No one else heard it, so it must have been a hallucination.

Lin Yang kept reassuring himself that everything was fine, but he couldn't help closely following behind Tan Xiao, hoping that Brother Xiao could lend him some courage. Fortunately, once he returned to the classroom and saw so many classmates, he wasn't so scared anymore, and the goosebumps on his body smoothed out.

Lin Yang couldn't help taking a deep breath and let out a satisfied sigh.

The classmates beside him slowly turned their heads to look at him, their faces full of question marks: "What are you doing?"

Lin Yang sighed with emotion: "Such heavy yang energy."

Classmates: "...Are you crazy!"

Those two ghosts were still waiting for an opportunity to find Tan Xiao, but they didn't expect that Tan Xiao would go to get equipment one moment and then go to help the teacher grade homework the next, running back and forth between classrooms. They were afraid that if they didn't keep up with Tan Xiao, they wouldn't even know when he left.

The two of them were injured and could only crawl around in the dark while groaning.

As soon as they crawled over, Tan Xiao went to the other side again. After a good round of running around, the ghosts wailed about what a bitter life this was—and for them, who had died once, they felt it was very bitter indeed.

"I can't take it anymore, I can't crawl." The two ghosts completely collapsed, lying askew at the classroom door.

"I can't move either. Let's just wait here until he steps on us."

Tan Xiao heard everything.

After evening self-study, Tan Xiao deliberately stayed a little longer, slowly packing up his schoolbag.

"Hurry up, hurry up, we should be able to talk now, or he'll leave again in a bit." The two ghosts discussed.

Tan Xiao clearly heard the clanging and banging sounds of objects being thrown around coming from outside the door. It was the items the two ghosts were holding, the same ones they had at the park performance that day.

And now in the classroom... Tan Xiao looked around, only he and Kong Xuan were left.

Tan Xiao couldn't help but look at Kong Xuan, not knowing if he had heard it. Perhaps blessed by the protection of the Peacock God, Kong Xuan no longer maliciously lectured Tan Xiao, but seemed to have gotten used to the spacious position, often squeezing back.

Lin Yang was tall and sturdy and couldn't always be a paper man, so he followed along, resulting in them having to urgently return to their original positions during classroom cleanliness inspections. Despite this, no one persuaded Kong Xuan to stop.

Classmate Kong Xuan noticed Tan Xiao looking at him and felt a little smug, thinking Tan Xiao must have finally found him familiar and was racking his brains.

Tan Xiao was still worried that Kong Xuan would be frightened. Although this person had a strange temper, he was still a classmate after all. Tan Xiao also didn't want him to be scared into an accident. He hesitated for a moment and said, "Kong Xuan, you're not leaving yet?"

Kong Xuan deliberately said, "You haven't left either."

Look, Tan Xiao just asked him a question and he even retorted. Tan Xiao remembered that Kong Xuan was also from his neighborhood: "Don't we live in the same direction? You also live on Huaxi Road, let's walk together, deskmate."

Kong Xuan: "..."

He didn't know if Kong Xuan had reflected on his oppressive behavior, but he actually picked up his schoolbag and walked out with Tan Xiao.

Tan Xiao quietly stepped over the two ghosts and went downstairs with Kong Xuan. But after walking for a while, he deliberately said, "Forget it, we have different paths, so let's not keep each other company. You can walk by yourself, no need to wait for me."

Upon hearing this, Kong Xuan's mood immediately improved. On his clear, noble and handsome face, the corners of his lips curled up slightly, his phoenix eyes smiling, radiating brilliance. "Okay."

—He knew that Tan Xiao was worried that he would be afraid. After all, in Tan Xiao's mind, deskmate Kong Xuan was just an ordinary person.

Although Tan Xiao still didn't recognize him, he still respected him quite a bit.

Tan Xiao: "............"

Tan Xiao was a little amazed. When he didn't recognize Kong Xuan, Kong Xuan got angry. Now when Tan Xiao passive-aggressively ditched Kong Xuan, not only did Kong Xuan not give him attitude, he even smiled very happily. This person was really quite hard to understand.

With this puzzlement, Tan Xiao returned alone. Not to mention Class 3, most of the teaching building had emptied out, with few classrooms still having their lights on.

Those two ghosts were still crawling down the stairs, the two geniuses discussing with each other: "Why don't we roll down? It'll be faster."

"Okay, you roll first."

"..." Tan Xiao stepped on the stair beside them, holding his forehead, and said, "Stop crawling, how did you find me?"

The two ghosts glanced at each other and said cautiously, "Shaman, your name is printed on the paper. After asking around a bit, we found you."

And who did they ask? Ghosts, of course. There weren't many people in this line of work, so it wasn't difficult to inquire about Tan Xiao. They had stayed in their own graves for many years and were considered homebody ghosts, but they also knew a few ghost neighbors.

