When Zhang Ming woke up again, his three sons were gathered around him, all wearing grim expressions.
Anyone who had watched a perfectly good villa disappear into thin air and then discovered they had spent the night sleeping beside a graveyard would be in no mood to smile.
“Dad, what exactly is going on?”
Grinding his teeth, Zhang Ming said, “I’ll check the property deed.”
His second son said, “I brought the safe with the deed.”
Zhang Ming took the key from his pocket, entered the combination, and successfully opened the safe.
However, when he pulled out the folder containing the deed, his hands began trembling involuntarily.
The white paper inside had turned yellow.
Its color was exactly like the joss paper they usually burned for the dead.
Zhang Ming took out the deed.
Yellow paper, red writing.
Everything was written clearly.
What they had purchased was not a villa at all, but the burial plot of the entire Su family.
His whole body turned cold.
He could barely remain standing as cold sweat streamed down his back.
Had he really made a business deal with ghosts?
Fear and rage overwhelmed him.
He bit down so hard on his lip that blood filled his mouth.
His heart felt as though it were bleeding.
His villa!
His houses!
Gone, just like that!
How could the Su family do this to him?
How could they deceive him like this?
He had never wronged them.
Then he suddenly remembered that Su Wei had refused to transfer the payment electronically and had insisted on paying him in cash instead.
At the time, he had even used a money-counting machine to count every stack.
The memory filled him with dread.
He scrambled back to the safe and dragged out the two large bags.
They should have been filled with hundred-yuan banknotes.
But when he opened them, all they contained were stacks of joss paper.
The same paper money burned during ancestor worship.
The kind that cost only a few dozen yuan for an entire bag.
He had worked tirelessly his entire life.
Combined with the inheritance he had received from his parents, he had finally accumulated those two apartments.
Yet now, in a single instant, everything he had spent his lifetime building had vanished.
A gust of wind blew through.
The paper money scattered into the air, fluttering like butterflies.
Zhang Ming’s eyes reddened, and he began sobbing.
It was not that he had failed to notice the suspicious details.
His greed had simply blinded him.
In the end, all his efforts amounted to nothing.
That magnificent villa from the previous night had been nothing more than a dream.
His favorite son glared at him resentfully.
“Dad, this is all your fault.”
“Our family doesn’t even have a house anymore.”
“You really had the nerve to do business with ghosts.”
His other sons also began complaining angrily.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
“Can we get our house back?”
Although Zhang Yunqi’s house still existed, none of them dared move into it.
Wiping away his tears, Zhang Ming declared, “We’ll get it back.”
“We have to.”
“They’re just ghosts.”
“Even after my niece became a ghost, I was never afraid of her.”
…
Zhang Ming had originally thought they would need to hire a Daoist priest before they could even enter the villa.
To his surprise, they entered their former home without any difficulty.
Sitting on the sofa were Su Wei and his wife.
Through their translucent bodies, the furniture behind them was clearly visible.
One glance was enough to tell they were no longer human.
The two ghosts were thoroughly engrossed in a melodramatic television series, chatting about the plot from time to time.
The hatred of having one’s home stolen was irreconcilable.
When enemies met, they naturally hated each other all the more.
Zhang Ming ground his teeth in fury.
Clutching the protective talisman he had specially obtained from a temple, he squeezed out each word through clenched teeth.
“What grudge do you have against me?”
“Why would you treat me like this?”
Su Wei snorted.
“You signed the contract yourself.”
“You can only blame yourself for being blind.”
His son had died young.
After he and his wife passed away, rainwater had seeped into their coffin, making their stay there unbearably uncomfortable.
Now that they had moved into this house, they no longer had to worry about wind or rain.
There was no way Su Wei was giving it up.
The other house was perfect for his son.
Young people needed their own private space too.
His smug expression made the Zhang family so angry their chests hurt.
Su Wei said darkly, “Now that the contract has been signed, even if we stood before the King of Hell, we’d still be in the right.”
“I’m willing to let today’s matter slide.”
“But if you don’t leave, don’t blame me for being impolite.”
Compared to his sons, Zhang Ming was much bolder.
Or rather, he had never truly suffered at the hands of ghosts before, so he feared them less than ordinary people did.
His desire to reclaim the house overwhelmed the fear lurking in his heart.
He forced himself to sound fearless.
“I’m moving back in.”
“This house belongs to my family.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the chandelier overhead began flickering wildly.
The temperature inside the room instantly dropped by more than ten degrees.
The next second, the chandelier came crashing down.
Screams echoed through the villa.
…
After finishing her meditation, Qin Su stepped out of her room.
She caught the smell of something burnt.
It was coming from the kitchen.
Looking over, she saw the breathtakingly beautiful Tu Qing standing solemnly in front of a pot on the stove, muttering to herself.
Qin Su listened carefully and heard Tu Qing say in a tone full of disappointed frustration,
“…You’re already a mature pot.”
“So why can’t you cook by yourself?”
Qin Su burst into laughter.
Tu Qing was simply too adorable.
Hearing her laugh, Tu Qing turned around.
Her skin, as flawless as the finest white jade, gradually flushed pink.
She was clearly embarrassed that she had failed to make the meal properly.
Qin Su walked into the kitchen and looked into the pot.
It was completely black.
The ingredients were no longer recognizable.
