Chapter 67: Telling a Story

While the fans on the Interstellar Network were busy fighting to clear Jiang Qin's name, Jiang Qin herself was telling ghost stories inside a bar.

This was extra time.

She was not sure if her spiritual power would still unconsciously leak out while she was telling stories. Therefore, she had reserved the time equivalent to three songs.

Anyway, her spiritual power level had already reached Grade A, and after soothing for the duration of three songs, she did not feel tired at all.

However, she still needed to take proper breaks in between.

She could not push things too outrageously. After all, since others had no idea how to use singing for soothing, they wouldn't know where her limits lay. But even the most clueless would still have a rough calculation.

Three songs, five minutes each, yet for a few minutes after finishing, her spiritual power would still remain active. That roughly added up to half an hour.

However, her soothing effect was much stronger; compared to the diluted effects produced by others, hers could easily count as two hours.

Normally, an average Grade C female only worked in a bar for one hour a day, divided into two sessions of half an hour each.

Therefore, in the eyes of others, her daily output equivalent to three songs was already the absolute limit of a Grade C female.

To avoid exposing the fact that her spiritual power could grow, Jiang Qin had no intention of altering this schedule. Taking breaks in the middle was also quite necessary.

During tonight's intermission, instead of retreating to the backstage, she played a piece of eerie ambient music and began telling a ghost story.

"The Steamed Meat Bun."

It was roughly about a couple running a steamed bun shop, where the husband was a domestic abuser.

One day, going too far in a fit of rage, he accidentally killed his wife.

Afterward, the customers who unknowingly ate the buns began to experience a series of bizarre events.

When pronouncing the words "bizarre events," Jiang Qin's tone turned chillingly gloomy.

Her voice was naturally ethereal, and coupled with the howling wind from the background music, it sounded rather drifting and illusory.

"Fangfang was a regular customer at the bun shop. Her mornings were always rather rushed, so she consistently chose to buy steamed buns for breakfast.

The steamed meat buns on that particular day tasted uniquely different.

In the days that followed, the filling of the buns returned to its usual taste, which left Fangfang quite dissatisfied.

She assumed the owner had deliberately bought cheap meat to make the buns, and that day's exception was probably just because the cheap meat had run out.

Many other customers also made requests to the owner, asking for that specific kind of bun filling.

The honest-looking owner obediently agreed.

However, late that night, strange things started happening at Fangfang's home, because she heard the sound of meat being chopped coming from her own kitchen~

Mind you, she lived all by herself.

At first, she thought it was coming from the neighbor's house. Awakened from her sleep, she muttered a few curses, but the sound of chopping meat rang out every single night...

Finally, one night she couldn't take it anymore, got out of bed, and left her room intending to go to the neighbor's doorstep to give them a piece of her mind.

Only upon reaching the living room did she realize that the chopping sound was coming from her very own kitchen..."

The background of the holographic projection shifted, revealing a two-bedroom apartment interior.

The entire space was pitch dark, except for the kitchen area, where moonlight poured down, casting an eerie, translucent whiteness.

"With a heart full of fear, Fangfang cautiously approached the kitchen and dialed the emergency number, suspecting that a burglar might have broken into her home."

"And then—"

Accompanied by a scream, the background music suddenly surged with fierce winds.

The ethereal voice drifted from nowhere, "And then she saw the bun shop owner's wife... She was holding a knife, chopping meat in the moonlight.

With her face covered in blood, she turned around and asked Fangfang: *Is it tender?*"

Afterward, Fangfang fainted from fright and didn't even dare to return home the next day, though she did call the police.

Once she regained her composure, she suddenly remembered that she hadn't seen the bun shop owner's wife for several days, and the owner had claimed she went back to her hometown.

Terrified and deeply distrustful, she insisted that the police investigate.

Upon investigation, they discovered that the owner's wife had never left the bun shop at all, yet she was missing.

Eventually, evidence was found inside the meat grinder.

As for the bizarre occurrences Fangfang encountered, some said the ghost of the owner's wife had returned, deliberately scaring people so they would help call the police.

Others claimed that Fangfang had witnessed something incriminating and, lacking evidence, deliberately feigned madness to invent a reason to call the police.

Still others suggested she might have been dreaming, or suffered hallucinations from accidentally consuming toxic food.

As for what the truth was, no one knew.

They only knew that, at the very least, the owner of the bun shop had been brought to justice.

...

Afterward, Jiang Qin told a few more supernatural stories, including legends from the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* and the folklore of yellow weasels begging for human favor.

By the time she finished, the entire bar was filled with animals.

Eagles, dogs, wolves, tigers, snakes, and other spiritual forms sat there orderly and upright like well-behaved schoolchildren, listening to the stories.

This also gave everyone a deeper understanding of ghosts and spirits.

If ghosts existed, then gods must exist too.

Jiang Qin said, "Tomorrow, I will tell everyone stories about gods from the primordial era, an era even more ancient than ancient times."

After singing the remaining two songs, Jiang Qin went off duty.

Recently, Yu Wei was absent from the bar, and since her relationships with the others were quite ordinary, she just exchanged a few polite pleasantries and left without lingering.

***

As soon as she got home, she immediately logged onto the Interstellar Network.

During her commute, Xie An-an had excitedly informed her that the Ancient Culture Research Institute had cleared her name.

The moment she went online, she was flooded with notifications tagging her.

[@QinBaoComeQuicklyToWatchHatersEatBeastFecesLive.]

[@QinBaoComeWatchLiveSwallowingOfAnOpticalBrain.]

[@QinBaoComeWatchHandstandUrination...]

To this, Jiang Qin could only remark that the hobbies of interstellar people were truly unique.

They dared to eat it, but she didn't even dare to watch!

However, she could guess the reason. Unlike people on Earth who merely engaged in online banter, accounts here were bound to citizenship IDs.

Those who talked big online, if they lost a bet and refused to honor it, would basically be publicly cursed by their real names.

And if extremists were involved, they might even leak the person's real-life identity and pressure them offline to fulfill the promise of their loss.

Just like Lilia back then, she didn't dare to back out at all.

She wouldn't dare watch the others, but this live-streaming of swallowing an optical computer...

Jiang Qin was a bit curious about how one managed to swallow that, and also slightly worried—she hoped it wouldn't cost a life, as it was just a skeptical remark, hardly worth dying over...

So, she entered the live stream room.

There, she saw a huge, ferocious crocodile in the middle of crushing an optical computer into smithereens with its jaws, and then swallowing it down.

Ah, so it had transformed into its beast form.

[Not bad, you're a real man. Let's call this matter settled.]

[Don't rush to transform back into human form, lest your intestines get punctured. Just stay in beast form until you excrete it.]

[Punctured intestines are no big deal either; our hospital can treat you, and can even transplant a section of beast intestine for you.]

[I hope everyone exercises moderation the next time they gamble. Pick something edible instead, like beast feces.

Optical computers are hard to digest, not recommended for consumption ~]

Crocodile: *Heh, great suggestion, please never suggest anything again.*

As if he wanted to eat it by choice.