"You little rascal! I really am your great-grandmother!"
"Hurry up and go home to get the shop keys!"
"I'm leaving soon, and keeping the shop closed for too long will ruin the business!"
"Our family's shop—if you put in the effort, it'll be way better than all those random job offers you're chasing!"
...
The old woman struck her butt with a cane, and Song Miaozhu jolted awake.
The sight of the glow-in-the-dark SpongeBob stickers pasted on the ceiling by the previous year's seniors told her she'd dreamed of her great-grandma again.
She barely remembered her grandparents—only the two black-and-white portraits hanging in the old house's storage room. As for her great-grandma? Never met her!
Not even once!
Every time, the old woman in her dreams—who claimed to be her great-grandma—told her to forget about job hunting and return home to inherit the family shop.
And what a shop it was—some heirloom business, passed down only to the women of the family, never the men. This time was even more ridiculous—the old woman even dismissed the jobs she'd been applying for.
But her family ran a funeral supply store!
If it were really that profitable, Song Miaozhu would've gone back long ago. She'd loved money since she was a kid. Her favorite childhood pastime was folding golden paper ingots, and she'd even secretly stashed away her own little treasure trove.
But when she later learned that paper ingots were worthless—not even enough to buy a lollipop—she cried for a long time. Ever since her parents passed away, the shop had been shut down. It had been nearly five years now.
The funeral supply store had been open for generations—the only paper offerings shop in town—but the savings it had earned were just enough to get her from high school through college. If she didn't land a job after graduation, she'd be living on air.
At first, Song Miaozhu thought it was just an ordinary dream and didn't pay it much mind. But then, every single night, the moment she closed her eyes, the dream would return, lasting the entire night.
Right now was spring recruitment season, the most critical time for graduates to land jobs. But because of these strange dreams, her sleep had been terrible. Dark circles hung under her eyes, her energy was drained, and she kept failing interviews.
The old woman's temper grew worse each time—this time, she'd even whacked her butt with a cane.
It hurt like hell!
Now, Song Miaozhu was starting to believe it really was her great-grandma. Because the cane that struck her was identical to the one at home.
Her dad had once told her that cane had been passed down from her great-grandma's generation—her grandpa had been beaten with it, her dad had been beaten with it.
And of course, Song Miaozhu had inherited the Song family tradition. When her stash of paper ingots was discovered, she'd gotten a thorough thrashing, a memory that still haunted her.
"Great-grandma really has no qualms about screwing over her own descendants."
Another day of exhaustion. If this kept up, she really would be jobless after graduation. Her savings were almost gone, and she still hadn't found a job. Was she supposed to starve to death and join great-grandma in the afterlife?
Song Miaozhu sighed and checked her phone. 5:55 AM. Ten minutes before her alarm was set to ring. This was different from the past few days. Before, the dreams were so intense she couldn't even hear her alarm, making her late for interviews.
Her butt still ached faintly. She reached back and rubbed it. "Hiss!!"
"Wait… something wasn't right. Why did it still hurt if it was just a dream?"
She hurried out of bed and into the bathroom, turning to examine her reflection in the mirror.
"!!!"
A red mark on her butt—exactly like the ones from childhood beatings!
No broken skin, but it stung like hell.
She'd actually been whipped by her great-grandma!
This wasn't a dream!
Even though her family ran a funeral supply shop, Song Miaozhu wasn't superstitious!
She studied computer science, for heaven's sake!
But now, she was starting to wonder if ghosts might actually exist.
"Maybe… I should go back home and check?"
Maybe great-grandma was running low on money in the afterlife and wanted her to burn some paper offerings?
Besides, Qingming Festival was coming up soon. At this rate, she wasn't going to pass any interviews anyway. Might as well make a quick trip home to settle this. If she hurried, she could still catch the tail end of spring recruitment.
The moment this thought crossed her mind, the pain in her butt vanished. The red mark from the cane disappeared too.
"Looks like great-grandma approves."
No time to waste. Song Miaozhu sat at her desk and started checking train tickets.
["My Queen! Rise and shine! If you don't get up now, the Emperor will—"]
The alarm from the neighboring bed blared. A plump hand emerged from the blankets and slammed the snooze button. Just as its owner was about to drift back to sleep, she suddenly remembered something and bolted upright, scrambling toward the next bed.
"Miaozhu! Miaozhu! Wake up! You've got a morning interview!"
But her hand swiped empty air.
"I know, I'm already up. Go back to sleep."
The voice came from below the bed. Chen Yuanyuan peered over the edge and saw a disheveled figure sitting at Song Miaozhu's desk, a faint glow from her phone in the dark.
Her hand fumbled under her pillow, pulling out a pair of large scissors. Not this. She shoved them back and grabbed the right item this time. Putting on her glasses, she squinted. "Miaozhu! You're up before your alarm? No nightmares last night? Did the scissors work?"
"I dreamed of her again." Under Song Miaozhu's pillow was also a pair of oversized scissors, a gift from Chen Yuanyuan.
Their dorm was a mixed one.
Xu Yuelan was a local and usually went home, only using the dorm for naps.
Zhao Xiaorou had moved off-campus with her boyfriend and rarely came back.
Only she and Chen Yuanyuan stayed in the dorm full-time, so they were closer.
"Huh?" Chen Yuanyuan studied Song Miaozhu's exhausted face with concern. "You look like you could work at a haunted house right now. Maybe skip the morning interview and get some proper sleep."
"With my years of experience as a die-hard web novel fan, ghosts don't usually show up in broad daylight. You can always find a job later—health comes first!"
"And even if you can't find one, you could always join me as a streamer. With a face like yours, you'd make bank!"
Yuanyuan was a webnovel writer and a food blogger.
Not really work—just hobbies.
As the heir to her family's property rental business, she didn't need to worry about post-graduation employment. While others scrambled during recruitment season, she was busy turning her hobbies into a career.
"Okay, I won't go today." Song Miaozhu said.
Chen Yuanyuan: ('⊙д⊙`)
"After all the times I tried to convince you the past few days, what made you change your mind now?"
"I think my great-grandma might be running low on money down there." Song Miaozhu said. "Qingming Festival's coming up, so I'll go back and offer some paper money. I just bought a train ticket for tonight."
"Should've done that ages ago!" Chen Yuanyuan fully believed in ghosts. Otherwise, she wouldn't be so obsessed with novels.
"Wanna sleep a little longer then?" Chen Yuanyuan asked.
"Yeah." Song Miaozhu climbed back into bed. She slept straight until the afternoon, waking up only because she was starving.
After a quick meal of spicy hotpot with Chen Yuanyuan at the school's food street, Song Miaozhu returned to the dorm, packed a few essentials, and headed to the train station.
The station wasn't far—just a twenty-minute walk from campus.
She'd booked a sleeper berth. The moment she boarded, she collapsed onto the bed and slept soundly until the next morning.