There was no particular scent in the room, which left Li Daonian somewhat disappointed.
According to his loser roommate, girls' rooms always smelled wonderful.
He had guessed beforehand that it might be shampoo mixed with the fragrance of jasmine... but now it seemed that was purely his own wishful thinking.
There was no scent at all.
Just cold, barren, and ordinary.
Damn it, that bastard Qiuyang lied to me!
When he got back, he would definitely grill him about it; that guy had completely idealized girls, convinced that all beauties were sweet-smelling and soft.
In reality, they were just creatures who had to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom like anyone else.
Li Daonian composed himself and began looking around the living room.
A brown sofa, an old television, a dusty window, a faded painting in the style of Van Gogh, a kettle...
It looked like a completely ordinary living room—not bright and immaculate, but filled with the simplicity of daily life.
Xu Shuangning took off her coat, tossed it onto the sofa, fetched two pairs of chopsticks from the kitchen, handed one pair to him, and opened the plastic bag to start eating the shredded pig's ears.
"Your gig is pretty good, you even get to take the leftovers home." Li Daonian cheerfully picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks.
"Today is just an exception; usually there aren't any leftovers."
She said calmly:
"Are you hungry? Should I whip up an egg drop soup and stir-fry some shredded potatoes for you?"
"No need, don't go to the trouble.""I'm just a bit hungry myself. If you're going to eat, I'll make a bit more."
"Uh... then make a bit more," Li Daonian said, surprised that despite the girl's icy exterior, she didn't stand on ceremony once they were home.
Could it be she genuinely respects my status as a master?
He had originally planned to bring up the payment, but this little show of concern made him feel too embarrassed to mention it.
Oh well, we can talk about it after eating.
I was originally going to ask for eight hundred, but I'll reluctantly drop it to six hundred. I'll just have her recommend me to her friends later.
Xu Shuangning stood up and walked toward the kitchen. "The bathroom is over there, and my room is there. If you want to look around, go ahead. The crying always starts after midnight, so we still have to wait."
After a moment, once he heard the sound of the kitchen exhaust fan, Li Daonian slowly stood up.
It wasn't that he was scared, but the pig's ears were almost gone (they really were quite delicious), so he decided to save the rest to go with the soup later.
He first checked the bathroom, then lifted the cabinet under the vanity, but found only ordinary toothbrushes, soap, and sanitary pads.Even the toilet was clean and had no strange odor; everything was completely normal.
Readers shouldn't think he's some kind of pervert for checking these things; there's a good reason for all of it. A toilet smelling like urine is normal, but a fishy stench would be abnormal. Having toiletries in the cabinet is normal, but having drawings and talismans pasted inside is not.
Next, he focused his attention on the mirror. Mirrors carry even deeper significance. Setting aside checking for two-way mirrors and voyeurism, on a deeper level, he first needed to check for cracks and whether the reflection was distorted. In Taoist and Buddhist doctrines, mirrors are shrouded in lore—used for summoning spirits or warding off evil, for self-reflection, or for adjusting feng shui.
However, Li Daonian's family lineage belonged to neither of those schools; they were self-taught, sort of a wild faction. Yet when it came to capturing spirits and ghosts, the essence of the work was always the same. It was nothing more than resolving grievances, revealing hidden forms, conducting transcendence rituals, or shattering a spirit's soul. If you couldn't reason with them or appease their resentment, your only option was to resort to force. The worst-case scenario was that the soul would scatter into nothingness, forever denied reincarnation.
Generally speaking, he preferred not to do that. Why not talk things out? Everything was negotiable. Once a soul was scattered, everything was truly gone.
In his line of work over the past year, he had accumulated some experience. He also liked exchanging pointers with Taoist priests and grand masters, and when things got desperate, he would ask them for help. So far, however, he had only ever encountered ghost children—nothing with deep grievances—so he hadn't needed to ask for help yet. If he ever ran into a truly ruthless character, he couldn't guarantee he'd be able to handle it.
Making a little money here and there was enough for him. He wasn't some deeply cultivated, renowned master; as long as he had enough for food and video games, he was fine.
Li Daonian stood in front of the mirror, stared into his own eyes for a full minute, and sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Then he cupped a handful of water and splashed it onto the mirror surface. Watching the trails of water run down—none of them transforming into human or dog faces—he nodded slightly and walked out of the bathroom.
Since the living room and the bathroom were both fine, the ghost was most likely in Xu Shuangning's bedroom.
