Chapter 152: A Familiar-Style House

He Yuelian's other residence is located in the suburbs of Da'ao City.

Because she became a ghost painting, she can't help the impulse to kill any living person who sees her.

She didn't do it today, because Zhang Hao came.

In the past, she wouldn't have gone out like this.

"Do you need any help from me?"

Ignoring the security guards' surprised looks, He Yuelian led Zhang Hao all the way back to her villa and immediately began asking.

"I need you to teach me makeup."

Zhang Hao directly stated his purpose.

"I've recently obtained something that requires makeup to use."

"Makeup? You mean doing makeup for you?" He Yuelian turned her head, a hint of surprise in her eyes.

"No, just paint according to your face." Zhang Hao shook his head.

Upon hearing that, He Yuelian showed a look of delight.

Makeup according to my own face?

"You mean, directly use my face for makeup, right?"

"You want me to teach you using my own face?" Perhaps uncertain, He Yuelian deliberately repeated it.

"Exactly." Zhang Hao nodded.

"Alright, you rest for a while, I'll teach you to paint right away." He Yuelian's face showed delight.

"Let me first go find some makeup items, after all there are many tools for makeup."

"Forget it, go straight to my room."

He Yuelian originally planned to bring the items to the living room, but as she thought, she blushed and suggested.

"Fine." Zhang Hao had no particular request about the setting.

Having received Zhang Hao's permission, He Yuelian excitedly led Zhang Hao toward her own room.

He Yuelian's room was large; although it was called a room and contained many items, it still felt spacious.

Just as he entered He Yuelian's room, Zhang Hao saw a wall covered with photos.

In these photos, they were mostly of Zhang Hao and the Ghost Bride.

However, the Ghost Bride in the photos wasn't wearing a Red Cap, making them look more like photos of Zhang Hao and He Yuelian.

In the photos, Zhang Hao's face also lacked a Face-Covering Cloth; he was engaging in many affectionate poses with He Yuelian, even some extremely private photos.

Noticing Zhang Hao examining the wall photos, He Yuelian lowered her head, seeming a bit shy, yet she secretly watched whether Zhang Hao would show any displeasure.

Until Zhang Hao finished looking over all the wall photos, he had no intention of speaking.

Only then did He Yuelian weakly lift her head.

"These are all after you gave me the ghost painting's paranormal, I went home and slept, and the photos at home changed themselves like this."

"I looked at them and felt… I liked them, so I hung them in my room."

He Yuelian's tone sounded very guilty, like a little girl caught doing something wrong by her parents, yet her eyes held a hint of expectation, making her seem contradictory.

"If you like them, then keep them up."

Zhang Hao had no comment; he was merely surprised.

"Really?" He Yuelian heard and looked at Zhang Hao with delight.

"Indeed." Zhang Hao affirmed the previous words.

At this moment, perhaps the photos on the wall caught the Ghost Bride's attention, and she walked to the edge of the wall.

Although she wore a Red Cap, there was a feeling of her looking at the photos, which made He Yuelian's heart tense.

Unexplained, He Yuelian's mind conjured a thought that she was like a mistress luring someone else's husband, caught by the rightful owner.

However, He Yuelian's thought was clearly unnecessary.

In the Ghost Bride's perception, He Yuelian is a part of herself, merely a split-off paranormal piece assigned to handle matters at Zhang Hao's request.

Whether it's photos of the Ghost Bride or of He Yuelian, to the Ghost Bride they are all her photos.

"Let her watch for a while, then we'll go inside to learn makeup."

Zhang Hao didn't say much about it; after noticing He Yuelian's expression, he said calmly.

"Does the Ghost Bride even look at photos? I heard Fierce Ghosts have no intelligence," He Yuelian asked curiously.

"She's different from other ghosts," Zhang Hao replied thoughtfully.

"Alright, then."

He Yuelian nodded, led Zhang Hao to her makeup table, and began teaching him how to apply makeup.

