Padding the Word Count in a Xianxia Novel

My name is Ji Ning. I’m a wisp of a ghost haunting a foul ditch beside the Netherworld Lake. I have a friend named Qing Guangli, a spirit ferrier by the Nether River. They say she was once a goddess from the Upper Purity realm, but for some unspeakable reason, she came to the Underworld and became a spirit ferrier. She looks like an immortal descended from heaven, and though she really was a goddess, she’s easygoing and gets along well with me. We’d watch the sunrise in the morning and the stars stream across the sky at night, living happily day after day. Then one day, she suddenly told me she was returning to the celestial realm and left me with a huge mess to clean up. That’s right, I took over her job and, to my great misfortune, became the acting spirit ferrier. Why do I call it unfortunate? On my very first day, I nearly made a serious mistake because I didn’t know the work procedures. Luckily, she’d left me with a ridiculous assistant, who nearly got me killed. His name was Shang Dongkui, the Ghost King of the River of Forgetfulness. He was burly and muscular, and he had a crush on Qing Guangli. He looked a bit dim-witted, but was actually sharp-minded and wise in an unassuming way. With his guidance, I managed to finish the soup-making task after plenty of twists and turns. For the next five hundred years, I made soup day in and day out. I went from a soup-serving girl to a soup-serving old lady. It turns out that working hard really does make you grow old. After five hundred years of waiting, a new spirit ferrier finally arrived. But I was doomed. The stinking ditch where I live wasn’t always a stinking ditch. It only became one after the new ferrier arrived. Good grief, she’s even less familiar with the job than the last one.