Late Night Bookstore - Chapter 40

In recent years, Tongcheng has become quite a well-known place—not for its economy, nor for its local delicacies, but for its college entrance exams.

For most third-year high school students across the country, the Tongcheng mock exams were considered on par with the famous Huanggang test papers.

Of course, these things originally had nothing to do with Zhou Ze. His bookstore had long since freed itself from its dependence on the “living” business, having already completed an industrial upgrade and transformation; now, it made money from the dead.

However, the fat man who had come to him before showed up again.

His purpose was simple. The next semester would be the college entrance exam season, and he planned to make a big move by selling pirated copies of the test papers.

There must have been a lot of twists and turns involved, perhaps even a web of intricate chains of interests, though Zhou Ze wasn’t very clear about it. In fact, Zhou Ze believed that Xu Le didn’t fully understand them either.

The reason the fat man wanted to bring Xu Le into the business again was to use his connections among his classmates.

In this matter, Xu Le was simply a middleman who kept both sides satisfied.

A little dumb, but the kind of dumb one could trust.

Piracy has become an unavoidable part of modern Chinese society. From it even arose the so-called “shanzhai” culture, something that had once been derogatory but was now gradually becoming a neutral term, seemingly full of vitality and momentum.

But no matter how one looked at it, piracy was still illegal. Even though social norms made it widespread and almost commonplace, if you were unlucky enough to be caught, it was bound to be a troublesome affair.

Zhou Ze rejected the fat man’s proposal, and the man left sullenly. Standing at the door, he lit a cigarette, rubbed the gold chain around his neck that had begun to lose its luster, and cursed, “Stupid bastard.”

Zhou Ze continued sitting behind the counter, reading his book. The fat man’s visit was nothing more than a small episode in his otherwise uneventful life.

The female corpse, as usual, cleaned the bookstore and then sat in a chair with her eyes closed, leaning against the wall. She seemed lost in thought, or perhaps just pretending to nap.

Their lives had taken on a kind of stale, musty air, like an old woman’s bound footcloth.

Zhou Ze was quite content. He recalled that in his previous life, what he had looked forward to the most was living like this: idly wasting time, reading books, and daydreaming.

He no longer needed to be on call for emergency patients, nor constantly push himself to climb higher step by step.

As for the female corpse, she had lain in her coffin for two hundred years; she was long used to monotony and silence. For her, this was nothing more than a drizzle.

Compared to the bookstore’s “tranquil as still water” atmosphere, Xu Qinglang was the opposite, ambitious and full of energy. He was wealthy and not particularly devoted to metaphysics; rather, he wanted to use his own abilities to make money and expand his ventures.

That was why Xu Qinglang found the decadence of the bookstore’s master and servant pair next door quite irritating!

“Look at you, lazing around every day like a dead man,” Xu Qinglang said as usual after a busy day, stopping by for a smoke and tossing Zhou Ze a few jabs.

“I am a dead man,” Zhou Ze replied, waving his hand and exhaling a smoke ring.

“See? You’ve lived two lifetimes, and you still don’t have much money. I, on the other hand, own more than twenty properties and am still working hard.”

As usual, he belittled Zhou Ze first, then praised himself.

Zhou Ze glanced at Xu Qinglang and smiled. “Are you preparing a dowry for yourself?”

“Nothing good ever comes out of a dog’s mouth.” Xu Qinglang lifted his head and looked up at the night sky (or rather, the roof). “I just want to live a little more comfortably when I get old.”

“With more than twenty houses already, I’m surprised some female ghost hasn’t arrived in an eight-carried bridal sedan to marry you. If you keep working hard, earn more money, and buy a few more houses, maybe next time a Ghost Queen will think you’re worthy of her. When that happens, I, your humble Gui Chai, can bask in your reflected glory. If fortune smiles upon you, don’t forget your friends.”

“Heh.” The female corpse, who had been pretending to nap beside them, played along with her boss’s words.

“It’s almost eight o’clock. I should get ready,” Xu Qinglang said after checking the time.

“For what?” Zhou Ze was a little surprised.

Normally, Xu Qinglang rested early in the evenings.

“Today’s the day the Confucian Temple opens its doors. The college entrance exams are only a few months away, and I have a relative back home whose child is taking the exam this year. They asked me to go burn some incense at the temple on the kid’s behalf.”

“You’re actually willing to do that?” Zhou Ze knew Xu Qinglang’s personality well. Calling him indifferent and selfish might be a bit much, but he rarely cared about anything outside of making money.

“When I was a kid, I ate at their place, and they helped me out financially. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’d have survived long enough to see the demolition payouts. I owe them this favor,” Xu Qinglang said earnestly.

“Mm.” Zhou Ze nodded.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Xu Qinglang suddenly invited. “Help me grab the first incense?”

“Does the Confucian Temple even care about getting the first incense?”

“Hey, it’s still a good omen, isn’t it?”

“I’m not that strong.” Zhou Ze had seen before how crazy people got fighting for the first incense. With his current body, he wouldn’t stand a chance unless he used his nails to clear a path. But he couldn’t exactly knock everyone else down, could he?

“Then ask her.” Xu Qinglang pointed at the female corpse. “She’s strong as an ox. She can bulldoze through for me.”

The female corpse frowned, about to fire back with sarcasm.

“Don’t you want to go out for a walk?” Xu Qinglang raised an eyebrow.

