Jin Xiao Yi Tan Volume 1 Chapter 6

Okay, about Jiuye's name. His surname, Yuchi 尉迟 is an old Chinese compound surname. Because surnames are usually singular nowadays, some of the Yuchi descendants have since changed their names to Yu or Chi. Jiuye 九夜 can be literally translated as ‘nine nights'. It's no wonder Xiao Mo would think that his name sounds cool.

The suffix -bo 伯 is usually a respectful term of address for uncle.

Hungry ghosts 餓鬼 are beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way, in Chinese or Buddhist religion. 

Originally posted on RBKTR Translations.
Author: Four Feet (四隻腳).
Translated by: Yujuan.

Yuchi Jiuye.

Tsk, what a cool-sounding name.

But, this name did fit with kun's mysterious temperament.

Thinking about what had happened this afternoon, I was still felt as if I was stuck in an unrealistic dream.

Thinking about those inconceivable and bizarre events, I did not feel scared, nor did I feel like I couldn't accept these things. Instead, I gained an increasingly strong interest and intense curiosity, producing a desire to continue delving into them.

Was it possible that because he had seen through my inclinations, kun… Oh, no, it should be Jiuye… Jiuye had invited me to become his a.s.sistant?

However, I did not give him an answer at once.

Jiuye smiled patting my shoulder, and said, "You don't need to make a decision right now, just consider it carefully."

Glancing at his signature gentle smile, I couldn't help but feel a little perplexed. I stood at a crossroad, not knowing which decision to choose.

"Xiao Mo Mo, did something happen? You seem to be thinking about something?"

A crisp child's voice sounded beside my ear.

Ah Bao had one hand around the yingyao, another hand handing a strawberry lollipop over to me.

"For you, Xiao Mo Mo. Hurry and eat this candy, it'll make you feel better."

I reached out to take the lollipop, and couldn't help but laugh, "You little imp, why are you calling me Xiao Mo Mo? I'm older than you, you should be calling me gege."

"Tsk, in my eyes, you're the little imp!"

Ah Bao tilted his head, his childish face gaining an old and decrepit expression, saying, "If you count using human years, I'm already more than a thousand two-hundred years old, just how old are you?" 

"Uh…"

I was momentarily speechless, completely unable to retort.

Ah Bao chuckled, moving closer to me. Blinking his black roundish eyes, he wasn't satisfied with just that, "Xiao Mo Mo, call me 'gege'."

The yingyao's mouth cracked into an evil-looking smile.

I looked at this little imp, black lines falling down my face, then looked at that furball.

"Ah Bao, are you bullying Xiao Mo again?"

A cultured and refined voice rang out from the top of the stairs, and Jiuye slowly walked down from the second floor.

Ah Bao hurriedly hid behind my back, shaking his head, loudly disputing, "No way no way!"

I rapped on Ah Bao's head smilingly, then looked at Jiuye, asking, "Have you dealt with… that painting?"

"Mm." Jiuye nodded.

I still wanted to ask about the details on the process, was that female yao still living within that painting?

But even as I opened my mouth, I still couldn't ask about it.

After staying in that study for four hours, Jiuye looked a little tired, but still kept a graceful smile and said, "You must be hungry. You haven't eaten dinner, right? Let's go, I'll bring you out for supper, there's a shop that's quite good nearby."

"Alright, I want to eat fried dumpling and ramen!"

I immediately got up, following Jiuye out the porch, but after taking two steps forward, I stopped, turning to look at Ah Bao who stood at his original spot gazing pitifully at me.

I didn't have the heart to do it, and said to Jiuye, "Ah Ye, can we—"

As antic.i.p.ated, before my words could finish, Jiuye, even though his face had a gentle smile, said this word in a severe tone, "No."

I scratched my head awkwardly.

Ah Bao had an agreement with Jiuye, which was that after this small ginseng root had turned into a human form, he could not take a single step out of the villa, or else he would be shut back into that box.

"How about this, Ah Bao, I'll bring whatever you want back for you, okay?" I comforted him.

Ah Bao flattened his lips, looking wronged as he nodded his head.

"What do you want to eat?" I asked.

Ah Bao asked expectantly, "I can have anything I want?"

"Yes, anything."

Ah Bao's lips raised up excitedly, saying, "I want strawberry-flavored beer!"

Beer?

I glared at him, reprimanding, "Little kids are not allowed to drink beer."

With that, I turned, walking out without even looking back.

I heard Ah Bao shouting behind me, "I'm not a kid!"

