Chapter 5

Seeing the black figure, Ning Haoyu and I both shouted, "Who!"

The black figure did not respond but, with a swift movement, crouched and darted to a corner of my small shop.

His speed was extremely fast, not at all like the speed of someone who had bent over to run.

Seeing the figure run, Ning Haoyu and I grew bolder and chased after him to the corner, cursing as we ran, "Damn it, stealing from me, do you know what this place used to be, a funeral parlor!"

As soon as I mentioned the funeral parlor, I suddenly felt a chill down my back.

Ning Haoyu nudged me and said, "Are you scaring him or me?"

As we spoke, Ning Haoyu and I, one on each side, cornered the black figure against the wall and shone a flashlight on him, only to find him squatting in the corner, facing the wall.

The black figure had a head of white hair and was wearing a black, dirty cotton coat. Wait, a cotton coat, it's summer now, could it be—funeral clothes!

Not just me, Ning Haoyu also thought of "funeral clothes," so we both took a step back.

"Who are you?" I shone the flashlight at the black figure, moving it back and forth.

At that moment, I calmed down and looked, and my flashlight's light had already passed through his body and shone on the corner, leaving no shadow on the wall.

As I was stunned, the black figure moved, suddenly grabbing the wall and climbing up like a gecko.

That wasn't all; after climbing to the roof, his entire body disappeared into the ceiling, vanishing without a trace.

Only Ning Haoyu and I were left standing there, dumbfounded.

Ning Haoyu swallowed and said, "Did you see that, Chuyi!"

I also swallowed and said, "I saw it, I'm not blind!"

We stood there for a while, feeling a chill down our backs, and hurriedly left my shop, locking the door. Ning Haoyu asked me what to do, and I shook my head and said, "I've never encountered this before. That guy was probably a ghost."

Before, I had only heard my grandfather talk about ghosts, never seeing one myself, always thinking it was a story he made up. But now I had encountered one...

While I was lost in thought, Ning Haoyu nudged me and asked, "Do you think that guy might go to the second floor? Whose room is above your shop?"

Ning Haoyu's reminder made me realize that the guy might have gone to the room above, which was rented by a woman who worked at a KTV.

I said this, and Ning Haoyu asked, "Nothing will happen, right? Don't let anyone die here again, or your house will never be rented out."

"Shut up!" I interrupted Ning Haoyu, "Don't talk nonsense. Let's go upstairs and check. If a ghost is going to ruin my income, I'll deal with it, even if it's a ghost."

Ning Haoyu tried to hold me back, but I had already started up the stairs.

Seeing he couldn't stop me, he followed.

Soon we were at the door of the KTV woman's room. The lights were off, and it was very quiet, with no sound at all, and we didn't know if anything had happened.

Ning Haoyu whispered, "What should we do?" I thought for a moment and knocked on the door. Soon, the KTV woman's voice, somewhat frightened, came from inside, "Who is it?"

I whispered, "It's me, the landlord."

The KTV woman's voice calmed down a bit, "Oh, it's the landlord. I'm not feeling well today, I'm on my period. Come back another day."

It seemed she had misunderstood me.

Ning Haoyu, standing next to me, asked, "Do you often come here?"

I replied, "Nonsense, this is the first time. What do you mean by the first time? We're here to catch a ghost today."

Ning Haoyu and I were speaking quickly, and the KTV woman in the room must have heard some of it, so she asked, "Landlord, is there someone with you? What did you say about catching a ghost? Is there a ghost in your house?"

I quickly explained, "No, you misunderstood. We were talking about catching a thief. Someone ran into the shop downstairs and stole something. I came up to check if anything happened here."

Since I said that, I woke up all the tenants on the second floor. Each one was normal, and we didn't see the black figure. After a while, I said the thief must have run away and asked everyone to check if anything was missing, so we could report it the next day.

Everyone said nothing was missing, so the matter was settled.

Going downstairs, Ning Haoyu didn't dare sleep alone and said he would sleep with me. I was also scared to be alone, so we both spent the night in my grandfather's room.

That night, neither of us slept much, thinking about the black figure. Any slight noise made us jump. We only fell asleep when it was almost dawn.

