After everyone left, the fatty pulled me aside and asked a strange question.
"Bro, don't you think this house is kinda weird?" he asked mysteriously.
I shot him a glare. "No shit. It's a haunted house. Zhang Hu specifically hired me to exorcise it—otherwise, he can't sell it and will lose a fortune."
At the mention of Zhang Hu, the fatty's expression grew even weirder. He scanned the surroundings, confirmed we were alone, and whispered mysteriously: "You know how Zhang Hu made his fortune?"
I shook my head, confused. Why bring this up? I only knew he was the richest real estate tycoon in the city, nothing more.
"Let me tell you—he started as a real estate salesman, making a measly 1,000 RMB base salary. Wanna know how he got rich?" He paused dramatically, baiting me.
After I glared at him, he continued: "He made his fortune selling yin houses, and now he's the top real estate mogul."
"Yin houses? Like this one? He said he doesn't sell such places. Is he lying to me?" I eyed him skeptically. Zhang Hu had no reason to lie—it benefited him nothing.
The fatty waved his hands urgently. "No, no, bro—I mean yin houses."
I frowned, confused. Weren't yin houses just haunted houses? Was there another meaning?
Seeing my confusion, he explained: "Haunted houses and yin houses are totally different. A haunted house brings great misfortune, even ruining families. But a yin house can turn your luck around, bring wealth, and turn bad fortune into good."
My brows knit tightly. I highly doubted his words—he had no real skills except convincing blabber.
"Fatty, I have no money for your scams. Go hustle someone else." I'd always thought "haunted house" and "yin house" were just different terms, but his explanation sounded absurd.
Seeing my skepticism, he grew anxious. "Bro, I'm looking out for you! Believe it or not, I'm just wasting my breath here."
One moment he talked about the house, the next about Zhang Hu, then claiming to help me—it left me dizzy.
"Fatty, get to the point! You're jumping around so much I'm confused. Spill it all at once." I complained.
He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and finally got serious.
"Yin houses are actually related to haunted houses. Simply put, they're evolved from haunted houses. Kill the 'unclean things' inside or change the murderous feng shui, and it becomes a yin house."
Why? As the Chinese saying goes: "Turn misfortune into blessing" or "Survive a great disaster, and good fortune will follow."
The general idea is that after great misfortune, there must be auspicious signs—a theory recognized by both Buddhism and Taoism. However, such a house isn't called an "auspicious house" but a "yin house" instead. After all, it was originally a haunted house. Even after exorcising the evil spirits, yin energy still lingers, along with an indescribable eeriness. Though it doesn't harm people, it emanates a gloomy atmosphere. But who cares when it can turn one's luck around?
Precisely for this reason, many insiders vie to buy these so-called yin houses.
The prerequisite for creating a yin house is that the house must have been a haunted house—and the more malevolent, the better. However, haunted houses are rare and handling them improperly can cost one's life in an instant, so no one would risk making money this way.
Zhang Hu is an exception. As the saying goes, "Wealth comes from danger." He somehow obtained a large number of haunted houses, hired Taoist priests, transformed them into yin houses, and sold them. This made him famous, with many people flocking to buy yin houses from him. Later, with his understanding of real estate and business acumen, he became a real estate tycoon in the city.
Few younger people know Zhang Hu made his fortune selling yin houses, but the story circulates widely among the older generation. The fatty, known as "Mr. Know-It-All," is privy to everything—from Cuihua next door cheating on her husband, to Second Aunt's sow giving birth to twelve piglets, to Old Wang's daughter upgrading a bra size.
He heard that Zhang Hu didn't buy those haunted houses; he created them himself. He then hired "Taoist" experts to exorcise them, forcefully transforming them into yin houses for sale.
Additionally, the fatty heard that those who once helped Zhang Hu resolve haunted houses either died inside the houses, dropped dead suddenly, had short lifespans (dying within a year or two), or went insane and ended up in mental asylums. Since then, no one dared to help Zhang Hu with haunted houses. However, after getting rich, Zhang Hu allegedly rarely dealt with them.
