My Ghostly Husband Is Haunting My Phone

Tang Tian was stunned. She asked incredulously, “What do you mean ‘only one of you was meant to live’?” 

Chen Peng wiped the cold sweat off his face and bent his arms to rest his back against the wall beside the half-opened door.

“One’s fate is decided upon birth. But does that mean our successful business, our wealth, and everything we own were meant to be? No! Before this, my mother was just a young, ordinary secretary busying herself around my father. She considered herself lucky that he even decided to make her his mistress.” 

As Chen Peng spoke, his eyes glinted disparagingly, as if he was mocking his own mother. 

“Then my father hired someone, a master in divination apparently, who told us that my big brother bears the fate of Tiansha Guxing and that those around him will suffer extremely. On the other hand, he said my mother could bring great fortune to anyone she marries, and if my father married her, his business would skyrocket.”  

Tang Tian was not surprised as she already knew this. “And Boss Chen believed him.” 

“Well, of course! Men who do business tend to put stock in such things. Even all the furniture in my father’s office and our home are arranged in consideration of feng shui, as guided by the master. After my father’s ex-wife died, he married my mother and sent Chen Xu to live at the old estate. Since then, my father rarely faced any troubles in his career and his company grew exponentially.” 

Tang Tian asked, “Since Chen Xu was no longer a hindrance to all of you, why kill him?”

Chen Peng said, “That pretentious feng shui master made a fuss about how he would divine no more than three matters for anyone in their lifetime. So, since he had already asked the master to divine the matters of his marriage and his career, the old geezer used his final divination to ask about his children. After all, it is his ultimate wish to pass on the wealth he had accumulated over the years. Coincidentally, the final part of the divination was overheard by my mother. That master mentioned that although my father’s business growth was in full swing, he had a price to pay—only one of his sons would survive after the old geezer turns fifty, and that person would be the one to inherit the family business. That old geezer will be fifty years old next month.”

Chen Peng met Tang Tian’s gaze with a fierce, determined look in his eyes. “It all started within this past year, when Chen Yunzhi asked Chen Xu to return from his studies abroad and run one of our subsidiary companies. Next thing you know, the company becomes successful, and that old geezer was impressed. With only six months left until his fiftieth birthday, my mother could not stop thinking about the prophecy, and she spent every single day fearing that something bad would happen to me out of the blue. Sure, the family business is important, but my own life is on the line! Instead of living each day in despair and anxiety, wondering when I would suddenly drop dead, it made sense to take matters into our own hands! That would at least be better than just sitting there, allowing my own life to be worthlessly sacrificed for his stupid business!”

Tang Tian stared at him in utter disbelief. “All of you are crazy! How could you believe this nonsense?”

Chen Peng shot her a crazed look. “You may think the master’s divination is just nonsense, but it is a fact that everyone around Chen Xu died! His mother, his grandfather, and that little boy who used to play with him in his childhood! If he did not leave the country, who knows who else would be dead by now? Now that he’s dead and I’ve seen his ghost with my own eyes, that only proves that such things beyond what we can normally perceive are real!” 

Tang Tian wanted to retort, but he seemed to have a point, and she held her tongue. She thought of Chen Xu’s ghost, his notebook, and the Ghost Snare incident back in Graveyard Mountain. 

There’s no denying that there are supernatural forces at work, so I guess there is nothing absurd about a feng shui master’s words becoming reality. 

“But that still isn’t an excuse to harm another person,” Tang Tian said firmly. “How obnoxious must you be to think that only your life is important, and Chen Xu’s life isn’t? You have murdered a living, breathing person!”

Suddenly, Chen Peng noticed a shadowy figure appear before him with its arms raised, as if it was reaching for his neck. He flinched in fear and fell to the floor on all fours, desperately attempting to crawl away from the shadow. “My mother did it all to save me, b-but we’re sorry! Please let us go, w-we’re truly sorry! Please!”

As Chen Peng scrambled to get beside Tang Tian, she dodged nimbly and put the table between herself and Chen Peng. She pointed the candelabra at him and said, “Your dearest mother tried her best to help you, but you betrayed her. What a filial son you are.”

