CHAPTER 1 STORY 40
The Ghost in the Teapot
“I am the ghost in the teapot.”
In a certain country, there is a story about a spirit that comes out when you rub a teapot and grants you wishes. One time, when a man was organizing his family’s storehouse, he rubbed the teapot, and a billow of smoke rose out of the spout. The figure of a pure-white ghost appeared and declared itself.
The man was extremely surprised.
The ghost in the teapot folded its arms and said, looking down on the man from above, “I will grant you just one single wish.” Apparently, the story was true.
“Seriously?” The man was even more surprised. It’s worth mentioning that he was in terrible debt after losing a lot of money gambling, so he decided he would try to get some money. The man was kind of a loser.
“All right, how about some mone—?”
The man spoke up right away.
That’s when it happened.
“I have heard your request.”
A witch suddenly appeared beside him.
Who was she?
That’s right, it was me.
“Are you sure you really want to do that?” I asked. “You’re all right asking for money from a dead person?”
The man was making an incredibly perplexed face at this unknown witch who had suddenly appeared to stoke his anxiety.
“Who are you?”
“In these circumstances, it doesn’t really matter who I am, does it?”
“I mean, this is my home, so—”
“Are you listening? The ghost in the teapot is, as it were, a dead person. Whenever you accept items or money from a dead person, you incur an inheritance tax. That means unless you pay money, you won’t be able to get any money. That’s a little different from what you were hoping, isn’t it?”
“Hmm, that certainly would be a problem…”
The man sighed.
But he didn’t need to worry. I had already thought up a plan.
“What will you do? You may make one wish.”
“Uh, actually, I don’t really have a wish right now, so could I ask you to go back inside?”
“Is that what you want for your wish?”
“Of course not; don’t be ridiculous. I’ll call for you again later, so hurry up and go back inside, please.”
“Very well.”
In a roiling cloud, the ghost went back inside the teapot.
Holding the teapot, I said to the man, “Even if you can’t get money directly from the ghost in the teapot, there are all sorts of other ways to make money from it.”
Then I took the man along with me, and we set off to sell the teapot that contained a ghost that would grant any wish. And it goes without saying that we sold it for a high price.
And everyone lived happily ever after.
[Publication Information] Volume 13
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[Author Comments]
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I thought to myself that if a genie came out of a lamp and offered to grant me any wish I wanted, I might go sell the lamp itself, and that’s where the idea for this story came from. Generally, things don’t work out all that well when people try to take advantage of power they’ve been granted out of the blue.
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