Mei Lixiang had once lost a jar of face cream, stolen by a kleptomaniac next door.
The thief used it as foot cream, assuming the owner wouldn’t care about such a small jar.
However, this particular cream had been brought back from abroad by one of Mei Lixiang’s relatives.
It was her favorite.
When she discovered it was missing, she relentlessly tracked it down.
Posters written in red ink on white paper were plastered downstairs in the dormitory, filled with all sorts of profanities, which even caught the school’s attention.
Fearing exposure, the thief hid the used cream under Xiao Hong’s pillow.
Consequently, Xiao Hong was falsely accused of being the thief.
Without a word, Mei Lixiang had slapped her across the face, and Xiao Hong, refusing to back down, erupted into a fierce confrontation with her.
In the end, at a complete stalemate, the two simply called the police.
Fortunately, the police did their job well, proving Xiao Hong’s innocence and scaring the real thief into confessing.
Despite that, Xiao Hong’s reputation as a thief still spread.
Mei Lixiang, who had wrongly accused her, felt guilty, yet adamantly refused to admit fault or apologize.
She kept arguing that she was a victim, too.
She claimed she only falsely accused the “conclusively proven” Xiao Hong because she was furious about having her things stolen.
She was anxious, so it was excusable, wasn’t it?!
After all, who told Xiao Hong to be so poor and look like a thief!
The cream was found under her pillow—if she wasn’t the thief, who was?
Mei Lixiang’s unreasonableness made Xiao Hong even more withdrawn.
She kept to herself and eventually started mingling with delinquent street girls.
The relationship between the two plummeted to a freezing point.
Mei Lixiang would also frequently make up malicious gossip about Xiao Hong, mixing truths with lies, showing just how sharp and petty her tongue was.
Seeing Pei Ye looking at her, Mei Lixiang scoffed, the smile on her face instantly vanishing without a trace.
“What bad luck!” she said loudly on purpose, tossing the bag in her hand onto the bed.
She plopped down heavily, making the bed CREAK and shudder.
Pei Ye smiled.
“Looking at your face full of bad luck, it truly is unfortunate.”
Mei Lixiang’s eyes widened in anger.
“Xiao Hong, what do you mean by that?
Are you trying to pick a fight?!”
Mei Lixiang had already been in a bad mood today, which had only improved slightly after bumping into Lei Yating.
She hadn’t expected her slightly better mood to be ruined the moment she returned to the dorm, instantly sending her into a rage.
Seeing the two of them clashing again, Zhou Huirong couldn’t help but step forward, trying to say two placating words to defuse the tension.
“Huirong, stop helping her!
I’ve had enough of her.
From now on, in Room 4021, it’s either her or me!” Mei Lixiang swatted Zhou Huirong’s hand away, but in her heart, she was completely certain of her roommates’ choice.
Her roommates also hated Xiao Hong because she was a delinquent who mixed with street thugs, and they assumed she had used her pretty face for compensated dating countless times.
Whenever the roommates gathered to gossip about Xiao Hong, their condemnation was always unanimous.
Pei Ye asked her, “People need a little self-awareness.
Are you really that eager to leave 4021?”
Mei Lixiang stared in shock, her eyes wide.
She hadn’t expected Xiao Hong’s sharp tongue and shamelessness to reach a whole new level after just a few days apart.
Pei Ye twisted the knife.
“It’s good that you want to move out.
Better not bring disaster to the rest of the dorm.”
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
“Didn’t I just say you have a face full of bad luck?
You have two debt-collecting ghosts following right behind you.
Anyone who stays with you too long is bound to get unlucky, right?”
Pei Ye didn’t know how to read fortunes, but she could hear what the ghosts were saying.
Beside Mei Lixiang was an old lady in gray cloth clothing, pulling off her foot-binding cloth and shoving it toward Mei Lixiang’s nose, muttering incessantly.
“Wretched girl, give me back my things!”
An old man accompanied the old lady.