Chen Peng shrieked, “He’s dead now! What do you want me to do?”

“Has it ever crossed your mind that Boss Chen might have another son?” Tang Tian suggested.

Chen Peng’s body stiffened. “Impossible!”

The corner of Tang Tian’s lips curled up slightly into an ambiguous smile that seemed oddly disturbing to Chen Peng. “Are you really sure that Boss Chen only has two sons? Just you, Chen Xu, and no one else? If I were him and I believed that prophecy wholeheartedly, I would have found as many lovers as I could and taken them as my mistresses, who would then give birth to many children. After all, if the future has been decided, I would simply sit back and let it play out, then entrust the family business to the one who survives to the very end. Choosing the best from a wide range of options would be better than just having two choices, isn’t that right?” 

Tang Tian had spun a story out of whole cloth, but at the same time, she recalled what she had observed of the way Boss Chen treated his wife.

Chen Peng froze. 

Tang Tian continued in a nonchalant tone, “I’m sure Boss Chen meant it when he said that he would initiate a private investigation on the case. Whether he intends to let you or anyone else inherit the family business, any evidence that he finds will naturally serve as leverage against you, to keep you under his thumb until the day you die. So, Chen Peng, if your father takes hold of more evidence, it’s not an assurance, but a threat for you.”

Tang Tian’s voice was as sweet as sugar, but her words stabbed like excruciating icicles into Chen Peng’s mind.  

Chen Peng’s face slowly contorted, his plain features morphing into a vile, horrid expression as he muttered through gritted teeth, “He would never do that to me! He’s my father!”

Tang Tian cocked her head to one side and said tauntingly, “But he is also Chen Xu’s father. I, for one, have never held back from imagining the darker side of human nature. He has been skilfully navigating the cutthroat world of business for decades after all, don’t you think a cunning old fox like that would have that kind of foresight? In fact, I’m starting to think that he had actually sensed your malicious intent against Chen Xu, but decided to wait on the sidelines to see what would happen. If you succeed, he still has a son in you, to inherit the business. However, if you fail and your plans are exposed, he has other sons to work with. He doesn’t even need to lift a finger to find the best candidate. He merely needs to say it was all up to fate, as divined by the feng shui master. Speaking of which, what do you think Boss Chen values most? His own son, or the family business? Don’t forget, Chen Xu is the one he asked to return specifically, with full knowledge of everything that entails.”

Chen Peng did not need to deliberate for long. He knew the answer was the family business that had passed on for generations. 

“How could he? My own father!” Chen Peng roared as he clutched the doorframe with one hand, so hard that his nails dug into the old wood and introduced ugly cracks to its smooth surface. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he did not even realise little splinters had pierced through his skin and were jabbing deep into his finger. 

Once suspicion takes root within a person’s mind, even unconnected facts would begin to seem like clues that made sense together. 

Why did Chen Yunzhi ask Chen Xu to come back all of a sudden? After all those years of abandoning him in the old family estate… after sending him abroad… Did he perhaps allow my mother to overhear the divination by the feng shui master on purpose? That old geezer always spent a few months abroad every year, supposedly discussing business matters with others and expanding the company there. Could he possibly be hiding the fact that he has another family somewhere else? And that Secretary Chen, who had been working with him closely from a young age. That darned old man values him greatly too… I suspected him once, but I could never find any concrete evidence. That old geezer is way too cunning! 

Tang Tian crossed her arms. “Whatever we think, it’s impossible to find out the truth of what happened in the past now. However, I can promise to keep all of this a secret, give you the videos and the email address that has the backup copy… if you do me a favour.” She made a pinching motion with her thumb and index finger, leaving the smallest of gaps between them. “Just a tiny favour.”

“Even if you don’t tell anyone, do you really think my brother would let me go that easily?”

Tang Tian paused, as if listening for something, then gestured for him to wait. “One second.” Striding purposefully into the study, she took out a small football from one of the lower cabinets and handed it to him. “Here. Your big brother wanted to give this to you.”

There was a large signature on top of the football, with a local football star’s name written beside it in black marker pen. At the bottom, there was a short sentence, elegantly written in a smaller font.