Eleven at night.

Jiuye brought me to a little alleyway in the northern city district.

There was a little snack shop at the end of the alley, with an old-fashioned sign, a variegated entrance, and badly damaged tables and chairs. Everything seemed like it had come from a very distant era, and only one person was responsible for managing this place.

Jiuye referred to this person as 'Zheng-bo'.

Zheng-bo was around his sixties, a head full of white, his back a little crooked, and his eyes weren't very good either.

He had been tending to this store by himself all these years, opening this store every night at ten-thirty until the sun rose once again. His most important customers were the ones working night shifts, especially the taxi drivers.

Jiuye seemed to be a frequent visitor of this store, and watching him arrive, Zheng-bo revealed an amiable smile full of wrinkles, calling out, "Ah Ye, you're here."

He then looked at me with some astonishment, "Aiya, this is the first time I've seen you bring a friend over in all these years."

Jiuye smiled, saying, "Zheng-bo, my friend wants to eat fried dumpling and ramen, I want a plate of fried rice."

"Alright, I'll go make some now."

With that, Zheng-bo turned to walk into the kitchen.

Jiuye and I found a table to sit in. There was no one else in the store, and only us for the time being.

Soon enough, Zheng-bo brought over a steaming plate of fried dumplings over. There were exactly ten of them, with thin and tender skin, a golden crispy base, and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with fragrant meat juices with just one bite. I could eat this forever.

"Wow, it's really delicious!"

I immediately went to take another after finishing my first.

"How about it, I did say this store's quite good."

"Mmmm! It's really good!"

I nodded my head repeatedly in praise, "Let's bring some back for Ah Bao to try later, he'll definitely love it."

Jiuye looked at me in amus.e.m.e.nt, "Ah Bao is a ginseng spirit, he doesn't need to consume food."

"Uh, but, I always feel that he's a little pitiful…"

"Really, I don't know what to say about you."

Jiuye shook his head helplessly.

"Owner! Do you have food! I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!"

A tearful shout broke the night, and a boy wearing a wide-sleeved robe hurriedly rushed in, and seeing the fried dumplings on my table, he grabbed and shoved every one of those piping hot dumplings into his mouth without hesitation, oil streaming down his chin.

I got a fright, looking stupefied at the boy.

Jiuye did not make a sound, nor did he have time to put a stop to him, just watching on as he cleared an entire plate of dumplings.

After eating, he started to shout noisily once again, "So hungry! I'm so hungry! Owner, do you have anything to eat!"

As the boy said this, he burst into the kitchen.

Jiuye and I curiously followed after him.

Zheng-bo was cooking some fried rice, frowning, "You again? Whose family's child are you? What are you doing out of bed in the middle of the night?"

But the boy did not speak, his reddened eyes staring at the fried rice within the pan. He suddenly pounced, grabbing the rice with his hand to eat savagely.

Zheng-bo frantically pulled him back.

"Careful, don't burn yourself! Don't put your hands into the pan!"

The boy ignored him completely, tearing off Zheng-bo's hand, and kept on stuffing the fried rice from the pan into his mouth, as if he hadn't eaten in a hundred years.

Just then, I noticed the clothes the boy was wearing.

That was a silk robe, wide and loose, like a woman's nightclothes, but what amazed me was the designs on that robe.

Various vivid and lifelike things were drawn on that pure-black cloth. There were goldfish, birds, fresh flowers, a dog, and even a man's face…

The goldfish were swimming nimbly, the birds were flapping their wings, the fresh flowers were gently blooming, the dog was running happily, and the man's face was laughing joyously…

That's right, everything was moving.

Everything on that robe was moving!

I couldn't help but widen my eyes, looking at the boy in shock.

In a blink of an eye, the boy had already finished all the food in the pan.

Zheng-bo pulled him, saying, "I guessed that you would come tonight, so I've already prepared a bowl of noodles for you. Wait a minute, I'll bring it out for you, don't touch the pan anymore."

With that Zheng-bo turned to open a cabinet.

The didn't seem to hear Zheng-bo's words, actually lifting the entire pan up the stove, licking every single grain at the bottom of the pan.

Then, at the sound of a light bubble, as if a soap bubble had popped, the boy vanished into thin air.

With a clatter, the pan fell onto the ground.

"What happened? Where did that child go?"

Zheng-bo held the bowl of noodles in his hands, staring vacantly at the fallen pan, then looked at us.

I was so astonished I couldn't speak.

