They All Say I've Met a Ghost

25

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Table of Contents

Worried that Manager Lu would wake up and start hallucinating again, I brought a chair to his bedside, sat down, and went to sleep.

In the morning, I was woken up by Manager Lu making a phone call. "Hello, Manager Xia, it's me, Xiao Lu. You said you called in a Celestial Master to catch ghosts when our company was being haunted last time. Can you give me his number? I think I ran into a ghost yesterday! Oh, I'm writing it down, he's called Ning-tianshi, all right, I'll get in touch with him."

At first I was annoyed by the noise. My mind was blurred. Hearing the words “Ning-tianshi” woke me at once. I opened my eyes and saw Manager Lu sitting on the bed, looking pensively at his phone.

“Manager Lu, are you OK?" I asked in concern. "Do you remember what happened last night?"

"Of course I remember. Who's going to forget a ghost girl crawling out of the TV and wrapping her hair around your neck!” His face went pale when he mentioned this.

I felt helpless. It wouldn't be good to tell him plainly, You were overtired and hallucinated it. After all, he was my boss, and he wasn't Xia Jin. I could only tactfully say, "Manager Lu, you should be resting more. Don't stay up late so often, and drink less coffee. You had a stomachache yesterday."

But he ignored my concerns and asked disbelievingly, "You really didn't see the ghost girl coming out of the TV last night? You really thought I'd put on The Ring? The TV turned itself on, I was writing my analysis the whole time."

I didn't think so. Yesterday I'd found the remote next to Manager Lu's ashtray. Probably his attention had been distracted, between smoking and drinking coffee and working on his analysis, so when he'd gone to tap the ash into the tray he'd accidentally touched the remote.

He went on for a while, saw that I didn't believe him, then said in a stifled voice, "You wait, I'll prove to you our company is being haunted."

I understood his persistence. After all, last night it was only the two of us. Most of the world didn't believe in ghosts. If he was the only one who said he had run into a ghost, and I said that the problem was the power supply, everyone would surely say that Manager Lu was going senile at a young age. It was understandable that he wanted me to believe him.

All the same, even if I could understand it, I still thought it was ridiculous. Even a proper Celestial Master like Ning Tiance hadn't been able to make me believe in ghosts. That this promising young man, raised by the state, was so superstitious, really showed the decline of civilization.

I got cleaned up, then applied myself to my work. Although sleeping sitting up had given me a backache and staying up late so many nights in a row had left me dry-eyed and dizzy, I, Shen Jianguo, a young man who had inherited a tradition of hard work and plain living, wouldn't be brought down by these troubles.

Manager Lu got up and quickly finished his analysis, then went to submit it to his superiors for approval. I went around with a salesperson instead. There was a technique to being a good salesperson. Being too indifferent could make customers feel ignored, but being too eager would get on their nerves.

In a large shopping mall where a single piece of clothing could cost tens of thousands, the salespeople should be gentle and courteous, making customers feel at home without being overly enthusiastic.

Most of the salespeople were female, but it was also necessary for some to be male. After all, there were many different types of customers to be dealt with, and we had to strive to satisfy all of them.

While I watched the saleswoman I was following quietly persuading customers to grit their teeth and swipe their credit cards, my thoughts drifted to my class. Most of my students were rebellious. I should learn from this saleswoman's gentle promotion technique, promoting knowledge to my students like a product until they couldn't refuse my teaching.