Chapter 5

The doorbell rang while Chen Feng was helping Chen Jiuxing with his homework.  

Chen Jiuxing’s assignment for the day was arithmetic—ten addition and subtraction problems within ten.  

For Chen Jiuxing, this was no easy task.  

He counted on his chubby little fingers for a long while but still couldn’t solve a single problem. In the end, he looked up at Chen Feng with teary eyes and said, “Dad, I’m sleepy. I want to go to bed.”  

It wasn’t even dark yet.  

Just then, the doorbell rang—probably Wang He returning with the alcohol he’d gone to buy.  

Chen Feng sighed, ruffled Chen Jiuxing’s sparse, soft hair, and let him go inside to sleep.  

Then he stood up to open the door for Wang He.  

But Wang He wasn’t outside.  

There was only a girl.  

A very pretty girl, somewhat resembling the idol from that girl group Chen Jiuxing liked.  

She wore a white spaghetti-strap nightgown, her damp hair hanging over her shoulders, soaking the fabric and faintly revealing the pale pink straps beneath. She looked up at Chen Feng with a clean, bare face, her eyes rimmed red, appearing pitifully delicate.  

“Hello, I just moved in downstairs. You can call me Xiao Yu,” the girl said softly.  

Downstairs—oh, the unit on the 32nd floor, the one with the clothes-drying rack outside that had saved Chen Feng’s life, the one whose owner his father had thrown a million at. They’d moved out so quickly?  

Chen Feng asked patiently, “I’m Chen Feng. What can I do for you?”  

The girl lowered her eyes, seeming a little hesitant. “Um… my water pipe burst. Could I borrow your bathroom to take a shower?”  

“…A shower?”  

“Is that okay?” She bit her lip.  

“It’s not that it’s not okay,” Chen Feng frowned, “but if your pipe burst, shouldn’t you get it fixed first?”  

The girl: “…”  

Chen Feng suddenly thought of something and smacked his forehead. “Wait a second.”  

“Are you going to help me fix the pipe?” The girl blinked.  

Chen Feng paused, then pointed at his right arm, still in a cast. “Are you joking?”  

The girl looked slightly embarrassed.  

“Ahem… Even if I weren’t injured, I couldn’t fix it. These things are best left to professionals.” After saying this, Chen Feng grabbed a nearby magazine, flipped to the last page, and pointed out the contact information for a plumber. “Here, just call this number, and they’ll come to fix it. Hold on, I’ll lend you the magazine… Actually, never mind, borrowing and returning is too much trouble. I’ll just tear this ad out for you.”  

With that, Chen Feng tore out the small section with the plumber’s contact details and handed it to the girl. Helpfully, he added, “You should get it fixed as soon as possible. This is an old building, and the waterproofing isn’t great. If it leaks downstairs, it’ll be a real hassle—and the guy living below you doesn’t seem like the patient type.”  

The girl numbly accepted the scrap of paper.  

“No need to return it,” Chen Feng said.  

Before closing the door, he stuck his head out again to remind her, “Oh, and you should probably change your clothes. They’re wet.”  

Then he shut the door and placed the magazine back on the desk.  

A corner of the page was missing now, making the whole thing look uneven.  

“A good deed a day, a good deed a day,” Chen Feng muttered, smoothing the edge of the magazine to console himself.  

He glanced back at the door, vaguely sensing something off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

After placing the magazine on the desk, Chen Feng picked up a pencil with his left hand and helped Chen Jiuxing finish the ten arithmetic problems before packing everything back into the schoolbag.

Chen Feng had just stepped into the kitchen to prepare some snacks with alcohol when the doorbell rang again.

Opening the door, Chen Feng found that the visitor still wasn’t Wang He, but a red-haired woman with meticulous makeup and revealing clothes.

She lived in the west unit on the 32nd floor and said her bed had collapsed, so she wanted to borrow Chen Feng’s bed to sleep.

…What kind of people show up at this hour?

Chen Feng was stunned for a moment before tearing a page from a small magazine that had the contact numbers for a nearby hotel and a furniture repair carpenter. He advised her to stay at the hotel for the night and assured her the carpenter could likely fix her bed by tomorrow.

The woman’s bright red nail polish brushed faintly against the doorframe as she said, “But I don’t have any money to stay at a hotel. What should I do?”

So Chen Feng lent her 100 yuan and had her write an IOU.

Just as he tucked away the IOU, Chen Feng noticed Wang He standing in the corner.

Chen Feng smiled. “What are you doing there?”

“Watching you perform your good deeds,” the Prince, disguised as Wang He, sneered.

“Ah, it was nothing, just a small favor, haha,” Chen Feng replied modestly.

The Prince: “…”

Hearing the voices, the red-haired woman stiffened, quickly bid farewell to Chen Feng and “Wang He,” and hurried away.

Wang He emerged from the corner carrying alcohol, the hallway light casting a glow over his head, making his shiny bald scalp particularly eye-catching. Chen Feng instinctively reached out to touch it, but his hand was caught mid-air by Wang He’s firm grip.

Wang He was a head shorter than Chen Feng, and the way he glared up at him was unusually cold and menacing.

