There's a Ghost in Your House

Song Hanshan was a very smart woman. She saw that Jiang Xinrou was unsettling An Yang, so she ordered a bottle of baijiu.

Women in love are affectionate, emotionally fragile, and far more delicate in their thoughts, but once they truly break up, they might weep bitterly. Yet as time slowly ticks away, the men who seemed outwardly stronger were perhaps the ones who remembered the deepest.

An Yang was just like that.

Even though their feelings had perhaps faded now, they had once made grand oaths and experienced earth-shattering moments after all. Once those memories were stirred up, his mood would inevitably sink.

Song Hanshan wasn't drinking, and she didn't try to persuade him otherwise.

After tossing back a few mouthfuls of alcohol, An Yang felt his head grow warm. Today's events felt just like a trigger, unearthing all his memories.

Jiang Xinrou was the campus belle of the Foreign Languages Department. As everyone knew, the Foreign Languages Department had an imbalance where women heavily outnumbered men, boasting beauties as numerous as the clouds. Jiang Xinrou, who managed to stand out from among them, went without saying; right from the start, she had been held in the palms of many hands, and the number of people pursuing her was countless.

Yet An Yang had successfully captured the goddess's heart relying on a guitar he played with youthful dexterity back then, decent basketball skills, and a personality that was neither playboyish nor dull. Later on, when Jiang Xinrou brought it up in conversation, she said what attracted her to him the most was still his character.

Their acquaintance should probably trace back to the peach blossom festival of their freshman year: a mixer between a certain class from the Computer Science Department that was desperately short on women and a certain class from the Foreign Languages Department where women heavily outnumbered men...

An Yang firmly believed that he had forgotten Jiang Xinrou, and he also firmly believed that his body and heart recently belonged entirely to Nie Xiaoqian. Yet he had to admit that he was drunk—drunk solely for the sake of the reckless youth and memories of the past.

In a daze, it had already been a year since college graduation.

Before he knew it, Song Hanshan asked him, "I'll send you back. Is your girlfriend home? Give her a call."

An Yang said, fuzzy and unclear, "She's home, she just hasn't learned how to use a cell phone yet. Calling her is no use."

Song Hanshan froze. She was already starting to doubt whether An Yang's girlfriend even existed or not, then said with an amused expression, "Then do you still remember what floor and apartment number you live on? Did you bring your keys?"

"The keys are in my pocket, and they're also on the doorframe... 12th floor, apartment 6!"

Song Hanshan was taken aback for a moment, fished the keys out of his pocket, and called a waiter to help him out.

The Audi R8 roared away from the hotel parking lot.

Meanwhile, parked nearby was an ordinary Volkswagen CC, inside of which sat a very pretty woman, calmly watching the disappearing taillights.

Song Hanshan laboriously supported An Yang out of the elevator, groping her way through the pitch-black hallway, searching door by door with the flashlight on her cell phone.

"What kind of property management is this? There isn't even a single hallway light!"

Finally, she found 12-6. She first rang the doorbell, and seeing no one answer, she knocked on the door.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

"Is anyone there?"

"Bang, bang, bang!"

No one answered!

Song Hanshan shook her head and gave a bitter laugh, took out the keys to unlock the door, steadied An Yang again, and fumbled to turn on the light. She first stood at the doorway and swept her gaze across the room, only then supporting An Yang inside and letting him slump softly onto the sofa.

"You really are heavy enough. You've worn me out. Fine, consider this repaying the favor from when you helped me last time."

An Yang didn't answer her.

Only then did Song Hanshan have time to carefully look over this apartment.

This place was very small, and the furnishings were sparse; you could almost take it all in at a single glance. Yet everything was extremely neat, and the room was permeated with a faint, clean fragrance—a bit strange, as if it also carried the scent of a young woman. At any rate, it didn't look like a man's living quarters.

Suddenly, she froze.

The surrounding windows were all shrouded by pitch-black curtains, covered so tightly that one could imagine not a single thread of light would filter through even in broad daylight.

There was no one inside the room; she had already known that when she knocked on the door.

Yet the television was still on!

Could it be that An Yang had gone out without turning off the TV?

Or was his girlfriend at home, but fast asleep and didn't hear the doorbell and knocking?

If she dropped him back in the middle of the night and arbitrarily unlocked the door to help him into the living room, wouldn't that cause a misunderstanding?

Thinking this, Song Hanshan got up, aimed for a room that looked like a bedroom, and knocked gently.

"Knock, knock, knock."

"Is anyone in?"

"Is An Yang's girlfriend home?"

Still no reply!

"She couldn't be sleeping that soundly, could she?"

Song Hanshan pushed the door open and flipped the light switch with a snap.

Sure enough, it was a bedroom. The bed was made neatly, and the quilt was folded very well. It was clearly the bedroom An Yang currently used, and it was completely empty.

She finally confirmed it: there was only An Yang himself in his home. Let alone the girlfriend he spoke of, there wasn't even a single pet.

Song Hanshan retreated to the living room and used all her strength to help An Yang from the sofa onto the bedroom bed to lie down, taking off his shoes and socks for him.

"Such a strong smell of alcohol."

Song Hanshan sniffed lightly, thought about it, and stood up to unbutton An Yang's shirt, laboriously stripping off his clothes.

Yet she had completely failed to notice that right by the doorway behind her back, a woman dressed in a white dress was watching her, her gaze growing colder and colder with every move she made to undress An Yang!

"Hoo..."

Song Hanshan let out a breath of relief, wanting to find a clothes hanger to hang up this shirt. But the moment she opened the wardrobe, she froze in place.

A brand-new Type 87 Officer Uniform, with shoulder boards, cap insignia, and collar badges placed beside it, along with a golden medal!

