Chapter 5032 — Two More Ghosts

Thinking it over and over, Wei Zhao suddenly realized there was no one else he could learn from but those fools. How had Ren Zhongyuan and Bao Zuoliang chased after Huo Yudie and Wang Xinyan back in the day? And Xu Lingchong, how had he curried favor with Shangguan Lan'er?

On reflection, apart from all manner of attentions and getting his face known, those men had done little more than give gifts. Of course, at the level of Shangguan Lan'er and her like, ordinary spirit jade would hardly be fit to offer. The most that remained were rare spirit medicines of every kind. If one pursued a girl with a seventh-grade beautifying pill, with any other girl that would surely hit the mark every time, wouldn't it?

Whatever those fools had, Wei Zhao had too, and even what they could not get their hands on, Wei Zhao had as well. His jade pendant's space was crammed with fine things, and if something was lacking he could refine it on the spot. His stockpile of spirit medicines had long since begun to take shape.

But the problem was how to give these things away. This was not like flowers and breakfast; giving a gift required a suitable excuse. He could hardly produce them out of thin air. After all, ordinary people would never have such things in hand, much less casually make a gift of them. And the little ice queen had no idea that Wei Zhao was himself a cultivator, and a figure of heaven-reaching power at that.

If he suddenly brought them out, shock was certain, but what her reaction would be after the shock was hard to say. She might well take him for an enemy of unknown origin, and then things would stop being fun.

For the moment Wei Zhao could think of no suitable approach. After all, this was not a matter of simply breaking someone's light bulb. Finding the right opening would not be easy. With no better option, he could only keep to the old method, still bringing the little ice queen flowers and meals every day. He knew well enough it was useless, but at least he could keep his face familiar, and it might have some gradual, imperceptible effect.

Sure enough, the little ice queen would have none of this stale, fawning routine. From first to last, not once did she fail to shut the door in his face.

Wei Zhao paid it no mind. Every day he persisted in paying his respects morning, noon, and night, immovable as thunder and constant as stone.

Given how cold the other party's temperament was, to be honest, Wei Zhao still felt a little unsure at heart. If he truly wore her patience thin and she flew into a shamefaced rage, would he not have outsmarted himself?

Yet what surprised Wei Zhao somewhat was that although the little ice queen remained unmoved by his attentions, her attitude seemed to have softened a little. At least she was no longer as icily forbidding as at the start. The look she gave him each time had changed from indifference to resignation.

Wei Zhao did not know whether such a change was good or bad, but having decided on this course, he could not abandon it halfway. Even if it was bad, he could only grit his teeth and see it through.

Still, carrying on this way forever was no solution. From the time his primordial spirit had been projected here, a full ten days had passed. The strength of his primordial-spirit body had recovered from the late Heaven rank at the start all the way to the early Foundation Establishment stage it now held. The results were not as good as he had hoped, but they were at least passable.

If the Southern Heavenly Aurora knew of it, he would surely vomit blood in frustration. Damn it, recovering to early Foundation Establishment in ten days, what more did he want? But then, this was only possible because Wei Zhao had the jade pendant. Anyone else would not have found it so easy.

The trouble was that the little ice queen's attitude had only shifted from icy to resigned. Wei Zhao still could not get a word with her, and there had been no proper opening to bring out spirit medicines or spirit jade and take things a step further. To say he was not anxious at all in his heart would be pure self-deception.

Unfortunately, anxiety was useless. He could only keep waiting, and in the end, what he got was not an opening but two ghosts.

Of course, like the old man and the buzz-cut fellow last time, these were another pair of fake ghosts. Boss Huang had spent a long while and finally found two replacements, swindlers who had been in the game for years. When it came to the matter, they thumped their chests with a resounding thud, and looked far more reliable than the old man and the buzz-cut fellow.

What Boss Huang never imagined was that this time he had been fooled as well. These two were not professional swindlers like the old man and the buzz-cut fellow at all; they were simply two street thugs who happened to be good at talking big. They knew nothing of the tricks of the trade, and thought that posing as ghosts was just a matter of giving people a casual scare. Little did they know how many finer points there were to it.

Never mind scaring Wei Zhao off; these two could not even manage to open a door smoothly. Though they plainly held the key Boss Huang had given them, they ended up stuck before Wei Zhao's door studying it for ages, and still could not find where the keyhole was...

"Good heavens, what kind of broken door is this? How does it not even have a keyhole?" one of them, done up as Black Impermanence, could not help complaining.

"Shh!" The other, White Impermanence, hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth. "Are you daft? We're here to play ghosts and scare someone. Can you talk that loud? You want to wake him up?"

"So what if we wake him? The moment he opens the door and sees the two of us, Black and White Impermanence, he'll still be scared half to death." Black Impermanence chuckled, then turned to glance at White Impermanence. "Honestly, even I'm scared looking at this getup. You don't think we'll scare the life out of him?"

"You think everyone's as timid as you? You don't even dare walk a night road alone. If you can't even scare yourself, who exactly are you going to scare?" White Impermanence said with a curl of his lip.

"Honestly, you don't think this place is really haunted? I heard this residential compound used to be an abandoned crematorium, and that's why so many of the flats won't sell. This place is downright eerie." Black Impermanence shrank his neck and looked around. The corridor light was sound-activated, and it had already gone out; the surroundings were dim and murky. If he were alone, he would have been frightened to death long ago.

"Hearsay. The crematorium is clearly in the west, and this is the east. You believe that crap?" White Impermanence snorted. But after a pause he said, "I did hear this place used to be an unmarked graveyard, and when they put up the buildings they dug up no small amount of bones. Even the police were alerted."

"Good heavens, yours is even scarier!" Black Impermanence shuddered inwardly.

"All right, don't go scaring yourself, damn it. If there really were ghosts here, would that Boss Huang have nothing better to do than hire the two of us to play ghosts? Hurry up and find where the keyhole is. I'm about ready to smash the door in myself!" White Impermanence cursed.

The two of them put their heads together and studied it for another good while. Never mind a cultivator like Wei Zhao; even an ordinary person would long since have been woken by them!