Jiuye smiled, replying calmly, "He's gone."

"What? He went home? Aih, it's always like this, he'll be here one moment, gone the next second."

Zheng-bo sighed, placing down the bowl in his hands.

Jiuye asked, "Does that child come often?"

Zheng-bo said, "Not really, I never saw him much before this. Recently though, he'll appear every night to eat, as if he's been starved."

Jiuye asked again, "How long has he been coming over?"

Zheng-bo said, "A week or so."

He looked at Jiuye, and hesitating for a while, said, "Ah Ye, can I trouble you for help? Help me ask around about that boy, which family he's from? I'm afraid that child's being mistreated by his parents, why else would he be starving every night."

"Alright, I'll help you have a look."

Jiuye nodded, and I used a very subtle expression to look at him.

On the way home, I couldn't hold it in anymore, and asked earnestly, "Ah Ye, tell me, just what was up with that child in the store earlier?" 

Jiuye smiled, "Curiosity killed the cat."

"Alright alright, I'll admit to being that curious cat."

I smilingly imitated a fortune cat's pose.

Jiuye laughed out loud, then said in a low voice, "That boy, was actually a dream."

"A dream?" I stared blankly at him.

"Yes, he was a dream. The owner of that dream must have been feeling really hungry while they were asleep and kept on searching for food within their dreams. This type of experience, everyone must have gone through it before."

"Uh, if you say it like this, that is kind of true…" I thought back, and said, "If you were thirsty, you would dream of finding water, and if you were holding in urine, you would dream of finding the toilet…"

"The dreams would reflect a human's latent awareness."

Jiuye nodded, then continued, "That boy earlier, the dream's owner must be starved to their limits, which is why their dreams took shape as a boy, incessantly searching for food in the real world."

"So the robe the boy was wearing, the one with the drawings…" 

"Those were the contents of the dream."

"And when the boy suddenly disappeared…"

"A dream vanishes when a person wakes."

"Ah, I see."

I nodded my head distractedly, pondering, "But, Zheng-bo said the boy's been appearing every night recently, so just how hungry was that dream's owner?"

"It is quite uncommon to see a dream take form."

Jiuye looked at me, asking, "How about it, interested in finding the dream's owner and taking a look at what actually happened?"

I immediately felt excited, saying, "Interested!"

Jiuye's mouth curved up, laughing gently.

On the second night, we went to that store again, once again ordering fried dumplings, ramen, and fried rice.

Zheng-bo brought over two shares of osmanthus red bean cake with a smile. He said he had made it himself, free for me to have a taste, then walked into the kitchen to cook the rice.

I ate a few mouthfuls of the cake. It really was delicious.

It was almost midnight. According to Jiuye, when the dream's owner entered dreamland with a stifling and irritable state of mind, the dream would easily take form.

Sure enough, when I was almost done eating the cake, the boy appeared once more, shouting 'I'm so hungry' as he impatiently s.n.a.t.c.hed the cake from my hands.

"How do you plan on finding the dream's owner?"

Watching a horse gallop through a dark green prairie on the boy's clothes, I asked him.

Jiuye handed a red string over to me, saying, "Find a way to tie that string on him."

"Uh, why me?"

He blinked slyly, asking instead, "Don't you want to know who that dream's owner is?"

I took the red string, muttering, "Tsk, curiosity killed the cat…"

Even as I said this, I was still interested in seeing what kind of person the dream's owner was.

With that, I took the red string and crept over as the boy was eating. I had intended on tying the string on the boy's arm, but the moment I stretched out my hand, the boy threw the bowl down, turning to rush into the kitchen.

"Owner! Do you still have food to eat! I'm so hungry! So hungry!"

I hurried over, looping the red string into a circle, hooking it around the boy's hand, and quickly tightening it, I turned to throw Jiuye a victory sign.

Jiuye smiled, leisurely drinking his tea.

And, after the boy finished eating a plate of fried rice and a bowl of ramen consecutively, he vanished again.

"What do we do now?"

Jiuye just said a single word, "Search."

"Search? How do we search?"

"We follow the red string."

I was puzzled, "The red string? But the red string disappeared along with the boy…"

Jiuye smiled and did not speak, taking out a round and transparent bead, placing it into into my hand.

"Why did you give me this gla.s.s bead?"

"That's not a gla.s.s bead, that's a shadow crystal."

Jiuye pointed his chin at it, "Place the shadow crystal before your eye."

