Are You Human or Ghost? (Please Keep Reading)

Duan Yun vaulted over the wall and entered his new home, only to find the backyard overgrown with weeds, the sort of place that looked perfect for hiding snakes.

He waded through them all the way to the front courtyard and spotted two trees.

One was a plum tree, and the other was also a plum tree.

The courtyard containing the two plum trees was quite spacious, but after years of neglect, stubborn weeds had filled the cracks between the broken flagstones.

The long row of rooms had likewise fallen into disrepair, cobwebs spread everywhere.

Duan Yun noticed that one room in particular was packed with cobwebs, looking like a spider demon's cave.

Then he saw two spiders crawling there, each at least as large as a palm.

To be honest, Duan Yun was not particularly afraid of spiders, but their size made him a little unable to bear it.

If they kept growing, would they not turn into spider demons that ate people?

Thinking that this was his own house, how could he let such things remain? Thus, kindhearted Duan Yun sent the pair of giant spiders on their way with two Sword Fingers.

Whether cobwebs or weeds, neither was much of a problem for Duan Yun.

His Body-Breaking Sword Qi was always especially handy for clearing weeds and cobwebs.

What concerned him now was whether there was a room that could shelter him from wind and rain.

This manor was truly huge. If it did not have forty rooms, it surely had thirty, yet there were holes everywhere.

Just like at Clear Tea Market, all he wanted from a place to live was shelter from wind and rain and convenience for daily life. If that was impossible, he would first have to patch up a couple of rooms.

After passing through two long corridors, Duan Yun finally found two rooms that could still be salvaged.

With a nimble leap, Duan Yun landed on the roof.

The roof was not without holes either, but at least its frame was still fairly intact.

He stripped some roof tiles from the neighboring house and barely patched the holes in the roof.

But there was nothing he could do about the broken windows. He would need to go into town and buy some coarse paper.

So Duan Yun left through the manor's main gate, rode Little Gray to Jade Town, and bought coarse paper and paste for mending the windows, along with some cooked food.

Honestly, this was really much like his time at Clear Tea Market, only an enlarged version of it.

The houses at Clear Tea Market had been dilapidated, while Sworn Sister Manor was bigger and even more broken-down. Outside the houses at Clear Tea Market lay a graveyard; here, it was directly adjacent to an entire hill of graves.

There had been a lake at Clear Tea Market, and there was one here too. Even more absurdly, he saw a similar box in this lake.

That box lay submerged in the water, surrounded by aquatic weeds, looking like a coffin.

The last time, when he had opened the box in the lake, there had been a bear with a human brain sewn onto it. What about this time?

Having learned his lesson last time, Duan Yun did not even spare it another glance and headed straight back to the manor.

There's nothing wrong with my brain. Who would casually open some treasure chest of unknown origin?

The weather was gloomy today, and it might well rain that night. He had to patch up the windows as quickly as possible.

Anyone who often created their own cultivation arts knew that creating one was an exceedingly difficult undertaking. Even a swordsmanship genius like him, one in ten thousand, needed a good environment to make proper progress.

After returning, Duan Yun immediately began repairing the windows, while he let Little Gray graze in the courtyard.

But the donkey seemed somewhat afraid of the residence and did not dare wander far.

Duan Yun glanced outside.

Some of the wild grass was nearly half a man tall. In such an environment, snakes were unavoidable.

Even the two giant spiders he had killed earlier would probably frighten Little Gray.

But that was only temporary. Once he had pasted up the window paper today and settled down for the moment, his next task would be clearing the weeds.

Duan Yun rather enjoyed this process of reclaiming wasteland. Especially when he watched a place this old regain its vitality because of him, it gave him a sense of accomplishment.

The key was that the house cost nothing.

By then, the sky had grown increasingly dark, clouds pressing low overhead and creating a stifling atmosphere.

In this abandoned manor, everything naturally seemed even more sinister.

Duan Yun cut the coarse paper to size and began repairing the windows.

