip. After taking a few sips of her tea, she asked if I knew how to ghost tattoo.
Excited, I slapped my thigh and confidently asserted that I could—it was a family trade.
Ordinary tattoos cost a few hundred to a few thousand yuan, but ghost tattoos started from tens of thousands. This was going to be my first big deal, and I could hardly contain my excitement.
Xu Meng asked skeptically, "Hǎozi, can these ghost tattoos really ward off evil?"
I assured her they could, describing the many functions of ghost tattoos—from exorcising evil, changing one's luck, ensuring safety, to making money, prospering the household, and even enhancing love life. You could get one tattooed no matter the circumstance.
Xu Meng looked at me, half believing and half doubting, and remarked on the seemingly miraculous nature of ghost tattoos. She warned me against overexaggerating.
Chest thumping with confidence, I promised a full refund if there were no results, assuring her of no deception. Then I inquired what troubles led her to seek a ghost tattoo because it's generally not done without reason.
Xu Meng didn't answer directly but kept glancing outside. She even asked if something had followed her here—not a person, but a "thing," which bewildered me.
I shook my head and said there was nothing following her, she had come alone.
Relieved to hear this, she confessed that she recently felt like a "dirty thing" was following her and sometimes saw a man standing behind her in the mirror, but he would disappear when she turned around.
One evening, she used the restroom without turning on the light and shockingly saw someone squatting on the toilet, which vanished when the lights came on. It scared her so much she didn't dare go to the bathroom that night.
Her story was undoubtedly unsettling. Had she encountered something supernatural? I asked if anything unusual had happened to her lately.
Sure enough, Xu Meng mentioned a recent incident where a man died in her bed. Since then, she felt as if someone was following her, with strange occurrences happening often.
She had a tough upbringing; her father was a gambling addict. When she was ten, he was mutilated for debts and died not long after. Her mother, unable to sustain her family in the village, remarried a fifty-year-old man who was just as abusive.
That old man didn't spare Xu Meng when she turned eighteen, destroying her youth. Her mother forbade calling the police, claiming they depended on the old man as the breadwinner.
Anger and grief drove Xu Meng from the village to Zhonghai City, where in two years, she made a successful life for herself, coming back driving a Honda.
A girl with no money, background, or education could only have done certain things to get ahead. The villagers gossiped, but Xu Meng cared little, as the world respects the rich over the poor. She moved her mother and sisters to the city, while the old man, abandoned after a stroke induced by drinking, died alone at home.
I am open-minded, not discriminating against any profession—as long as they pay for tattoos. Besides, Xu Meng had a kind heart, occasionally sending money home to help orphans in the village who couldn't afford food.
Having heard her story, I had an idea. I wasn't sure if she had actually encountered something supernatural, but a tattoo to ward off evil was sure to work.
I introduced a ghost tattoo called the Ghost Begging Yasha, a devourer of ghosts and one of the hellish creatures from the mighty eight demon legions. Unlike other Yashas that feast on humans, this one preferred ghosts. The price was twenty thousand yuan.
Although the Yasha and Rakshasa belonged to the same legion, Yasha tattoos were more complex and hence twice as expensive.
Xu Meng frowned upon hearing this. Her job relied on pleasing customers, and having an evil ghost tattooed on her might scare them away. Besides, the cost was significant—she might have a lucrative job, but her earnings didn't come easily.
She hesitated, unsure whether she had really encountered an evil spirit or if it was just paranoia.
I feared that my cooked duck was about to fly away.