The words on the female corpse’s lips were swallowed back, and in an instant, her smile bloomed like a flower.

She hadn’t stepped outside the bookstore even once during all these days.

Zhou Ze had no choice but to nod in agreement. He didn’t feel comfortable letting the female corpse go out alone. She might now seem gentle and obedient, like a dutiful maid, but who could truly know another’s heart, let alone that of a zombie without one?

Zhou Ze even believed that if one day his powers disappeared, the first one to devour his flesh and blood might very well be this same docile, subservient female corpse.

The three of them took a taxi to the Confucian Temple. To say the place was packed “like a sea of people” might have been an exaggeration, but it was definitely surrounded, layer upon layer, by crowds.

Ah, the hearts of parents truly know no rest.

Outside the temple, Xu Qinglang met up with the relative and his wife he had mentioned earlier, a pair of honest-looking middle-aged people.

Their son, of course, wasn’t there. Everyone was here for good luck; no one was naive enough to believe that burning incense could guarantee academic success. There were hardly any young faces in the crowd; all the students were at home studying.

In Tongcheng, the Confucian Temple holds its “Gate-Washing” ceremony after the Lunar New Year. As for why it isn’t done before the holiday, perhaps the scholarly spirits inside the temple feel it beneath their dignity to compete with ghosts, monsters, and mountain spirits for incense during the New Year.

It was better to wait until after the New Year, when other temples stood cold and deserted while theirs overflowed with worshippers; that was how one showed true class.

As for the deeper reasons or how it was done elsewhere, Zhou Ze didn’t know. Customs were just inexplicable traditions; who could really make sense of them?

Just like that scandal that recently blew up online about a father-in-law marrying his daughter-in-law at a wedding in a nearby city, people even tried to explain it away as a local custom. Such things are simply beyond reason.

With a creaking sound, the mahogany doors swung open, and in an instant, the parents waiting outside turned into a pack of “fierce beasts,” surging into the Confucian Temple.

The female corpse charged in first, with Xu Qinglang and his relatives following closely behind, carrying themselves with the momentum of Zhao Zilong at Changban Slope.

Zhou Ze didn’t join the commotion. He simply squatted by the roadside curb outside the temple, smoking a cigarette.

As he smoked, he suddenly noticed that the cigarette in his hand had gone out.

He lit it again, but somehow, it no longer had any taste.

“Heh.” Zhou Ze flicked the cigarette butt away and glanced around. He knew perfectly well that his cigarette had been taken as an offering of incense.

Not interested in fragrant incense nor in ritual offerings, it came only for a puff of a mortal’s cigarette; who knew what kind of ghost or spirit had decided to take it?

Zhou Ze, of course, didn’t feel any ‘Damn, you dare steal my smoke?’ kind of anger.

A month ago, he had still been a stowaway, and only half a month ago had he officially become a temporary worker.

He had none of that “even the chickens and dogs ascend to heaven” arrogance, nor the “this road belongs to me” swagger.

Clang!

A loud strike of a gong rang out, so abrupt and jarring in the quiet of the night.

Zhou Ze turned toward the sound.

From the flower garden behind the Confucian Temple, a short, dwarf-like old man emerged, holding a brass gong in one hand and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, hopping along as he came forward.

The old man even glanced at Zhou Ze and blew out a ring of smoke, as if to thank him for the cigarette.

Zhou Ze smiled, took out the rest of his pack, lit all the cigarettes one by one with his lighter, and placed them neatly on the ground, keeping only one for himself.

Very soon, the cigarettes laid out on the ground all burned out. The dwarf-like old man jumped about more excitedly than before, clearly pleased with this polite junior. His little pocket bulged; it must have been stuffed full of cigarettes.

The dwarfish old man struck his gong as he led the way forward, and behind him, a group of figures slowly emerged.

They weren’t the crowd of parents who had just rushed into the temple, but a procession of strangely dressed people.

At the front, a few of them wore scholar robes with feather fans and silk scarves, stumbling as they walked, their faces ashen and dull, following the old man’s steps in sluggish rhythm.

Behind them came two men with greasy braids and blank eyes, also trudging forward.

The ones that followed wore increasingly modern clothing; the last few even looked like present-day high school students.

Except their faces were pale green, some with shattered skulls.

By habit of profession, Zhou Ze quickly deduced that these students at the back had likely died from poisoning or suicide by jumping off buildings.

One of them looked familiar; Zhou Ze remembered seeing his photo in the news a few years ago. The boy had performed poorly in a mock exam and, under immense pressure, had jumped to his death.

The dwarfish old man kept walking, rhythmically striking the brass gong, while the group of “scholars and students” trailed behind him like marionettes, moving forward step by step.

They were like a parade, circling around the Confucian Temple.

And of the people nearby, no one except Zhou Ze could see them.

Bang!

Another strike of the gong.

“No need for grand mansions to live in peace, for within books lies a house of gold!” the dwarfish old man rasped out in a loud, hoarse voice.

Bang!

Another clang of the gong.

“Do not regret lacking a good matchmaker when taking a wife, for within books lie beauties as fair as jade!”

The dwarf-like old man continued to shout.

After circling the Confucian Temple three times, the eerie procession gradually faded from sight.

Moments later, the parents who had gone inside to burn incense began to leave the temple.

Their faces were filled with satisfaction and hope, carrying that deep, earnest longing every parent has for their child’s success.