Meanwhile, elsewhere.

Dachuan City.

A man with a strange, cold expression awoke from his slumber.

"Did I die again? What killed me before?"

Li Leping, somewhat bewildered, walked out of a gloomy room.

"No, this time I wasn't killed; I chose to forget voluntarily."

Li Leping recalled many things; previously he seemed to have chosen Restart to forget a terrifying memory.

However, that memory was extremely vague; he couldn't recall what actually happened.

This is also a side effect of his wielding the Forgetting Ghost.

The Forgetting Ghost can erase its own Killing Rule, forget the Fierce Ghost's resurrection, making others unable to remember it.

But likewise, even Li Leping continuously forgets his own past.

Perhaps on some day in the future, even Li Leping, having become an Abnormal, will forget that he once was a human, not a Ghost.

Li Leping walked out of the room, crossed the long corridor, and stopped in front of a room's door.

The door was a dark gold color, looking as if it were made of brass.

In fact, it was a Safety Room that Li Leping had forged from gold; the brass was merely a disguise.

He avoided letting some people discover that this door was gold, lest they destroy the Golden Gate.

Li Leping skillfully took a key from a crack by the door, unlocked it, and stepped into the room.

"Yang Jian convened the Second General Meeting."

"This captain meeting concerns the Red and White Double Evil; those two Ghosts are very dangerous. I'm not sure whether I'll still remember this experience the next time I return to Dachuan City."

The room was small; inside there was only a table, and in the most conspicuous spot on the table lay an open notebook.

The notebook's central gap was held down by a pen, preventing the pages from turning due to the draft from opening the door.

Li Leping picked up the notebook and began to examine it.

"The captain meeting is over; this time Yang Jian seems to have resolved to deal with the Red and White Double Evil."

"Except for the newly appointed captains and two captains who are currently unavailable due to special circumstances, all captains at Headquarters must take part in this operation."

"Fortunately, Yang Jian is not someone who acts on impulse; before departure I still have a day to prepare."

"Future me, if this journey's experience is forgotten, please inherit this notebook and record your own experience."

"My name is Li Leping; I am a living person, a living person with a living person's consciousness, and I am not a Ghost."

The notebook recorded many details, very thorough, as if fearing that some content might be overlooked.

Li Leping finished reading the contents, turned a page, and wrote a sentence on it.

"The incident of dealing with the Red and White Double Evil failed; I chose to voluntarily forget that day's memory."

"Although I don't know what happened, something terribly frightening must have occurred, forcing me to choose Restart, and costing me several days of memory loss."

"Although curiosity drives me to want to investigate what actually happened, I know that the more one knows, the more troublesome it becomes."

Perhaps to remind himself, after Li Leping wrote down his current predicament and thoughts, he added another passage.

"My name is Li Leping; I am a living person, an Abnormal with a living person's consciousness, and I am not a Ghost."

This sentence appears many times in the notebook; essentially every page contains such words.

Because his memory keeps fading, Li Leping has to use the notebook to remind himself of what he previously experienced.

The final sentence is meant to warn his future self, lest he ever, after losing memory, become despondent and choose to become a Ghost.

"Go out and take a look; I hope the situation at Headquarters isn't too bad."

Li Leping left the golden house; in this room, aside from the notebook and an ordinary fountain pen, there was only a table and a bottle of ordinary ink.

Aside from the room being made of gold, there was nothing special inside. On the other side.

At an intersection, both sides were piled with construction debris, covered by a layer of green netting, on an old narrow lane.

A pallid figure suddenly stepped in.

"This must be where Meng Xiaodong is, right?"

Zhang Hao looked around left and right; it was clear this place had once been an Alley, but the old buildings on both sides had been demolished.

Now only this narrow lane remains; before long it will probably disappear, being paved into a modern asphalt road.

Nearby there are many warning lines and the like, but now no one monitors them; otherwise his car would have been stopped at the intersection earlier.

