Having bought a haunted house where four people died at such a young age, when I came to the hot and sour noodle shop again, I clearly felt the tattooed boss looking at me differently.

Now that I think about it, the last time I came here to buy noodles, he had sold them to me as a final meal. That’s why I was fortunate enough to eat a bowl of hot and sour noodles with everything in lethal doses on Guan Yinli Food Street, famous for short-changing customers, and went back crying uncontrollably in front of Song Nanshi.

The boss must never have expected that I would still be alive until now.

I said to the boss: “One cup of sour plum soup, one bowl of medium-spicy hot and sour noodles, eating here.”

At this time, there were few people in the shop. Song Nanshi and I chose a spot under the electric fan. At the table next to us sat a thin elderly lady, scrolling through TikTok videos of young male celebrities dancing.

Specialization is key. Seeing this situation, I immediately decided to handle it myself and asked: “Auntie, I’d like to ask, do you know about what happened at No. 29 up ahead?”

Hearing this, the boss’s hand trembled while preparing noodles: “You… have you also encountered something in that house? Didn’t they say last time that the haunting was fake?”

Looking at it this way, although the boss looked much more imposing and robust than me, he was a fellow ghost-fearing comrade. I laughed dryly: “Brother, last time there really wasn’t any haunting. My Daoist priest was just being prepared, but this house’s dark history is right here, so I have to be prepared for anything.”

The boss served us food and hesitated before saying to the elderly lady beside him: “Mom… why don’t you tell them? Although the property management told us not to chat about this unless necessary, after all, we’re all running shops here…”

“Wait… the property management won’t let you talk about this?” I was startled.

The boss smiled bitterly: “If we could talk about it, wouldn’t I have told you when you came to buy noodles last time? We all here know…”

“That house is too evil, young man. How did you think of buying it?”

At this moment, the elderly lady suddenly interrupted. She put down her phone and directly pulled her stool next to me, grabbing my hand with heartfelt pain.

“Looking at you, young man, you’re quite handsome. How can you be so square-headed to dare buy such a house for business? Do you know No. 29 caught fire before? Everyone who got involved with that house came to no good end.”

I couldn’t care about being taken advantage of now and hurriedly pursued: “So you’re saying you know about the fire at No. 29?”

The elderly lady sighed: “How could I not know? I used to live here. When the developer paid us to move, my husband signed some contract with them for money. A few years later, when my son wanted to come back and do business, he found the rent had increased several times. So heartless.”

I asked: “So who originally lived in No. 29? Can you tell me what happened then?”

“Young man, you asked the right person.”

The elderly lady seemed to have been waiting for me to ask. She slapped my hand twice forcefully, acting like she didn’t consider me an outsider: “That house wasn’t far from mine back then. I remember a woman lived inside, surnamed Lin, around forty years old. The house was left to her by her old man, and she’d lived there for many years. She loved roses, so the roses at the door grew so well.”

“So she lived alone, no family?”

“When we lived in Guan Yinli, we never saw any family members, but she was said to be married. She divorced years earlier, and her family moved away. Later when the fire happened, her husband seemed to have demanded money from Guan Yinli, quite a lot too.”

My heart skipped a beat.

A lonely woman, burned to death in her ancestral home, and then her family seemed to care more about the money in her pocket than her life or death…

This was fucking standard horror movie plot.

I couldn’t help asking: “So why did the house catch fire then?”

The elderly lady pursed her toothless gums: “That’s what’s strange—they couldn’t figure it out. They said something about aging electrical circuits, but no one saw how the fire started. Later it burned so big that half of Guan Yinli could see it. Although we had already moved away by then, everyone said that woman first called for help from the second floor, and her voice carried very far. But Guan Yinli was empty then—who could come to rescue her? Later, when she tried to run down the stairs, her whole body was on fire, and by the time she collapsed at the door, there was no saving her.”

Bathroom… stairs…

The more I listened, the colder my heart became, and I unconsciously fell silent. Perhaps seeing something on my face, the elderly lady suddenly pinched my hand and said mysteriously: “Young man, I’m telling you, you can’t keep living in that house. Even if it’s for the sake of the little girl in your shop, her family is so worried. I saw it online here—”

“What?”

My brain couldn’t process fast enough. The elderly lady had already handed over her phone. She skillfully scrolled the video forward, and instantly, a middle-aged couple appeared on screen.

The Gua Video reporter eagerly thrust the microphone toward the couple: “May I ask if Miss Song indeed previously worked as a mortuary cosmetologist?”

The couple, embarrassed, answered irrelevantly, faces full of worry: “She insisted on studying mortuary science back then. Now she had a good job about to become permanent, but suddenly quit without a word, moved out of home, and insisted on making cakes in a haunted house. Now she won’t even answer our calls…”

“Don’t… don’t play it!”

Halfway through the video, Song Nanshi frantically lunged over to turn off the phone screen.

Only now did I realize she had actually been out of sorts the whole time. Usually she could add half a bottle of chili sauce to rice, but today she had only taken two bites of a medium-spicy hot and sour noodle bowl.

It seemed that since she went home during the day, Song Nanshi hadn’t been quite right.

I could say I had a lot of experience with family conflicts, but the elderly lady obviously wasn’t as good at reading the atmosphere as I was, and continued: “Oh dear, I just think the little girl is so pretty, and her family is hoping for her to get married. Look how worried your parents are—”

“Boss! I, I’ll go back first!”

