Hu Jiu deliberately put on a look of mild interest.
Seeing that, Han Ning immediately doubled down on her promises.
Hu Jiu seemed persuaded. He looked at her earnestly. "I want to wipe out the Beifeng Commune. Can you help? While you're at it, show me what the Rose Security Company can do, so I can decide whether you're worth joining."
Han Ning's eyes widened. Clearly, she hadn't expected Hu Jiu to start making unreasonable demands before he had even joined the organization!
The Rose Security Company and the Beifeng Commune had occasional dealings. Their relationship wasn't particularly friendly, but they weren't enemies either.
Han Ning spoke up at once. "The Beifeng Commune is quite powerful. Their leader publicly claims to have tamed only one ghost, but nobody knows the truth. Two Ghost Tamer organizations won't go to war lightly, so I'm sorry, Mr. Hu, but we can't grant your request. At most, we can give you some information on members of the Beifeng Commune."
Hu Jiu smiled, a hint of mockery in his voice. "Trying to buy me off with a little information? That's rather cheap. If you want to recruit people, you should at least offer a suitable price. Stop expecting things to fall into your lap and think about what you can offer others first."
Han Ning couldn't keep her composure any longer, and the man behind her couldn't help lowering his head to hide a laugh.
"Since you don't agree, Mr. Hu, we won't disturb you any longer. I'll relay your words to the company's leadership exactly as you said them. Goodbye."
Hu Jiu watched the two leave.
The Rose Security Company didn't want to clash with the Beifeng Commune?
No problem. He would help them... become enemies with the whole world!
"Xiao Mei, I've run into a problem." Hu Jiu contacted his operator.
"What is it? Do you need backup?" There wasn't the slightest change in Xiao Mei's tone.
"Two strangers just blocked my front door. They claimed to be members of the Rose Security Company and demanded information about Longevity Village. They also tried to threaten and bribe me into joining their organization. After I firmly refused, they made a bunch of threats. I'm a little worried they'll come looking for trouble."
Hu Jiu sounded deeply worried. "I don't mind if they come after me, but I'm afraid they might do something insane. If innocent citizens of Linjiang City get caught up in it, things will go very badly. I need detailed information on the Rose Security Company so I can prepare my defenses in advance."
Xiao Mei immediately pulled up a file and sent it to Hu Jiu. "I'll report this to my superiors. If there's an emergency, please contact me promptly."
"All right." Hu Jiu hung up.
Xiao Mei was highly efficient. Fu Youhua soon learned about the matter, and his expression couldn't have been uglier.
Zou Cong's issue remained unresolved, with the Beifeng Commune denying everything, and now a new problem had landed on his doorstep. These independent Ghost Tamers were each more selfish and reckless than the last. Why couldn't they just behave themselves?
Meanwhile, Han Ning was riding back the way she had come, speaking with her boss on the phone. "Boss, Hu Jiu is just a newcomer. I can't see any potential in him. Why are you so determined to recruit him?"
A raspy male voice came from the other end of the line. "Just do your job. Knowing too much won't do you any good."
Hu Jiu was no ordinary man. Right after he became a Ghost Tamer, the person in charge of Linjiang City had an accident, and Hu Jiu smoothly took his place. When people came looking for trouble afterward, he emerged unscathed. More importantly, he had walked out of that ghost village alive!
The Rose Security Company had noticed Hu Jiu because of the Longevity Village incident. Otherwise, who would pay special attention to a nobody?
As it happened, Hu Jiu thought the same thing.
On the surface, he really was just a small fry. There had to be a reason an independent Ghost Tamer organization had approached him out of the blue, and of his recent experiences, Longevity Village was the most likely cause.
He glanced through the Rose Security Company's information and tossed it into the trash.
Then he took out the Bloodstained White Silk itself and fed it to the Ghost Book. Its ability had already been copied anyway, so this idle resource might as well serve whatever purpose it still could.
He picked up a pen and wrote a line: [The whereabouts and personal information of Hu Jiu, the holder of this book, cannot be spied upon.]
He had originally wanted to continue with "cannot be prophesied or divined," but the resistance he felt through the pen tip kept growing, so this would have to do for now. He needed to save enough supernatural power to write another, more important sentence.
He did this partly to guard against the person codenamed [Secret Peeker]. Hu Jiu had stirred up trouble again yesterday in Zou Cong's name, and he feared Headquarters might insist on getting to the bottom of it regardless of the consequences. Besides, his information really had been leaked. People from the Rose Security Company had come knocking today, and there might be more such uninvited guests in the future.
Hu Jiu felt that this address was no longer safe. He wasn't afraid of people coming after him, but he was afraid someone would raid his home while he was out.
He had hidden so many vicious ghosts and supernatural items at home. If they went missing, he would be heartbroken!
Hu Jiu soon chose a backup base for himself: the Haunted House.
The Haunted House was one of Linjiang City's unresolved supernatural incidents. Since it showed no signs of spreading, it had merely been cordoned off and access restricted.
Haunted houses existed even without anything supernatural involved. Homes where someone had died a violent death were usually discounted, attracting people short on money to buy or rent them.
Poverty could sometimes be more frightening than ghosts. Having no money meant having less ability to weather risks, making people more likely to come to harm after an accident—through suicide, sudden death, or illness. A rope always snapped at its thinnest point, and misfortune sought out those already suffering. The occupants of such houses formed a kind of vicious cycle.
But the Haunted House in Linjiang City really was haunted.
That afternoon, Hu Jiu arrived at a villa complex in the suburbs. Few people had lived here before. Most of the villas were rented out for short stays during holidays or peak tourist season, and left to grow over at other times.