Many structures in the old city district have been torn down, yet some remain unfinished, some only half‑demolished.

Several of those buildings are missing sections, looking precariously unstable and somewhat dangerous.

In the vicinity of the residential complex, piles of construction debris are spread on the ground, still not removed.

Only as one gradually penetrates deeper into this area.

The deeper inside, the more intact the buildings become.

Complex wiring, old neon signs, and low utility poles appeared before the eyes.

Both sides featured dirty, weathered old walls.

The ground was pitted and uneven.

If not for the occasional modern sights, it felt as if one had stepped into a turn‑of‑the‑century Alley.

"Meng Xiaodong's Room 301 should be called Ming Yue Xiao Qu."

Zhang Hao recalled while searching nearby for any record bearing the characters Ming Yue.

As he kept moving forward, Zhang Hao soon noticed an old residential complex in the distance.

Although the words Ming Yue were not visible, Zhang Hao could sense that this complex exuded a Spiritual Realm aura.

Zhang Hao saw, not far away, rows of five‑story buildings, about nine in total.

The buildings were all constructed in the same era; their exteriors had been painted a light green, appearing relatively new.

Yet the corridors of the complex lacked even glass windows.

They were diamond‑shaped openings made of brick and cement.

Such corridor openings must be very dark; even in broad daylight they feel gloomy, and at night, without corridor lights, one could almost walk blind.

"A deliberately sealed residential complex; it seems we haven't missed the target this time."

In fact, after arriving in Dachuan City, Zhang Hao had already been searching here for a while.

Back when he was in Baishui Town, Zhang Hao had also been to Dachuan City, but at that time Meng Xiaodong had not died.

Zhang Hao's activities in Dachuan City were more about haphazardly hunting Spiritual Realms and devouring Fierce Ghosts, rather than deliberately seeking Meng Xiaodong's location.

There are many Spiritual Realms in Dachuan City; many were jointly constructed by Meng Xiaodong's group to imprison entities, and even Zhang Hao's rash entry into these realms would be troublesome.

After setting the goal of locating Room 301, Zhang Hao arrived in Dachuan City without immediately releasing the Ghost Domain.

Now that the location of Ming Yue Xiao Qu has been confirmed, Zhang Hao has no reservations.

The black‑and‑white Ghost Domain began to spread outward with him at its center; under the coverage of the Ghost Domain, the interior structures of these sealed buildings were perceived by Zhang Hao with crystal clarity.

However, these buildings re‑capped with cement, in the Ghost Domain's perception, surprisingly contained no Ghost.

"It seems it was sealed deliberately by Li Leping before he resolved his own issues, to prevent himself from losing control and committing Ghost's Killing."

"Now that Li Leping has solved the loss‑of‑control problem, he has completely abandoned this dangerous residential area."

Zhang Hao merely surveyed the scene and inferred the condition of the complex.

After all, this is where Meng Xiaodong's corpse lies; Li Leping had fallen into Meng Xiaodong's hands several times, so his wariness of this place is understandable.

Zhang Hao's Ghost Domain kept expanding; under the black‑and‑white Ghost Domain's influence, the complex grew more oppressive and eerie.

As the Ghost Domain continued to expand, Zhang Hao quickly locked onto a particular room.

It was a house in roughly the sixth or seventh building of the complex; Zhang Hao sensed resistance in one of the third‑floor rooms.

That resistance was not the Ghost Domain being blocked by gold, but rather some Supernatural Artifact influencing his Ghost Domain.

Zhang Hao's figure vanished in place and moved of his own accord to the third‑floor corridor where the anomaly was detected.

The third floor was pitch‑black everywhere; there were four units here, but the door numbers no longer distinguished the rooms.

Zhang Hao walked down the hallway, and as his Ghost Domain kept sensing, he soon discovered the irregularity.

Among the four houses, there was only one room whose interior he could not perceive.

He walked straight over, lifted his foot, and kicked the door.

