For a full three minutes, I stared at He Jian’s face, wondering if I was dreaming.

Finally, He Jian walked in front of me and waved his hand, smiling: “Boss, are you alright? How about I still call you boss, and you still call me He Jian for now – I know it’s probably difficult to change how you address me all at once.”

Excuse me, is that where the problem lies?

Huh?

I steadied myself and immediately pulled out my phone to call my sister on the spot. As soon as she picked up, I fired off: “Sis, didn’t you say you checked everyone in my shop and they were fine?”

Hearing my tone was wrong, Bai Liu almost immediately understood, asking in the gossipy tone of someone who loves watching drama unfold: “So you finally discovered it?”

Hearing her start to suppress laughter, I nearly couldn’t catch my breath: “You fucking knew there was a criminal police deputy captain sleeping in my room and didn’t tell me? Am I still your brother or not?”

Hearing this, He Jian standing in front of me showed a business smile, while Bai Liu actually started acting wronged on the phone: “It’s precisely because you’re my brother living in a haunted house that I was relieved knowing there was a police officer protecting you. Besides, did I say anything wrong when I said he was fine… He’s a police officer, you know.”

By the end, Bai Liu really couldn’t suppress her explosive laughter anymore. I hung up the phone in exasperation, then suddenly remembered what Han Sha had said to me earlier.

“How do you know others didn’t contact you?”

“Shit, you fucking knew too?”

I whipped around to glare at Han Sha, but the latter also unceremoniously burst out laughing on the spot, saying innocently: “I said before that if you were scared, Xiao He would definitely be willing to act as your guardian and watch you shower. Boss, you even said this would be sexual harassment for Officer Xiao He… But after all, what use is it that I knew? He’s a police officer, you know.”

Suddenly, even Chen Yuan and Wang Wei beside him started turning their heads away to laugh. I finally understood why the two had shown such strange and hesitant expressions earlier.

How does that saying go?

They’re professionals and would never laugh, unless…

“So Xiao He is a police officer… no wonder he has such a good physique.”

At this moment, I heard Song Nanshi’s dazed voice. Looking again, this girl’s eyes had gone completely straight. My heart finally felt a bit better.

Good, there was still one victim in this house like me.

I leaned against the stairway, still trying to digest the fact that the recent graduate sharing a room with me was actually a divorced criminal police deputy captain. Meanwhile, the person in question stood beside me putting on a pitiful act: “Boss, couldn’t you forgive me considering I’m a police officer?”

I glared at him viciously, only to discover that He Jian’s face really was adaptable – as soon as the sharp expression faded, he instantly transformed back into a pure college student.

He’s a police officer, hold back, Bai Yang.

He’s fucking a police officer!

I gritted my teeth: “Could you temporarily not talk to me? I’m afraid if you keep talking I might assault an officer.”

Hearing this, He Jian wasn’t annoyed either, patting my shoulder: “Alright, stop holding it in. I wish suspects during interrogation could write their thoughts on their faces as clearly as you do… If you want to curse, then curse. As for assaulting an officer, you couldn’t beat me anyway.”

I thought since you’re offering this up, don’t blame me for embarrassing you in front of your subordinates. I opened my mouth to curse: “Fuck you…”

Before I finished speaking, looking at He Jian’s extremely young-looking face, I suddenly remembered the family situation he’d told me about before. The words that had reached my lips were forcibly swallowed back down as I asked stiffly: “So you haven’t told me a single truth – were all those things about your family lies too?”

He Jian shook his head: “I didn’t lie about family matters. The car accident was real, my father is also a police officer, severely injured at home. But the injuries on my body were mostly work injuries from these years… Is there anything else you want to know? Ask it all now – consider it my apology to you.”

“Fine.” I snorted coldly. “Was the ID you gave me fake?”

He Jian shrugged: “Mission requirements. This isn’t my first time on this kind of assignment, but previous bosses weren’t doing legal business – there was no five insurances and housing fund issue. I didn’t expect you to bring it up. Fortunately, you didn’t immediately want to process it for us.”

“You often do this kind of assignment – it wouldn’t be because of your…”

“Of course it’s because of this face. Looking young has some advantages. I’m already 31, boss, but when I came to apply, I guessed your shop would prefer young people, so when Old Han said I was some virgin boy, I went with the flow… Fortunately, I’ve played this kind of role often before.”

“Then when you were possessed before…”

Hearing me mention this, He Jian smiled bitterly: “Originally I infiltrated wanting to investigate this house without exposing my identity, without making too much commotion. Who could have expected boss you to suddenly suggest we sleep in the same room, and when I let you take the bed you refused? This way, doing investigations at night would easily be discovered by you.”

I was startled, immediately understanding, asking in shock: “So you only pretended to sleepwalk because you didn’t want to expose that you were investigating the house?”

He Jian smiled: “Since boss you had already discovered it, I thought might as well go all in and use the opportunity to test the identities of others in your house. After all, at that time I didn’t understand why Old Han insisted on coming to your place to play god and ghost. I had investigated him – I knew that while he had Daoist cultivation background, he definitely wasn’t someone who would believe in feudal superstition.”

I still couldn’t figure it out: “So why did you have to infiltrate to investigate? If this house had problems, couldn’t you just tell me directly?”

He Jian looked at me helplessly: “There are many reasons. First, the previous cases had all been closed – investigating again without any direct evidence wouldn’t be proper procedure. Second, everyone who had accidents at Building 29 before were residents. To know what they really experienced, the best approach would be to become a resident here and lure the snake out of its hole.”

So He Jian’s first possession was because I accidentally discovered him, and the second time…

I frowned: “You wanted to verify Old Han’s identity, so your second fake possession was just to push him further?”

