A Temp at 749? I'm So Broke Even Ghosts Fear Me

I’ve got 23 yuan in my pocket, I’m 2,800 short on my car loan, and the female ghost in the back seat just twisted her head 180 degrees and handed me spirit money from the Bank of the Underworld. “Driver, take me to the riverbank.” A bolt of thunder blasted her right in the crown of her head. “People ripping me off is one thing, but now ghosts are at it too? I’m so broke I’m about to sell my blood, and you still expect a free ride?” The 749 Bureau showed up to fine him 100,000 yuan. After counting on his fingers three times, he signed on as a temp: a base salary of 3,500, with ghost-slaying to pay off the fine. One mission paid as much as the bureau chief earned in three months, giving him a higher hourly wage than the chief. From then on, Jiangcheng had its most outrageous temp worker: sneaking the bureau’s compressed rations, loading up on a year’s worth of cigarettes at the bureau’s expense, and using lightning to heat tea eggs and save six yuan in electricity. Ghosts went out of their way to avoid him, his coworkers called him a cheapskate, and the orange cat Egg Yolk begged him for food every day. System: “Merit +50. Thunderstep unlocked.” He asked, “How many packs of cigarettes will that buy?” Then one day, the Thunderheart in his chest suddenly went haywire, pounding wildly. He looked up and saw a woman in a black trench coat beneath a parasol tree across the street, holding half of a lightning-patterned talisman and staring coldly at him. Just three hours earlier, he had bought a three-yuan evil-repelling talisman from her, for the cat.