Chapter 1 Beginning

Hao Ren stared blankly at the slip of paper in front of him, which had an address in a rather remote part of the suburbs written on it. He couldn't be more familiar with this address: wasn't that his own house!

"What do you want this place for?" Hao Ren didn't know why a strange girl he was meeting for the first time would have his home address in her hand. To be honest, he was a little excited at this moment, but he also knew himself quite well, knowing that all his luck with the opposite sex had been used up before the third grade of elementary school when he sat at the same desk with a girl. So he still looked calm, just looking at the pretty girl in front of him with a hint of curiosity.

Good figure, good looks, although her height was a bit of a pity, her lively and cheerful appearance could completely make up for it…

"I'm looking for a place to live!" the pretty girl answered very simply and cheerfully. "I've been looking for a day, and I decided to ask someone because I really couldn't find it—but you're the only one I could ask in the park."

Hao Ren always felt that the girl in front of him was a little too familiar, but his attention was quickly drawn to the words "looking for a house" that she mentioned. His head, which had been drowsy from a summer afternoon nap, cleared up a bit, and he suddenly remembered something: oh, he was a landlord, and he had just placed an advertisement in the city's small newspaper a few days ago saying that he had a house for rent. So this girl was looking for a place to live?

He hadn't made a sale in a long time, and today he could finally collect rent again!

Hao Ren folded the piece of paper and returned it to her: "Of course I know this place, I'll take you there."

The pretty girl immediately showed a happy expression, stuffed the paper into her bag, and patted her purse: "Thank you! I've really been looking for a long time…"

Hao Ren stood up and stretched, took a step and was about to walk out of the park when his mind suddenly sparked and he finally remembered that something was wrong: "Hey, wait a minute! You said you've been looking for this address in the city center for a whole day?!"

The pretty girl nodded vigorously, looking very simple and cute: "Yeah, yeah, that's right! This place is quite hard to find."

"Of course it's hard to find!" Hao Ren almost didn't control his tone. He suddenly suspected that the girl in front of him knew him from before and had a grudge against him, and had come specifically to tease him today. "Didn't you notice that the address on it says South Suburb?! South Suburb! You've been looking for a suburban address in the city for a day?"

"But it says Baishi Building on it," the pretty girl raised her finger and pointed in a certain direction. Hao Ren knew that was the location of a commercial building in the city center. "Isn't Baishi Building in the city?"

Hao Ren was stunned for a moment, and then he realized: "It's Baishi Road in the South Suburb, not Baishi Building in the city center!"

He didn't say the other half of his sentence: this girl only looks at the first two characters when she sees a place name?

"Ah ha," the pretty girl quickly recalled, and then showed a slightly embarrassed look. "I forgot, I'm usually a bit careless. So you know this Baishi Road in the South Suburb, right? Take me there."

Hao Ren still felt that something was wrong with the girl in front of him, but he was a person who was too lazy to think too much about things. Besides, the other party was just a tenant who was looking for him to rent a house. He had been a landlord for two years, and he had long been used to not interfering in his tenants' affairs, so he raised his finger and pointed to the park entrance: "You have to take the bus. The South Suburb is far from here. By the time we get there, it should be almost evening. Oh, by the way, I'm the landlord you're looking for. That house you're looking for is mine."

When the pretty girl heard this, she immediately showed a surprised expression, and became very agitated: "Ah!? Are you serious?"

Hao Ren had just nodded when the energetic girl almost jumped up: "Wow, what a coincidence! How can there be such a coincidence in the world? Landlord, we're destined, right?!"

Hao Ren rubbed his forehead. He had felt that the girl in front of him was a bit jumpy since just now, and at this time he finally couldn't help but say what he wanted to say: "Aren't you… afraid of being kidnapped? What if I'm lying to you?"

This was a relatively euphemistic way of saying it. In fact, he really felt that the girl in front of him was a bit of a ditz… no, she was especially ditzy! Not only had she been looking for a suburban address in the city center for a whole day, but she also believed a stranger in a few words, and even looked like she was going to let the stranger lead her to a deserted suburb without any worries. How could girls' awareness of prevention be so weak these days? Was she especially lucky, or were the human traffickers recently slacking off? How come this girl hadn't been kidnapped yet?