Tan Xiao was speechless. Right, he almost forgot that his name was printed on the poster at the scene.

"So what did you come to find me for? You scared my classmates today, and it wasn't good for me to say anything in person." Tan Xiao looked at them and said helplessly, "Don't tell me you're here for compensation? I only hurt you because you found the wrong person."

"This lady didn't mean to scare people, let alone come for compensation. The two of us also realized that we mistook the person that day. The living and the dead follow different paths; it was our mistake." The female ghost lay on the ground and said as elegantly as possible. They still looked very afraid of Tan Xiao, but they had come to find him anyway, though their body language showed some avoidance.

The shadow of the merciless shaman that day was too great.

This made Tan Xiao even more puzzled. Why did they still come to find him despite this fear?

"We have come in hopes that the shaman will help us settle a case." The two changed from a crawling posture to a kneeling one. Taking a deep breath, they put on airs and said in an affected tone, "Master Shaman—"

Shamans had always been the communicators between ghosts, gods, and humans.

The two of them couldn't find Judge Bao, so they thought that although this shaman was fierce, in the end he didn't hurt them. So if they changed their way of thinking, wouldn't it also be okay to have him preside over the matter? Thus, they plucked up their courage to come knocking.

Hearing their tone that seemed like they were singing opera but was actually neither pleasant nor clear, Tan Xiao felt like his scalp was about to explode. He said, "Stop, stop, you two. This style isn't popular anymore. Can you stand up and talk?"

—They had been dead for a long time and were homebody ghosts. A few decades passed in the blink of an eye for them, and they really didn't know that the human world had changed so much.

After all, in the past, even if they didn't go out for a hundred or two hundred years, the changes wouldn't be so huge.

"Okay, okay." The two of them said this and wanted to stand up, but then their strength gave out and they said with a mournful face, "Can't get up. We'll just stay lying down. You chopped too fiercely."

Tan Xiao: "..."

They each took out a jade stone tablet that they had been holding in their arms and pushed it in front of Tan Xiao.

Tan Xiao leaned over to take a look. Each jade stone tablet had a document written on it, each stating their identity and time of death. The man was named Cheng Xueying and the woman was named Wei Pusanu. Apart from their names and causes of death, the contents were largely the same, with the general meaning being:

After divination, it was decided to bury the deceased in a scenic spot on Mount Yue. Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine taels and nine coins of gold and silver were given to the intermediary, and the land was handed over for burial, with a written agreement as proof.

These two documents clearly showed that they were buried in the same place, completely overlapping, but judging from the reign titles at the end, the eras were different. One was in the Song Dynasty, while the other was in the Ming Dynasty.

Pusanu changed her form of address again, saying, "Your Honor, we have been dead for a long time and cannot seek descendants for grave disputes. We still hope that Your Honor will show mercy and help us with this."

The so-called grave disputes, also known as ghost disputes.

That is to say, if someone is dissatisfied with something underground after death, or if they are fighting with someone underground, or if they feel that there is a problem with feng shui, they can request their descendants to solve it through dreams, warnings, and other methods.

In layman's terms, it's ghosts filing lawsuits.

Tan Xiao exclaimed, "Don't call me Your Honor. Are these your property deeds? One grave, two sales, right? So you two want to sue?"

This thing is called a land purchase certificate, which has existed since ancient times and still exists in funerals today, although they may not be as good as using jade stone tablets like their conditions. It is equivalent to a kind of underworld property deed.

Just as there are developers in the living world, there are also landlords in the underworld, namely, local gods and city gods. People believe that building a tomb for the deceased should imitate a real land deed, burn paper money, and buy land from the gods at the bottom to obtain the right to use it.

The land purchase certificate clearly states the location of the land to avoid various land disputes and grave lawsuits.

The land purchase certificates of these two ghosts clearly showed the same address, which could be considered as one house being sold twice.

However, the land purchase certificate did not specify the period of use. The probability of a good land being favored again after many years is not small, which means that grave disputes should be quite common.

Land purchase certificates are usually made in duplicate, with one copy kept by the deceased and the other buried in front of the gods, that is, to keep a record for the gods. Tan Xiao hesitantly said, "Then if you want to file this kind of lawsuit, you shouldn't look for me, right?"

He had only seen ghosts a few times, let alone filing lawsuits for ghosts.

"Old sir, we don't want to file that kind of lawsuit." Pusanu blinked her bloody eyes and continued to change her form of address, "There are many cases of graves overlapping in the land of Nanchu. Just treat it as neighbors upstairs and downstairs. I think it's much less than the scary number of floors you have now. And those who don't reincarnate and still live together are also destined."

Tan Xiao: "..."

