Just as the cooked duck seemed about to fly away, I grew anxious. At that moment, another beauty walked through the door.
This beauty wore her hair in a refreshing ponytail, donned a white T-shirt and jeans, and had pristine canvas shoes on her feet. She looked pure and sweet, close to my age, and was sucking on a lollipop, occasionally flicking it with her playful tongue.
"What kind of place is this, so shabby and remote? What kind of idiot would open a shop here?" she murmured while glancing at the dilapidated sign with ghostly patterns.
I felt a bit annoyed hearing this. Who was she to start complaining as soon as she arrived? If she wasn't here for a tattoo, I'd chase her away with a shit-covered broom. So what if she's pretty?
"Are you Tang Hao?" The beauty asked curiously as she stared at me after entering.
"Yes, that's me. Are you here for a tattoo?" I replied and nodded, equally curious about her. How did she know my name? I certainly didn't recognize such a high-level beauty.
Next to her beauty, Xu Meng, the star of the entertainment city, would pale in comparison.
"Of course I'm here for a tattoo. What do you think, I'm here to match-make with you? As if!"
She seemed to have a bit of a temper, but it didn't matter to me. As a tattoo client, she was a patron, and I'd treat her like a deity, wouldn't I?
Just then, Xu Meng rose to leave, saying she wouldn't disturb me since I had a customer. She would think over the tattoo and get back to me later.
However, she was stopped only a few steps away by the new arrival. Xu Meng was puzzled; she didn't know this beauty, so what business did she have with her?
Xu Meng turned to look at the beauty and asked what she wanted.
Without speaking, the beauty swirled her lollipop in her mouth and circled Xu Meng three times.
"Have you recently, you know, slept with a dead person?" the beauty suddenly asked.
"You... you're the one who's slept with the dead. What do you mean by that?"
Such words were indeed unfriendly, and Xu Meng got angry upon hearing them.
The beauty seemed to ignore Xu Meng's agitation and suddenly snapped her on the forehead.
I was taken aback by their immediate physical altercation, especially since they didn't seem to know each other.
To my astonishment, a blue thing, looking like eyes, appeared on Xu Meng's forehead where the beauty tapped, and her brow seemed shrouded with a faint black aura.
Xu Meng couldn't see it, and was about to erupt in anger, but I quickly showed her a mirror. She was startled by the reflection, but the strange phenomena soon disappeared.
"What... what is this?" Xu Meng no longer fought with the beauty and turned to ask her the reason.
"It's a grudge from a corpse," the beauty explained matter-of-factly, as if telling the obvious truth. "If I'm not mistaken, someone has taken possession of a body to harm you, and the person you slept with isn't a human, but a corpse that has long been dead."
"If that corpse held grudges, and it established contact with you, its resentment would stay on you."
Xu Meng was still somewhat skeptical, and I listened in stupefaction. Grandpa only taught me ghostly tattoos and fortune-telling, the rest, I didn't know much about.
"Hey, girl, are you serious? Don't scare me," Xu Meng turned pale.
The beauty further inquired if the man's eyes were not moving when it happened.
Xu Meng pondered before nodding vehemently, thinking at the time the man must've been drunk, as drunk people sometimes can't move their eyes. But now the thought unnerved her—was he really that strong after drinking so much?
The beauty then asked if she had been feeling like something was following her lately but couldn't find anything.
The beauty asked again if Xu Meng had been feeling like something was following her lately that she couldn't quite catch sight of. Xu Meng nodded vigorously once more; how was this beauty so eerily accurate? Who was she?
The beauty said that this was correct. The lingering resentment of a corpse was obscuring her vision, which is why she couldn't see the filthy thing following her. In seven days' time, the revived spirit using the corpse would come to claim Xu Meng's life.
To prove her point, the beauty suggested simply checking on the man Xu Meng had slept with; undoubtedly, he would be someone who had long been dead.
Dead long ago? But hadn't it been the night with Xu Meng when he had supposedly died?
After hearing this, Xu Meng ran out in a panic without saying another word, unable to be called back.
"Damn, after all that talk, she still ran off!"
I then turned to the beauty and asked who she was and how she knew all these things.
"My name is Su Qing, and Zhang Qing is my senior brother," said the beauty while suckling on her lollipop. "He recommended you to me."
Zhang Qing? That guy found out my tattoo address that quickly? And he had such a beautiful junior sister!
Turns out, she was also a celestial master—no wonder she was so capable. I wasn't worried then; Xu Meng would surely return eventually.
Su Qing continued, "However, my senior brother doesn't seem to be very reliable. What can a half-baked tattoo artist from such a rundown place possibly do?"
I didn't like that comment. You can question everything about me, but not my skills. I assured Su Qing that if the tattoo didn't turn out well, I would offer a full refund and compensation.
"Really? What if the tattoo I want is a ghost tattoo?" Su Qing challenged me.
A ghost tattoo? No problem at all, the pay was better, and I couldn't be happier about it! I reassured her that if the tattoo had no effect, she would get a full refund. However, I didn't understand why she, a celestial master herself, would want a ghost tattoo.
Celestial masters like Su Qing can deal with ordinary evils on their own and would not need a ghost tattoo.
When asked about the reason for wanting a ghost tattoo, Su Qing's playful face turned cold.
Since she was five, Su Qing had been having the same dream—a black charcoal coffin.
Coffins are typically red, and black coffins are reserved for those who died in wars, committed suicide, or died young. A coffin made of charcoal was even more special; it was used for the corpses involved in the occult.
In her dream, Su Qing opened the coffin and found an old woman wearing black funeral clothes lying inside.
The old woman's face was ghastly, not human but that of a fox. Her face was all white fox fur, and her mouth was slit into a wide gash, as if she was smiling.
As Su Qing neared the coffin, the old woman would stretch out her sharp claws and drag her into the coffin with a cold laugh. That was when Su Qing would wake up sweating profusely.
She had been having this dream for more than a decade, every single time exactly the same.
Celestial masters can interpret dreams, but they can't break them. Su Qing's master was also at a loss, but he mentioned that ghost tattoos were mysterious and might just make a difference.
Indeed, Su Qing's dream was bizarre, having the same dream for so many years—what could it mean?
Out of curiosity, I asked her about it before getting started on the ghost tattoo. Su Qing rolled her eyes at me, but still explained the gist of her dream with an annoyed expression.
Her master had told her this dream was known as "The White Fox Covering the Face."