"Who hit me?" the little pervert yelled, jumping up.
Everyone looked innocent, but Xin Huohuo looked even more so.
"Whoa, it's almost two. It's not a ghost, is it?" one of the boys said, his mouth running ahead of his brain.
The group chattered and laughed, as if they were fearless.
"Maybe it's a Mommy Ghost," Xin Huohuo suddenly said with a perfectly straight face, her voice cutting through the laughter.
Her clear, cold voice pierced through the warm, noisy room. She played the part, glancing around nervously, looking utterly terrified.
"Everyone, be careful what you say. It's still the seventh lunar month. Besides, we're open 24/7 all year round. You wouldn't believe the strange things we've seen." 'Ha, my performance is perfect,' she thought. 'It's totally scaring these brats.'
"What the hell is a 'Mommy Ghost'?" a bratty girl asked nonchalantly, trying to act tough.
But this was Xin Huohuo, and her eyes were sharp. She could tell from the girl's expression that she was secretly afraid—all bark and no bite.
"There are no ghosts in this world, but if you talk about them enough, one might just pop out." As Xin Huohuo spoke, she made her fingers into a claw, lunged forward, and let out a "WAH!", making everyone gasp and flinch.
She mischievously admired the terrified effect she'd created, then straightened up. Her hands "unintentionally" landed on the shoulders of the bratty girl and the little pervert as she "kindly" explained, "A Mommy Ghost, as the name implies, is the soul of a parent who died of grief after being hurt by their own children."
"You're just making that up, right? There's no such ghost. I've never heard of it..." someone whispered, their face pale.
"The world is a big, strange place. What I'm saying is true, you know," Xin Huohuo continued her bald-faced lie without batting an eye. "Think about it. Who loves you most in this world? Your parents, right? Right? The deeper the love, the sharper the blame. If that love is betrayed, their resentment after death is even stronger, and it clings to this world, unable to disperse. Especially when some parents spoil their kids rotten, raising a bunch of little bastards. Then those ungrateful wretches do nothing but cause trouble, become a menace to society, and eventually drive their parents to an early grave. When that happens, the parents' souls are considered sinful, unable to walk the road to the underworld. Riddled with guilt and anxiety, how could they ever reincarnate peacefully? And then there are the truly monstrous ones, who might even murder their own father. We're talking a violent death and a heavenly curse—a tragedy on top of a tragedy!"
"But we're not like that," a guy with a full tattoo sleeve interjected, his voice trembling slightly.
"I never said you were." Xin Huohuo "unintentionally" stared into an empty space for a moment, her gaze deep and suggestive. "It's just that... those Mommy Ghosts wander the streets every night, filled with regret, blaming themselves for not being good parents. Their resentment is so thick it can't be dissolved. So, whenever they see kids they think are misbehaving, they're sure to step in and teach them a lesson. Just like this—a sudden slap!"
Her words had captured everyone's attention, and right as she delivered her final line, she smacked both the bratty girl and the little pervert hard on the back. The story, combined with the sound, the action, and the sudden physical shock, made the two kids jump up and scream.
"I... I'm going to file a complaint against you!" the little pervert said angrily, feeling he'd lost face by screaming in front of a girl.
"Scaring people can kill them, you know!?" the bratty girl also yelled.
However, you could tell from their unsettled eyes that they were just putting on a brave front.
"File a complaint for what?" Xin Huohuo looked baffled, then covered her mouth. "Oh my god! You guys really got slapped? But I didn't move. I really didn't." She held up her hands, her eyes darting around, her body even starting to tremble as she put on a terrified act.
Generally, people listening to a ghost story rarely notice what others are doing, especially at the most suspenseful part, and especially in the middle of the night. So she was sure nobody had actually seen what she did.
'Doubt and suspicion—that's what's truly terrifying.'
Sure enough, the group of friends looked at each other. Then, someone made the first move, muttering, "It's too late, let's just go home." And with that, WHOOSH, they all ran off. Like a gust of wind scattering leaves, the shop was quiet within seconds.
"Little brats. As if I couldn't scare you to death," Xin Huohuo muttered to herself with a sly, triumphant smile, watching the door SLAM shut.
But perhaps because the door had closed so quickly, a strange gust of night air swirled inside, giving Xin Huohuo goosebumps, as if an icy hand were caressing her.
But the shop looked like a disaster zone, and she was in no mood and had no time to dwell on it. She hurried to start cleaning up. By the time she finished the exhausting work, it was three in the morning, and her stomach was growling. Seeing there were no customers and no takeout orders, she slipped into the back kitchen to find something to eat.
"Don't eat anything cold. I saved some good pork chops for you. I'll make you some pork chop rice in a bit," said the chef, Zhang. "It's all semi-prepared, it'll be quick."
He was a middle-aged man in his forties. Though he was a chef, he was tall and skinny, with long hair in a ponytail that made him look like an artist. Xin Huohuo was a sweet-talker, low-maintenance, and didn't like to argue, so she was a favorite of the chef's. In reality, Xin Huohuo had a hidden agenda; she only sucked up to Zhang to score some good food. A poor girl had to eat, after all.
"Doing your good deed for the day, Mr. Zhang?" she joked, watching Zhang head to the walk-in freezer.
To distract herself from her hunger, she pulled out her phone.
On the screen, the two spiral cracks pained her heart more every time she looked at them. She suddenly remembered taking a selfie that day at the skyscraper by the five-way intersection—while waiting for the elevator, when the hallway lights were flickering—and on a whim, she decided to look for it. Strangely, for some reason, she couldn't find her photo album.
'Did I break my phone when I dropped it that day? Or did the system crash?'
She impatiently tapped randomly on the screen and happened to open the camera. 'Well, since I'm here, might as well take another selfie with a beauty filter. After all, the world still needs beautiful women, even at this ungodly hour.'
She held up her phone, changing angles and smoothing her messy hair with one hand.
Suddenly, she felt something was wrong.
She wasn't the only one in the camera's view.
Behind her, just over her shoulder, another face was squeezed into the frame. A mummified face...
As a reflex, Xin Huohuo whipped around.
Empty! It was empty behind her! There was nothing there! But after stopping for a split second, her heart suddenly began to pound furiously, making it impossible for her to even breathe.
Instinctively, she raised her phone, tapped the reverse camera button, and pointed it forward.
'Nothing. Just the background. Was I hallucinating? Where would a mummified corpse come from...'
But before she could even let out a sigh of relief, that dark brown, twisted, desiccated face leaped back into view. It shot into the camera's frame, as if lunging toward her. A set of gleaming white teeth, and bleeding eyes...