Treating it as an apartment building, huh? Quite good at self-adjustment. Tan Xiao said with difficulty, "...Also, don't call me old sir." He knew that this was a way to address officials in the past.

"Then how should I address you?"

"Call me student. So you're not filing a lawsuit, then what exactly are you doing?"

"...Shaman student, one of us was buried in the Song Dynasty and the other in the Ming Dynasty. We've been neighbors for hundreds of years, both wandering souls in the world, unable to reincarnate. She arrived first, I came later. Sister Pusanu's family has been warriors for generations, and I also have a bad temper. We've had our fair share of quarrels and fights over the years. But in the end, it was meant to be..."

They said they were destined.

As Cheng Xueying spoke, he lowered his head shyly, and that withered face seemed to have a few more hints of spirit.

Tan Xiao: "..."

Well, well, a younger partner separated by a few hundred years, huh?

Tan Xiao covered his head, seeming to have guessed their intention. "Don't say it, let me guess. You two want to... what's it called, merge your household registrations? You sounded so miserable, I thought there was some big lawsuit."

When Cheng Xueying heard this, he became even more embarrassed, lowering his head and fiddling with the corners of his clothes.

Pusanu looked at him eagerly. Seeing that he remained silent for a long time, she couldn't help but punch him. "Say something!"

Cheng Xueying was punched and tilted, no longer in the mood to be shy. He quickly straightened up and said, "It's just as you guessed. We sounded miserable because we were afraid we wouldn't get a turn. We still hope that this student Shaman will show kindness and pave the way for us. We are both wandering souls and cannot go to the underworld to merge our household registrations."

That day, when they saw Judge Bao, they thought he had come out to patrol the streets. They wanted to ask for a favor, thinking it would be easy for the lord, as they had always heard that the Judge was fair and would surely understand them. Of course, the facts proved that they had mistaken him for someone else after inquiring later.

And now, if there was a living world shaman to handle it for them, it would be even simpler.

Just like Mu Fei said that they wanted to take the main road in the underworld because the roads below were faster, some things were more convenient and had more opportunities when handled in the living world compared to the underworld.

Pusanu also nodded, "We only need to have our bones collected and reburied together, and issue new documents. It's very simple."

It sounded like the process was not much and could be completed in a day or two if done quickly.

Indeed, a ghost marriage was not a difficult ceremony to arrange.

But...

"Simple?" Tan Xiao took a deep breath and pointed at the land purchase certificate, "You two, one from a Song tomb and one from a Ming tomb, do you know that I'll be sentenced to prison if I dig up your graves!"

Wei Pusanu and Cheng Xueying: "...?"

Pusanu wept, "Student, please, if it weren't for the long time that has passed, we could just send dreams to our descendants. But after so long, we both have no descendants left. Where can we send dreams to, boo hoo hoo."

Tan Xiao also wanted to weep. Half an hour after school and he was still at school arguing with two ghosts. "No, who let you two take so long to confirm your relationship despite being so close, from the Song Dynasty all the way until feudal society ended!"

Cheng Xueying said embarrassedly, "I, uh, am a slow starter."

"And in the previous hundreds of years, we were fighting." Pusanu also added. She had also dealt with shamans when she was alive. "Student, actually we can give you a reward. Back then, my parents also buried quite a few good things with me. I have a life-size gold-plated Buddha statue..."

Cheng Xueying also said, "I have a jade disc, this big, carved with a phoenix. Consider them all as your reward."

"What reward, those are national treasures." What a joke, a life-size gold-plated Buddha statue. Tan Xiao interrupted loudly, "I'll emphasize again, I really don't want to go to jail."

With the things they mentioned, did they dare to give and did Tan Xiao dare to take? If Tan Xiao went to dig up the graves and took a few items as rewards, and then explained to the police that these were rewards the tomb owners insisted on giving him?

The Chu emperor's tomb was still an officially organized excavation. He and Mu Fei were afraid of bumping into cultural relics while down there.

Hearing this, Pusanu and Cheng Xueying couldn't help but hug each other and sob again. Tan Xiao's objection was too firm and obvious.

Tan Xiao looked at their pitiful appearance and felt a bit reluctant. Ghosts lingering in the human world like this were rare, and their figures were smaller compared to other ghosts. This was not due to underdevelopment during their lifetimes, but because they had been stuck in the human world for too long without much offering.

One day, they would also dissipate, and at that time, they would truly cease to exist in the human world.

"How about this, I'll go consult the relevant department and see if there's a way. You tell me the address." Tan Xiao's heart softened. The relevant department he mentioned was obviously the Bureau 404, but he didn't know if the Bureau 404 would be willing to take the case.