Hao Ren muttered a lot in his mind, but it was only a matter of a second or two, and the ditzy girl (was it okay to say that?) on the opposite side also seemed to have just reacted. She looked at Hao Ren very vigilantly: "Kidnap? So you're a human trafficker, planning to kidnap me?"

Hao Ren: "…Of course not!" He felt that he should stay away from this girl. If it weren't for the fact that she was a "customer," he definitely wouldn't have communicated with such a ditz for so long!

The ditzy girl nodded with satisfaction: "That's good, I'm afraid of being deceived. So let's go, right?"

Hao Ren sighed weakly and felt that his steps were particularly heavy when he left the park.

The two quickly boarded a bus from the city to the suburbs. This journey was not boring at all: Hao Ren found that his new tenant was not only familiar with people, had a jumpy personality, and was suspected of being a ditz, but was also someone who couldn't stop talking! On the bus, he listened to her chatting enthusiastically with him all the way, from the current situation of second-tier stars at home and abroad to the house prices in second-tier cities everywhere. There was basically nothing she didn't talk about. Hao Ren didn't know where these topics started, but she didn't feel embarrassed or unable to continue at all. As long as he could nod and agree a little, the ditzy girl could find the motivation to continue talking and then babble on… But this wasn't a big problem. Listening to her talk was just to relieve boredom, and Hao Ren also took this opportunity to roughly understand the situation of his new tenant. This was a compulsory course for landlords: to roughly know the situation of the tenant in as short a time as possible in order to prevent some troublesome things.

The ditzy girl's surname was Liu, and her name was Liu Lili, and she generously told Hao Ren to just call her "Lili." She claimed to be a pet doctor and freelance writer who had traveled all over the country (he didn't know what a freelance writer was). She had just come to this city from another city and planned to live here permanently. She wasn't picky about where she lived, as long as it was clean, convenient, and could shield her from the wind and rain. Anyway, her work was flexible…

Based on this information, Hao Ren judged that his new tenant was a very enterprising person who didn't have a stable job for the time being, but wouldn't cause trouble for him. He was quite satisfied with this. In fact, no matter how he looked at it, such a young girl couldn't cause much trouble. Although her personality seemed a bit ditzy… that was her own problem, wasn't it? Hao Ren just had to be a good landlord.

Just as he had expected, when the super-long bus stopped at a small stop sign in the South Suburb, it was almost completely dark outside.

Hao Ren led Lili off the bus, and before he could catch his breath, he heard the latter shouting, "Is this Baishi Road?"

"The sign says this is South Suburb Station! Baishi Road is an old street, and you have to take a small road. Have you ever seen a bus drive into an alley?"

"Oh… haha, I'm prone to getting things wrong, landlord, please bear with me," Lili chuckled twice. She had been babbling all the way, and it seemed that she had become a little more familiar with Hao Ren unilaterally. She turned her head to look at the surrounding environment, her brows slightly furrowed. "It's quite deserted here."

The bus stop was located on a road that looked quite old. All the buildings around were in the style of twenty or thirty years ago, with bumpy roads, narrow stores along the street that were already closed, and old, cramped five-story apartment buildings behind the stores. This alone could show how desolate and old a place was, and this street and the surrounding area were already the only "urban area" in the South Suburb. Sometimes Hao Ren himself would wonder if this area had been completely forgotten by modern society, but at the end of each month, he would regain his confidence in society: don't panic, the water supply bureau won't forget you, the power supply bureau won't forget you, the gas company won't forget you, even the telecom company and the insurance sellers won't forget you. With so many people thinking about you in the remote suburbs all the time, what's there to be unhappy about…

"Let's go quickly," Hao Ren signaled Lili to follow. "Although the public security in this city is good, this place is remote after all. Inevitably there will be drunkards wandering outside at night. Let's go back to my place and help you get settled first. Oh, by the way, I'll also remind you, try not to run around at night. It's safer for you and less trouble for me."

