CH 55.1

There was a sound of smashing bottles, jars, and metal colliding. Bai Lixin who was listening from the corner hurried towards the door of the room when he heard the sound of footsteps.

He immediately pulled Dijia to the side and pretended to be passing by.

The man who opened the iron door was quite decent looking, but his eyes now had a fierce look. He was wearing a black vest with his muscles stretched out underneath.

The man didn’t expect anyone to be in the corridor, and his hand paused for a moment at the door.

Seeing Bai Lixin looking at him, he glared at both and shouted, “What are you looking at? You’ve never seen a couple fighting before?” He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and went out into the dark corridor to smoke.

He took two steps, then suddenly stumbled and cursed, “Shit, which dog without eyes has shit here? How unlucky!”

The dim incandescent light above his head flickered even faster.

Bai Lixin looked through the open iron door. He saw a woman squatting on the floor. She was looking down as she packed up her things, and then suddenly burst into tears.

Beyond the room was the bedroom. A little girl of six or seven years old with two braids poked her head out, her timid eyes peeking out at the messy room.

When she saw the woman crying, the little girl hesitated for two seconds and walked over in her slippers, “Mommy, don’t cry.”

The woman who was crying suddenly raised her head and grabbed the girl’s arm with both hands and shook her hard, “It’s all your fault. If it wasn’t for you… wuu wuuu.”

The woman shook the girl so hard that she was pushed to the ground. Her hand fell on a broken beer bottle and blood immediately flowed all over the floor.

The girl lost her voice because of the pain. The woman was sobbing when she suddenly turned her head to look out the iron door, finally showing her face to Bai Lixin.

Bai Lixin’s breath hitched and his hand subconsciously grabbed Dijia’s hand beside him.

It was a face drawn with a crayon, a poorly drawn face at that.

The face was painted with a khaki base. The person who drew it did not have a light touch, and the colors varied in shades, making the whole face look dirty.

The eyes were drawn in circles using crayons; there was no nose; and the blood-red mouth was curved in a downward-curving bracket.

Looking at such a face, the ghosts upstairs looked a little cuter than her.

The ghosts upstairs were ugly-looking at best, but this woman’s face was not ugly, but oozing with an eerie sense of despair.

The woman cocked her head, two unreadable crayon-drawn black eyes aimed at them.

Bai Lixin was unsure if this woman was the mother ghost or not when the woman’s downward-facing mouth pursed up into the shape of a “__”. She ignored the little girl who was crying and slowly pushed the iron door wider, coming in front of them.

Dark, messy crayon eyes stared at Bai Lixin and Dijia. “You two look a bit familiar. Are you residents of this floor?”

Bai Lixin, “No.”

Although he couldn’t see the woman’s expression, he could still hear the woman’s tone. There was some suspicion in the woman’s voice, “Who are you looking for?”

Bai Lixin was very familiar with lying. He didn’t blush and he didn’t skip a beat, “We’re here to connect the water pipes.”

The woman looked at them blankly and said, “Oh, I see.”

Bai Lixin then pulled Dijia to continue walking.

Just after two steps, the woman called out to them, “Wait a minute, you’re plumbers? Come over and first take a look at our pipes. They are clogged too.”

Bai Lixin, “……”

What a coincidence! Is F-Luck back in play?

How could he have encountered a clogged water pipe when he was just making it up?

Bai Lixin pointed to the front and said, “Uh, why don’t you wait until I’m done with the customers in front before I come back to yours?”

The woman’s cool voice immediately drilled into Bai Lixin’s ears: “We’re the only people on this floor.”

Bai Lixin and Dijia, “……”

Bai Lixin stiffly turned his head and awkwardly looked at the door number. “Is that so? We must have gone to the wrong floor.”

He secretly tugged on Dijia beside him.

Dijia immediately nodded, “Yes, you’re old and yet you’re still so sloppy, even remembering the wrong floor.”

The woman continued to speak coolly, her hand slapping the iron fence in annoyance, “It’s the wrong floor anyway, so first take a look at our pipes. The sewers have been getting clogged a lot lately. The amenities of this shabby house were not working in the first place, and it’s annoying as hell. ”

Bai Lixin and Dijia looked at each other, and without further hesitation, walked into the room.

Since this was the only household on this floor, the female ghost might be the woman in front of them.

They followed the crayon-faced woman into the room. The little girl was still crying, but the woman ignored her cries and kicked the bleeding little girl, saying, “The medicine box is in the bedroom. Go and treat the wound yourself.”

The little girl cried and looked up. Her watery eyes widened when she saw the face of the doll head in Bai Lixin’s arms. Her pupils contracted violently, and she ran into the bedroom with a cry.

So far, the mother had the strangest image inside this house. In contrast, the father and the girl’s features were normal.

The woman led Bai Lixin and Dijia into the narrow, dimly lit bathroom. The overhead light was a few shades dimmer than in the corridor. The ceramic floor of the bathroom was covered in stubborn muddy stains, and a clump of hair floated in the circular sewer strainer.

The narrow bathroom, measuring only a few square feet, had a bathtub nestled against the wall. Clothes and sundries were piled around the edges; there was a toilet and a sink; and a huge flat mirror hung on the wall in front of the sink.

The woman leaned against the wall and said coldly, “Why don’t you have tools?”

Bai Lixin didn’t blink. “The guest said that the sewer was heavily blocked, so I came to just check the situation and give them the details before going back for the tools to clear it.”

The woman let out an “Oh” and pointed her red-painted finger at the filter with the hair tangled, “That’s where it’s been clogged lately. Water that smells awful and inexplicable hair sometimes appears.”

She paused and cursed, “It must be that dead ghost, bringing back random women while I’m gone!”

Bai Lixin looked at the mass of hair and said, “This hair is not yours?”

The woman, “Certainly not. My hair is not that fine, and it is pure black, while that woman’s hair is a flaxen colour. Wait, I’ll find it for you. ”

Find what?

A few minutes later, the woman twisted her shapely waist and came over with a toolbox, “Here, our issue shouldn’t be a big problem. I don’t know if you’ll be back after you’ve gone, so you can use the tools here. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you. I won’t let you work for nothing. ”

Bai Lixin took the toolbox and opened it; it was quite full of tools.

Hooks, long tweezers, rubber gloves, and so on, were all available.

After a while, the woman came over with a long metal pipe and said, “Here’s another pipe for you. I see most plumbers using this, so I bought it and used it too. However, no matter how many times it clears the pipes, they are blocked within a few days again.”

Bai Lixin and Dijia put on rubber gloves and opened the lid of the sewer.

Bai Lixin pulled up the hair and looked at it. Just as the woman had said, this hair was fine and soft, nothing like the woman’s hard-textured hair.

A problem with the sewer?

The sewer wouldn’t get blocked as long as nothing messy was put in it, unless ……

Bai Lixin frowned, took out the flashlight, and looked into the sewer.

The pipe was thin and long, and halfway down, the light was blocked by something.

He took out a long pair of tweezers and quickly caught something.

He tried to pull the object up but found that it was a bit of a struggle to do so.

Finally, he gave a hard tug and pulled the thing out.