Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 75 Millionaire
The fourteenth day of the sixth lunar month, Monday, is the day of Shen Tiande, and the five elements are Chengtoutu.

Ran Qing sat in the classroom, silently writing on a piece of draft paper the items needed to open the altar and light incense.

During the break, the classroom is noisy and lively.

Lively boys gathered in the corridor outside the classroom, standing in a row around the narrow hallway like prisoners on a walk. Some walked around the classroom, then sat down, reeking of cigarette smoke, having just returned from the restroom.

Groups of girls discussed ghost stories from late-night bus stops, discussed the latest song albums, and exchanged lyric books.

The years of youth are depressing and dull, but there is still an irrepressible vitality and energy flying around.

Ran Qing sat in the classroom, looking at the familiar classmates around him. For a moment, he felt as if he was in another world.

Not long after, the bell rang, and the head teacher, Mr. Jin, walked into the classroom with a heavy face and knocked on the podium.

"I want to inform you of something."

Teacher Jin said: "Starting tonight, evening self-study classes will be temporarily cancelled. The specific resumption time is to be determined."

Cheers suddenly exploded in the classroom.

Even the top students who study hard will shout for joy during holidays.

Soon the students learned that the No. 1 Mine Middle School had been reported for charging for supplementary lessons during the holidays and had been punished by the Education Bureau.

As a result, all the middle schools in the city became nervous, and No. 3 Middle School immediately made the decision to cancel the holiday evening self-study classes.

Ran Qing was particularly happy about this.

Night is the time when the Yin people are active.

Although according to the records in "Witchcraft, Ghosts and Magic", after opening the altar and lighting incense, and officially inheriting the incense of the ghost person, one only needs to sleep two or three hours a day.

But it would still be a good thing for Ran Qing if he had more free time at night.

After school, he returned to Old Chen's rental house and moved the things in the house to Aunt Liu's house.

There weren't many things in it, just a few pieces of clothes, half a box of potatoes, some pots and pans, and some thick and heavy teaching supplementary books.

When he got home, Little Mianhua was lying at the gate of the cement house, lazily basking in the sun.

Ran Qing touched her head as usual, walked into the house and started cooking.

Aunt Liu had an electric rice cooker and a bag of new rice, which greatly facilitated Ran Qing.

I used to steam corn rice myself, which was cheap but the process was cumbersome.

Now that he has moved to his sixth aunt's house, he no longer has to rent a house and can save a lot of money every month. Ran Qing decided to change his staple food from cheap cornmeal to rice.

Cooking rice in an electric rice cooker can save a lot of time, allowing him to focus more on studying.

After simply cooking three dishes, Ran Qing closed the door and called Xiao Mianhua to eat together.

Sometimes lucid and sometimes confused, Little Mianhua sometimes liked to eat on the ground, but today, she sat by the fire and ate like a normal person. Her paws, unlike those of humans, could actually nimbly grasp the chopsticks.

"Ran Qing, your cooking is so delicious!" Little Mianhua happily ate the hot dishes and said, "It's much better than what my aunt cooks! Every time my aunt cooks, it's full of oil and salt. I can't even eat it with sour soup."

Little Cotton complained and finally dared to speak out what was in her heart.

Ran Qing was a little embarrassed and wanted to save face for Aunt Liu. But when he recalled the dishes Aunt Liu had cooked...

After a few seconds of silence, Ran Qing said, "Eat, eat."

The only thing he could do to save face at this moment was to ask Xiao Mianhua to stop talking.

"By the way, Ran Qing, when are you going to light the incense?" Little Mianhua was quiet for a while, then became curious again: "Aren't you in a hurry anymore?"

Ran Qing was busy dealing with the funeral arrangements for Aunt Liu yesterday, so he didn't prepare the things needed for opening the altar and lighting incense today.

Little Cotton was very confused about this.

Ran Qing explained: "We can't open the altar at any time. We have to wait until the seventh day after Aunt Six's death."