Who knew how long this manor had been abandoned? The window paper had long since rotted through, leaving only the frames.

Many of the window frames were severely damaged as well, so he went to other rooms to find frames that were barely usable.

Then came pasting on the paper.

This rough-edged paper was quite tough and could keep out wind and rain without any problem. It was nothing like in television dramas, where a finger dampened with saliva could poke through it with the slightest touch.

Of course, his fingers could.

Because his finger techniques were formidable.

After a round of busy work, Duan Yun had repaired the windows of one and a half rooms. Half a room remained, but he did not feel like fixing it for now.

He was hungry. As long as he had one room to sleep in tonight, that was enough.

Duan Yun had just set down the rough-edged paper and was about to eat when a faint, eerie voice rang out—"Could you help patch up my side too?"

It was already dusk, and the sky was dark. In this old residence, such a voice suddenly sounded out. Even the legendary Old Devil Duan was startled.

Fucking hell, was this really a ghost?

With his fingers pinched into a Sword Finger, he scanned his surroundings and quickly looked toward a rolled-up straw mat beneath a broken table.

He had noticed that straw mat earlier and assumed it was simply discarded junk lying there. Only now did he see clearly that, through the dimness, a human figure lay inside it.

The sight easily brought to mind a corpse wrapped in a straw mat.

Goosebumps rose all over Duan Yun as he asked uneasily, "What exactly are you—human or ghost?"

At that moment, the straw mat shifted, revealing the face of a man with disheveled hair.

The man's face was very pale, white as paper, and looked especially terrifying in the dim light.

"Of course I'm human," the man answered faintly.

"If you're human, why are you lying here?" Duan Yun found it strange and remained on guard.

"This is my home. If I don't lie here, where should I lie?" the man replied.

"This is your home?" Duan Yun asked in shock.

He had never expected that, besides himself, there was another oddball who treated this place as home.

"Of course this is my home. Jade Pearl Manor was originally my property. Beneath the third floorboard to the right of your foot is this place's deed," said the person lying there.

Duan Yun crouched and felt beneath the floorboard the other man had indicated.

Unexpectedly, there really was a deed underneath.

Now this was awkward.

After working so hard for so long, this broken haunted house actually had an owner.

Had he been busy for nothing?

"My friend, it's about to rain. Help me patch it up."

The man remained wrapped in the straw mat without moving, like a corpse.

Duan Yun could not help asking, "Why don't you patch it yourself?"

"I'm lazy. If I had wanted to patch it, I would have done so a year ago," the man replied solemnly.

Duan Yun was stunned. "You've been lying here for a year?"

He found that he had been shocked more times today than he usually was in an entire month.

"More or less. A year passes just lying around."

Seeing that Duan Yun had not moved, the man continued, "I won't make you do it for nothing. As the master of Jade Pearl Manor, I'll allow you to live here. The rent is negotiable."

Duan Yun wore an expression as though he had seen a ghost. "You charge rent for a house like this?"

That was as absurd as calling this haunted manor "Jade Pearl Manor."

"I charge it, of course I charge it! As the manor lord, I'm lying here. Since I've seen you, how can I let you freeload?"

Duan Yun's expression abruptly turned serious. "I, Duan Yun, will never freeload!"

At that moment, the lazy fellow lying down said, "I never expected you to share a name with that Old Devil Duan."

Duan Yun blinked. "You lie around in this haunted residence, and you still know about Old Devil Duan?"

"Two days ago, someone was worshipping their ancestors outside the wall. I heard them talking about him."

Duan Yun said, "Aren't you afraid that I really am Old Devil Duan?"

"If you're Old Devil Duan, then I'm the Supreme Emperor—the Supreme Emperor who specializes in sleeping with emperors' mothers."

Hearing that, Duan Yun could not help laughing. "I'm not Old Devil Duan, and you definitely aren't the Supreme Emperor. So who are you?"

"My surname is Murong. My name is Murong Brothers."

"What the hell?"

For a moment, Duan Yun felt his brain could not quite keep up with the pace.