This time, he entered openly under the pretext of an investigation. The Haunted House and its surrounding area should have been deserted, but he saw figures moving inside one of the villas. There seemed to be quite a few people in there.
"What's going on?" Hu Jiu was a little puzzled.
He heard footsteps and turned around. Two pale-faced girls had appeared behind him without his noticing. Under the bright sunshine, they held hands and trembled, as if they had suffered a terrible fright.
"Who are you?" Hu Jiu spoke first.
The two girls backed away warily without answering.
Hu Jiu put on a gentle smile. "Don't get me wrong. I live here. This place was sealed off for some special reason, and I came back to get a few things."
"Are you alone?" one of the girls asked, her eyes flickering.
Hu Jiu nodded. "What are you here for?"
"We were just passing through!" With that, the two hurried away, apparently very unwilling to talk to Hu Jiu.
Hu Jiu paid them no mind. The surrounding environment, combined with the aura of a Ghost Tamer, would indeed make ordinary people keep their distance.
He took out the key he had obtained from the police and opened the door to the Haunted House. The living room was neat, with a layer of dust on the floor. The spacious room was empty and desolate, yet somehow felt as if it contained many things.
Hu Jiu casually looked around and found nothing unusual. The backyard pool had been neglected for a long time, and its water had turned a murky green. He stared down at it for quite a while, but still saw nothing unusual.
When he raised his head, he suddenly caught sight of a frail young man standing before a second-floor window next door. His eyes were closed, and he stood motionless.
Hu Jiu wanted to move closer for a better look, but in the blink of an eye, the window was empty. All he could hear were playful shouts and startled cries.
He went over and rang the doorbell. After a while, someone came to answer it.
"I heard people shouting. Is everything all right?" Hu Jiu looked concerned.
The man who opened the door looked embarrassed. "It's nothing. We were just fooling around."
Hu Jiu glanced inside. Several young men and women sat around a table, with an upturned saucer on it. In an instant, a certain overused trope from domestic horror movies flashed through his mind, but he spoke pleasantly. "Glad you're all right. I won't disturb you. Oh, by the way, the second-floor window is a little loose. Tell your friend not to stand by it all the time, or he might fall out."
At Hu Jiu's words, the man's expression turned odd. He called over his shoulder, and everyone in the villa came out, including the two girls Hu Jiu had seen earlier.
"Did any of you go upstairs?" the man asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
The man frowned at Hu Jiu. "We've been in the living room on the first floor the whole time. No one was upstairs..."
Hu Jiu immediately put on a frightened expression. "Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me." With that, he turned and ran off in a hurry.
The girls' faces changed instantly.
"Could we really have summoned something unclean by playing Charlie Charlie?"
"Impossible! There are no ghosts in this world! Those guys must have teamed up with someone to scare us on purpose!"
"Don't forget, they were already trying to scare us earlier. Now they're pulling this trick too. I'm not falling for it!"
The men exchanged glances, wanting to speak but stopping themselves.
After Hu Jiu went back, there was no more noise from next door. But toward evening, the lights suddenly came on. He called Qian Ying. "A bunch of brain-dead young people snuck into the restricted area near the Haunted House. The police haven't been doing a very good job."
Qian Ying was stunned for a moment. "Understood. We'll be sure to pay attention next time. Mr. Hu, could you bring those people out?"
"It's too late. The situation here is complicated." Hu Jiu hung up and looked toward the brightly lit villa next door. Several figures now stood at the second-floor window, where there had been nothing before. They were probably the group from earlier, and all of them were motionless.
He took a few steps forward, and the villa suddenly went pitch-black again, as if everything he had just seen had been an illusion.
Nothing had happened in the Haunted House itself, but things had stirred up next door. Had the supernatural phenomenon spread?
Hu Jiu carefully recalled the relevant information. The first tragedy at the Haunted House had involved a family of three on vacation. Somehow, a conflict had broken out. The father killed the child, and the wife and husband died together. When the police found them, all they saw was a house full of blood and badly decomposed bodies.
At the time, it was thought to be an ordinary criminal case, but not long after it was closed, something else happened.
A small company rented the villa for a team-building event. Unexpectedly, the employees joined forces to eat their boss, then killed one another. In the end, no one survived.
After investigating, the previous person in charge, Liu Mingguang, determined that it was a supernatural incident.
Hu Jiu entered the villa next door. His forehead suddenly felt chilly, as though someone were blowing on it.
Looking closely, he saw several young men and women standing in the living room, staring fixedly at him with sinister expressions.
"Ghost Slaves?"
Hu Jiu remained calm and ignored them. Under the night sky, the entire house was silent.
He searched carefully but found no trace of the Source Ghost. Liu Mingguang had failed to deal with the Haunted House back then and had chosen to seal it off instead. This ghost was probably very troublesome.
Hu Jiu hadn't intended to catch the ghost anyway. A clever rabbit had three burrows, and the Haunted House was well suited to serve as one of his.
He casually knocked down all the Ghost Slaves and notified the police to come collect the bodies.
When Qian Ying arrived with his team, his face was full of regret. "We've identified the dead. They were all college students, so young. What a tragedy."
"They insisted on coming in. You don't need to blame yourself," Hu Jiu said in a perfunctory attempt at comfort. "The ghost here can't be contained for now. Continue tightening the cordon from now on."
Qian Ying nodded, troubled as he pondered how to explain this to the victims' families.
After everyone had left, Hu Jiu returned and quietly hid some of the gold containers holding vicious ghosts in different rooms of the Haunted House.
The matter was settled for now. Next, he planned to address the hidden danger of the Ghost Book. He wouldn't check the supernatural incidents related to "pens" that he had circled one by one by process of elimination. That would be inefficient and waste time.
Rather than rack his brains searching for it himself, he might as well... let "it" come to him!