The Richest Ghost in the Underworld

(After I finish writing about the cat stalker next door, I'll write this one.)

Yang Qiu was dirt-poor when he was alive. He scavenged trash and hauled bricks for a living.

In the end, he couldn't resist temptation and became a wealthy man's kept lover, standing in for someone else.

People said he was the most vulgar kind of person in the world: greedy, vain, lazy, and willing to trade his body for an easy way out.

Yang Qiu didn't care what other people thought. All he cared about was how much money he could get.

Hugs, kisses, dates...

Everything had a clearly marked price, with a discount for bulk purchases.

Even when things were heating up, he never forgot to settle on a price first.

His sugar daddy treated him very well, with tenderness and care.

If not for the occasional absentminded look in his eyes when they met, Yang Qiu might have forgotten that his sugar daddy saw him only as a substitute for someone who had died.

Then their contract came to an end.

Yang Qiu looked at the flawless, familiar smile on his sugar daddy's face and worked up the courage to ask, "Would you like to renew our contract?"

At some point, after he had money, he had begun to yearn for love.

His sugar daddy fell silent for a moment, then smiled and said, "Good children shouldn't be so greedy."

After saying that, he considerately handed Yang Qiu an umbrella. "It looks like it's raining outside."

So Yang Qiu left the "golden house" where he had lived for three years, carrying a thin check and an umbrella.

Later, he died while on his way to cash the check, saving a little girl.

-

The servants of the Ruan family have been busy lately, burning spirit money for a dead man named "Yang Qiu."

They've been at it for seven days and seven nights. Even the property management at the foot of the mountain called to ask if there was a fire.

Everyone says their master has gone mad, making doctors try to treat a dead man.

When the doctors couldn't help, he went to find a Taoist priest.

He set up altars, performed rituals, and summoned souls. Over several months, his demands went from bringing the "dead man" back to life to simply asking his old love to visit him in a dream.

It was as if he couldn't go on living without that man named "Yang Qiu."

So the very rich can look this pitiful when they go mad.

-

Yang Qiu didn't go to hell. The moment he opened his ghostly eyes in the underworld,

he became the richest ghost there.

Gold ingots, silver ingots, and endless stacks of spirit money kept getting burned for him, so much that it dazzled his ghostly eyes.

How funny.

He'd been dirt-poor while alive, only to become outrageously rich after death.

He entered the dream of his old love.

In the dream, the man who was always dignified and self-possessed, and trusted no one but himself, knelt before the gods and prayed:

He prayed that Yang Qiu would have a life free of worries in his next life, and endless wealth.

-

Poor bottom x rich top

Tightwad x big-spending CEO (just kidding)

Angsty melodrama (HE)

Commenting by paragraph is now open

The pacing isn't great. I'll unlock the chapters once I've finished revising them.

Notes:

1. The top and bottom aren't perfect characters.

2. The characters' values aren't the author's values.

3. More to come if I think of anything.

[ ] <- This is where you can store your brain. Don't forget to put it away before reading!

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Theme: Always keep looking upward.