The huge crashing of the broken door echoed through the building, shaking the ceiling dust loose and causing it to fall.

The door opened.

A long‑sealed chill rushed out from within.

At the same time, dim, yellowed light unexpectedly lit up from Room 301, spilling out onto the doorway.

Even though the whole complex was under water and power outage, this room was lit, undeniably underscoring its strangeness.

Zhang Hao had no hesitation and stepped directly into the room.

The room's style was simple and antiquated; stepping inside gave a sense of being removed from modernity, somewhat like a scene inside a Hong Bai Shuang Sha room, except the illumination here was a dull yellow.

Most of the furniture was wooden, coated with Hong Bai Shuang Sha lacquer, causing Zhang Hao to glance a few more times.

Zhang Hao looked toward the center of the house, where a table stood; the mottled paint on its surface was also Hong Bai Shuang Sha.

That style indeed resembled the red table in the Hong Bai Shuang Sha room.

Unfortunately, these items were merely furniture fashioned in a red style; they were not any Supernatural Artifact, and they had not the slightest connection to the Ghost Bride or the Hong Bai Shuang Sha room.

Zhang Hao surveyed the wall, which was covered with many posters; the corners of the posters were nailed with pushpins, entirely of an eighties style.

"Come to think of it, Room 301 seems to have a Supernatural Artifact linked to oil paintings; if I take these things away, could I instantly learn makeup?"

Zhang Hao was not in a hurry to deal with Meng Xiaodong; having already come this far, he didn't lack a little time.

In such a Republic Era Old Antique residence, being meticulous makes it easier to discover some special good items.

Zhang Hao roughly surveyed the living room; perhaps because someone had been here, the room appeared somewhat messy and many items were missing.

Zhang Hao's attention left the living room, and he looked elsewhere.

In one of the half‑open rooms, he could faintly see a figure lying on a Hong Bai Shuang Sha bed, which should be where Meng Xiaodong's corpse lay.

However, Zhang Hao now did not focus there; instead he chose to look toward the opposite room.

There weren't many rooms inside the house; aside from the living room, there were only two rooms.

Since Meng Xiaodong's corpse lies in the opposite direction, the other items must naturally be placed in the opposite direction.

Zhang Hao walked toward the opposite door.

When he reached the space between the two rooms, he noticed a painting hanging on the wall.

It was an oil painting.

The person in the oil painting was a handsome man from the Republic Era, dressed in a uniform, resembling a young warlord and also a noble gentleman, exuding great charisma.

"Zhang Dong?"

Zhang Hao stared at the man, his gaze cold and eerie, as if locked in a stare with him.

Originally Zhang Hao thought this oil painting was most likely a portrait of Zhang Dong; under the constant gaze of Zhang Hao's Ghost, some anomalies might appear.

However, after a while, Zhang Hao found that the person in the Photo showed no anomalies at all.

It seemed to be just a different memorial painting, containing no supernatural elements.

The reason he didn't notice was simply that Zhang Hao was more sensitive to the name Zhang Dong; after spotting this memorial portrait, he overlooked its condition.

"Because Zhang Dong cannot be recorded by the supernatural? Or perhaps he doesn't want the supernatural to affect his idealized white moonlight? It must be that phrase, right?"

Zhang Hao murmured, disregarding the portrait that Meng Xiaodong used to venerate Zhang Dong, and turned his gaze toward the other room.

He pushed open the room, and the light inside appeared even dimmer, indicating that some supernatural influence likely existed within.

In the corner of the room stood a workbench, littered with many torn cloth scraps and some eerie hairs.

Beside the workbench were some old needles and thread, and an unfinished cloth doll.

"Isn't a Substitute Doll made directly?"

Zhang Hao was somewhat surprised; back when confronting Meng Xiaodong, the countless Substitute Dolls had caused him a lot of trouble.

He hadn't expected that Substitute Dolls required slow stitching; it was hard to imagine how long Meng Xiaodong spent to produce so many.

(End of chapter)