“Exactly.”

He Jian admitted it frankly: “Old Han kept advising you to sell the house. I could see he wanted to scare you then get his hands on the house. After all, the only thing the previous residents had in common was this house. I wanted to understand what Old Han really wanted with this house, so I played along.”

Shit.

I realized belatedly that if He Jian was a police officer, he would have long seen the autopsy reports of Building 29’s previous tenants and would naturally know what the so-called “red-dressed female ghost” should look like.

The result was these two scammers from different camps playing house at my place – one dared to make stuff up, the other dared to act it out, ultimately scaring me into living in constant fear every day.

He Jian sighed: “At first, boss, your insistence on sharing a room was indeed troublesome for me, but later I discovered that most of the strange phenomena in this house targeted you specifically. Facts proved that this way I could best protect your safety.”

No wonder when Building 29’s haunting got so serious later and I told Bai Liu about it, she wasn’t too anxious.

With such a big police officer sleeping in the house, it would indeed be difficult for me to get into trouble.

Though I was deceived, I couldn’t find fault with it.

…Shit.

I clenched my fists viciously.

The guy gave up his vacation to work for me just to investigate a case, and had such an innocent college student face that I didn’t dare look at He Jian now, afraid I’d accidentally stop being angry.

“So… boss, are we reconciled now?”

Seeing me not speaking, He Jian’s tone could actually be called ingratiating. I glared at him irritably: “What else can I do if we don’t reconcile? You’re a police officer! Divorced and given leave but refusing to rest, insisting on coming to work overtime – can I stop you?”

He Jian: “…”

Originally I was speaking casually, but unexpectedly he really did smile bitterly.

Wait…

I suddenly thought of all the nonsense this kid had fed me before – about special family circumstances, being too busy to date, safety being most important – and suddenly that nerve in my brain clicked into place.

I said in shock: “They gave you leave right after your divorce – wasn’t that to give you time to win back your wife? But instead you came here to do some investigation?”

“Let me explain that to you later, boss. We’ve chatted enough – the case investigation is important.”

He Jian patted me, his expression instantly changing. He walked down the stairs, calling out: “Xiao Chen, Xiao Wang, remember what I said – every inch of flooring needs to be knocked. Both first and second floors. Building 29’s temperature often changes – I suspect there are passages to the outside that I mentioned to you before.”

“Got it, boss.”

As Chen Yuan and Wang Wei spread out, I was shocked: “You’re saying there are secret passages in Building 29? How retro?”

He Jian strode into the kitchen knocking around everywhere, saying lightly: “Speaking of retro, but it’s often right under our noses. If it’s for hiding or manufacturing drugs, this trick is common and effective – anyone who’s done narcotics work would be familiar with it, but criminal investigation might not necessarily be… If hidden well, it often requires very careful searching to discover. But since the deaths of the previous four tenants weren’t classified as homicides, the scene investigation probably wasn’t thorough enough. After reading the case files, I’ve always felt there were likely oversights.”

What happened next was completely outside my knowledge area. The police began searching Building 29 inch by inch – not just floors and walls, but even cabinets. After I served them two rounds of cake, He Jian’s phone suddenly vibrated.

“Results are in?”

After listening for less than half a minute, he hung up and turned to me: “Boss, last night’s DNA rush results are in.”

“DNA?”

I was still getting used to him using that face to say very cop-like things.

He Jian smiled: “The blood Xiao Song collected for you. After the police station reported to the branch, they rushed out a report. Guess what they found?”

I rolled my eyes: “Don’t play riddles with me at a time like this. It definitely wasn’t a ghost anyway, right? Our high technology hasn’t evolved to that level yet.”

He Jian obviously didn’t treat me as an outsider, directly showing me the report sent to his phone.

I frowned: “So last night that was…”

“A man.”

He Jian was concise: “A type-A blood male premeditated an attack on you last night. His ability to appear and disappear must have used secret passages in this house. I suspect the various anomalies in the house before were also related to him, including the sounds upstairs when no one was there, the blood and hair in the bathroom, the newspapers, and what you saw under the bed… all him. It’s just that there was never concrete evidence to prove this until last night.”

“Then what’s his motive?” I instinctively asked.

If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it from the beginning – there was no need to crawl around Building 29 doing all this nonsense. But if it was just pranks, what suddenly made him want to take my life?

He Jian thought for a moment and was about to speak when suddenly Chen Yuan’s excited voice came from the storage room under the stairs: “Boss, found it!!”

My heart jumped. Guessing there were secret passages in the house and actually finding them were two different things. You have to understand, when I inspected the house I had looked at every square meter. Now it was like buying a dinner roll and suddenly being told it was a cream puff with empty insides… what the hell was going on?

Everyone instantly crowded to the storage room entrance. This small space was filled with things left by previous tenants, including an abandoned small freezer – all stuff I had piled in here after moving in.

Chen Yuan crouched behind the freezer, lifted the old carpet that had originally covered the storage room floor, and knocked on the boards underneath.

Though I couldn’t hear any problem, He Jian immediately frowned.

“Carpet.”

He Jian said: “Lifting and laying down carpet wouldn’t make any sound, moving boards and placing them on carpet would also be silent. Most importantly… even in such a dusty place, it wouldn’t leave obvious footprints. No wonder there was no movement when disappearing before.”

“Open it.”

With He Jian’s command, Chen Yuan moved away the tightly fitted boards. In an instant, accompanied by a cold wind, a hole nearly half a meter wide appeared silently in the storage room floor.

…It really fucking was a cream puff!

“Boss.”

He Jian said to the dumbstruck me: “Are you ready to catch Building 29’s ghost?”