Chapter 143: The House of Misfortune

“Big sister, stop looking at those ugly drawings. Come play hide-and-seek with me?” Fei’er asked, looking at me expectantly.

“Hide-and-seek?” I couldn’t react in time to the sudden shift in the conversation.

“That’s right. No one has played hide-and-seek with Fei’er for a long time. My brother used to play with me,” Fei’er said disappointedly.

‘Brother? You have a brother?’

I immediately thought of the boy in the graffiti who seemed slightly older than the little girl.

“Yes, my brother used to play hide-and-seek with me often. But one time after he hid, I couldn’t find him anymore,” Fei’er said.

I had many questions I wanted to ask—like whether they had seen a corpse, who killed her brother, and what happened to her parents.

However, I was afraid of upsetting Fei’er; I could already feel that her mental state was likely unstable.

Ultimately, I chose not to ask.

I didn’t want to provoke her; if she actually lunged at me, I wouldn’t even know how to deal with it.

Furthermore, I felt a sense of dread regarding the truth behind Fei’er.

“I’m sorry, Fei’er. I have something to do. I’ll play with you next time,” I said, choosing my words carefully for fear she might suddenly turn hostile.

Fei’er didn’t show any abnormal behavior, only saying with some disappointment: “Okay. Then you have to play hide-and-seek with me properly next time, Big Sister.”

I didn’t dare talk to her much longer and climbed up the stairs.

After climbing five floors back to the twelfth floor, I was about to go home when I saw a long-haired woman standing in the hallway—it was Ms. Liu.

She looked completely lost, standing in front of her own door with a pale face.

Because it was so quiet, I didn’t even realize someone was in the hallway when I stepped out of the stairwell; she gave me quite a fright.

‘Are all the people in this building this silent?’

“Ms. Liu, hello,” I said with a dry laugh.

Since we had run into each other, and we were neighbors after all, I couldn’t just not greet her.

To my surprise, she didn’t seem to hear me, maintaining her dazed expression while staring at the ceiling.

If it weren’t for the slight rise and fall of her chest, I would have thought she was already dead.

Seeing that she seemed absent-minded, I didn’t want to have too much contact with her and intended to just open my door and go home.

But just as I turned around, I heard her say: “Thank you.”

“Hm? Are you saying thank you to me?” I looked back.

Ms. Liu’s eyes finally regained a glimmer of life as she looked at me.

She nodded and said in a raspy voice: “The day before yesterday, you drove that guy away and saved me. So, thank you.”

I finally realized she was talking about the weirdo with the distorted facial features.

He had come here to take Ms. Liu away; as for what would have happened to her if she had been caught, I couldn’t imagine, but it definitely wouldn’t have been anything good.

As expected, Ms. Liu was indeed at home that night, just pretending to be dead.

I wondered if she had seen the giant centipede when Bai Yue repelled the weirdo; I suspected not, otherwise she wouldn’t be thanking me so naturally.

“Don’t mention it. He was banging on the door so loudly that it was a nuisance. I just told him to leave,” I said dismissively.

I acted as if there had been no physical conflict with that weirdo at all, and that he simply left because I asked him to.

“No! You saved my life! If I were caught by them, you have no idea what they would force me to do. It would be a fate worse than death!” Ms. Liu suddenly shouted.

Her emotions seemed extremely volatile, which gave me a start.

“Calm down!” I quickly tried to soothe her.

“No one will come back to harass you,” I said, trying to prevent her unstable mental state from exploding here.

“No, you don’t understand. It’s all over. They won’t let me go. My life is already ruined,” Ms. Liu said sorrowfully, though her agitated voice quieted down significantly.

I actually knew that those people she mentioned must belong to a terrifying criminal organization.

I wasn’t sure if it was gambling, loan sharking, or human trafficking—perhaps all of the above.

The fact that they dared to refine someone into that inhuman state to send them out for kidnappings showed just how arrogant they were.

Yesterday, I even saw their black sedan checking near the residential area.

But perhaps because the waters here were too deep, they left after a quick look; I wasn’t sure if they had given up entirely.

“Life is still long. How could it be over so soon? If you’re willing, could you tell me your story?” I asked, wanting to distract her.

“It’s not an interesting story, but if you want to hear it, please come into my home,” Ms. Liu said.

This would be the third household I entered, after Fan Yuxuan’s and the old lady’s.

I first used the Golden Bee Gu to scout.

There was neither the Buddhist light that made the Gu retreat nor any warnings of ghost sightings, so I nodded in relief.

Of course, I followed her in also because Ms. Liu truly gave me the feeling of being harmless—actually, it was beyond harmless; she was fragile.

She was like glass that would shatter at a touch, or a hollow walking corpse without a soul.

After entering her home, I felt… how should I put it? A sense of contradiction.

Firstly, this apartment also belonged to Xia Yubing’s parents, and Ms. Liu was just a tenant, so the layout was identical to my current home.

The decoration was very tidy and the living room was spacious, but there was a pitiful lack of furniture.

I didn’t even see any home appliances; there were just a few ordinary wooden chairs and a sofa.

What I found interesting were the rooms.

Of course, Ms. Liu didn’t invite me into her rooms to look; I sent the Golden Bee Gu to peek.

Those were the only parts of the house decorated quite extravagantly.

Of course, it was only extravagant on the surface while still being made of cheap materials.

One room was themed in pink, with a large bed and condoms placed by the headboard.

The second bedroom was primarily black-toned.

A triangular wooden horse was placed in the center, and the walls were covered with leather whips, syringes, blindfolds, and other BDSM gear; it was obvious what it was used for.

Then there was the bathroom, the most lavishly decorated area.

It had a bathtub large enough for two people to take a bath together; it wasn’t too narrow, yet didn’t create a sense of distance.

Finally, there was the study.

Inside was a mahjong table with mahjong tiles scattered haphazardly upon it, and the floor was littered with playing cards.

There were only a handful of books, mostly teaching how to gamble or cheat at cards.

From the rooms and the study, one could see exactly what Ms. Liu’s profession and hobbies were.

It was just as Fan Yuxuan had told me: she was addicted to gambling, had taken out high-interest loans, and usually sold her body to pay back the debts.

Just by using a bit of Aura Observation, I could see she was shrouded in a dense aura of misfortune, which had already reached a very severe stage.

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