I put the gla.s.s ball close to my eye, and after surveying my surroundings, saw a dimly glowing red string floating at the kitchen door.

And that, was where the boy had vanished.

I put down the gla.s.s ball, rubbing my eyes to take another look, but there was absolutely nothing at the entrance of the kitchen. When I raised the gla.s.s bead once again, I could distinctly see the red string floating in the air through the clean and transparent crystal.

"Wow, this gla.s.s ball is really mystical!" I sighed.

"The shadow crystal will help you see the things that cannot be seen by the naked eye." Jiuye explained, "Now you just need to grab onto the string and follow it."

"Oh? That simple?"

With the help of the shadow crystal, I walked over to grab that glowing red string. With one end of the string in my hands, another end winding forward, it was like an arrowhead, pointing towards the entrance of the store.

I walked out of the shop with Jiuye, following the direction the red string indicated. We arrived at an outmoded community two streets over.

It wasn't very big, with only about eight or nine buildings around. The red string brought us to the very last building, then flew out of my hand.

In the darkness, a bright red light shot straight up the building and into a dwelling on the third floor.

"The dream's owner must be living in there, right?"

I asked Jiuye.

Jiuye did not reply, gazing up at the only window whose light was on, frowning lightly. He walked up without even making a sound.

The manager of this building was leaning over the desk in a deep sleep, and we broke into this place as if it was an unmanned building.

On the way up the staircase, I felt a little uneasy. Pulling on Jiuye, I said, "Why don't we come back tomorrow? I don't think knocking on someone's door in the middle of the night is…"

"I'm afraid we're a little too late," Jiuye said indifferently.

"Too late? What do you mean?"

I blinked bewilderedly, but Jiuye did not answer.

Arriving on the third floor, we found room 302 based on the position earlier.

Unexpectedly, room 302 was not locked, the door opened slightly, a hint of light peeking out of the crack.

Jiuye pushed the door open without taking the time to think.

I hurriedly whispered at him, "Hey! Don't go in! This can't be good!"

Following the opening of the door, a sort of rotten smell a.s.saulted my senses, only see a pile of food wrappings and food waste scattered around the living room. Moldy bread crumbs, biscuit crumbs, crushed potato slices, rotten pieces of meat, dissolved chocolate, and overturned instant noodles…

The smell of food that had gone bad mixed with each other, flooding the entire room.

"Woof woof woof woof!"

A little white dog rushed out of the room, baring his teeth at the two of us strangers.

I recognized this dog. I had seen it running on that boy's robes.

Perhaps smelling a dog's scent on my clothes, the dog rubbed against my pants sniffing here and there.

I squatted down, rubbing its head. After appeasing it, it no longer made a fuss.

Jiuye walked a lap around the house, at last walking towards the entrance of the kitchen. Pausing for an instant, he turned his head and said, "Xiao Mo, call the police."

"Hm? The police? Why?"

I went over to take a look, only to see a woman with disheveled hair kneeling before an opened refrigerator, the upper half of her body leaning against the door, her lowered head unmoving.

Her right hand was gripping a half-eaten German sausage, a deformed cream cake in her left. The kitchen was dark, a dim yellow light shining from the fridge onto the woman's face.

And that face…

No, not just her face, it was her entire body. It was so thin her body didn't look human, so much that it was almost as if human skin was wrapped around a skeleton. The woman's cheekbones stood tall, eyeb.a.l.l.s protruding.

But her mouth was stuffed full of food, and her abdomen was bloated. As far as the eye could see, her appearance was just too horrifying.

I backed away in shock, and after a moment, I trembled, "I-Is she still alive?"

Jiuye seemed to be used to this kind of dreadful sight, cooly walking forward to check the woman's pulse, then turned on the flashlight on his phone to shine it on her eyes. He shook his head, saying, "Dead."

After calmly saying this, he called the police.

And I couldn't bear it anymore. I rushed to the bathroom, and vomited.

At one-thirty in the morning, two police cars hurtled over with their lights flashing.

I stood in one corner of the living room, hugging that shivering little white dog, watching as a police officer with long windbreaker rush into the room with his subordinates.

The moment that officer entered and saw Jiuye, he looked at him with a very complicated gaze, and said, "You again?"

Jiuye smiled slightly, silent.

The police officer asked, "You're the one who reported this?"

Jiuye replied, "Yes."

The police officer asked again, "You're the first discoverer?"

Jiuye replied yet again, "Yes."

The police officer pointed downwards with his chin, "Do you know the victim?"

