After class, Li Li took another long stroll through Chinatown. From one end of the street to the other, after comparing prices at three different shops, she finally bought another huge bag of incense, candles, and spirit money.

  Slightly cheaper, though the quality wasn't much different.

  The shopkeeper packed it all in a large black trash bag. From a distance, it looked like she was hauling garbage—which, thankfully, attracted fewer stares on her way back.

  Li Li returned to her apartment building. Seeing the elevator doors about to close, she hurried a few steps and stopped them. The passenger inside helpfully pressed the open button.

  "Thanks." Li Li quickly stepped in.

  The moment she entered, the passenger jumped as if he'd seen a ghost, scrambling to the farthest corner of the elevator. "N-no problem."

  He was a tall, muscular white guy, currently huddled in the corner like a kicked puppy, looking as if he wished he could meld into the wall and disappear.

  Li Li knew exactly what he was afraid of.

  *Great.* Looks like her reputation as the "Haunted Apartment Girl" had officially spread throughout the building.

  Li Li's apartment was on the eighteenth floor—an unlucky number in Chinese culture. She wasn't sure if this was a coincidence or intentional malice by the landlord, but she'd stay for now.

  To avoid stressing the poor guy out further, Li Li hurried out the moment her floor arrived.

  Inside the apartment, the curtains were drawn tightly as usual, plunging the room into eternal night. Li Li turned on the lights and replaced the three sticks of incense for Xiao Mei.

  Xiao Mei no longer passed out like she did the first time. With her consciousness clearer now, some of her former vanity as a model had returned. She enjoyed the incense offerings with a certain dignity, watching as Li Li organized the newly purchased supplies.

  "Why did you buy so much again?" she asked. One ghost couldn't possibly consume this much.

  "The quality's not good enough. The Reapers complained," Li Li sighed.

  *When you can't compete on quality, you make up for it in quantity.*

  "It's not just for you."

  Xiao Mei pouted. Remembering the Black and White Reapers she'd seen that day, she couldn't help but shudder, muttering softly, "Their standards are so high."

  "Sigh, you don't get it." Li Li shook her head.

  She'd only been inhaling incense for two days—how could she tell top-shelf from budget bin? It had been careless to ask her opinion in the first place.

  Seeing Li Li's frustration, Xiao Mei fell silent.

  Back when she was a ghost wandering alone in this room, the loneliness had been overwhelming. Now that Li Li was here—chatting with her, promising to find her missing souls, burning incense daily—even with that scorpion trying to sleep on her face, in Xiao Mei's eyes, Li Li was truly the best person in the world.

  After organizing the supplies, Li Li didn't rush to fold the gold ingots. Instead, she logged into the academic affairs system to check her assignments.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Just one official day of classes, and Li Li already had three short essays waiting. No wonder there were news stories back in China about international students sleeping during the day, writing papers at night, failing to reply to their parents' WeChat messages, and ending up with the embassy getting called.

  Foreign university diplomas weren't easy to coast through either.

  Li Li had a feeling she was about to become another member of the "international student rat race."

  Fortunately, the first day's assignments were simple. Li Li picked the "Introduce Your Culture" essay and wrote a flowery, evasive introduction to Taoist culture, then emailed it to the professor.

  Just then, a faint tapping sound came from the window.

  *Tap. Tap.*

  This was the eighteenth floor. Who could climb up here to knock on her window?

  The peach-wood figurine shook violently on the table, seemingly furious. Xiao Xie raised both claws, guarding against the Yellow Talisman Paper peeling off the carving.

  Li Li walked to the window and pulled back the curtain.

  A head with sparse hair and rotting, sore-covered skin was hovering behind the glass. When its empty, lifeless eyes saw Li Li, the mouth stretched back toward the ears, revealing a set of black, decayed teeth.

  A literal ear-to-ear grin.

  It was the homeless ghost she'd shooed away this morning!

  Li Li: "..."

  *Why does that smile look almost... ingratiating?*

  Generally speaking, normal souls like this—unclaimed and wandering—either got collected by Reapers quickly or faded away naturally. They didn't linger in the human world for long.

  This homeless man must have died recently. Attracted by the incense Li Li burned this morning, he'd come looking for a meal ticket.

  Li Li didn't dare think too deeply about whether he'd climbed up floor by floor, knocking on every window.

  Living on a high floor and hearing tapping in the middle of the night—that was pure horror movie fuel.

  Fortunately, ordinary people couldn't see ghosts. Even if they heard tapping, they'd probably blame it on birds. No big deal.

  Li Li didn't open the window fully. Instead, she turned back and scooped a handful of ash from Xiao Mei's incense burner.

  Xiao Mei trembled with anger, like a pet dog watching its owner give its premium kibble to a stray mutt. The figurine shook even harder.

  If she could vocalize, she'd definitely be barking.

  Li Li cracked the window open, reached out, and smeared the incense ash on the homeless ghost's mouth. The ghost immediately began wolfing it down.

  *Thump—*

  Xiao Mei was so angry her figurine toppled over.

  Li Li ignored her. She remembered the White Reaper saying that **reciting scriptures in the local language** would summon the local Death God.

  She mentally translated the summoning scripture and, haltingly, whispered it aloud in English.

  The moment she finished, thick fog surged up from nowhere. The temperature plummeted.

  The homeless ghost trembled all over.

  Li Li saw a flash of cold light—a sharp scythe stabbed directly into the homeless ghost's back.

  Before the ghost could cry out, its mouth was covered, chains clamped on, leaving only muffled sobs trapped in its throat.

  The appearance matched every movie trope: black robes, a massive scythe, and a white skull mask covering the face—or perhaps that *was* his face.

  **The Grim Reaper.**

  After collecting the soul, the Reaper didn't leave immediately. He stared intently at Li Li.

  Li Li knew his gaze had landed on the cardboard shrine behind her. "That ghost's souls are incomplete. I need to find her missing fragments before she can move on."

  The Grim Reaper shifted his gaze back to Li Li. After a long silence, he spoke.

  "Ferryman from a foreign land."

  The voice was low, hoarse, and utterly terrifying.

  Li Li stood straight, her expression unchanged. "Lord Grim Reaper."

  Her words said "Lord," but her tone held no trace of flattery. Just professional courtesy.

  The Grim Reaper's gaze was icy. He watched Li Li for a moment before saying, "You know the rules."

  Li Li turned, took two stacks of **green spirit bills** from the table, and passed them through the window crack.

  The Reaper extended a skeletal hand from beneath his black robes. The moment his fingertips touched the bills, the paper money instantly turned into a pile of black ash, absorbed into the void.

  He seemed satisfied with the payment. "We will have many opportunities to work together."

  Li Li continued with polite formalities. "I'll be troubling you often then, Lord Grim Reaper."

  The Reaper vanished with the homeless ghost. The temperature in the room rose instantly.

  Li Li shook the ash off her hands outside the window before pulling them back in. She closed the window, righted Xiao Mei's toppled figurine, and headed to the sink.

  Li Li lathered her hands with soap, scrubbing vigorously.

  Staring at the bubbles, she kept a straight face, but a thought crossed her mind:

  *Hiring the Grim Reaper is actually way cheaper than the Chinese ones.*

  So why is the 18th floor considered unlucky? In Chinese mythology, there are **"18 Levels of Hell"** (十八层地狱). Living on the 18th floor is basically like saying "Well, I'm already at rock bottom, can't get much worse!" ??

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