When we woke up, it was already noon.

The first thing we did after getting up was to go to my shop to see what had happened.

When we went in, Ning Haoyu and I found that the desk, which had been pulled to the side last night, was back in the center of the shop, almost exactly as we had placed it yesterday, as if what we had seen last night was just a dream.

Ning Haoyu walked around the desk and said, "What's going on?"

I shook my head, and Ning Haoyu continued, "Chuyi, how about we burn this table? It's too eerie. I don't want to harm you."

I walked around the desk and said, "If we burn it, I think it will cause more trouble. The ghost is attached to this desk. If we burn it, it will haunt us for life. The best way now is to try to send it away."

Ning Haoyu asked, "Can you do that?"

I gave Ning Haoyu a look and said, "My grandfather taught me, but I always thought it was just a story and didn't pay much attention. I don't know if it will work, but before we try to send it away, I need to do one more thing."

Ning Haoyu asked what it was, and I took a deep breath and said, "Read his face."

"You're crazy, read a ghost's face?" Ning Haoyu pushed me.

I smiled bitterly and said, "This is a rule my grandfather set for me. He said if I ever encountered a ghost and wanted to send it away, I had to read its face first. I thought he was talking nonsense, but now I feel like I'm going crazy."

Ning Haoyu patted my shoulder and asked sympathetically, "What did your grandfather do?"

I couldn't answer Ning Haoyu because I didn't know what my grandfather did. He said he was a fortune teller and very skilled, but how did a fortune teller get involved with ghosts?

While Ning Haoyu and I were talking in the shop, we suddenly heard a series of "thuds" from upstairs, as if someone was stomping on the floor.

The sound made me irritable, and I shouted, "Crazy?"

My shout only made the person upstairs stomp faster, "thud, thud, thud..."

This made me angry. How dare someone challenge the landlord?

Ning Haoyu and I went straight to the second floor and headed for the KTV woman's room, where the sound was coming from.

When we got upstairs, we found that all the other doors were locked, except for hers, which was wide open. She was standing in the doorway, hands on the door frame, head down, hair covering her face, and feet stomping on the floor near the door.

Seeing this, I grabbed her and said, "What are you doing, are you crazy?"

When I grabbed her wrist, I felt it was icy cold, so I quickly let go after pulling her hand away from the door frame.

The KTV woman stopped when I pulled her, but she kept her head down, silent and motionless.

Ning Haoyu said, "She doesn't seem right."

I could see that too, so I didn't shout at her but asked calmly, "Hey, beautiful, what's wrong..."

Before I finished, she suddenly lifted her head.

Her face was half-made up, one side white, the other yellow. At first glance, it looked like a yin-yang face.

Her appearance scared me, and I almost shouted "ghost" in front of her.

Her eyes were also very strange. Usually, she smiled at me, her eyes almost squinting, but today, she stared at me with a look of hatred.

Most importantly, she was grinding her teeth in front of me, as if she wanted to eat me.

At that moment, I had already read her face. Her forehead was dark, with a heavy aura of misfortune, indicating that she was possessed by a ghost.

Moreover, the lines between her eyebrows, near the nose, indicated a serious illness, meaning that this possession would bring her a severe illness.

Her eyebrows, which are the longevity markers in facial features, showed signs of falling out, indicating that the illness might shorten her life, or even kill her!

The more I read her face, the more shocked I became.

Ning Haoyu pushed me and said, "Let's go downstairs, she's not right."

I nodded, but just as we were about to leave, I suddenly turned back and used my thumb to press hard on the KTV woman's philtrum.

The philtrum is the point for regaining consciousness, and pressing it can awaken a person's mind. I did this to try to bring her true consciousness back.

And I didn't just press it casually; I used a technique my grandfather taught me, which involves a special energy. However, I couldn't fully sense the energy, so this press was a bit forced.

Fortunately, the woman was unprepared. After I pressed her, she didn't regain consciousness, but she stopped acting crazy and collapsed.

Ning Haoyu asked, "Did you knock her out?"

I replied, "Less talk, help me carry her into the room. I want to try the method my grandfather taught me and see if it works."