Logically speaking, these words shouldn't be said. As a landlord, saying these words could easily scare the tenant away or make them suspicious, but Hao Ren had always been an honest person. Although he was very afraid of trouble, he was even more unwilling to lie to people or take advantage of them, so he made it clear about the situation here as soon as he opened his mouth. This was also one of the reasons why his house hadn't been rented out recently: the two people who had finally come to see the house had been scared away.

However, Lili, who looked petite, didn't take it seriously at all: "Landlord, don't worry, I'm very good at fighting."

Hao Ren felt that he had definitely met an abnormal guy today: "I'm not talking about that… sigh, let me just say it clearly, aren't you afraid of running into bad guys at all?"

As a semi-stranger he had only known for a day, Hao Ren knew that he shouldn't meddle too much, but this was the first time in his life that he had met such a strange girl, who was so outgoing, familiar, and unguarded that she was almost a ditz. As a good person, he really couldn't help it.

However, Lili just waved her hand happily and carelessly: "Landlord, you're really a good person, but I'm not afraid of bad guys. I'm very strong and good at fighting. The bad guys I've met before have all been beaten away by me."

Hao Ren couldn't help but mutter: you've really met bad guys… because you beat them all away, you're so unrestrained and unguarded now?

Lili saw that Hao Ren didn't speak, so she smiled to herself, reached out and picked up her extra-large suitcase and followed. However, he only heard two sounds of "thump, thump," and the two rubber wheels on the suitcase fell off and quickly rolled away.

"Ah haha, it seems like things are a bit heavy." Lili scratched her head awkwardly.

"No, it's the road is a bit bumpy…" Hao Ren's eyebrows twitched, and he couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the bumpy road. He felt that he should do something as a man. "Come on, I'll help you carry the suitcase… hey, what exactly did you put in here?!"

As soon as he touched it, he felt that Lili's suitcase was very wrong. The weight was almost like there was an equal volume of cement inside. He, a burly man, couldn't even lift it!

However, Lili didn't notice the strange expression on Hao Ren's face at all. She just laughed, picked up her big suitcase with one hand and carried it on her shoulder. The whole process was as easy as grabbing a bag of cotton.

Hao Ren stared with his mouth open as the skinny girl who was shorter than him carried a suitcase weighing at least a hundred pounds on her shoulder and walked forward briskly. He almost wondered if there was something wrong with his worldview. It wasn't until Lili urged him loudly in front to lead the way quickly that he reacted. He walked along while muttering to himself: it's okay, she's just naturally strong, haven't I seen a lot of variety shows…

The two walked along, one babbling and the other slightly preoccupied. They soon left the relatively wide road and turned into a dark alley: at the end of this alley was the so-called "Baishi Road," and Hao Ren's ancestral house was in front.

The sky had darkened, and one of the two streetlights beside the alley was broken, and the surrounding old and dilapidated houses made the atmosphere here even more gloomy and terrifying. If it weren't for the fact that there was a nearly full moon in the sky, even Hao Ren, a big man who was familiar with the environment, would feel a little creeped out walking outside. He couldn't help but glance at Lili beside him: this girl was still following him without any wariness, and she looked like she was in a good mood.

The dark night, the sparsely populated alley, the unfamiliar environment, and a stranger of unknown origin beside her. Any one of the above four would be enough to make a girl with a normal worldview vigilant, but this "Liu Lili" wasn't nervous at all. Was she really mindless or what?

"Flutter—"

Just as Hao Ren was overthinking and worrying about a strange girl, a strange flapping sound suddenly came from above.

Of course, he was startled when there was a sudden movement in this quiet place. He immediately looked up, and just happened to see a strange black shadow flash across the narrow night sky between the high walls on both sides.

The black shadow seemed to be a bat, but the volume… seemed a little off?

"Heh… what is that thing in the middle of the night." Of course, Hao Ren didn't want to lose face in front of a girl, so he deliberately shouted loudly to show that he wasn't scared at all. Then he looked up at Lili. He thought he would see the former looking scared, but…

At that moment, he saw a pair of wolf-like ears suddenly appear on Lili's head!

(New book upload, everyone, please promote it vigorously. In addition, I can't ask for subscriptions and monthly tickets yet, so please recommend and collect it!)