Chapter 143: This House Is My Root!
“Ouch, my goodness!” Aunt Zheng shuddered in fright, her heart pounding wildly. She slapped Liu Jiawei on the head with a smack: “Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”
Liu Jiawei clutched his head: “?”
He looked aggrieved: “Sis, why’d you hit me?”
“Whose portrait of the deceased is this damn thing you’re hanging up? Our old man and old lady aren’t dead yet!” Aunt Zheng smacked Liu Jiawei on the head again, gritting her teeth wanting to curse him out, but as she cursed, she subconsciously glanced at the portrait of the deceased with its eerie smile, and her voice involuntarily lowered a bit.
“This perfectly good new house, and you hang a portrait of the deceased facing the main entrance—you’re not afraid of bad luck?”
“Oh, this portrait of the deceased is of the previous house owner’s old father. Before he sold me the house, he specifically requested that the father’s portrait of the deceased hanging in the first-floor hall couldn’t be taken down for the time being, and asked me to keep it up, saying he could give me a discount of two hundred thousand.”
Liu Jiawei scratched his head: “I figured it was just hanging a portrait of the deceased, and I don’t really use this first floor much anyway, plus I could save two hundred thousand, so I agreed.”
Two hundred thousand is no small sum for village folk. Liu Jiawei had a wife and child to support at home, so of course he wanted to save wherever he could.
Besides, it was just hanging a portrait of the deceased—not placing ashes or a coffin—so he could accept it.
Hearing this, Aunt Zheng immediately felt that hanging a portrait of the deceased wasn’t a big deal. A portrait of the deceased for two hundred thousand off! And getting such a good house—quite a bargain indeed.
Aunt Zheng didn’t dare look at that weird portrait of the deceased anymore. She turned her head and asked Nan Yuanman, who was getting off Feng Congqian’s body and looking around the room, even taking out a compass from her small shoulder bag: “Perfection, what do you think? Have you figured out if there’s any problem with this house?”
“There’s a problem—a big problem.” Nan Yuanman looked at the wildly spinning compass and gazed at Liu Jiawei with admiration: “Uncle, you sure have courage.”
Liu Jiawei instinctively replied: “Thanks for the compliment.”
Only after saying it did he react, scratching his head embarrassedly: “Hey, why the sudden compliment? Little master, you’ve got a sweet mouth.”
Nan Yuanman looked at him oddly: “You dare live in a haunted house, of course I have to praise you.”
“Of course, I live in a haunt… wait.” Liu Jiawei nodded, then reacted to what Nan Yuanman had said, his eyes suddenly widening: “What did you say? Haunted house?!”
Aunt Zheng felt a chill down her spine and quickly asked: “Perfection, what does haunted house mean?”
“It means this building is a haunted house.” Nan Yuanman pointed at the living room: “Didn’t Aunt Zheng feel how low the temperature is here when we came in? This house faces away from the sun toward shade, facing a low-lying area—perfect feng shui for a haunted house, but bad feng shui for a living house.”
Nan Yuanman looked at the portrait of the deceased hanging above the living room. The smile on the old master’s fleshy face in the portrait was slowly disappearing, his gaze gradually turning sinister, staring blankly and eerily at the people in the living room.
“No wonder the old grandpa is chasing you with an axe since you took over his home!”
Liu Jiawei was completely dazed: “How, how could it be a haunted house? When that big boss sold it to me, he clearly said he’d had a feng shui master check it, and the feng shui of this house was excellent!”
Nan Yuanman nodded innocently: “The feng shui is good—it’s just good for dead people.”
Liu Jiawei: “…”
Aunt Zheng: “…”
Aunt Zheng seemed to think of something and darted behind Nan Yuanman like her buttocks were on fire, not daring to look at that creepy portrait of the deceased anymore, hooking her pinky to point at it: “Perfection, the owner of this house you mentioned—isn’t that the old master?”
Nan Yuanman nodded: “It’s him.”
The moment she entered this house, she felt something watching her from the shadows, and after seeing the faint ghost energy emanating from behind that portrait of the deceased.
That old master was hiding behind the portrait of the deceased, peeking at them.
Aunt Zheng panicked: “Then, then what do we do now? We’ve already bought the house! We can’t just let the money go to waste without living in it, right?”
Liu Jiawei gritted his teeth, unable to hold back a spit: “Damn it! Ge Dapang, that bastard! He actually dared to deceive me!”
And he’d trusted him so much—he actually sold him a haunted house!
Feng Congqian frowned slightly and asked him: “Didn’t you do any background check before buying the house?”
“I did! How could I not! The guy who sold me the house was Ge Dapang, a big boss who came from out of town to develop here. He had plenty of money. When he heard I wanted to buy a house, he specifically pushed this one to me, saying he wanted to use it as a hotel, but his business wasn’t going well and he needed to go back to his hometown, so he urgently needed to sell it at a discount.”
Liu Jiawei looked indignant: “I checked and asked the neighbors around, confirming that Ge Dapang really wanted to turn this house into a hotel. The price he offered was right, so I bought it. Who knew…”
They ordinary people couldn’t do a thorough background check when buying a house, especially since this building was self-built. Plus, with the big boss filter from Ge Dapang, he figured a big boss wouldn’t go to such lengths to deceive an ordinary person like him, so he bought it.
Who would’ve thought Ge Dapang would be so unscrupulous as to sell him a haunted house!
Liu Jiawei wiped his face and pleaded with Nan Yuanman: “Little master, please help me. Send away whatever’s still living in this house. I have a wife and child—my kid is about to start school, and without a house, she won’t even be able to go…”
Nan Yuanman put the compass back into her small shoulder bag and pulled out two amulets from the small shoulder bag, stuffing them into Aunt Zheng and Liu Jiawei’s hands: “Take these.”
As she drew out the copper coin sword, she said: “I’ll call him out first and see if he’s willing to leave.”
“Old grandpa, you heard that, right? They didn’t mean to take your territory—your son sold your territory. They’re the owners of this house now.” Nan Yuanman spoke in a childish voice, reasoning kindly.
“You’ve been lingering in the human world for a long time, your yin life is almost up, and it’s time for you to go below and reincarnate. If you go, I’ll have them burn you a luxurious big villa as compensation, okay?”
“No!”
As soon as Nan Yuanman finished speaking, a hoarse elderly voice rang out, followed by a transparent figure appearing beside the portrait of the deceased.
The transparent figure looked a bit older than the one in the portrait of the deceased, but still had a face full of fleshy jowls, looking fierce and menacing, holding a bloodstained axe in his hand.
He glared viciously at Liu Jiawei: “This house is my home! I don’t agree to them living here! They can’t live here! Get out! All of you get out!”
The old master raised the axe in his hand, his face quite terrifying: “If you don’t get out, don’t blame me for not holding back!”
Aunt Zheng and Liu Jiawei couldn’t see the old master—they only saw Nan Yuanman talking to herself at the empty spot beside the portrait of the deceased.
The two shuddered and hugged each other tightly, not daring to make a sound, afraid that if they did, that thing would latch onto them.
Nan Yuanman’s little brows furrowed: “But big brother already bought this house! He’s the owner now! Not you! Old grandpa, you can’t keep living here!”
“Why not? This house is my root! Unless you step over my corpse to make me give up my root!”