Only after the first seven days were over did Aunt Six truly pass away.

Ran Qing strictly followed the steps in "Witchcraft, Ghosts and Magic".

Starting today, Ran Qing moved into his sixth aunt's house, and his life seemed to have returned to normal.

Except for the addition of a small piece of cotton with each meal, nothing else changed. Every day was the same as usual: class, school, dinner, sleep, and then class again.

He reads "Witchcraft and Demonic Arts" every day and always goes to bed late at night.

The book was thick and contained a lot of information, describing the mysterious abilities of the ghost walkers. Although when many of the things were disassembled, the principles behind them didn't seem that mysterious.

But Ran Qing still read with great interest and tried hard to memorize the content, treating the book as a new subject to study.

On the fourth day after school started, the results of the final exam came out. As expected, Ran Qing ranked second, squeezing out the spot vacated by Li Hongye and winning the second-place scholarship.

1500 yuan, a huge sum of money.

The three top high schools in Yuezhao compete fiercely every year to attract the best students. Various scholarships, tuition waivers and other policies are frequently introduced, which greatly benefit the poor student Ran Qing.

It’s a pity that he was not the best and only received a scholarship and tuition exemption.

The student in their class was ranked first in their grade, far ahead of everyone else in their grade. In order to pry this student out of Mining No. 1 Middle School, No. 3 Middle School had given him over 30,000 yuan in cash and later waived all tuition and fees. Being able to earn money while attending school was something Ran Qing envied.

However, with the 1500 scholarship and the fact that he no longer had to rent a house, Ran Qing's life pressure was greatly reduced.

At least he has a holiday this year and doesn't have to push a tricycle on the street to sell honeycomb coal, so he can spend more time studying.

Living in Sixth Aunt's house, Ran Qing felt very peaceful and at peace. No one's howling in the middle of the night would disturb him. As for the loneliness of living alone, Ran Qing didn't feel it at all.

Aunt Liu lives alone in this small mountain town and seems to have no relatives.

Her death did not cause any ripples.

Several neighbors nearby were not surprised by Aunt Liu's disappearance.

When everyone saw Ran Qing alone, they just asked out of curiosity.

"Has your aunt gone out of town?"

"How long will she be back?"

"Last time she said she would be gone for a long time..."

Before leaving, Sixth Aunt had already arranged everything for Ran Qing, even preparing an excuse for her disappearance.

On Wednesday, a staff member from the neighborhood committee came to the door and handed a new title deed to the teenager.

"...You are Ran Qing, right? This is the name change that Sixth Aunt asked me to handle. It's already been completed."

This staff member had great respect for Aunt Liu and seemed to have received help from her.

The owner of the house on the title deed has been changed to Ran Qing's name.

Aunt Six, who had already anticipated her own death, had already arranged everything properly without Ran Qing noticing.

Plus the stack of blue hundred-dollar bills in the box...

Ran Qing counted them and there were sixty-three in total.

6300 yuan... This was a truly huge sum of money. Ran Qing carefully locked it in a box and planned to deposit it in a bank when he had time. He did not dare to use it casually.

On Aunt Liu’s passbook, the 6300 yuan was the last large deposit withdrawn.

Further back, there was the 970,000 yuan withdrawn two years ago.

The former Sixth Aunt turned out to be a millionaire...

This shocked Ran Qing.

When he saw the string of numbers on the passbook, his eyes widened in surprise and he almost suspected that he had seen it wrong.

In the 1990s, when a bowl of noodles cost less than two yuan, 970,000 yuan was enough to buy a building like the one Li Hongye lived in in Yuezhao City.

But Sixth Aunt took it out and used it all at once... Could it be that Sixth Aunt's daughter died of illness two years ago?

If he really died of illness, it must have been a very serious disease that could not be cured despite spending so much money.

Only then did he empty out Aunt Liu's family fortune.

(End of this chapter)