It 

was

 getting colder and colder these days. The temperature in Wuhan was now minus three. The thermometer I had just bought had exploded. I spent my days 

drinking

 hot tea and 

reading the

 news in my anti

que shop

. I declined any new business. 

On that day, I had prepared a teapot and 

some 

lamb stew. Li Mazi came in, wearing a long military coat. 

He rubbed his hands and grabbed a bowl and a pair of chopsticks.

 Then, he competed 

against me during the meal. After a while, he was full. “Hey brother, have you accepted any cases these days?” 

I laughed and said, “Why did you come here?’ 

Li Mazi dropped his arms alongside his body. “Ru Xue 

went

 back to her mother’s house.” 

I took a sip of hot tea. “

It’s n

o wonder you

’ve

 suddenly remembered me. I haven’t taken any cases these days. It’s freezing outside

, so

 I don’t want to

 leave

my

 cozy shop.” 

Li Mazi wasn’t pleased

 and tried 

to 

teach

 me a fond lesson. “Because it’s cold, you need to stretch your body! Come here, come here. I’m going to get you a job.” Then, he told me the story.

Two days ago, Li Mazi 

took

 Ru Xue to have spicy hotpot. After they had finished eating, they wanted to leave. That was when the family seat

ed

 at the table behind them started to clamor

. They 

demand

ed

 to see the manager. They said that their hotpot was poisoned and that 

a

customer

 was vomiting!  

Li Mazi turned and saw a thin man holding a trash bin

. He was 

puking crazily. The waiter standing next to that table blushed and repeat

edly apologized, 

saying that he had already called the manager. 

Li Mazi didn’t hurry to leave since there could be something fun to watch. He sat with Ru Xue

 and watched

 how the story would develop.

A few minutes later, the manager came. The lanky man was still vomiting. The manager apologized and proposed to let the family have the meal free of charge. The family wasn’t pleased. They demanded compensation for the poor man’s medical expenses. 

Although the manager wasn’t pleased, seeing t

hat t

he man

 was

 still vomiting, he 

gave them 

a few thousand 

renminbi

 for him to have a colon cleansing. 

As all the 

customers

 in the hotpot restaurant were watching them, the family felt embarrassed. They helped the lanky man get up as they wanted to leave. Unfortunately, the lanky man wiped his mouth and continued to wolf down 

food

. His family kept pulling him, but he didn’t move. A moment later, he had swallowed all the leftovers on the table. 

When his table was cleared, the man held his round tummy

 and looked 

around for more food. When he walked past Li Mazi’s table, the 

man suddenly moved

 and grabbed the tripe on the table, 

then shoved it

 into his mouth. 

Li Mazi was stunned

 as t

he tripe 

wasn’t

 cooked yet… 

His family knew that things 

were

 wrong. They tried to pull the man away

, but t

he man clutched the table tightl

y

. He didn’t 

stop and used

 one hand to grab more food. 

At first glance, Li Mazi knew that this man had encountered something foul. He helped the family pull the man out of the hotpot restaurant. Moreover, he even gave the man’s son his contact information and let him

 know that 

he could call him for help. 

After telling me the story, Li Mazi patted his thigh. “I just got 

a call from the

 young man. He told me that his father had eaten everything in the fridge, including fifty eggs, five pounds of cabbage, and twenty pounds of raw pork. They had to call the ambulance. I guess he’s having a colon cleansing in the hospital now.”

As of late

, I 

had

 been enjoying my leisure time, but the story Li Mazi had just told me was interesting. I wanted to go and have a look. 

The hospital wasn’t far from here

. It was 

only a ten-minute drive. When we got out of the car, a young man came to greet us. 

“Brother, this is his son, Lin Xia.”

Lin Xia was around twenty years old. He wore black-rimmed glasses

 and

 was the sort of outstanding youth with smooth, fair skin.

Lin Xia came to

 greet Li Mazi

.

 “Master, my father’s getting worse…” 

Li Mazi interrupted him

 and pointed 

at me. “This is the master. We need to see your father so we can know about the situation first.” 

Lin Xia greeted me, then took us to his father’s patient ward. Lin Xia’s father, Lin Qiusheng, was having a drip on his bed. He greeted us with a smile. 

