The moment I heard that voice, my scalp exploded with shock. I instinctively turned back to look and saw a black shadow standing in the corner of the dimly lit first-floor hall. When I stared at him, he also slowly stuck his head out in a very eerie posture, as if looking back at me.
Another wave of chills ran through me, and my calves began to tremble.
For some reason, I had the feeling that as long as I dared to call Han Sha and the others, this thing would immediately rush toward me.
After all… all horror movies were filmed this way—if the enemy doesn’t move, I don’t move, but the moment I move, the enemy would fly directly over and mount my face.
There were still five steps left.
I slowly adjusted my breathing, preparing to rush up in one breath. However, before I could make up my mind, “that thing” in the darkness seemed unable to wait any longer and began giggling.
Damn it.
I’d only heard this thing cry before—who could have imagined that its laughter was even more devastating? My back was instantly soaked with cold sweat.
Anyone who wouldn’t run at this moment, I’d respect them as a true hero!
My body immediately sprang into action, and sure enough, the moment I moved, the thing in the darkness also flew toward me. I only had time to see its ghastly pale face clearly before I could no longer control myself and began screaming in terror.
I was just running a business—no one ever told me that opening a trendy shop would mean suffering like this every night!
I began running upstairs using both hands and feet, and it was only at this moment that I deeply realized my sister was right.
The feng shui of a haunted house wasn’t good—it must be because the damn renovation was no good. Whether the two people who died on the stairs before had anything to do with ghosts, I didn’t know, but I knew now that the reason they lost their footing definitely had an inseparable relationship with these damn stairs!
This damn thing was trying to kill me!
Just as this thought popped into my head, my foot immediately slipped.
The few steps closest to the second floor at No. 29 were designed so ridiculously that even during normal times you couldn’t step on them fully, let alone now when I was panicking and chose my path carelessly. I stepped into thin air and was about to tumble headfirst down the stairs when my front suddenly tightened—He Jian grabbed me and lifted me up like a little chicken, actually pulling me up to the second floor.
“What’s going on?”
Song Nanshi rushed back to ask me, and I only had time to say the four words “someone downstairs” before He Jian had already charged down, his movements so swift that I couldn’t even stop him in time.
Young man, you’ve already suffered once—couldn’t you be a little less brave?
I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before I was back on the stairs that had nearly killed me. As He Jian turned on the downstairs lights, the No. 29 hall was brightly illuminated…
Forget about black shadows—this time even the newspaper was gone.
He Jian was young and hot-blooded after all. Perhaps still remembering the grudge from last time, he immediately searched the entire first floor aggressively from inside to outside.
He pushed open the bathroom door, opened the storage room under the stairs and the kitchen.
Nothing—absolutely nothing.
Once again, the thing that had just been staring at me in the darkness had vanished into thin air.
Feeling completely like I’d survived a disaster, my legs gave out and I sat directly on the stairs. Han Sha, who had hurried over, asked: “Did you see it again?”
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, very much wanting to deny it, but though my mouth opened, I really couldn’t say those words.
The eyes were on my face—even if I slapped myself twice right now, I couldn’t wake up, because everything I had just seen was reality—happening right here in the house I had bought.
Obviously, when Han Sha’s ritual first began, it could at least make the things here quiet down for two days, but now it had reached the point of direct provocation… Old Han’s skills wouldn’t have deteriorated in just one month, so the only possibility was—
No. 29, this bratty kid, had gotten used to setback education and was actually becoming increasingly rebellious.
With things having reached this point, even someone as big-hearted as me couldn’t comfort myself that No. 29’s problems could be solved just by changing the renovation.
While doing business was indeed gambling, it definitely wasn’t closing your eyes and going all-in. If changing the renovation still made all of Han Sha’s rituals completely ineffective, I might even lose the renovation money.
Thinking of this, my heart couldn’t help but sink. Looking again at the wound on Han Sha’s palm still gaping open, I sighed: “Let’s deal with your hand first… You don’t have work injury insurance either. If you need to go to the hospital later, I’ll pay for it.”
Fortunately, treating wounds was Song Nanshi’s specialty. She had Han Sha’s hand properly bandaged in no time. Knowing that tonight’s incident couldn’t be avoided, once again all members of Huangliang Yimeng sat around the table, the atmosphere so heavy it was nearly solidified.
Although I’d closed seven shops in the past, even the shortest-lived cat café had at least operated for half a year and closed only because it couldn’t be sustained.
I thought dejectedly that if I’d known making money would also lead to closure, when the cat café closed I should have just relied on those two unneutered little cats and their harem to reproduce endlessly. After finding good homes for those kittens and earning enough money, I could have started new investments.
Now, just when Huangliang Yimeng was at its most prosperous, I had to give up for such ghostly reasons—I was truly unwilling.
“What if… we moved out?”
I gritted my teeth, still not giving up: “If you could accept it, I could rent a staff apartment nearby so we wouldn’t have to worry and fear like this every night.”
“I’m fine with it!” Song Nanshi immediately nodded like a pecking chicken. “Boss, whatever you arrange is fine with me.”
Beautiful woman, but a loyal dog.
A wave of emotion surged in my heart, but looking at Han Sha’s expression, I knew things weren’t that simple.
Sure enough, the next second he sighed: “This isn’t a long-term solution either. Because of the stimulation from living people during the day, the situation here is gradually becoming more serious. Not only the second floor—the first floor will also have problems. Boss, don’t mind me speaking harshly, but if we really ignore it in the future, sooner or later it will develop into daytime hauntings.”
