Chapter 5026 — The Female Neighbor

The old man and the buzz-cut youth tumbled from the fifth floor down to the fourth. The moment they scrambled to their feet and heard Wei Zhao's door close, sheer terror seized them again; their legs gave way, and they rolled helplessly from the fourth floor down to the third.

Credit where it was due—the two of them were in decent shape. After tumbling down two full flights, they could still get up, and they limped and hobbled frantically down and out of the building. Only when they reached the well-lit entrance of the residential compound did they stagger to a halt and collapse, utterly bedraggled, onto the ground.

"Master, we're lucky to be alive after getting out of there this time. I swear on my life I'm never coming back to this place—not for any amount of money," the buzz-cut youth panted, still shaken to the core.

"Let's go back to the countryside. Starting today, we never set foot in Xima City again. We'll move somewhere else. It's too dangerous here." The old man was equally rattled.

"Yes, yes, never again!" The buzz-cut youth nodded vigorously, caught his breath, and suddenly asked, "Master, that thing just now—that was a ghost, wasn't it?"

"Of course it was! You think it could've been a person?" The old man was utterly convinced.

"But then what about what we ran into during the day? Broad daylight—that couldn't have been a ghost either, could it?" The youth hunched his neck as he spoke.

"Who can say with ghosts? Maybe they can come out and do harm in broad daylight too." The old man curled his lip. Then a thought struck him and he started. "The money on us—it just vanished for no reason. That ghost must've been behind it. You don't think it's latched onto us, do you?"

"My god! Master, don't scare me like that!" The buzz-cut youth hadn't even gotten his breath back before he leapt up in fright again.

"Go, go, go—we have to get out of here right now. Not another minute in this place. We need to find a Taoist priest to help us. If that thing really has latched onto us, neither of us will survive!" The more the old man thought, the more terrified he became. Ignoring the aches all over his body, he scrambled up and set off.

"But what about Boss Huang?" the youth asked, hurrying after him.

"Who cares about him! If he's got the skill, let him exorcise the ghost himself. Let him chew on that headache!" the old man snapped irritably.

The Boss Huang they spoke of was a small-time operator in the area and the landlord of Wei Zhao's apartment, a loafer who lived for idleness and good food. One day a wild idea had struck him: a surefire scheme to swindle people—by faking a haunting.

Sure, the tenants paid only modest rent, but that hardly mattered when one came and one fled. From that single apartment he could pull in over ten thousand a month. What business under the sun could be easier?

But scaring people off quickly couldn't be done on rumor alone—the place had to genuinely seem haunted from time to time. And so Boss Huang hired these two cheats.

Over the past six months, this little fake-haunting racket had flourished. The money skimmed off each time wasn't much—eight hundred or a thousand here and there—but added together it was no small sum.

"Why haven't those two called yet?" Boss Huang had been waiting for the call since early morning; that was the arrangement he had with the two cheats. The moment they scared off a tenant, he wired them their money. In the past they had always been eager, but today it was nearly noon and still not a peep.

At last Boss Huang could wait no longer and called the two cheats himself. What do you know—both phones were off.

"I knew those two crooks were unreliable. Damn it, they've probably struck it rich somewhere and turned up their noses at a two- or three-hundred-yuan job, is that it? The pair of scoundrels!" Only then did Boss Huang catch on. Cursing under his breath, he started calling around for replacements. There was no shortage of thugs and swindlers these days—if those two scoundrels wouldn't take the job, plenty of others would jump at it.

After scaring off the two cheats, Wei Zhao cultivated another full night and did not rise and go out until nearly noon. Xima City was not large; he planned to take his time and look around a bit, to see whether, apart from the little ice queen across the hall, he could discover any other experts of the Heavenly Dao stage—especially those two things he had already crossed blades with.

It was a bit risky, but in any case he had to get a clear picture of the surroundings in which he found himself. Besides, so long as he kept a safe distance from that Sun Baimei fellow, a little caution should carry him through.

Wei Zhao had no sooner stepped out his door than the door across the hall opened as well. The tall woman glanced at him and said suddenly, "Were there ghosts here last night?"

She lived right next door, and she was an expert of the early Foundation Establishment stage. It would have been strange indeed if she hadn't noticed the commotion those two cheats made last night—after all, she was only injured, not so gravely wounded as to be unconscious.

"No—well, there were two of them pretending to be ghosts. I scared them off," Wei Zhao answered truthfully.

The tall woman nodded without another word, turned, and went downstairs. Wei Zhao followed behind her.

He had to admit—this little ice queen might keep people at arm's length with her coldness, but her presence was genuinely striking, and with her tall, slender figure, she was a pleasing sight from behind.

Still, Wei Zhao was merely appreciative. He had never been the sort to lose the use of his legs at the sight of a beauty, and with so many peerless women in his life, he had built up a formidable immunity. Even if the view was pleasing, it was nothing more than a glance.

The two walked in silence all the way to the entrance of the compound, then parted ways, one to the left and one to the right. Wei Zhao headed into the urban area of Xima City, while the tall woman went the opposite direction. Wei Zhao could not help wondering: where was this little ice queen off to—the countryside, perhaps?

Puzzled as he was, Wei Zhao asked nothing. He made his own way into the city proper and looked around, gathering information and, while he was at it, buying a phone charger. His jade pendant's space held a solar power bank, but it wasn't much use indoors.

Beyond that, Wei Zhao picked up a SIM card. His old one had run out of credit and been disconnected long ago and had probably been deactivated by now. To get in touch with Qiu Lingshan and the others in the days to come, he would naturally need a new one—he couldn't exactly rely on payphones, could he?

Toying with the brand-new phone in his hand, Wei Zhao was overcome with feeling. It was the freebie that came with the few hundred yuan of credit he had just topped up when buying the SIM card, so the quality was naturally nothing to write home about—the cheapest Android on the market. Even so, it was enough to keep Wei Zhao occupied for a good while.

After all, what still sat in his jade pendant's space was the flip phone Shen Yushu had discarded. In just three short years, that phone had become hopelessly obsolete; smart phones were everywhere now, on every street and alley. One had to sigh—the speed at which digital products were replaced was truly astonishing, and nowhere more so than with phones! (To be continued.)