As he had already mentioned it beforehand, he simply barged straight into her room. The room wasn't very large, roughly fifteen square meters, with no balcony and no windows.Li Daonian frowned, feeling a bit uneasy. A room without windows was bound to trap yin energy.
On the single bedside table sat a few odds and ends: some tissues, a novel, and a phone charger.
The bed, however, was made rather neatly. A pink quilt printed with little white rabbit patterns was spread out clean and tidy, and the pillow sat there obediently.
Could she have specially tidied it up because she was inviting me over today?
Anyway, Li Daonian didn't believe anyone actually folded their quilts. He hadn't folded his own in all his life.
A weathered wooden table looked entirely out of place, resembling the kind they used in his hometown village to dry peanuts. It came with a matching rosewood stool, also full of nostalgic charm.
On top of it rested only a vase, holding a single red flower whose name he didn't know.
He sat down on the stool and looked around. There were no cobwebs on the ceiling, no dust on the floor, no skeletons under the bed, and no secret passages in the flooring.
Nothing too serious!
He glanced at the wall, and something actually caught his eye—the traces of a few old award certificates. Although they had been torn down, some residual white and orange paper still adhered to the wall.
It looked like they had been put up with double-sided tape that wasn't cleaned off properly, and the certificates themselves were those orange award papers commonly seen in kindergartens and primary schools.
Something like "Student XXX awarded Three-Good Student."
It seemed a child had lived in this house before. Could that be related in any way?
When dealing with hauntings in rental properties, you had to pay extra attention to the previous tenants; more often than not, the issues were tied to them.
Did someone commit suicide in this house, or were they murdered in a home invasion, leading to it being rented out cheaply because it was a haunted house?
Li Daonian made some wild guesses.
Aside from those, there were also a few Van Gogh prints on the wall. Were those hung by Xu Shuangning?
He observed them for a few seconds and lost interest. They didn't look good—blurry and nothing special to see.
"All right!" Xu Shuangning called out to him from outside the room.
Before heading out, he glanced at the wardrobe: white dresses, jeans, hoodies, bras, panties, dance wear...
Spotting no issues, he quickly closed the closet door, lest she walk in and they stare at each other in awkward silence.
If word of that got out, she wouldn't have to do business with female clients ever again.
Two bowls of egg soup with noodle broth, a plate of shredded stir-fried potatoes, and half a catty of shredded pig ears—at a glance, it looked quite like home-cooking.
He hadn't expected her to have some cooking skills.
Li Daonian munched on the shredded potatoes and nodded. "Mmm—not bad at all!"
Xu Shuangning smiled slightly, not saying much.
He knew this young woman must be feeling quite pleased inside. Being praised for her cooking was probably more satisfying than being complimented on her looks.
Anyone could tell if someone was pretty, but culinary skill could only be judged by actually tasting what she made.
Twenty minutes later, the food was completely wiped out.
Li Daonian sat on the sofa and started reading a novel, while Xu Shuangning went to wash the dishes.
Next came waiting until midnight for the crying to start.
After finishing her chores, Xu Shuangning also sat on the sofa and looked at her phone.
"Hey, don't you usually watch TV?" he asked.
"This TV must be really old, and I've never used it. I usually just look at my phone," she replied.
"I'll turn it on and see if it works," Li Daonian said while tinkering with the network cable. "It's good to watch TV more often, or watch movies and things like that. It makes the room feel lively, and then it's not as easy to attract ghosts."
"Really?"
"Definitely really." Li Daonian spoke with righteous indignation:
"Think about it, aren't those haunted places always cold, desolate, and quiet? Like a restroom or an empty classroom. You've never heard of a ghost haunting a bustling commercial street in broad daylight, have you?"
"Is it because the yang energy is strong?" Xu Shuangning asked.
"You got it right."
"Are you for real or just making things up? Are there really ghosts in this world? What school of thought did you study, are you a Taoist priest?" Xu Shuangning didn't understand these things and just asked out of curiosity.
"Telling you now won't do much good. If I just say there are ghosts in this world, would you believe me?" Li Daonian lit up the screen:
"You definitely still wouldn't believe it. Just like when you read documentaries or novels—no matter how miraculous they sound, you surely don't believe them. This kind of thing, you have to see it with your own eyes to know."
"Have you ever seen a ghost?" Xu Shuangning stared at him and asked.
"I've definitely seen them. I even have to mediate conflicts; dealing with them is an everyday occurrence."
"Fine." She didn't know what else to say.
Just as Xu Shuangning was searching Bilibili for theories on ghosts and spirits, she suddenly heard him curse:
"Damn it! It needs a VIP subscription!"