Have You Ever Considered Taking the Easy Way Out?

Jiang Chen explained to Sister Hong that he was a Ghost Exorcist and had already dealt with the female ghost. Then he reminded her that if anyone came asking, she should say a passing expert had taken care of it.

He still remembered that Sister Hong had called the police earlier.

There had been no confirmed Paranormal Incidents in the public eye, which meant the authorities of the Nine Provinces must have specialists handling such matters.

Jiang Chen did not want to approach the relevant agencies just yet. After all, nobody knew how they treated unaffiliated people like him who possessed supernatural powers.

Back in his room, he immediately drew two Monster Transformation Cards.

Ding! Congratulations, host! You have drawn a One-Star Monster Transformation Card-Red Python Demon.

"The python demon from Seven Absolutes Mountain..." Jiang Chen murmured. As a longtime mythology enthusiast, he immediately assessed this monster's strength. "It should be a fair bit stronger than General Yin."

Many people online liked to rank the Red Python Demon at the very bottom of the Journey to the West power scale, because it had to eat several people every day just to maintain human form.

In reality, though, that interpretation was slightly off.

Red Python maintained a fully human form, whereas General Yin and some of the lesser demons occupying the mountains could only assume a half-human form.

Viewed that way, Red Python was not actually all that weak.

Ding! Congratulations, host! You have drawn a One-Star Monster Transformation Card-Chaos-Dwelling Demon King.

The second card came as a pleasant surprise to Jiang Chen.

The Chaos-Dwelling Demon King had quite a few lesser demons under his command. In a sense, he counted as a minor boss among the weaker combatants.

It was worth mentioning that the television adaptation had included the Chaos-Dwelling Demon King among the Seven Demon Sages, but that was not actually the case. He had apparently replaced the King of Macaques, the Great Sage Who Drives Gods. In the original novel, the monkey had cut the Chaos-Dwelling Demon King in two with a single stroke after returning from his training.

Then Jiang Chen took stock of the power within his body again.

"One-Star Monster Transformation Cards only grant demonic power and physical strength. I have a feeling higher-tier Monster Transformation Cards might actually let me assume those monsters' terrifying bodies!"

He recalled the oppressive presence he had felt when drawing the Monster Transformation Cards. If those monsters had appeared in person, they could probably have killed the Knocking Ghost with a casual slap.

"I wonder how much Ghost Qi I need to unlock the next tier of Monster Transformation Cards."

Before long, the terrifying power in his body faded. Jiang Chen tested himself and found that even the ten percent of physical strength left behind was equivalent to the strength of seven or eight adults.

However, only a faint wisp of demonic power remained inside him, and he had not permanently inherited any supernatural abilities. After all, the chance was only one percent.

"If I ran into the Knocking Ghost as I am now, I'd probably be dead. Too bad Demon Transformation only lasts half an hour."

"At least I have two more Monster Transformation Cards to fall back on. I wonder how many ghosts there really are in this world, and whether anything even more terrifying than the Knocking Ghost exists."

A faint sense of urgency rose within Jiang Chen. On his way upstairs earlier, he had seen three apartments with their doors open across the fifth and ninth floors. Inside lay bodies torn to pieces, presumably all victims of the Knocking Ghost.

If he had not awakened the system, he would have become one of those corpses tonight.

"This world isn't as peaceful as it looks. I can't just sit around waiting for ghosts to find me. Who knows what kind of terrifying thing I might run into then?"

"I'll find some low-risk Paranormal Incidents and get more Ghost Qi. As long as I become strong enough, ghosts won't be anything to fear!"

Muttering to himself, Jiang Chen settled on his next objective.

He also wanted to find opportunities to learn more about the other side of this world.

"Right, the local news."

Seemingly remembering something, he opened his phone and began searching through reports of murders from the past few days.

Eventually, Jiang Chen settled on the Tianfu Road disfigurement case. Only three people had died in that incident so far, so the danger should not be too great.

"Tianfu Road is right by the university. I'll head over tomorrow evening after class."

He glanced at his phone. It was past three in the morning. Jiang Chen returned to his bedroom and went back to sleep. At one point, he heard a large group of people come upstairs, seemingly enter Sister Hong's apartment, and then leave again.

Bright floodlights came on below the building, and people kept coming and going.

The authorities were probably cleaning up the aftermath.

Nobody came looking for him, which meant Sister Hong had told them what he had instructed her to say.

It also suggested that the authorities were not particularly hostile toward unaffiliated people with supernatural abilities. If they had truly wanted to investigate, they could still have tracked Jiang Chen down.

A little after eight the next morning, a knock sounded at the door.

He opened it to find Sister Hong in a fitted teal dress, carrying several kinds of breakfast: beef patties, pan-fried buns, congee, and shumai. Each dish looked beautifully made and mouthwatering.

Unlike her disheveled appearance last night, the dress accentuated Sister Hong's curves and fair, smooth skin. Her narrow, foxlike eyes, in particular, gave her a thoroughly feminine allure. Had Jiang Chen not learned her age during an earlier conversation, he never would have believed she was over thirty.

"Hehe, I didn't know what you liked, so I made a little of everything. Don't bother eating out from now on. Whatever you want, I'll make it for you." Once the door was open, Sister Hong walked inside, set breakfast on the coffee table, and casually began tidying Jiang Chen's room.

"Sister Hong, you really don't have to go to all this trouble," Jiang Chen said.

"Nonsense! You saved my life. This is the least I can do." Sister Hong gave him a mild glare with her lovely eyes, then seemed to remember something. Beaming, she walked over. "Oh, right. This is for you."

She took a dark red booklet from beneath the breakfast tray.

At first, Jiang Chen had not paid it any attention, assuming it was a cloth beneath the breakfast. Only now did he notice the large words on it.

[Property ownership certificate]

Fuck!

Once he saw what it was, the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

Jiangbei City's standing in the Nine Provinces was equivalent to a first-tier city in his previous life. An apartment in this neighborhood could easily be worth three to five million. She had used a property deed as a breakfast mat?

"This is just a little token of my gratitude. Hold on to it for now, and we'll go transfer the ownership later."

"No, this is far too valuable!" Jiang Chen refused.

It was not that he wanted to play the gentleman. In his previous life, he had struggled to afford even a home in a second-tier city.

The main reason was that, in this life, he had already saved up a little money.

Besides, Sister Hong was a woman living on her own with no regular job. She probably relied entirely on rent from this apartment to get by. He could not take away someone's livelihood just because he had saved her life.

Seeing his response, Sister Hong sighed and returned to her own apartment.

A few minutes later, she came back carrying a box, panting slightly. She wiped the sweat from her temple with the back of her hand. "I get it. Jiang Chen, is it that you don't really like the apartment you're living in?"

"That's fine. Everything in this building from the sixth floor all the way up to the fifteenth belongs to me. They're all right here. Pick whichever one you want!"

"If you really prefer a lower floor, I can find someone to swap with, too."

After hearing that, the normally composed Jiang Chen's chopstick hand shook violently, and he nearly choked to death on the shumai in his mouth.

He looked at Sister Hong, who was opening the box and laboriously hauling out property deeds. Somehow, her aura seemed to shoot up in an instant.

He even had the illusion that, at any moment, Sister Hong would ask him, "Young man, have you ever considered taking the easy way out?"