"He... he's actually an officer!"

"No wonder he could subdue two thugs just like that, no wonder his style of action is so unyielding, no wonder he knows Old Qin, no wonder... it felt like his back was always held so straight!"

Song Hanshan wasn't a standard military enthusiast after all. She couldn't recognize the military rank represented by these shoulder boards, just as she couldn't tell the difference between this Type 87 Officer Uniform and active-duty officer uniforms.

Suddenly, her peripheral vision swept past, and she discovered that there were actually several sets of women's clothes inside the wardrobe, including undergarments.

"He really does have a girlfriend!"

"Oh no, and I even took off his clothes!"

Looking thoroughly embarrassed, Song Hanshan closed the wardrobe, put down the shirt, and wanted to hurry out. But with a casual glance, she saw that an extra set of keys had appeared on the transparent glass coffee table in the living room!

She touched her own person, and immediately remembered that the key she had left stuck in the door didn't seem to have been pulled out yet. She ran over to the entrance to take a look, and the key in the door had actually vanished!

Song Hanshan came back to her senses and stared at the keys on the coffee table, suddenly feeling a creeping sense of horror. All the bizarre phenomena in this apartment began to converge in her mind, triggering terrifying speculations from her intuition and making her shiver!

"I... I couldn't have run into a ghost, could I?"

As Song Hanshan thought this, the lights in the room abruptly went out, and amidst a blur, a white figure flashed past!

"Ah!"

With a shriek, she bolted straight out the door. Suddenly remembering that An Ran was still inside the room, she turned her head to look behind her, only to see a white figure flash into the bedroom!

"Bang!"

The door in front of her closed by itself!

"Ah! There's a ghost!"

Driven by sheer terror, Song Hanshan's speed rivaled Liu Xiang's. She ran to the elevator area and frantically pressed the call button, but whenever it was urgent, the elevator refused to come. Fortunately, the ghost in the apartment didn't chase after her. Until her elevator finally arrived, stepping inside left her feeling even more apprehensive.

She was the only person in the elevator!

After a long while...

The Audi R8 roared away!

Upstairs, meanwhile, a white figure watched her departure.

Nie Xiaoqian withdrew her gaze, turned around, and looked silently at An Yang. She took off his trousers, folded them together with his clothes, carried his shoes and socks over to the shoe cabinet by the door, and only then fetched a basin of hot water and a towel to wipe down his body.

Luckily, there weren't any kiss marks from a woman like on TV!

From that woman's words, it could be deduced that An Yang didn't have much going on with her either; they were probably just ordinary friends.

In this era, after all, things were very open.

Nie Xiaoqian comforted herself this way, telling herself not to overthink it, yet she couldn't help her sinking mood.

For a man and a woman to go out drinking alone was not exactly a proper affair after all, especially when this woman even sent him back in the middle of the night.

Nie Xiaoqian wrung out the towel and was just about to carry the basin out when she heard An Yang murmur, "Xiaoqian, I'm so thirsty, and I'm so hot!"

She instantly smiled.

She carried the basin out to put it away, then came back in with a cup of water to feed to An Yang. Only then did she slowly untie her clothes and lie down beside him.

The next morning, the sky outside was already bright, while the room remained pitch black, with only the indicator lights of the power strip and charger casting a dim, hazy glow.

An Yang opened his eyes to find Nie Xiaoqian lying stark naked in his arms. Her skin was cool and refreshing, and her exquisite, undulating curves made his heart race even more.

"Xiaoqian?"

He called out tentatively.

"Mm, you're awake?"

An Yang wracked his brain, asking, "Wasn't I... drunk yesterday? How did I get back?"

Nie Xiaoqian's voice was very soft and calm as well. "A very pretty woman sent you back."

An Yang's heart instantly tightened, and he quickly said, "I'm not very close with her. It's just that she helped me sort out a job for my sister, so I agreed to go out and have a meal with her. You aren't jealous, are you?"

Nie Xiaoqian shook her head. "No. Drinking harms the body, remember to drink less in the future."

An Yang froze, then gave a bitter laugh.

Nie Xiaoqian was indeed extremely smart.

This sentence sounded much more like she was interrogating him: didn't you say you weren't very close with her? How did you end up drinking so much?

"I wasn't in a very good mood last night, so I drank a bit extra. I drank alone; it had nothing to do with her."

"Mm, I know."

An Yang wanted to say something else when he suddenly received a phone call. It was from Song Hanshan.

"Hello, An Yang, are you alright?"

"How could anything be wrong with me?"

"Good, good. Is... is something not quite right in your apartment?"

An Yang blinked. "What wouldn't be right?"

"When I dropped you back last night, I saw that your place was completely empty, but the television was on. Later, the keys I forgot to pull out of the door inexplicably showed up on the coffee table, and finally, I even saw a white shadow. Is there something wrong with your apartment..."

An Yang paused, then looked helplessly toward Nie Xiaoqian.

"Thanks a lot for sending me back last night, but this rental place of mine has always been totally normal. The TV was probably just me forgetting to turn it off, you definitely misremembered about the keys, and you must have seen things with that shadow. How could there be so many weird and spooky things in this world? It's just psychological."

"How is that possible! I couldn't have seen wrong!"

"Uh... My head is still a little dizzy, let's talk another day."

"Alright... Remember to drink plenty of water and get a good rest. Also, if you feel like there's anything off about that apartment, you must move out as soon as you can!"

"Okay!"

Hanging up the phone, An Yang looked speechlessly at Nie Xiaoqian.

Nie Xiaoqian, meanwhile, lowered her head in embarrassment.

"Don't go scaring people anymore from now on."

"Mm~"