Chapter 5025 — A Fake Ghost Meets a Real One

Flat-top still wore a look of sheer terror. Twisting his head around, he jabbed a finger toward the inside of the room, signaling for the old man to go look for himself—he, for one, would sooner die than take a single step forward.

"Jumping at your own shadow!" the old man cursed silently. Screwing up his courage, he poked his head through the doorway for a peek—then yanked it back after a single glance. If not for the black paper plastered over his face, he would undoubtedly have gone paler than Flat-top.

"Did you get a clear look? Is that thing inside even human?" Flat-top mouthed the words.

"Of course it's human! What kind of question is that? But the man's not right in the head—the middle of the night, and instead of sleeping, he's sitting cross-legged on the bed meditating. I've been knocking around the underworld for decades, and he nearly scared me to death!" The old man patted his chest, still shaken.

"What the hell! Scaring me with his meditation, is he? I'll frighten him into a madhouse tonight!" Flat-top spat viciously, then immediately crept inside on tiptoe, all set to give Wei Zhao a proper scare. But he had barely taken two steps before he came backing out again, his face a study in bewilderment as he jerked his chin at the old man. "Something's off tonight."

"Off how? Ask you to do one little thing and you're all hemming and hawing!" the old man snapped. Urged on by Flat-top's frantic gesturing, he took another look inside—and froze on the spot. "It's that kid from this afternoon! What are the odds of that?"

"What do we do?" Flat-top asked.

"What do you mean, what do we do? We scare him anyway. He can't recognize us—we're in makeup, so what's there to be afraid of!" With that, the old man shoved Flat-top forward. "Stop dawdling, hurry up, you go first!"

"Why me again?" Flat-top grumbled, but he still drifted in wearing the guise of a fierce ghost. After all, conning someone once was conning him, and conning him twice was no different—if anyone was to blame, it was this kid for being so unlucky as to walk right into the line of fire every single time.

Yet this time he had not gone two steps before Flat-top whirled and fled back as though he had seen a ghost in truth. His face was even paler than before, and he was too terrified to string together a whole sentence for quite a while.

"What now? Are you ever going to finish?" the old man snapped impatiently, cuffing him across the head.

"He's... he's gone..." Flat-top said, practically on the verge of tears.

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?" The old man blinked.

"The man's gone!" Flat-top dragged the old man over to look into the room, and the next moment the old man's own expression turned to sheer horror. He had just seen the man sitting cross-legged on the bed with his own eyes—how could there be not even a shadow of him now?!

If the room had been large or cluttered with furniture, there would have been a ready explanation: the man had most likely heard the two of them and hidden himself away. But the trouble was, the room was not large at all, and inside there was only a bed and a table—nothing else. One sweep of the eyes took in everything there was to see, and there was simply nowhere to hide.

And that was precisely what made it so horrifying. In the space of a single moment's distraction, a living, breathing man had vanished!

"Don't tell me the kid jumped out the window and ran?" Flat-top said after a moment's thought. The two of them had been guarding the door; the man could not possibly have slipped past their very eyes. The only possibility left was the window.

"This is the fifth floor. Who in their right mind would jump out a window? Take a look for yourself—the window's locked from the inside. It hasn't been opened at all!" The old man shook his head again and again.

"Then what happened? Don't tell me my eyes were playing tricks on me just now?" Flat-top said, baffled.

"If your eyes were playing tricks, then mine were too—do you really think that's possible?" The old man pursed his lips in annoyance, steeled himself, and took yet another look inside. Once he had confirmed there was absolutely nothing there, his expression turned grave. "There isn't something wrong with this apartment after all, is there? Maybe there really is something unclean in here..."

"My God! Master, don't go scaring me like that. That business about the chainsaw and the dead man—that was all made up by Boss Huang himself. It never really happened. Besides, we've pulled this stunt plenty of times before and nothing's ever gone wrong." Flat-top jumped in fright.

"Walk the night road often enough and sooner or later you'll meet a real ghost. That old saying isn't just idle talk—maybe there's something to it. That Boss Huang was never any good to begin with. What if someone really did die in this apartment?" The old man cautiously scanned his surroundings. He had always been a man of stout nerve, but tonight he genuinely felt a chill creeping up his spine.

"Then... then what do we do..." Flat-top had been scared stiff to begin with, and hearing this sent him trembling even harder. He pressed himself tight against the old man's side, not daring even to glance around.

"What do we do? We get out of here, that's what. People have their paths and ghosts have theirs. Even if there really is something unclean here, as long as we don't provoke it, it shouldn't come provoking us. Let's go, quick." The old man did not dare linger another moment; he was moving toward the door before he had even finished speaking. At first he kept his steps somewhat measured, but then he walked faster and faster, until soon it had become an all-out, heedless flight.

"W-wait for me!" Flat-top scrambled after him. Hauntings were like that—so long as you never let the thought into your head it was nothing, but once it truly took root, it would flood your mind in an instant. The two of them were still able to turn and run, which was more than could be said for some; plenty of people were simply frightened to death by their own imaginings, and that was a death truly not worth dying.

The two of them fled like madmen to the door, but before the old man could get it open, Flat-top instinctively glanced at the bathroom beside them—and what he saw nearly scared him into a dead faint on the spot!

When the two of them had first opened the door and come in, the bathroom beside them had been shut. Now it stood ajar by a sliver, and what was even more horrifying was the sight visible through that crack—there was faintly, dimly, the shape of a human figure inside!

"Mother of God!" Flat-top was scared half out of his wits. He seized the old man and shoved him in front of himself as a shield. The old man had been frantically working at the door, and caught off guard and off balance, he was sent sprawling straight into the bathroom—and now the scene inside was laid out clear as day.

A figure hovered in midair like a specter. It was none other than Wei Zhao, who had vanished from the room without a trace just moments before. His body now gave the impression of being there and yet not there, nothing at all like the state of a normal person. He floated there in the bathroom, soundless and still, watching the two of them with a face utterly devoid of expression.

Flat-top was frightened out of his mind. Hysterical, he wrenched the door open with all his might and fled stumbling down the hall. The old man, by comparison, seemed a shade more composed—after being flung into the bathroom, he did not dare so much as glance behind him, and scrambled out on Flat-top's heels. But he had barely reached the stairwell when his foot met empty air, and he and Flat-top went tumbling head over heels down the stairs with a tremendous clatter.