??Chapter 530: 529. Exorcist_1
Chapter 530: 529. Exorcist_1
He Jiaoyang involuntarily shuddered, and after thinking for a bit, he pressed the button for a few floors above Lu Ban’s.
After all, these days people don’t even know who their neighbors are, let alone who lives above them.
As He Jiaoyang pondered what to do in case Lu Ban was at ho, the silence of the elevator, only disrupted by the faint sound of an ad, was suddenly broken by a sentence.
“You just moved in?”
Lu Ban asked.
What a social butterfly this guy is! In these tis of widespread social anxiety, who still starts a conversation with a stranger?
He Jiaoyang glanced at Lu Ban through the reflective surface of the mirror. Lu Ban’s free hand was flipping through his phone, apparently not focusing on him. Relieved, He Jiaoyang replied.
“Yeah.”
“The environnt here is pretty good. Did you rent a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom?”
Lu Ban asked casually.
????
He Jiaoyang couldn’t figure it out. What did it matter to you whether he rented a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom? Was this so kind of census?
“A single room.”
He Jiaoyang thought it over and answered.
In Jiangcheng, many landlords would convert apartnts into two single rooms and rent them out separately. He Jiaoyang guessed there must be similar arrangents in this community. Surely, Lu Ban couldn’t possibly know every apartnt layout, let alone the specific interiors of the flats above, right?
“Oh, landlords these days are so greedy, turning a place into single rooms and renting them out like they’re two separate units.”
Lu Ban responded.
“Exactly.”
He Jiaoyang nodded repeatedly.
“This is my floor, take care.”
Lu Ban had reached his floor and walked out of the elevator, not forgetting to say goodbye.
He Jiaoyang managed a weak smile.
He watched as Lu Ban pulled out his keys and walked towards one of the apartnts. The elevator doors slowly began to close, ready to separate him from Lu Ban.
He Jiaoyang breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, a hand was thrust into the nearly closed elevator doors, causing them to halt montarily.
He Jiaoyang’s heart skipped a beat as well.
“I just rembered, I need to visit the nineteenth floor too.”
Lu Ban smiled and walked back into the elevator.
He Jiaoyang’s forehead beaded with cold sweat.
What is this guy playing at!
Oh right, he deals with ghosts for a living, so no worries there.
Wait a second, if Lu Ban followed him upstairs, wouldn’t that reveal he had sneaked in?
He Jiaoyang considered his options: he could pretend he had forgotten his keys and needed to call the landlord. Perhaps while waiting, he could even exploit Lu Ban’s social skills to take a look inside his apartnt?
His mind was racing faster than it ever had, probably because under imnse pressure, people’s thinking becos more agile.
The elevator ride up had never been so torturous.
He Jiaoyang looked at the ad screen showing comrcials for clothes in the elevator, almost feeling as though the models’ expressions were turning fierce.
Ding-dong—
The elevator reached the nineteenth floor, and He Jiaoyang exited.
He quickly glanced at the four apartnts on this floor, all seeming clean. He wondered if anyone was ho right now.
…Right, the peephole, you can look through the peephole to see if there’s anyone ho!
Soon, He Jiaoyang found that one of the peepholes was dark, indicating no one was ho in that unit!
He could pretend to live there; that way, regardless of how much knocking he did, there would be no response.
If he did get found out later, he would just pretend he had moved in recently and mixed up the floors!
Not bad, !
He Jiaoyang arrived at the door and began his performance.
“…Hmm, did I forget my keys?”
He tried hard to recall the acting skills he learned in music classes during elentary, middle, and high school to make himself look less awkward.
He Jiaoyang knocked on the door, his heart pounding.
He was sowhat grateful for the bustle of the community outside, which brought so background noise; otherwise, the beating of his heart would have been particularly loud in the hallway.
“I guess I’ll call the landlord, ugh, such bad luck.”
He Jiaoyang fake-smiled and then took out his phone, stepping a little away from Lu Ban.