In a tiny voice, Tu Qing said, “I wanted to make porridge for you.”
“But I accidentally failed.”
Qin Su quietly shifted her gaze away.
“Just leave that to Yunqi.”
“She’s very good at cooking.”
Tu Qing sighed and tried to salvage a little dignity.
“Actually…”
“It’s the pot’s fault!”
“When I use a different pot to make porridge, it always turns out fine.”
Naturally, Qin Su had no intention of embarrassing such a beautiful woman.
She smiled and nodded.
“Mm, I believe you.”
Tu Qing’s face immediately turned even redder.
Qin Su changed the subject.
“Where’s Yunqi?”
Tilting her head, Tu Qing replied, “She went to watch the show at her uncle’s house.”
Thinking of that, Qin Su’s eyes curved into a smile.
The Zhang family must be in complete chaos by now.
All the effort she and Zhang Yunqi had put into arranging everything had not been wasted.
She had deliberately sought out an unreasonable ghost and reached an agreement with him.
As for that so-called grand villa, Qin Su had simply painted it onto yellow talisman paper.
Tu Qing looked at Qin Su with sparkling eyes, her voice as sweet as honey.
“Susu, since ghosts exist in this world, do you think there are spirits too?”
Although Tu Qing had no spiritual power, perhaps because of her previous experience, she could now see ghosts as well.
“There probably are,” Qin Su replied. “The spiritual energy in this world is too thin, so there shouldn’t be many of them.”
Ever since returning to this world, she had encountered quite a few ghosts, but not a single true demon or spirit.
Tu Qing gazed at her expectantly.
“Then… do you think there’s such a thing as a pot spirit?”
“You just put the ingredients in, and it cooks by itself.”
Qin Su: “…”
Well, Tu Qing certainly had a vivid imagination.
With a fond smile, she patted Tu Qing’s head.
“I’m sure there is.”
In dreams, anything was possible.
A while later, Zhang Yunqi returned.
She was humming cheerfully, clearly delighted by the chaos that had unfolded in the Zhang family and feeling thoroughly vindicated.
After she sat down, Qin Su smiled.
“Feeling better now?”
Zhang Yunqi beamed.
“Zhang Ming thought that family would be easy to bully and tried to get the house back.”
“He ended up getting smashed by the chandelier.”
“All four of them are in the hospital now.”
Seeing her uncle’s family lose both their house and their health filled her with satisfaction.
This was what people called karma.
Zhang Ming had spent his entire life obsessing over property.
In the end, that very greed had brought disaster upon him.
“They’re broke and homeless now. Knowing Zhang Ming’s personality, he’ll probably sell this house to scrape together some money.”
Zhang Yunqi knew her uncle well enough to predict his next move.
Qin Su said, “That house is so notoriously haunted now that even if he wants to sell it, no one will dare buy it.”
When the time came, she could purchase it herself at a bargain price.
Only by owning a home of her own could she truly feel secure.
Zhang Yunqi immediately looked unhappy.
“If I’d known I was going to die so early, I should’ve made a will.”
“I ended up letting them benefit instead.”
The thought of her master having to spend money buying her house made her furious.
If she could have, she would have gladly given it to Qin Su for free.
Qin Su smiled faintly.
“My money isn’t so easy to take.”
Anyone who wanted it would naturally have to pay a price.
If Zhang Ming donated the money, he might be able to ward off some of the coming disaster through financial loss.
But there was no way someone like him would ever do that.
…
Just as Zhang Yunqi had predicted, after Zhang Ming was discharged from the hospital and found himself nearly out of money, he immediately sought out Qin Su to discuss selling the house.
The hundred-square-meter apartment was eventually sold for a little over four hundred thousand yuan.
Had it not been known as a haunted house, it could easily have sold for at least four times that amount.
Qin Su finally owned a home of her own, and her heart settled.
As for whatever happened to Zhang Ming afterward, it no longer had anything to do with her.
With this karmic entanglement resolved, Zhang Yunqi experienced a breakthrough in her state of mind, and her cultivation improved considerably.
From then on, she immersed herself completely in cultivation.
Before leaving for M Country, the spiritual herbs Qin Su had planted finally matured.
Their emerald-green leaves resembled the finest jade, shimmering with vibrant luster.
Anyone who saw them would immediately recognize that they were extraordinary.
However, the herbs were all kept in Qin Su’s room, which was permanently protected by an array, so she had no worries about outsiders discovering them.
Following the recipe in her memory, she began refining a scar-removal pill.
In truth, using immortal spiritual herbs to remove scars was complete overkill.
She worried that the results would be too miraculous and arouse suspicion, so she deliberately diluted the herbs.
Even so, although the first harvest wasn’t particularly abundant, after processing them she still managed to produce twenty bottles of the medicine.
Each bottle was stored in a white porcelain container.
Since Qin Su did not yet possess a storage dimension to hold items, she simply stored the bottles inside Qianjin’s stomach.
Artifact refining had never been her specialty.
Otherwise, she would have forged herself several storage dimensions long ago.
She took out two bottles.
One was for her biggest patron, Xin Ying.
The other was intended for her roommate, Zhao Shiyu.
Having witnessed Qin Su’s abilities firsthand, Xin Ying trusted her completely and immediately accepted the bottle.
Zhao Shiyu, however, required considerably more convincing.