"I’m almost there, let’s talk in person."
After hanging up, Wen Yan walked downstairs and saw Feng Yao’s car drive into the yard, parking in the spot on the side.
Feng Yao came over carrying a small fish tank, with two gold-red little goldfish inside, and a bag containing some takeout food boxes.
"A housewarming gift. I remember you said you wanted one of these, so I picked it up for you on the way. Figured you probably haven’t eaten yet, so I brought you something."
Feng Yao set the fish tank in the living room on the first floor, and Wen Yan couldn’t help but ask.
"Don’t tell me you don’t know about the house in the back. Isn’t this pretty much living right in front of someone else’s grave?"
Feng Yao nodded matter-of-factly.
"Of course I know. That house has been sitting there forever, no one lives in it. Isn’t that perfect? Nice environment, not many people around."
At this, Feng Yao suddenly caught herself.
"Ah, you were talking so big about it earlier—don’t tell me you’re actually bothered by it now?"
Wen Yan thought about it, not sure what to say.
True. He wasn’t afraid to keep a hopping corpse around—a real, proper dead body didn’t even faze him. He was actually planning to find a chance to bring the hopping corpse out later anyway. Would he really care about the ancestral tablets in the back?
Come to think of it, he really is the only one who’s not bothered by this place.
"Can you tell me, are any of the local rumors actually true?"
"Almost all the rumors you’ve heard, there’s some truth in them."
"..." Wen Yan shivered, testing, "Like... this area used to be an execution ground?"
"Go back a hundred years, and yeah, it was."
"Problems with the sewage system?"
"Yep, that’s real. But mainly it floods when it pours, plus one of the sewage pipes got blocked, so rain mixed with sewage, leaking right under some family’s house, pissed them off pretty bad."
"Anyone who gets their house flooded with stinking water for no reason would lose it."
"That’s true..." Wen Yan thought for a moment and nodded.
"What’s up with the house in the back?"
"Someone actually paid real money for that. They like black curtains, they like to worship their ancestors at home—who’s gonna stop them?"
"And this house here?"
"This was sponsored for free by the owner here—he’s pretty crafty. Gave away three villas in total, just hoping someone from the Scorching Sun Department would move in, preferably someone strong."
"That’s a lot to shell out! Is there something wrong with the place?"
"This area—ghostly stuff pops up all the time. In the last two hundred years, it was a mass grave, also served as a cemetery, then later as an execution ground.
Used to be nothing much, really—it’s Divine Land, right? Anywhere people have lived long-term, somewhere nearby, folks are always buried.
If something’s been around for centuries, it’s an antique—maybe even a relic.
But these past few decades, weird stuff has started to happen, especially in the last ten years—getting more frequent.
Unlucky for us, this villa area was built exactly ten years ago.
The Scorching Sun Department sent people out to check. The last family that had issues moved out, but it’s still going on around here.
The root cause is this place just has too many problems to solve at once, and with so few permanent residents, the energy’s weak—can’t suppress it anymore.
If you can fix it, pick any of the unsold villas, take your pick."
At that, Wen Yan got interested.
"You guys take jobs ?"
"Not me—full-time members like me don’t. But we can refer it to others! In the Scorching Sun Department, lots of people like you have special investigation credentials, and loads of experts like Old Zhang Laoxi get brought in as temps. Everyone’s gotta eat, right? There’s demand, so there’s business. You can’t expect people to ’work for love’ forever."
"Makes sense..." Wen Yan nodded. The whole reason he’d gone to the funeral home in the first place was the great pay and reasonable hours.
"If it weren’t for everyone else being superstitious, this place would never have gone to you, or to me."
Wen Yan felt like he might’ve been a bit hasty, putting too much trust in Feng Yao’s arrangement.
From what he’d learned the last few days, if it were just about housing, with Feng Yao’s ability, she could sort everything with a cup of tea.
He’d wanted to move in the same night, didn’t even bother to look at the place first—just saw the address and figured, I’ve got a rough idea.
Before, he might’ve cared about those rumors, but after all that’s happened, even if every legend about the neighborhood was true, he honestly couldn’t care less.
Never thought it could be even crazier here than he’d imagined.
"Just say it—are you staying or not? If not, there’s a vacant house in a village four kilometers west of your office."
"I’m staying! Why wouldn’t I? A huge free villa, front and back garden, two parking spots, fully furnished—of course I’m staying!"
Wen Yan gritted his teeth and agreed on the spot.
If he saved up for one himself, and paid for renovations, he’d have to scrimp and save for thirty or forty years.
The way he saw it, a few little drawbacks are nothing—totally worth ignoring.
He looked back at the backyard; now it wasn’t him sleeping in front of their graves—it was their ancestral tablets, placed outside his own backyard.
Soon as he could, he’d move Old Man Mo out as well.
What’s a rumor, what’s a haunted house? I’ve got a Big Executor Zombie right in my living room!
Now this is the wildest house in the whole neighborhood.
Thinking , Wen Yan instantly felt a lot better.
That hopping corpse was meant to be moved out eventually, couldn’t leave it at the funeral home forever.
He didn’t take it today, partly to let the director know and make sure he could keep it under control.
Another reason—someone was already snooping around the cameras, so definitely couldn’t take it out today. Only safe spots are behind the cremation department where there’s no surveillance, or in the old office building.
And besides, today he had to move house—hadn’t settled in yet.
Feng Yao, like the director, says she won’t get involved, but secretly supports him all the way.
If he hadn’t moved out yet and brought the hopping corpse to a packed city complex, both the director and Feng Yao would absolutely shut that down.
"So, you sure about moving in here for real?"
"Yeah, the place is great, decent renovation, everything looks new. Just need to add a few appliances and bits of furniture. Give me any info on the place when you have time."
"I’ll get you a phone later, you can look it up yourself."
Feng Yao didn’t hang around long—he had lots to do, still hadn’t written his report, so sparing the time to pop by was already a stretch.
Wen Yan started tidying up the place, picking a south-facing bedroom on the second floor for his main room.
He took out his little backpack, stuck the talisman charms Old Zhang Laoxi had given him to ward off evil on a few windows and doors.
After washing up, holding the jade talisman given by the director, he lay in bed without even touching his phone and drifted right off—no insomnia, no tension, not even a hint of the chilling aura he’d expected. He slept like a rock.
As time passed and it got closer to eleven, the villa neighborhood—never that crowded—got eerily quiet.
In the villa behind his, black curtains slowly parted, and one shadow after another floated up in the window, blending into the dark, motionless, silently watching the front villa.
On the west side of Wen Yan’s house, down in the darkness, something seemed to be moving—a pair of green eyes flashed, then vanished.
To the east, in the villa at the very edge, someone stood with binoculars, watching Wen Yan’s house, with monitors alongside showing outdoor surveillance feeds.
And farther south, several hundred meters from the villas, on top of an eight-story residential building, two people hid by the elevator box, using night vision gear to peer through a tiny window—watching over Wen Yan’s entire block.