At that mont, Lu Ban took out a key.
He inserted the key into the lock of the door that He Jiaoyang had just knocked on, gave it a gentle twist, and the security door creaked open.
“????”
He Jiaoyang, still pondering which lucky friend to call for cooperation, saw this scene and was rendered speechless.
“How, how do you have a key?”
He asked subconsciously.
Could it be that not only was Lu Ban up to mischief, he was also a thief?
He Jiaoyang’s pig brain was on the verge of overload.
“Because I am the landlord.”
Lu Ban opened the door to reveal a nicely decorated two-bedroom apartnt with no alterations.
“Could it be you’ve been scamd? So agencies collude with secondary landlords to trick people.”
Lu Ban smiled and asked as he turned around.
“Ah… I don’t know…”
At this mont, He Jiaoyang’s mind was completely blank.
Lu Ban is the landlord?
He bought the entire floor above?
Wait a minute.
The reason why there were no paparazzi in this community, could it be because Lu Ban bought all the rental properties around where he lived?
How could he have so much money?
Ugh, okay, he is indeed very wealthy. Probably, the cost of all these buildings combined is just about the global box office revenue from his movie in a day or two.
“Do you eat barbecue?”
Lu Ban, like a host, placed the barbecue on the table, turned on the light, opened the lunch box, and began eating a skewer of grilled chicken skin.
Oh, he was actually the landlord after all. No problem then.
He Jiaoyang watched Lu Ban’s actions in a daze, unsure whether to run or to stay.
He stood in the hallway. Taking the elevator might be slow now; running down the stairs should be no problem, though.
Facing Lu Ban inside the room, He Jiaoyang was at a loss.
Lu Ban patted the sofa beside him.
“Have a seat.”
In a daze, as if possessed by sothing or reflecting afterward that it might have been a possession, He Jiaoyang walked into the room and sat down next to Lu Ban.
“This place does grilled lamb very well, nicely fatty without being too gay.”
Lu Ban handed him a skewer of mouthwatering grilled lamb.
He Jiaoyang numbly accepted the skewer of lamb, unsure whether he should take a bite.
“Which entertainnt magazine are you from? Or so tabloid paper? Journalists these days, who know nothing and just show up, have beco cutely rare.”
Lu Ban inserted a straw into the milk tea, took a sip, and asked.
“…Uh, I, I am an exorcist.”
He Jiaoyang told the truth.
He had already given up on finding solutions—whatever happened, would happen. Just let things go to ruin.
After all, with Lu Ban acting this way, his own fate was at the rcy of the other party; he couldn’t escape even if he had wings.
He Jiaoyang even started eating the lamb skewer, treating it as if it were his last al.
“An exorcist?”
Upon hearing this, Lu Ban sized up He Jiaoyang from head to toe.
It might have been He Jiaoyang’s illusion, but for a mont, Lu Ban’s eyes seed to emit a faint glow. He thought it was just a reflection from the city lights.
“How did you find ? I shouldn’t have any demons to be exorcised, right?”
Lu Ban smiled and sipped his milk tea again. He picked up a skewer of grilled gluten and bit off a piece, making He Jiaoyang feel hungry just watching him.
“…Actually, there are quite a few.”
He Jiaoyang looked over at the coffee table beside Lu Ban, where there seed to be a shadowy mass, like a cat crouching by the side of the barbecue, eyeing it eagerly as if hoping to sneak a bite.
On Lu Ban’s shoulder, a wisp of dark mist swirled, slowly outlining the shape of a gaping maw as if ready to devour He Jiaoyang the next mont.
What was more terrifying was Lu Ban himself.
In He Jiaoyang’s Yin Yang Eyes, he appeared as a dark vortex, filled with all sorts of indescribable tentacles, sli, eyeballs, and flesh. Just one glance made He Jiaoyang shudder, his legs go weak, and his brain feel as if it were being painfully stirred by a red-hot iron rod.
He felt his sanity burning away.
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