Jiuye shook his head, "Don't know her."

"Come here before?"

"Nope."

"Then why did you come here in the middle of the night to become the first discoverer of a fatal case!"

The police officer roared suddenly, making me jump.

Jiuye was unflappable as ever, saying with a smile, "Oh, I coincidentally pa.s.sed by while taking a walk."

Pa.s.sed by while taking a walk? What a ridiculous excuse. Before the police officer could say anything, I couldn't help but look at him, flabbergasted.

What the heck, this guy didn't even have a hint of guilt on his face!

Regardless of facing that horrifying corpse, or the police's aggressive interrogations, he could actually keep such a calm and unperturbed facade.

Tsk, I hadn't really noticed before this. This guy had a polite and gentle exterior, but in actuality… he was just pretending to be a pig to prey on the tiger!

Jiuye turned to look at me, smiling tenderly, "Hm? Is there something wrong?"

"Uh, n-nothing…"

I swallowed my spit.

At this time, a young police officer brought a small notepad over, asking to take a record of me.

I was a little hesitant, glancing uneasily at Jiuye.

Jiuye patted my shoulder, comforting me, "It'll be alright, go on."

I nodded, thinking on how to conceal the matter on the boy and the red string.

But, even if I said it, the police officer probably wouldn't believe me.

The police officer with me was called Ma Xiaofan.

Ma Xiaofan was Lin Qi's a.s.sistant. Lin Qi was that police officer with the bad temper, and right now he was talking to Jiuye about something, becoming increasingly enraged as he talked, a vein bulging at his forehead. Jiuye was slow and deliberate from the start till the end, with a calm and collected expression.

"Your name?"

Ma Xiaofan took up his pen, asking me seriously.

I took out my ident.i.ty card from my wallet, saying, "Shen Mo."

"Age?"

"Twenty-two."

"Occupation?"

"Uh… unemployed." I scratched my head awkwardly.

"Unemployed?"

Ma Xiaofan looked at me, then looked at Jiuye, asking, "Are you really familiar with that guy?"

I nodded, "Ah Ye is my friend."

"Friend? What kind of friend?"

I looked at him in confusion, "I don't know what you mean."

Ma Xiaofan hesitated, and said vaguely, "I don't know how I should say this, but you don't seem like a bad guy. Here's a warning, don't get to close to Jiuye…"

"Why?"

I was even more at a loss.

The police officer moved closer, and lowered his voice, "He's been the first discoverer for many fatal cases now, and, the ones he discovered have all been unresolved cases… We've always suspected…"

"Suspected what?" I asked.

At this time Jiuye coincidentally turned his head, intentionally or otherwise glancing at Ma Xiaofan, and for some reason, it scared Ma Xiaofan so much he couldn't speak. Clearing his throat, he acted as if nothing had happened and continued jotting down his record.

It was two in the morning by the time they finished.

The police were doing an on-site investigation, the forensics undergoing a preliminary autopsy.

That woman's corpse hadn't completely stiffened yet, and her time of death was around two hours ago.

This inference coincided with the boy's appearance.

And the boy had disappeared, because the woman had got up to go to the kitchen, opened the fridge to eat, but as she ate and ate… she died?

I thought about this scenario, frowning as I turned to slowly walk toward the window.

It was still dark out the window, the moon and the stars dazzling in the sky.

A line of streetlights glowed with a dim yellow light on the road beneath the building.

The lush camphor trees gently swayed along the wind, projecting a motley shade under the light.

I stood by the window, feeling the cold wind, and breathed in deeply.

The stifling feeling in my chest was finally slowly easing away.

I closed my eyes, breathing in the fresh air brushing past, and when I opened them, I saw, amongst the vague shadows…

A person?

A young man with white clothing had both hands stuck in his pockets, standing under the trees for a long time before he raised his head, a chilly gaze like two sharp blades that could pierce through the night, darting straight at me. I got a fright.

What was that?

Was he looking at me?

Why was this person standing there in the middle of the night?

I glanced at him, at a loss, and that man looked at me as well, his narrowed eyes flashing with a hint of a treacherous smile.

"Xiao Mo, how is it? Are you feeling alright?"

Jiuye's voice rang out behind me.

"Un, don't worry about it, I'm fine."

I turned, giving him a smile, then turned back to glance out the window.

The man was already gone.

Two days later, the deceased's autopsy was reported.

The woman was called Yu Xiaoyan. Her cause of death was long-term malnutrition, at last causing liver failure.