The walking stick in his hand repeatedly smacked Mei Lixiang’s right hand.
“I’ll teach you to steal!
I’ll teach you to steal!
I’ll break your hand.”
The two ghosts divided the labor.
With every strike, Pei Ye noticed a slight fluctuation in Mei Lixiang’s mental state.
This fluctuation felt quite familiar; the same kind of ripple occurred every time the System Record indicated that Lei Yating’s Qi Fortune had been deducted.
Therefore, Pei Ye figured Mei Lixiang was in for a bout of bad luck.
When Pei Ye said this, a hint of surprise flashed in Lei Yating’s eyes as she stood off to the side.
Even though she had cultivated Primordial Qi, it was only a single wisp, not enough to open her Heavenly Eye.
However, since her Cultivation Method was of a very high tier, she could faintly perceive illusory figures—and there were indeed two figures following Mei Lixiang.
She had assumed these two figures were Mei Lixiang’s grandparents.
While chatting with Mei Lixiang earlier, she had learned that the girl had taken the time to visit her grandparents’ graves when she went home to replace her ID card.
Lei Yating thought they were just concerned elders who had followed their granddaughter back.
Hearing this now, it seemed her guess was completely off the mark.
“What nonsense about ghosts are you spouting?” Mei Lixiang was furious.
She had expected her roommates to speak two words in her defense, but to her utter disbelief, the girls she usually got along with were avoiding her like the plague.
“Hey, what’s wrong with all of you?!
What era is this?
Who still believes in ghosts and gods?
Xiao Hong, you gave up compensated dating to play pretend as a psychic now?”
Staring deeply at the two ghost shadows, Pei Ye said solemnly, “You took that old lady’s belongings.
She and her old man are right beside you.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the two ghosts who had been diligently pestering Mei Lixiang shivered and froze stiff.
“Old man?”
“Old woman?”
“That girl can actually see us.”
“Go ask the nice girl to make this wretched brat return what she stole.”
With that, the two ghosts turned and approached Pei Ye.
When they were about half a meter away, their ghostly faces twisted in terror.
Screeching and wailing, they bolted far away in the opposite direction.
“Oh my god, why does this girl look so fierce?!”
Pei Ye was speechless.
It seemed the two ghosts hadn’t had very good eyesight when they were alive, only able to see someone clearly from half a meter away.
“Can’t afford to mess with her, can’t afford to mess with her!
Let’s slip away, let’s slip away!”
Though they talked about slipping away, they actually just sluggishly hid behind Mei Lixiang, cautiously poking their heads out to peek in her direction.
The old man asked, “She can’t see us like this, right?”
“She can’t see us, she can’t see us,” the old lady replied.
Having been ghosts for so long, they assumed everyone else’s vision worked the same as theirs.
If they couldn’t see someone, it meant the other person couldn’t see them either.
Meanwhile, Mei Lixiang’s cheeks flushed crimson with anger.
“Who stole anything?!”
“You did.
Or do you mean to say it was me, the one you framed?” Looking at the two somewhat adorable Ghosts, Pei Ye smiled.
“If you don’t return their belongings to them, they’ll keep following you.
Best-case scenario, you’ll suffer bad luck; worst-case scenario, you’ll lose your life.
If you die an unnatural death, you might just wake up to see them demanding their debt and asking for their things back.”
“Bullshit!” Mei Lixiang’s eyes grew bloodshot with rage.
“Believe it or not.”
After a while, Zhou Huirong whispered, “Lixiang, if you stole their things, you’d better return them quickly.”
If those two ghosts kept following Mei Lixiang, didn’t that mean they would be permanently squatting in Room 4021?
“Bullshit!” Mei Lixiang’s fury hit the roof.
“Are you out of your mind too, believing her nonsense?
If you’re so superstitious, why don’t you go find a yin soul for a man?
Why do you even need to beg me every day to take you to mixers?”
Zhou Huirong’s face alternated between Qing and red, a mix of humiliation and fury.
At this moment, those two Ghosts had something to say again.