At first glance, Lin Qiusheng was the middle-aged version of Lin Xia. He was thin and slender

, but

 had an elegant look

. I

t was hard to imagine the scene in the restaurant 

where

 he 

had

 grabbed all the foods within reach and wolfed everything

 down.

 It seemed Li Mazi’s intuition was right. He was under the influence of something bad. 

Since

 Lin Qiusheng

 looked sane,

 I started to talk to him. “Mr. Lin, when did this 

problem

start

? Did you 

encounter

 anything special before that?” 

“It started

 a few 

days ago

. I’ve suddenly become 

the

k

ing of 

stomachs

. Every time I eat, I 

can't

 stop. My family had to hit me unconscious to 

bring

 me to the hospital and clean my digestive system.” 

I frowne

d and thought for a moment

. Before I could say something, the door was pushed open. A woman wearing leather shoes and a business suit

 walked

 in. “Mr. Lin, can you do the live broadcast tonight?” 

Lin Qiusheng nodded 

with a smile

. 

“I’ll come to pick you up at 6 o’clock

,” said the

 woman. Then, s

he

 left. 

“What live broadcast are you going to do?” I asked 

out of curiosity

. 

“I’m a gourmet. I host a program on TV that broadcasts every Friday. We recommend good and healthy foods.” 

Lin Xia chimed in, “Dad, how can you host your show when you are sick?” 

Li Mazi and I also thought that he shouldn’t host his show in this 

condition

. There would be tons of good foods in his show. If his sickness surfaced while broadcasting, it would give him 

a hard time

…

Lin Qiusheng sighed. “I know my 

state

 isn’t 

good enough to

 do the show

, b

ut I

’ve

 signed 

a

 contract. We have just broadcasted the show once. If I stop now, I 

won’t be able to

 bear this responsibility.” 

He 

had a point, so

 I didn’t talk him out of it anymore. I turned to Li Mazi and asked him to buy a pair of red chopsticks. 

If

 something bad happened, Lin Qiusheng could use the chopsticks to grab his middle finger. 

It seemed Lin Qiusheng was possessed by 

a

 starving ghost. Using the red chopsticks to grab Lin Qiusheng’s middle finger could force the ghost to show up or expel it temporarily. The cuisine show wasn’t long. As long as we could 

get over with it

 tonight, I would have a solution to this. 

After talking with us for a while, Lin Qiusheng looked tired. I didn’t have more questions to ask him, so I left with Li Mazi. 

Li Mazi drove with a toothpick between his lips. “I’m sure 

a

 starving ghost 

is

 pestering Lin Qiusheng. He eats like he hasn’t eaten a fish 

in

 a few hundred years.” 

I shook my head. “It doesn’t have to

.

 If a starving 

ghost possessed

 him, it would have eaten to its heart’s content 

and

 then 

left

. Lin Qiusheng’s case is rare. He eats a lot every day.” 

G

hosts couldn’t possess

 people

as they 

pleased. For example, 

a

 starving ghost 

wouldn't

 have a profound cultivation base. If 

it

 possesse

d

 someone casually, 

it

 would be burned by their host’s Yang flames. That

 was

 why starving ghosts rarely possessed people’s bodies. 

While I was explaining this to Li Mazi, he suddenly s

lammed

 the brakes. My head hit the front seat. I 

angrily

 yelled

, 

“Damn you, if you want to die, don’t take me with you! Why did you suddenly step on the brakes without any warning?” 

He didn’t answer me. I rubbed my forehead

 and 

puzzledly 

lifted

 my head to look at him. Instantly, I sweated in fear. 

The driver’s seat was empty. Li Mazi was nowhere to be seen. 

Subconsciously, I looked through the window

; i

t was dark outside. The structures alongside the street were 

nowhere to be seen

. My heart sank to the bottom. I guessed I was under 

a

 magic illusion. 

I immediately bit the tip of my tongue. 

T

he illusion slowly drew away from me. I turned and saw Li Mazi 

sitting

 in front of the wheel. He looked at me through the rearview mirror

. H

is face was fearful. “Little 

B

rother Zhang, 

I

 didn’t see you for a short moment…” 

I was frightened. Both of us were hit by the magic illusion! 

