Chapter 5024 — The Ghost Arrives

After lingering two hours at the food stalls, it was nearly ten by the time Wei Zhao returned to the residential compound. The place was quiet enough in daylight, but at night it was dead silent. At a glance, scarcely a few windows in the whole compound were lit. Anyone with a timid disposition probably wouldn't dare walk the path after dark—who was to say whether the hauntings were real?

In a bustling downtown where life thronged the streets, tales of ghosts were good for a laugh and nothing more. But here in this pitch-black, hushed place, once such a thought took root, even the boldest of hearts would feel the hairs on the nape prickle.

Wei Zhao, however, did not mind in the least. He did not believe there were ghosts in this world—and even if there were, to his eyes they were nothing more than a kind of primordial spirit. Was he himself not one now? If he truly ran into one, it was anyone's guess who would be the one frightened.

He climbed the dim staircase to the fifth floor and instinctively glanced at the door across the hall. If he could chance upon that frosty little thing, perhaps, as neighbors, he could draw a few words out of her. A pity she was surely in seclusion right now, healing her wounds—for the moment there was no hope of it.

Of course, the premise had to be a chance encounter. Wei Zhao certainly would not go knocking on her door of his own accord. He could use the neighborly pretext to strike up a conversation, but judging by that frosty little thing's style, one wrong move might well bring a silencing murder down on him—and that would defeat the whole purpose.

He fished out his keys and was about to open his own door when the one across the hall suddenly swung open. The tall woman simply stood there inside her room, quietly sizing Wei Zhao up from head to toe with a cold stare.

Wei Zhao nearly jumped out of his skin. What was the matter with this frosty little thing, pulling a stunt like that in the dead of night? It was only because he had nerve that he was fine; an ordinary person with hauntings on the mind would surely have been scared into a heart attack. Had this frosty little thing been pressed against her door all along, watching him?

Their eyes met, and neither spoke. After a moment the tall woman asked, "I hear your apartment is haunted?"

"Huh?" Wei Zhao was briefly taken aback. He shook his head. "Probably just a rumor that's been passed around and distorted. I certainly haven't sensed any ghost. Did it affect you?"

"No." The tall woman gave that one reply and nothing more, then turned and shut the door.

Leaving Wei Zhao standing at his door, utterly baffled. He shook his head with a rueful laugh, then opened his own door and went in.

That sudden move of the frosty little thing's had caught Wei Zhao quite off guard, though he was not afraid she might have seen through him. Once his primordial spirit body had condensed into solid form, ordinary people could not detect it—indeed, even an average cultivator could not. Only one with a rather unusual cultivation method, like Sun Baimei, might notice. Under normal circumstances, he had no need to worry about his identity being exposed.

Just then two people suddenly appeared at the compound gate, and to Wei Zhao they were familiar faces both: a vegetable-selling old man and a short-cropped youth—the very two swindlers who had fleeced him that day.

"Bloody hell, this is like seeing a ghost. The money was right there in my pocket—how did it just vanish?" the short-cropped youth cursed.

"Don't tell me you've gone and offended some master again, and he cleaned us both out without a sound? I've told you before—in our line of work you absolutely cannot draw attention. And what do you do? The moment you've got a bit of cash you're off to nightclubs and shampoo parlors. Those places are crawling with every sort of riffraff; offend the wrong one and it's trouble. Now look—I've gone down with you!" the old man scolded irritably.

"Master, I've said it a thousand times—when I go to those clubs I'm really just copping a feel, nothing else at all. How could I offend anyone? Maybe it's you who misjudged, and swindled someone you shouldn't have?" the youth turned it back on him.

"Bullshit! I've been in this game for decades. You think I can't spot a mark? It's got to be you, boy—you offended someone and never even knew it. Barely a hair on your lip and no steadiness in your hands—you'd better smarten up!" the old man went on.

"Fine, fine, fine. It's all my fault, there, happy? If I ever find out which bastard pulled this dirty trick, I'll swindle him down to his last stitch!" the youth said sullenly.

"Just for that mouth of yours, you'll keep taking losses—not a scrap of sense in you!" The old man cuffed him, paused, and said, "Lucky there's still this job tonight. At least we won't go home empty-handed."

"Tch. This one doesn't pay much—what's the point?" the youth grumbled. The con they had run that day brought in ten thousand a pop if it landed, but a job like tonight's paid only two or three hundred. He couldn't even be bothered to earn that little.

"Always dreaming of the good stuff! You think a setup like that works so easily? Catching one a month is already good. The rest of the time, if you don't earn these small sums, you can sit around waiting to drink the northwest wind!" the old man cursed.

"Yes, yes, yes. Food must be eaten bite by bite, the road walked step by step—that good enough for you? Running a con game and still keeping it so countrified. Anyone who didn't know better would think we were migrant workers..." The youth shrank his neck helplessly.

"If it isn't countrified, how do you fool anyone? You really think it's like those movies you watch, with high-tech gadgets? Only a fool believes that!" The old man gave him a kick. "Hurry up, don't miss the job. Once this one's done, we've got to scout a spot tomorrow."

As they talked, they walked one behind the other into a building and straight up to the fifth floor—and, astonishingly, stopped right outside Wei Zhao's door.

The two exchanged a glance, and the old man began pasting black paper over his face. With his all-black clothes and the dim light around them, he became in an instant a blob of pure blackness. Standing in the shadow of the corner, one truly would not notice him unless one looked carefully—and if one did notice, so much the worse. Meeting such a thing in the dead of night would be enough to scare a person into a heart attack!

The short-cropped youth, meanwhile, put on a cheap wig and slipped into a loose white robe, then patted white powder over his face and daubed it with streaks of tomato sauce that at first glance looked exactly like fresh blood. With the face he made, he was even more frightening than the old man.

When all was ready, the old man produced a key and opened the door without a sound. The two crept in on tiptoe. Seeing no one in the living room, they exchanged a look and slid into the bedroom. Neither made a footfall, and their way of walking was thoroughly unsettling—at first glance they seemed to be floating, and it did carry a fair air of haunting.

Yet before the two of them could begin their scare, the moment they entered the room they frightened themselves badly instead. The short-cropped youth nearly dropped onto his backside, and the old man behind him was shoved straight back into the living room. Fortunately the tea table he bumped into was a solid, heavy thing; otherwise it would surely have made a noise.