Chen Afu was frozen in place. Yang Ming was a ruthless person. Even though Chen Afu was really “scary,” Yang Ming wasn’t afraid at all. If he were a real ghost, Yang Ming would beat him up regardless.

In fact, Chen Afu had overestimated Yang Ming. If it was a real ghost, Yang Ming would hesitate for a moment. As the saying goes, “Cheat the Yama King but never the little ghost.” [1] If he had indeed triggered that little ghost, what if that little ghost invited hundreds or thousands of little ghosts to disturb him – that would surely torture him.

It was because Yang Ming now knew the person’s identity a.k.a. Chen Afu that he became so violent. But Yang Ming had already decided that he wasn’t going to reveal Chen Afu’s identity, treating him as someone he didn’t know at all, and dragged him to Wang Zhitao’s window.

“Begin.” Yang Ming said plainly.

“Begin what? What do you want to do?” Chen Afu purposely lowered his voice so that it wouldn’t sound the same as his usual voice.

“Don’t you know what needs to be done? What you wanted to do before, do it now!” Yang Ming pointed at Wang Zhitao’s window and said.

“I don’t understand what you mean…” Chen Afu hesitated.

“Don’t you know how to frighten someone? Quickly. Stop chatting. If I get into a bad mood, I am going to beat you up until you look scarier than this face mask!” Yang Ming cracked his knuckles as he threatened Chen Afu.

As Chen Afu saw such a fierce looking Yang Ming, he knew that if he didn’t obey Yang Ming’s instruction he would take some very harsh beating. Therefore, he had no choice but to pretend to be a ghost to frighten someone.

However, this time, he no longer felt that sense of exhilaration he had before…

“Woo woo…” Chen Afu knocked on the glass and squeezed the ferocious “big face” on the window.

Wang Zhitao was genuinely enjoying himself. There were rumors that this part in most prostitutes would be fairly “l(fā)oose,” but the girl in front of him seemed quite “tight.” Even though Wang Zhitao’s family had some shares in Tavern Heaven on Earth, his father closely kept an eye on the place. Therefore, Wang Zhitao didn’t dare to find a prostitute there. It was only because of this that he was in such a rush to f*** around even when he was at camp.

What sound is that? Wang Zhitao raised his head and looked toward the glass. In that split second, his pupil expanded by an unlimited amount! Guai guai ge long di dong [2], the thing outside was…

“Oh my god, what the f*** is this?” Wang Zhitao shouted, shocked to the point where his lower half body had become flaccid.

“What are you shouting for?” The prostitute frowned. “You can’t do it, is that it? Looking for some excuse…”

“F*** me, what the heck is that thing?” Wang Zhitao dropped his jaw and pointed toward the window with one of his fingers.

The prostitute unwillingly raised her head as she looked toward the window. “Ahhhhh…” then her eyes rolled back.

Of course, Yang Ming had recorded the entire scene – including Chen Afu pretending to be a ghost – with his camera. After he finished, he quietly left the scene.

For Chen Afu, looking at how he had frightened his “boss,” he didn’t dare do other things. Once he turned around and realized that Yang Ming had gone, he hurriedly left the scene too.

The reason why Yang Ming didn’t reveal Chen Afu’s identity was that he wanted both Chen Afu and Wang Zhitao to have a mutual loss. He didn’t want to aggravate the relationship with Wang Zhitao so soon.

If Yang Ming had revealed Chen Afu’s identity and subsequently asked him to shock Wang Zhitao, then he couldn’t guarantee that Chen Afu wouldn’t tell Wang Zhitao the truth. Even if Chen Afu didn’t say it, he had no guarantee that Yang Ming wouldn’t reveal his identity to Wang Zhitao.

Chen Afu would have thought that instead of letting Wang Zhitao hear it from Yang Ming he may as well confess to it since he was forced to do it anyway.

However now, since Yang Ming “didn’t know” his own identity, why would Chen Afu reveal himself? He wasn’t entirely an idiot either. Not only had Chen Afu seen the “good thing” of Wang Zhitao, he had also ruined the “good thing” for him. Wang Zhitao would surely hate him. Even though Chen Afu can be surprisingly dumb, but he understood this basic logic and obediently chose silence.

Events did unfold exactly as Yang Ming predicted. Wang Zhitao was at a complete loss. He didn’t dare to report to the police, and he didn’t dare to tell others as well. After he woke the prostitute, he gave her a thousand yuan to dismiss her and asked her not to tell anything to anyone.

Even though the incident had passed, Wang Zhitao was still impotent! The “l(fā)ittle brother” seemed to have gone into hibernation. No matter how much he excited it, it just wouldn’t stand!

=========================== BEGINNING ================================

Yang Ming lay down comfortably on the hotel’s bed and started fiddling with his camera. However, his eyes were scanning at Wang Zhitao’s room. When he saw that Wang Zhitao was abusing himself again and again in the washroom, Yang Ming almost jumped out in joy. Can it be that magical? Wang Zhitao had actually become impotent!