In other words, she had starved to death.

When Jiuye told me this, I was with Ah Bao, and the yingyao, relishing Zheng-bo's meat floss mooncake together. I almost choked on the scene when I heard this, saying in disbelief, "What did you say? Cough cough… Starved to death? Cough… How can someone starve to death while eating?"

I desperately gulped down some water, and after swallowing the food down my throat, said, "And she didn't look like she was being locked in. There was food waste all over the place, that must have been the food that she ate, right?"

I couldn't help feeling doubtful, "But it really is strange, she had so much leftover food, why would she be starved like that every night? Until she was all skin and bones…"

Jiuye sat beside me, taking out two pictures to put on the table, then pushed the picture on the left forward.

"This is the Yu Xiaoyan a month ago."

I lowered my head to look at it. There were three ladies in total within the photo, everyone smiling brightly.

"Oh? Are you talking about the one in the middle?"

I frowned bewilderedly, not really recognizing her.

The Yu Xiaoyan I had seen last night, had been so thin she was almost a skeleton. I really couldn't see how she could have looked like before that.

And that woman on that photo, although she was also thin and slender, her body was well proportioned, with a good physique.

Jiuye then pushed the photo on the right forward, "This is the Yu Xiaoyan two months ago."

I turned to take a look, then got a shock. I said in amazement, "What? This is Yu Xiaoyan? You're saying, these two are actually the same person?"

"Yes." Jiuye nodded.

My mouth opened and closed, stunned, and once again looked at the photo on the right.

The photo had been shot in a restaurant, and a woman sat there devouring the food ravenously. Although she was sitting down, you could see her body full of flab, more than an obese person's size.

"Goodness, just what happened? In just a two month's time, she actually turned from being excessively obese to thin like a bamboo pole, at last dying of malnourishment… Did she use a dangerous weight-loss medicine? But that can't be right, she seemed to be eating all the while, was she really trying to lose weight?"

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it was strange.

Jiuye reclined slowly into the sofa, saying, "That's right, according to Yu Xiaoyan friends, Yu Xiaoya's greatest addiction was to eat. The reason she had become so fat, was because she ate and drank unreasonable for a long time, her calorie consumption shot through the roof.

"Since she was a woman, and knew that in the eyes of the world a woman had to be slim to look beautiful, she really wanted to lose weight, but couldn't force herself to reduce the amount she ate. She couldn't control her desire to eat, which was why she suffered so much…"

"And then? How did she become so thin?"

I asked curiously.

Jiuye smiled, pushing the photo where Yu Xiaoyan had 'successfully lost weight' over to me, "Take a look at this photo using the shadow crystal."

I took out the gla.s.s ball out of my pocket doubtfully.

Jiuye had gifted this shadow crystal to me. I really liked it, and brought it with me everywhere.

I put the shadow crystal on the photo, checking every little part of it. When the shadow crystal moved to Yu Xiaoyan face, I suddenly froze.

The Yu Xiaoyan in that photo has laughing joyously, and within her gaping mouth, I could see a green triangular-shaped face. There was a pair of humongous eyes on that green face, peeking out from Yu Xiaoyan mouth furtively.

"Goodness, wh What is that?"

I sucked in a breath of cold air.

Jiuye said these words dully, "A hungry ghost. A hungry ghost's trait is that it will never be full, forever in a state of starvation, so they usually love to live inside a human's stomach."

"Y-you're saying… That hungry ghost was living inside Yu Xiaoyan stomach?"

"That's right, Yu Xiaoyan struck a deal with the hungry ghost."

Jiuye nodded, saying, "The hungry ghost would help eat luxurious amounts of food while losing weight, and she let the hungry ghost live inside her stomach, so she could share some of her food with it and not become fat. But, what she didn't know was the hungry ghost's appet.i.te would grow as time went on. It's possible the hungry ghost only ate half of her food at the start, but later on, most of the food she ate, or even all of it would be eaten by the hungry ghost in her stomach. That's why no matter how much she ate, she couldn't really fill her stomach—"

"So that's why she became so hungry, so starved she would search for food in her dreams!" I realized, muttering, "No wonder… No wonder she died, even if she kept on eating large amounts of food…"

I thought for a while, then said, "But, how did Yu Xiaoyan find this hungry ghost?"

Jiuye was silent for a moment, slowly saying, "Someone must have taught her how to do it."

Someone had taught her?

For some reason, I thought of that night, of the man wearing white standing outside the window.

-  -