Chen Feng blinked. “…Wang He?”

Wang He seemed to snap out of it, his expression returning to normal. “…I bought some alcohol.”

…Maybe Wang He just didn’t like having his head touched? Chen Feng rubbed his nose and dismissed the incident.

Wang He was talkative and easygoing, making their interactions comfortable. “Go watch TV for now. I’ll fry up some peanuts.”

Watch TV?

The Prince had seen Chen Feng watch TV before—it involved finding a square object with many buttons and pressing one to make what looked like an illusion mirror light up.

Square with many buttons, square with many buttons…

After searching for a while without success, the Prince was about to get up and ask Chen Feng when a cluster of small black bugs crawled over, holding the TV remote.

Accustomed to being served, the Prince didn’t find it odd at first and casually took the remote from them.

But the next moment, he realized something was wrong. He turned to the bugs, his expression sharp. “Who allowed you to be here?”

The bugs scattered in fright, vanishing in an instant.

The Prince’s face darkened as he tossed the remote aside and stood up.

He could sense that, apart from the bugs, there were far more things in this house that shouldn’t exist.

He followed the scent to the secondary bedroom. Sure enough, aside from Chen Jiuxing pretending to sleep on the bed, there was also a massive Red-Eyed Suction Cup Monster hiding in the wardrobe. It clung to Chen Feng’s clothes as if they were treasures, greedily absorbing his scent.

Upon seeing the Prince, its crimson eyes seemed to brighten even more. Its tongue lolled out excitedly, drool dripping all over the wardrobe as it proudly presented one of Chen Feng’s large undershirts, as if inviting the Prince to join in the “feast.”

“Get lost.” The Prince took a step back in disgust and commanded coldly, “If I ever catch you here again, I’ll gouge out your eyes and throw you into the Bone Crushing Pool.”

The Red-Eyed Suction Cup Monster shrank back, its eyes retreating into its flesh with a hint of grievance. Trembling, it wrapped itself in a cloud of black mist and fled in a flash.

Once again, it shattered the window to pieces.

A few small black bugs tentatively reappeared, gauging the Prince’s expression before multiplying rapidly. They cleaned up the stains left by the suction cup monster and the broken glass, restoring everything to its original state. Then they obediently formed a neat square, awaiting the Prince’s next command.

But before the Prince could speak, a newly hatched memory-erasing worm wriggled toward him. It crawled to his feet, opened its mouth, and dazedly prepared to take a bite.

The monsters worked with practiced precision and seamless coordination—clearly, this wasn’t their first time.

A faint sense of foreboding stirred in the Prince’s heart.

He looked down at the memory-erasing worm and picked it up with two fingers.

Only then did the worm sense something amiss. It slowly opened its eyes and met the Prince’s emotionless crimson gaze.

With a terrified “squeak,” the worm curled up in fear.

The Prince’s expression darkened as he casually tossed the worm aside. Then, murmuring an incantation, he conjured an invisible barrier around the kitchen where Chen Feng was, isolating it completely from the sights and sounds of the outside world.

Next, he raised his right hand. Endless light surged forth, quickly filling every corner of the house except the kitchen. The blinding white light, like ethereal insects, seeped into every crevice, flushing out all the monsters and demons clinging to the walls, hiding under the bed, or lurking in the cabinets.

Suspended in midair, they writhed uneasily, crawling toward the Prince with low whimpers and pleas for mercy, utterly clueless about what was happening.

After issuing a stern warning, the Prince banished them all—except for the most intelligent of the small black bugs.

He still had questions that needed answering.

While the Prince did observe Chen Feng through the illusion mirror, he didn’t do so every single second. As a result, he had no idea when so many monsters had infiltrated the house or whether Chen Feng had even encountered them.

After conveying his questions to the small black bugs, they multiplied rapidly, soon forming a large screen in front of the Prince with their bodies.

Fluttering their wings and shifting their forms, they projected a black-and-white short film in the air.

By the time the small black bugs dispersed, the Prince had finally pieced together the truth.

About three days ago, Little Snot Worm had told everyone that it had accidentally discovered a human named Chen Feng. The scent around Chen Feng was incredibly intoxicating to inhale—one whiff made their scalps tingle, two whiffs cleared their minds, and three whiffs left them feeling utterly refreshed, as if cleansed by holy water. Upon hearing this, they all gathered in a frenzy.

However, they still remembered Prince’s command: “Do not let humans discover you.” So whenever they inhaled Chen Feng’s scent, they hid in the shadows to avoid being noticed by him.

Only once did the dumbest and clumsiest red-eyed sucker worm accidentally expose itself in front of Chen Feng, creating a momentarily uncontrollable scene. Fortunately, the memory-erasing worms arrived just in time and bit Chen Feng, making him think it was all just a dream, barely allowing the incident to pass.

Still, the event planted a seed of doubt in Chen Feng’s mind—otherwise, why would he have stepped into the “spirit dispelling house”?

“Who… is… he?”

The little black worms spelled out their question with their bodies on the floor.

“A human,” Prince replied.

Seeing that the little worms were no longer of use, he flicked his sleeve, rolled them into a ball, and tossed them out the window.