“Daytime hauntings…”
I sucked in a cold breath, finally genuinely experiencing the power of No. 29’s big sister: “She’s already arrogant to this degree? Not only is she not afraid of you, she’s not even afraid of the sun anymore?”
Whether due to bloodletting or something else, Han Sha’s complexion was very poor. He said helplessly: “To be honest, in my ten years in this profession, I’ve never seen such a malevolent house. The red-clothed woman that Xiao He saw is probably not just the previous tenant who died from blood loss, but rather a collection of evil thoughts from No. 29. There are some other spirits here, but they’re no match for her.”
Since we were already being completely honest, I might as well ask everything that needed asking to help me give up hope.
I asked again: “So what would happen if we kept living here?”
Han Sha thought for a moment: “I haven’t encountered such a malevolent place, but in the past my master told me that the more vicious a house is, the more vicious it becomes when people live in it, because the murdered people all linger in the original place. In other words, the more people who die, the greater the evil thoughts become. Staying here continuously, you’re essentially No. 29’s reserve food supply. Once you’re devoured one day, you’ll also never be able to leave this place.”
“Reserve food supply…”
Hearing this term for the first time, cold sweat poured down my back. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be better for these netherworld things to directly keep a human as their subordinate for sustainable development? Why kill one after another—what if people later felt this ghostly place was too evil and directly tore down the house?
Song Nanshi said worriedly: “What if the boss moves out directly and this thing continues to pester him? I think… the boss’s luck really is quite bad.”
“Why are you stating such harsh truths?”
I sighed and quickly fed Song Nanshi a peachwood sword to shut her mouth: “Yeah, I’ve already been marked as reserve food. Would she let me go just because I moved out of the house? Now you can’t even handle her—when she comes looking for me in the future, wouldn’t I die in minutes?”
“There’s still me! Me!”
He Jian frantically interjected: “These past few days I still occasionally have nightmares about that red-clothed woman coming to find me… What if she really has improper designs on me? If the boss moves out now, wouldn’t I have to dream about her for the rest of my life? I haven’t, haven’t even gotten married yet…”
“Don’t rush, one at a time.”
Han Sha wearily pinched his nose bridge and first asked He Jian: “Being possessed will have some subsequent effects on the body. I’ll ask you some questions—answer honestly.”
He Jian nodded.
Han Sha: “Have you felt weak physically during this time?”
He Jian: “Not really… except for nightmares, everything else is fine.”
Han Sha: “Have you experienced essence leakage?”
He Jian choked for a moment. Seeing that Han Sha didn’t seem to intend to explain, he quickly looked it up on his phone. Then his face gradually turned completely red, his voice thin as a mosquito’s buzz: “Uh… I’m not that desperate that I’d find everything attractive just because I’ve been single for so long…”
Han Sha said flatly: “She enters your dreams but cannot touch your vital essence, which means your foundation is still intact. If it’s like this even when you’re in this house, how could she harm you after you leave?”
By this time I had also looked up the meaning of essence leakage and felt that I had truly lost at the starting line. I said quietly: “But he’ll have to find a girlfriend eventually… I recruited people to work here—I can’t have the shop close down and still expect them to remain celibate for me, can I?”
Because the completely confused Song Nanshi was at the table, my words were already quite euphemistic. Hearing this, Han Sha rolled his eyes: “What are you thinking, boss? The things in this shop just can’t be subdued by my efforts alone—that doesn’t mean they can continue doing evil forever. But have you ever seen firefighters put out fires before rescuing people? The urgent priority is naturally to ensure your safety first. Never mind whether it will be harmful to you later—today it came straight for you… You staying in this house might not even survive to see ‘later.'”
I sighed again.
Since we’d talked to this point, the most important question came next.
You have to know, every previous shop opening had been in rented houses. When they failed, they failed—it was a case of losing both house and money, and I didn’t have much to worry about.
However, No. 29 was something I had bought.
Although the purchase price had been ridiculous, it was still money. Being unlucky to my degree, even a three-yuan red envelope from a food delivery app was as precious as three hundred yuan, let alone the large sum of money for buying a house—it could be said to be my life’s fortune.
I took a deep breath and finally asked the question I really didn’t want to ask: “So if we find relevant people to handle this, it wouldn’t be a total loss, right?”
If haunted houses had Dianping reviews, No. 29 could easily make the top three in Yu Jiang’s 2022 haunted house rankings. Just based on this reputation alone, it shouldn’t be sold cheaply.
Before Han Sha could speak, Song Nanshi looked at me with eager eyes: “Boss… are you really not going to run this shop anymore? Then what about us in the future…”
“If you’re willing to work with me, when I open a new shop I’d naturally be happy to have you come work as helpers again.”
Thinking about how my sister’s startup funds had already been used up, and that the money earned in this past half month probably could only afford renting another haunted house, I couldn’t help feeling sad. I was about to ask how much they generally paid for haunted houses, when suddenly He Jian slammed the table and stood up, glaring at me: “You’re not allowed to sell!”
“Xiao He?”
I was startled. For some reason, He Jian’s voice had suddenly become shrill and very sharp.
Combined with He Jian’s already delicate face…
It was exactly like a woman speaking.
The moment this thought popped into my head, I was already sweating, and Han Sha said “This is bad” and got up to grab him. But He Jian moved faster—he quickly jumped back a step, then smiled eerily.
“None of you can leave.”
He Jian said softly: “Whoever leaves, dies.”