Before the elderly lady finished speaking, Song Nanshi had already fled from the shop like flying. Years of experience coaxing my sister made me realize that not chasing after her now would definitely be game over, so without a word I followed out and quickly intercepted the panicked Song Nanshi not far away.

“Are you okay?”

As soon as I caught her, I found the girl’s eyes were already red. The beauty-lover alarm immediately went off, and I decisively abandoned today’s investigation: “We’ve asked enough. How about I go back and teach you to make new cake? Matcha Basque that you like?”

After Han Sha’s previous performance, I had discovered that Song Nanshi was actually a very easy girl to coax. Even after Han Sha had deceived her so brutally, it only took two takeout meals to cheer her up.

And with immediate effect, the girl’s eyes lifted up, hesitating before asking: “Boss, will you really keep me making cakes? Even if I learn slowly, but… but I can help you block drinks next time!”

She made me laugh: “Forget about blocking drinks. Even if you can drink, having girls drink is rogue behavior. Besides, Xiao Song, do the other two people in the shop look like cake-making people… Old Han would want to charge me two hundred just to help crack an egg, and Xiao He’s strength would probably turn batter into cement in minutes. Besides you, who else can I rely on now?”

“Boss…”

Song Nanshi said emotionally: “It’s just my family situation…”

I smiled: “As long as you want to work at my place, I won’t interfere with other matters… Also, what just happened might have implicated you because of me. After all, my dad probably hasn’t given up even now and is trying every trick to poach you all from my shop.”

It seemed I’d need to have Bai Liu find a reliable lawyer later, so these media wouldn’t buzz around the people around me like flies every day.

I thought with a cold laugh: “There’s probably no second father like this in the world. His own son is struggling to make ends meet opening a shop, yet he’s still enthusiastic about creating more trouble for me…”

Damn, the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I couldn’t help cursing that old bastard in my heart to choke on chili peppers every day like a dog. At this moment, my hand suddenly warmed—Song Nanshi gently grabbed me.

The thin redness in her eyes had disappeared, and two bright eyes looked straight at me.

“Boss will be fine. I won’t leave. No matter how much trouble No. 29 causes, you’re not alone.”

Song Nanshi’s tone was gentle, and her delicate face was full of sincerity.

If I were meeting her for the first time and heard this opening, my heart might have already melted into a puddle of pudding. However, precisely because she was Song Nanshi—

“Even if something happens to you, we can get you to the hospital in time, so it won’t be like the previous people who died in the house without anyone discovering… If you rot, makeup would be very difficult too.”

“…”

Sure enough.

There was indeed a reason why a beauty had ended up working with me.

“Boss, I…”

Song Nanshi looked like she wanted to say more, but thinking that my life had entered a countdown, I felt I should buy a cup of milk tea to calm down first.

“I’ll be right back.”

I was about to get up and walk toward the “Tea Something Moonlight” across the street when suddenly Song Nanshi grabbed me.

Her face was full of panic.

“Boss, did I say the wrong thing again? What I actually wanted to say was… I, I didn’t mean that!”

Song Nanshi said regretfully: “It’s just that when I was working before, I encountered too few living people every day. Although I practiced too! But… corpses don’t talk after all…”

Finally, like a golden retriever that had done something wrong, Song Nanshi stared at the ground pitifully, and I couldn’t help feeling guilty.

Such a big beautiful dog who couldn’t even speak properly, not afraid of a haunted house where four people died, bearing pressure from outside and home, wholeheartedly wanting to learn cake-making with me in such a small broken shop…

Thinking of these things, even if I were made of stone, I should have melted.

“Boss?”

Not getting my answer, Song Nanshi’s shoulders quickly slumped.

“Actually, I’ve always known that I can’t talk properly, because those people who introduced me to blind dates all said my personality could only work as a mortician, and this face being so good is completely useless on me…”

Song Nanshi’s voice became lighter and lighter: “I just… feel a bit unwilling to be talked about like this. Obviously I became a mortician because I liked it, but in the end it all became shortcomings in their mouths, saying boring, saying wasteful. I’m afraid if I keep going like this, I’ll really become the female classmate without a story that they talk about. I don’t want this, so I wanted to try something else, like… haunted house beauty or something…”

By the end, the girl’s head had completely drooped, and for a moment, only the heat waves and cicada sounds of Guan Yinli surrounded us.

Although but…

I couldn’t help sighing inwardly.

The world really should have more beauty-lovers to protect beautiful women.

Please.

With this girl’s level of professional proficiency, she probably painted more human corpses in one day in the past than the fish corpses that fell into my hands in a year. Such work experience could be called a model worker whether in the world of the living or the dead. If I knew which dog bastard dared to use this profession to manipulate her, I’d be the first to slap that idiot to death.

After hesitating, I put my hand on her fluffy head and felt her tremble slightly.

I helplessly began to comfort: “This female classmate, first, a cold fact: making cakes isn’t voice-controlled and doesn’t require you to talk well. Then, next time anyone dares say your beauty is useless, please have them come directly to me for a debate. Finally, you’re making these attempts not to prove yourself to these people, but for yourself. After all, as long as people are willing to go all out…”

Suddenly, my words stopped abruptly.

A chef’s standard operation is to pour chicken soup for others and end up drinking two big bowls first. Suddenly, I inexplicably connected this to No. 29’s current situation.

“Facts prove that as long as people are willing to go all out, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish.”

From the first day I entered Huangliang Yimeng, I had known this principle.

Whatever was inside, that bastard had always been proactively messing with me, putting me in desperate straits. However—

What if this time I turned the tables and did something completely different?

In just an instant, an extremely bold idea had already formed in my head.