196: Chapter 196 The Treasure Ghost

Han Jingyang was startled.

Shit!

Scared the life out of me.

She looks just like a real person.

If I hadn't been using my cheats, I would have been scared to death by now.

For fuck's sake!

Which wicked bastard created this ghostly thing?

And made it look so realistic.

Han Jingyang calmed his emotions. Seeing that Liu Jing and Shi Xiaoya hadn't reacted, he didn't say anything. Instead, he went straight upstairs, his eyes burning as he stared directly at the female ghost.

He didn't believe this was a real female ghost.

If it was, he'd fucking kneel down and call her 'Grandmother'.

It was bound to be another clump of humanoid Qi, just more realistic, similar to the one he caught at Li Jianjun's father's house.

Oh right, the Bridal Gown Woman.

He didn't know how the Bridal Gown Woman taken into the shikigami token was doing; there had been no movement so far, and she hadn't reacted at all to getting a roommate like Chaotian Temple.

She couldn't have been digested and absorbed by the token, right?

Unlikely.

Thinking this, he walked straight up to the white-dressed ghost, suppressing the fear in his heart to stare intently into her eyes, getting closer and closer.

He closed the distance until he could clearly see the ghost's pupils.

No expression.

Not even a single movement.

Appraisal complete: it was just a thing meant to scare people, completely incomparable to the Bridal Gown Woman he had subdued before.

Han Jingyang breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment, he saw wisps of black gas suddenly emerge from the Woman in White, as if she were a doll with a hole burned into it.

A second later, the Woman in White turned into a streak of black gas and vanished upstairs.

Han Jingyang lunged after her but found nothing.

Immediately after, he was stunned by the scene upstairs.

Was this really a haunted house?

The style was completely different from downstairs.

It was clean, tidy, and cozy, filled with a faint fragrance. The balcony was packed with flowers—roses, peonies, tulips, freesias, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums—many in full bloom. Especially that large pot of climbing roses, which had filled an entire wall along the pre-installed trellis, with sixty or seventy roses of various sizes blooming passionately toward the sun.

The low-growing tulips were not to be outdone; pink, red, purple, and yellow tulips created a small flower field at the base of the balcony.

On the other side, the massive blossoms of the sunflowers crowded the entire balcony, to the point where the leaves were invisible.

The floor was spotless without a single footprint, and the sofa, coffee table, and desks were all wiped clean. There wasn't even a single wrinkle on the lace mats draped over the back of the sofa.

It was excessively tidy.

Liu Jing swallowed hard. "This... this is the haunted house?"

Shi Xiaoya also widened her eyes. "Incredible. Has... has someone been cleaning this place all along?"

Han Jingyang coughed. "Don't panic. If you ignore the strange, its power fades. If there's someone here, fine; if not, even better. I just don't know why the authorities never discovered the anomaly here."

Liu Jing asked tentatively, "Could it be an illusion?"

An illusion?

Han Jingyang's eyes lit up. If it was an illusion, that would explain everything.

However, it wasn't that the three of them were under an illusion, but rather that everyone else, including the buyers, were. What ordinary people saw was surely a dilapidated mess. Only because the three of them carried many dharma instruments could they see the true face of the second floor.

That was the most likely case.

Han Jingyang recalled the information Shen Yuhai had provided. Aside from Wang Wei, the second and third owners had both died on the first floor—to be precise, at the foot of the stairs.

This was getting interesting.

He hadn't expected so many mysteries to be hidden within such a haunted house.

If he could figure this out, even if he didn't find the killer, the trip wouldn't be in vain.

If he could master this ability, he could skip most housework in the future. How great would that be?

Han Jingyang stopped Liu Jing and Shi Xiaoya, who were about to walk further in. He pointed to the shoe cabinet beside them and opened it, revealing a row of slippers, both large and small. They were scrubbed clean, and he could smell a faint scent of detergent; clearly, these slippers had been washed with detergent within the last few days.

After changing into the slippers, they officially entered the second floor.

They checked room by room; everything was exceptionally clean and tidy. Especially the bedroom—not only were the walls pale pink, but the desk, bed, lamp, sheets, duvet covers, and plush toys were all pink. It was a proper princess room.

Shi Xiaoya picked up a pink Barbie Rabbit plushie, looked at it, then put it back. She sighed, "When I was little, I really wanted a bedroom like this."

Liu Jing criticized expressionlessly, "Childish."

For once, Shi Xiaoya didn't bicker with Liu Jing. Instead, she looked around. "Boss, do you feel something's wrong?"

Han Jingyang smiled and shook his head.

Wrong?

Of course something was wrong.

You almost got hacked.

The moment Shi Xiaoya picked up that plushie, the white-dressed woman who had vanished earlier reappeared beside her, wielding a kitchen knife and swinging it toward Shi Xiaoya's neck.

However, after Shi Xiaoya put the plushie back, the white-dressed woman vanished again instantly.

Was this white-dressed woman the one who had been cleaning all this time?

Was it Wang Wei?

Unfortunately, her face was hidden; only a slit between her hair was visible.

If this was Wang Wei, then who was the hideous, eerie woman they had seen from outside the house?

Wait, Wang Wei...

Han Jingyang suddenly realized a problem. He turned and asked Shi Xiaoya, "Have you ever seen Wang Wei?"

"I have."

"Then do you have a photo of her?"

"No, why?"

The file Shen Yuhai gave him also only had one photo—the ID photo Wang Wei had taken when she was eighteen and entering university. Other than that, there was no clear visual data.

What did this mean?

It meant Wang Wei had been consciously avoiding leaving any visual records.

That was very abnormal.

What girl studying dance could resist taking photos?

Yet Wang Wei had done exactly that, and she had succeeded.

To the point that Han Jingyang still didn't know what Wang Wei actually looked like.

The ID photo?

That photo was too youthful, like a little girl who hadn't grown up yet; it didn't have much reference value. After all, he didn't know true physiognomy.

If he understood physiognomy, he could judge Wang Wei's actual appearance through the facial features in the ID photo.

But it didn't matter.

What Han Jingyang wanted to find was the killer and the cause of death for the three owners, not simply to find Wang Wei.

His purpose in coming here was to find clues.

As it stood, he had gained quite a bit, though he didn't have hard evidence yet.

He continued searching.

Daily necessities were all present in the villa, but there was nothing of real value.

Finally, he went to the balcony and crouched down to look at the row of large rose pots.

They were climbing roses; they could climb walls, but they wouldn't do so on their own. They needed human assistance to achieve the effect of a wall covered in flowers.

This showed that the white-dressed woman guarding this place could not only touch or even manipulate physical objects, but she also possessed a certain level of intelligence.

This was really fun.

Han Jingyang reached out and scratched the soil in the pot. Below the surface, it was moist. In the middle of a sunny summer, this meant the last watering had been just yesterday.

Impressive!

A female ghost who could turn into black gas could actually use a watering can to water flowers, help roses climb walls, prune them, wash sheets, duvet covers, and shoes, and do most household chores. She was practically an all-powerful Snail Girl.

If only she changed her hairstyle.