"Thank you, student, thank you so much, I kowtow to you!" Cheng Xueying kowtowed twice at a speed that Tan Xiao couldn't stop. "Please trouble yourself to inquire about the news from the court, ah no, the relevant department."

"...Mm-hmm." Tan Xiao wrote down the place of their burial they mentioned, and after comparing it with the land deed, he was shocked.

No wonder they appeared during the park performance that day. The two of them were buried under the forest in Yueshan Park, the largest park in Nanchu!

Fortunately, he didn't agree casually. Even if it wasn't an ancient tomb, wielding a small shovel in the park would definitely get him caught by the park management.

......

Tan Xiao promised to go consult and sent Cheng Xueying and Pusanu away. So tiring, it turned out being a true shaman was not so simple.

When he returned home, Tan Chunying was lying in the courtyard eating fruit, all of which Tan Xiao had bought for the Peacock God. "Not bad, the grapes you bought are very sweet. You really love eating fruit recently."

Tan Xiao: "..."

How absurd. Should he say it or not, Tan Chunying's heart was really big. She didn't even think Tan Xiao was making offerings very actively, but just conveniently placing the fruit he bought on the altar.

"Yes, to supplement more vitamins." Tan Xiao entered the house and saw the Peacock God counting the remaining grapes on the offering table.

Seeing Tan Xiao return, he said with a dark face, "Your mom stole twenty-eight of them."

Tan Xiao: "..."

This one was even more absurd.

Was he really sure this was the son of the Primordial Phoenix? What kind of family background did our Chu's old-brand great god have, haggling with me over grapes by the count?

"I'll make it up tomorrow." Tan Xiao dragged his feet upstairs, noticing the Peacock following behind, even asking in an affected tone, "What happened?"

"You know? News travels quite fast in the underworld." Tan Xiao didn't think too much. "I encountered two ghosts... Hey, wait, let me consult an expert first."

He had taken a photo of the land deed earlier and sent it to Old Ji, asking: [Old Ji, can you take a look at this?]

He knew experts when it came to grave robbing.

Old Ji replied quite quickly, still online late at night, definitely working overtime. [Where did you get this from? This is five to ten years of imprisonment.]

Tan Xiao: "..."

The photo also had a corner of Tan Xiao's school uniform, clearly taken while holding it in his hand. Old Ji knew there must be some inside story, otherwise Tan Xiao wouldn't openly come to ask him. He was just being naughty and joking: [One from the Ming and one from the Song, right? Little Tan, don't tell me you also dug up a tomb under your house? This thing looks like it's from underground at a glance.]

As an expert like him, even through a screen, he could tell not only the authenticity, but also whether it was used by the living or the dead, from which dynasty, period, and region, all clearly.

These two items were not only burial objects, but also clearly in the style of Nanchu, which was why he asked if Tan Xiao had dug them up himself.

Tan Xiao directly pulled a group and dragged Mu Fei in as well. He explained the matter he wanted to consult about from beginning to end, especially the demands of the two, and then said: [I told them that I have no problem with just holding a ceremony. The problem is, I can't go grave robbing in the park, right? Asking for help from you two [pitiful]]

Kong Xuan listened from the beginning and nodded in satisfaction on the side, "Not bad, you've already started handling matters."

He had always been dissatisfied with the performances and selling of peripherals that Tan Xiao's family was currently engaged in, although he also knew that this was caused by the times. Now, it seemed to be getting a little bit on the right track.

Kong Xuan said lazily, "The role of a shaman is to convey divine decrees and express the people's sentiments."

After hearing this, Tan Xiao pondered. This was the professional job of a shaman, acting as a communicator between ghosts, gods, and humans. If they hadn't encountered him, what would have happened to Cheng Xueying and Pusanu? Would they have found another shaman willing to help them?

Kong Xuan further urged Tan Xiao, "You don't even dare to collect antiques? In the past, such things were readily available. You missed the era of shamans."

Tan Xiao's expression gradually changed, "It was indeed the era of shamans, but high returns are often accompanied by high risks. The status is also dynamic. Great God, do you know how much childhood trauma the lesson 'Ximen Bao Governs Ye*' brought to me, who was still an elementary school student at that time?"

*T/N: Ximen Bao, a Chinese official during the Warring States period, known for his reforms in Ye. He is famous for ending the corrupt practice of sacrificing young girls to the river god by exposing the fraud and implementing just governance.

That was the only time he cried and shouted that he didn't want to be a shaman anymore, and especially wanted to learn swimming. Tan Chunying explained for a long time that our family only dances for praying for rain, not sacrificing people. However, later when Tan Xiao looked at the information, those who couldn't pray for rain might also be burned to death...

Kong Xuan: "..."

Author's note:

Kong Xuan: The point is not about how many grapes, the point is that they were all offered to me by the shaman! Mine!