48: Chapter 48 Buying a Snake

He turned off the flashlight.

He walked lightly toward the door.

Zhao Jian pushed the door open abruptly.

Outside, there was nothing but that twenty-centimeter doll.

However, there was movement outside the window.

He faintly heard the sound of a bamboo pole poking the ground.

He ran quickly to the window.

There was nothing there.

Looking down from the balcony, only a few units had lights on; the pitch-black building looked exceptionally eerie.

He picked up the doll, brought it inside, closed the door, and inspected it carefully.

It was just an ordinary rag doll.

It was poorly made, the kind that cost five yuan for ten pounds.

There were no mechanisms inside; the stuffing was synthetic cotton.

The person who left the doll must have a key to the door lock.

Song Ziyang must have experienced similar scenes.

That was why there were several cameras in his room.

He must have suspected someone was playing tricks.

But in the end, he chose to sell the house and flee, which meant those cameras failed to solve his doubts.

Just as he was about to go back to sleep, the light screen suddenly expanded before his eyes.

The doll hadn't scared him, but the light screen made his heart pound.

[Today's Intel (Blue): Huang Shuan heard that Song Ziyang sold the house at half price; amidst his joy, he felt great regret.]

[He had also saved over a million and was preparing to make a down payment on a small apartment.]

[While regretting, he plans to use his old tricks to scare away the new owner. Today, during the day, he will enter the room after the new owner leaves to place rats he has tortured to death.]

It really was him!

Zhao Jian's first suspect had been Huang Xiaoshuan.

After all, it was he who had played ghost to scare away Song Ziyang.

It seemed necessary to set a trap during the day.

Thinking that there shouldn't be any more trouble tonight, Zhao Jian went back to catch some more sleep.

After dawn, he deliberately made some noise, opening and closing the door loudly.

He was afraid Huang Xiaoshuan downstairs wouldn't hear it.

Then he went downstairs and walked slowly toward the community gate within the line of sight of the fifth floor.

He didn't know if Huang Xiaoshuan was watching from the window.

But a qualified actor must strive for perfection.

Finally, he walked out of the fifth floor's line of sight.

He immediately returned, hugging the edge of the building.

When he encountered greenery, he crawled through it.

Fortunately, most people in the community hadn't left yet, and the security guards in the control room were slacking off.

Otherwise, he might have been caught as a thief.

He took the stairs back to his floor and saw no one.

He opened the door quietly and locked it.

Then he hid in the wardrobe.

Last night, Huang Xiaoshuan must have guessed whether he was asleep by cutting the power.

If he were still awake, he would most likely call property management for repairs.

So if he were to test again, it would probably be the same trick.

Zhao Jian guessed right.

Just as he hid in the wardrobe.

Ten minutes later, the power was restored. The air conditioner and range hood in the house entered standby mode with a 'beep'.

At this time, the lights in the living room also turned on.

Another ten minutes passed.

He heard the sound of the door lock turning.

It was fast, even faster than when he used a key.

The door opened.

Through the gap in the wardrobe.

Zhao Jian saw a dead rat being brought into the living room, held in the mouth of a snake.

When the snake crawled, there was the sound of a motor turning.

It was a remote-controlled toy snake?

Very cautious, isn't he?

No wonder Song Ziyang's many cameras were useless.

From too far away, the small sounds couldn't be heard. To Song Ziyang, it looked like a snake had opened the door itself, crawled in, and thrown a rat into his home.

Combined with all sorts of strange noises in the middle of the night and mysterious power outages.

And he himself was paranoid.

It was easy to get scared.

Zhao Jian didn't believe in such things; he had practiced Qigong for ten years and Taoist arts for five years as a child.

They were useless.

The door was closed and locked.

Zhao Jian came out of the wardrobe.

The other party refused to enter the room, so there wasn't enough evidence. Even calling the police wouldn't get him locked up.

Looking at the rat on the floor, Zhao Jian suddenly had an idea.

He ignored the rat and went downstairs quietly.

Avoiding the line of sight of the fifth floor, he left the community.

Since Huang Xiaoshuan liked to play ghost.

Then he would play along!

First, he went to buy an inflatable doll and moved it to his new home along with the things from his rental.

He also bought hidden cameras.

At the very least, he couldn't let Huang Xiaoshuan notice them.

Building Seven had one unit per elevator floor.

Zhao Jian had no neighbors.

Naturally, he didn't worry about cameras invading other people's privacy.

He installed them boldly.

Then he dressed the inflatable doll and placed it behind the door.

He would give him a surprise after dark.

After finishing this, Zhao Jian originally wanted to buy a pet snake to pull a 'The Prince Replaced by a Civet Cat' switch on Huang Xiaoshuan.

But at that moment, the phone rang.

It was a call from the Landlady.

“Hello, Landlady, I left the keys on the table in the room for you.”

He thought the Landlady couldn't find the keys.

“I saw them. You're moving out just like that?”

There was some reluctance in her tone.

Zhao Jian thought, is it really necessary? It's only 200 yuan a month.

How hard could it be for you to find another tenant?

“Yeah, everything's been moved over.”

“Will you come back in the future?”

“Probably not.”

“Oh.”

There was silence.

Zhao Jian didn't know the purpose of the Landlady's call.

He said softly, “Landlady?”

He wanted to ask: Is something wrong?

If not, I'm hanging up; phone calls are quite expensive.

But before he could say it, the Landlady said, “Call me Sister Liu. I'm not your Landlady anymore.”

“If you have any difficulties in the future, you can come to me. After all, having lived at my place, you're considered one of my people.”

Zhao Jian couldn't help but imagine that the Landlady was actually a local underworld boss.

And that she secretly had a crush on him.

He'd tell her about Huang Xiaoshuan's tricks, and then the big sister would go out and teach him a harsh lesson, declaring that Huang Xiaoshuan could never set foot in Xiong City again!

The more he thought about it, the more he laughed; he was really daydreaming.

Hearing Zhao Jian's laughter, the Landlady also cheered up quite a bit. After some banter, they hung up the phone.

Zhao Jian went out to buy a snake as planned.

Xiong City didn't have a dedicated pet street.

But the East District was the most commercialized, with several pet shops on the map.

One of them was an exotic pet shop.

Although they mainly sold pets like lizards and Fancy Rats, they also had common King Ratsnakes.

This kind of snake ate a lot and pooped a lot.

It was easy to keep alive.

Zhao Jian didn't need it to bite anyone, just to be scary enough.

He took a taxi to his destination.

There were quite a few people in the shop.

No one greeted him when he came in because of the only two staff members, one was squatting on the floor crying.

The other was trying to persuade her not to cry.

Without knowing the whole story, he wouldn't judge.

Zhao Jian went straight to the snake cabinets.

It was a row of snakes kept in transparent acrylic boxes.

There were air holes, but the snakes couldn't get out.

There were some decorations inside, cozy and cute, forming a contrast with the snakes themselves.

While looking at the snakes, he also pricked up his ears to listen to the conversation between the staff.

He heard a middle-aged male customer standing in front of the clerk say helplessly, “Miss, just ring me up. I'm very busy.”

“No! No!” The clerk squatting on the floor shook her head vigorously.

“I'm begging you. My Little Treasure has been hungry for several days. Hurry up and ring me up, I need to go home and feed it.”

The more he listened, the more confused he became.

Just as Zhao Jian wanted to find a customer to ask around.

The squatting female clerk cried out:

“I'm begging you, brother, can you just cancel the order? Our Fancy Rats were raised by me personally. They are pets, not food. Don't buy them to feed to your snake.”