I knew it 

was an illusion,

 so I had bitten the tip of my tongue to use the blood to break it. Li Mazi looked like he didn’t know about that. “Hey, how did you get out of the illusion?” 

Li Mazi chuckled

 and 

proudly 

raised

 his left wris

t. A red rope was tied around it. 

“This year is my Chinese Zodiac. Ru Xue 

went

 to the Bodhisattva Temple and brought me a red rope. Just 

now

, I saw it glow. I thought I was 

seeing things

.” 

After listening to him, I had to admire Li Mazi’s fortune. However, to me, the possibility of having a starving ghost case was very small now. I had just met up with Lin Qiusheng

;

 I hadn’t done anything and that foul thing had already come to give me a little warning.

If Li Mazi had woken up a little later, we would have been in an accident! 

“Hurry. We need to get back to the hospital.” I anxiously urged Li Mazi. 

Li Mazi looked at me skeptically. I quickly explained, “From what we have just experienced, that thing wants our lives. 

So

, it 

won’t

 leave Lin Xia alone. Lin Xia invited us! If we linger here, Lin Xia will die!” 

Li Mazi immediately 

made

 a 

U-turn and drove 

faster. Before the car came to a full stop, I quickly got out and rushed into the hospital. When I was about to push the door of the patient room open, I heard people screaming from the inside. 

Lin Qiusheng sat on the bed

. He shouted, 

“Son, it’s nothing you can control. Do not let anybody know that I 

have

 that thing. Otherwise, my whole life will be destroyed!” 

Lin Xia was tearfully sobbing. “Dad, you’ve come to this because of that thing! Can you not do that food show?” 

“You know nothing. The cuisine show is the show I’ve spent my whole life 

developing

. I like it 

a lot

. How could I not do it?” L

i

n Qiusheng’s voice trembled with anger. 

Eventually, Lin Xia cried, “You like it? 

It’s b

ecause of money, isn’t it?! We can live a little poorer. We should treasure our li

ves

, not money!” 

There 

seemed to

 be something strange here. Before I could press my ear to the door to eavesdrop on them further, Li Mazi scurried toward me. “Hey, why didn’t you go in?”

I was exposed

, so

I helplessly 

pushed the door and walked in. 

As soon as I entered the room, I pretended to be weary. I even opened my mouth to grasp for my breath. “This time, you’ve provoked something very dangerous! It has come to me. My head’s still 

aching

.” 

Li Mazi was smart enough. He cooperated with me. “Right, Little 

B

rother Zhang’s afraid that it would come 

here

, so we had to rush back. 

W

e shouldn’t leave tonight. We have to follow you to prevent the ghost from trying to possess you again!” 

Lin Qiusheng smiled. “Of course, you are more than welcome if you decide to stay with me. Anyway, I have a show to do tonight. I need to rest now.” 

Li Mazi grinned. “Understood. Understood.”

A moment after Lin Qiusheng 

laid

 down, the room was quiet. Since I had pretended to 

be

 hurt, I couldn’t talk much. Li Mazi tried to pry Lin Xia. However, Lin Xia looked as though he had a big burden on his mind. 

At around 6:00 PM, the woman wearing leather shoes and a suit arrived. She was on time, indeed. She didn’t say anything when Lin Qiusheng said that we would go with him. 

S

he asked her crew to send a van to pick us up. 

While waiting for the car, we talked a little bit. I then learned that she was Xiao Zhao, Lin Qiusheng’s assistant in the company. Xiao Zhao looked cool and aloof. 

S

he chatted with us. Although the

 discussion 

wasn’t very enthusiastic, it was fun. 

Li Mazi liked this type of cool and aloof 

businesswoman

. He kept talking with her the entire way to the broadcast stage. 

When Lin Qiusheng arrived, he was immediately pressed into a chair to have his makeup done. 

“Usually, he can shoot the show immediately. But these days, his skin doesn’t glow, so he needs to wear some makeup!” Xiao Zhao told me. 

I nodded understandingly. He was a celebrity, 

and 

he had to show his best face to the public, right?