This night, there would be four people with insomnia. They were Zhang Bing, Zhao Sisi, Chen Afu and Wang Zhitao.

After Wang Zhitao lay down on the bed, he still continued to stroke his d*ck under the blanket. However, the situation was still helpless.

Chen Afu felt rather weird when he saw Wang Zhitao m*st*rb*ting under the blanket. This guy is too audacious, right? But when he saw how Wang Zhitao kept sighing, he understood the crux of the whole situation. He knew that he had frightened Wang Zhitao to the point of impotence, therefore he didn’t dare make any noise. If Wang Zhitao knew that this was because of him, Wang Zhitao would have sent him to hell. Therefore, Chen Afu pretended as though he didn’t see anything.

============================== END ===================================

The next day, Wang Zhitao had lost interest in having fun and maintained a gloomy face. His three underlings were also completely silent.

On the contrary, Zhang Bing and Yang Ming were exceptionally happy. Last night, Chen Mengyan and Zhao Sisi had already explored the problem of Zhang Bing. Even though Zhao Sisi didn’t directly state her position whether she accepted Zhang Bing or not, seeing her non-resistant attitude toward him today, there was a 90% chance that it would happen.

However, Yang Ming was even happier. Dear Wang Zhitao, you shall now go peacefully to be a fake man! You are already impotent, how are you going to fight me for the girl? Go fight for your bird [3]!

Even though Wang Zhitao didn’t report to the police, after the incident, he still told the story about how he met a ghost to his three confidants, so that they could secretly investigate that for him.

Of course, Wang Zhitao’s primary suspect was Yang Ming, but he had second thoughts about it as well. Because when Yang Ming came, other than a bag of snacks, he didn’t bring anything else. The same goes for Zhang Bing. Other than a bag of snacks, he only brought a camera bag beside him.

The ghost mask could surely fit into the camera bag, but the leather raincoat worn by the person who pretended to be the ghost wouldn’t have fit! Wang Zhitao, of course, didn’t believe that he had seen a real ghost. He was a person would receive a higher education and didn’t believe in all these superstitious beliefs. But not believing it didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid of it. The moment when the image abruptly jumps on him was enough to send chills down his spine.

Since Wang Zhitao no longer found Yang Ming suspicious, Chen Afu didn’t want to get himself involved in any additional matters. If not, when Wang Zhitao would ask him, “How do you know it was done by Yang Ming?” then it would be hard for him to answer.

Therefore, this case was left unresolved. Once Wang Zhitao was back home, he wanted to “test it out,” and he simply typed out the keywords “Haunted West Star Mountain” on the internet search. He found a huge number of news articles. Most of them were from three years ago about a ghost in West Star Mountain that had shocked someone into having a mental disorder!

It was only at this moment that Wang Zhitao finally dismissed his suspicion of Yang Ming. He had taken things as a coincidence. Seeing how the suspect from three years ago wasn’t captured yet, it was likely that it was the same person who did it this time. He could only chalk it to bad luck.

Once Chen Afu returned home, he hid the raincoat and face mask. For a long time afterward, he wouldn’t dare to think abnormal thoughts.

Once they were back in the city, everyone was tired, so Yang Ming didn’t stay too long either. He called a cab to send Chen Mengyan home. Zhang Bing and he each took a taxi to go home.

Once he was home, Yang Ming took the SD card from Zhang Bing’s camera to transfer the data onto his computer. Other than the standard group photos with Cheng Mengyan and Zhang Bing, Yang Ming copied everything related to Wang Zhitao and Chen Afu into a single folder. Then, he deleted the pictures on the SD card with a file shredder software.

For these pictures, Yang Ming first used nEO iMAGING software to remove the “Exif data,” then he processed it with a similar method as the videos. He first compressed and split them into multiple files then he forwarded them to the email inbox that he registered overseas.

The reason he removed the “Exif data” was so that if these photos got leaked out one of these days, anyone with intention wouldn’t be able to trace the source of the photos back to himself.

Exif is an abbreviation for ‘Exchange image file format’ which was purposely made for digital cameras. It records the pixel size as well as data on the camera. From the Exif data of a picture, we can find out the digital camera’s manufacturer, model, captured timing, aperture, shutter speed, etc. On this trip, only Zhang Bing had a Canon 450D, so Yang Ming was very cautious about it.

After it was all done, Yang Ming breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, if there weren’t any scandalous photos in his hands, he wouldn’t be so careful after all.

Chapter Notes:

[1] The author used the literal meaning of the idiom. Yama King refers to the king in hell, the general of the little ghosts. The usage of the idiom is actually on how upper management is easier to deal with as compared to lower management, as lower management are fighting between different departments to prove themselves to the upper management – which leads to more drama and stricter policies etc.

[2] A phrase in Chinese (which sounds rather cute in my opinion) that’s used to express amazement or shock. In this case, definitely shock.

[3] Bird is commonly used to replace d*ck.