Chapter 5024 — The Ghost Arrives
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Master, I've said it a thousand times—when I go to those clubs I'm really just copping a feel, nothing else at all. How could I offend anyone? Maybe it's you who misjudged, and swindled someone you shouldn't have?" the youth turned it back on him.
"Bullshit! I've been in this game for decades. You think I can't spot a mark? It's got to be you, boy—you offended someone and never even knew it. Barely a hair on your lip and no steadiness in your hands—you'd better smarten up!" the old man went on.
"Fine, fine, fine. It's all my fault, there, happy? If I ever find out which bastard pulled this dirty trick, I'll swindle him down to his last stitch!" the youth said sullenly.
"Just for that mouth of yours, you'll keep taking losses—not a scrap of sense in you!" The old man cuffed him, paused, and said, "Lucky there's still this job tonight. At least we won't go home empty-handed."
"Tch. This one doesn't pay much—what's the point?" the youth grumbled. The con they had run that day brought in ten thousand a pop if it landed, but a job like tonight's paid only two or three hundred. He couldn't even be bothered to earn that little.
"Always dreaming of the good stuff! You think a setup like that works so easily? Catching one a month is already good. The rest of the time, if you don't earn these small sums, you can sit around waiting to drink the northwest wind!" the old man cursed.
"Yes, yes, yes. Food must be eaten bite by bite, the road walked step by step—that good enough for you? Running a con game and still keeping it so countrified. Anyone who didn't know better would think we were migrant workers..." The youth shrank his neck helplessly.
"If it isn't countrified, how do you fool anyone? You really think it's like those movies you watch, with high-tech gadgets? Only a fool believes that!" The old man gave him a kick. "Hurry up, don't miss the job. Once this one's done, we've got to scout a spot tomorrow."
As they talked, they walked one behind the other into a building and straight up to the fifth floor—and, astonishingly, stopped right outside Wei Zhao's door.
The two exchanged a glance, and the old man began pasting black paper over his face. With his all-black clothes and the dim light around them, he became in an instant a blob of pure blackness. Standing in the shadow of the corner, one truly would not notice him unless one looked carefully—and if one did notice, so much the worse. Meeting such a thing in the dead of night would be enough to scare a person into a heart attack!
The short-cropped youth, meanwhile, put on a cheap wig and slipped into a loose white robe, then patted white powder over his face and daubed it with streaks of tomato sauce that at first glance looked exactly like fresh blood. With the face he made, he was even more frightening than the old man.
When all was ready, the old man produced a key and opened the door without a sound. The two crept in on tiptoe. Seeing no one in the living room, they exchanged a look and slid into the bedroom. Neither made a footfall, and their way of walking was thoroughly unsettling—at first glance they seemed to be floating, and it did carry a fair air of haunting.
Yet before the two of them could begin their scare, the moment they entered the room they frightened themselves badly instead. The short-cropped youth nearly dropped onto his backside, and the old man behind him was shoved straight back into the living room. Fortunately the tea table he bumped into was a solid, heavy thing; otherwise it would surely have made a noise.