Finishing his cigarette, the fatty crushed the butt under his foot and said, "Bro, I'm not sure if Zhang Hu created those haunted houses, but he did profit from the dead. The deceased deserve respect—messing with this stuff can shorten your life at best, kill you at worst. I'm looking out for you; better stop helping Zhang Hu."
His words left me deep in thought. Though the fatty talks nonsense and often spouts rubbish, I trust his character. Zhang Hu, however, is deeply scheming, making him hard to read.
In fact, I suspected something upon arrival. With Zhang Hu's experience, no one could fool him. He must have bought this haunted house himself, and for some time now. I noticed the windows had been modified. Despite his excellent renovation hiding the traces, the repositioned windows are bizarre.
All windows in this house face north. With the sun rising east and setting west, north-facing windows mean almost no sunlight enters any room—this house is nearly pitch-dark.
I suddenly understood why the female ghost lingered even after avenging herself. The house's lack of sunlight prevented her resentment from dissipating, so she wandered here full of hatred.
"Hoho, so the more malevolent a haunted house is, the better—now I get it!" I sneered, finally connecting all the dots. Zhang Hu had deliberately ensured the female ghost's resentment lingered, turning this place into an extremely ominous abode. Then he hired me to exorcise her, planning to transform it into a yin house for a hefty profit. What a slick scheme! But profiting from ghosts shows disrespect to the spirits—at best, it shortens your lifespan; at worst, it costs your life. If this son of a bitch hadn't tricked me, I'd never touch such a job with a ten-foot pole.
I slammed my fist into the wall with a thud. "That bastard Zhang Hu actually dared to trick me!"
"Bro, human hearts are vicious—especially in this line of work. You must stay vigilant, or you'll end up dead," the fatty patted my shoulder before leaving, slipping me his number and telling me to call if I needed help.
I waved and thanked him. For all his sleazy appearance, he was a decent guy at heart.
On the way back to school, I mulled over that saying again: "Ghostly malice pales beside human cruelty; slaying ghosts is worse than redeeming them." The first half hit especially close.
The female ghost's husband had abandoned his pregnant wife for a mistress, then brought that floozy home before his wife's first seven-day mourning period. His heart was rotten to the core, riddled with holes.
Zhang Xiaoman's father, Zhang Hu, had deliberately modified the house to trap the ghost for personal gain, preventing her from reincarnating. He'd schemed to get me to resolve the haunting for profit—truly a man of unfathomable cunning.
By the time I got back to school, it was past 2 AM. To avoid the dorm supervisor announcing my absence campus-wide, I had to scale the wall. Lucky I only lived on the third floor—any higher and I'd be screwed!
The next day, I called Butler Li, refusing the payment and washing my hands of the remaining two haunted houses. "Find someone else. I won't take this blood money." I'd broken my promise by only handling one house, so no amount of cash was worth it.
Thankfully, Zhang Hu wasn't dense. Though he didn't pay me, he provided files on the female ghost from the school's backhill graveyard—the one who'd taken He Wei.
Money really talks—he'd dug up Republic of China-era records, no small feat in terms of manpower and resources.
I tore open the files Butler Li sent, curiosity piqued.
First, the graveyard records: It was the ancestral tomb of the wealthy Wang family from the Republic of China, housing generations of clan members. With such a vast cemetery, who knows how many generations were buried there? After wartime chaos, the family either perished or fled, leaving the graveyard untended and overgrown.
Flipping further, I found details about the female ghost.
Her name was Wang Qian. On her wedding day, unspeakable tragedy struck: she was defiled by a gang of bandits.
As the groom's procession escorted her home, they encountered bandits en route. A wealthy debutante, Wang Qian was fair-skinned, beautiful, and elegant. The bandits swarmed her, even crushing the red wedding sedan in their frenzy.
She'd wanted to die to preserve her chastity, but the bandits held the groom hostage. In desperation, she sacrificed her virginity to save his life.
The gang tormented her for half a day. A dozen men took turns violating her from dawn to dusk. She fainted from pain, woke, and fainted again—enduring this ordeal repeatedly.