The three-story building looked new and stylish, as if it had just been built not long ago.
In stark contrast to the rustic village houses, it stood out like a crane among chickens.
At this moment, there were people moving around in the courtyard.
The setting sun cast clear shadows of those people on the ground.
Occasionally, villagers passing by would greet the people in the courtyard, but the people inside didn't seem very interested in responding.
All of this unequivocally proved that it was a normal house, not some haunted mansion from a Liaozhai story.
But how could there be valuables transformed from dead objects in a normal house?
Lu Fei and Zhang Molin saw deep suspicion in each other's eyes.
Huzi directly drew his ghosthead knife and placed it against Laopao's neck, which was covered with wounds.
"Trying to fool us, don't you want to live anymore?"
Although the ghost-head knife was not sharp, the ghost head on the handle was very terrifying, and people with weak hearts did not dare to look it in the eye.
"We're being wronged! Big brother, we really did get these gold, silver, and jewels from that house." Lao Pao's neck was stiff, and he looked utterly confused, "That house has ghosts, didn't you say so? When we looked at it, it seemed like a normal household, we didn't think there would be any ghosts!"
These words didn't sound like they were false.
Moreover, Lao Pao had no reason to lie to them unless he also wanted to lose his head.
Lu Fei and Zhang Molin exchanged a glance.
Could it be that there's something strange about that family?
"Then tell me, why did you choose this family to steal from?" Lu Fei narrowed his eyes.
"Tell the truth!" Hu Zi pressed the ghost-head knife down.
It pressed down on Lao Pao's wound, causing him to wince in pain.
"We just thought they were rich because their house looked so nice!"
Old Cannon held a suitcase in one hand and clutched his neck with the other, not daring to hide anything as he explained everything in detail.
This group of people, always idle and wandering around looking for opportunities, accidentally discovered one day that this particular house was built much better than the others, looking very grand. Upon secretly inquiring, they found out that the family had made a fortune in the city and rebuilt their house.
It was a family of three: a couple with a teenage daughter, and they were well-off.
This was a surefire mark of a fat sheep.
Their eyes lit up on the spot.
After casing the area for a few days, Old Cannon and Second Yang took advantage of the family's absence, when they went to the market, to sneak into the house.
They started with the adults' room, expecting the lady of the house would have some valuable jewelry, but to their surprise, she didn't even have a decent hair tie, it was quite shabby.
As the saying goes, a thief never leaves empty-handed.
Having waited for several days, they were not willing to return empty-handed, so they searched the other rooms.
In the end, they found a large box hidden under the little girl's bed.
The box had a crack through which a golden light shone brightly.
With his years of experience, the old hand could tell at a glance that there were valuable items inside.
"This family is really sly. Who would have thought they'd hide their most valuable things in the little girl's room?"
The two were about to make their move, but the lookout, Old Three, gave them a signal. The family suddenly came back, apparently having forgotten something and hurriedly returned to get it.
The two had no choice but to give up for the moment.
But with such a rich prize, how could they just let it go?
They patiently waited for several days and noticed something very odd about this family.
No matter how busy they were or what the weather was like,
as soon as it got dark, the family would immediately put everything aside and go to sleep.
And, they never get up at night.
Sometimes, Lao Pao and his gang would deliberately make noises outside, but the family wouldn't come out to check, as if they were dead asleep.
They didn't care why the family never got up; they just saw it as a rare opportunity.
So.
Two nights ago, they called some people and sneaked into the house.
They slipped into the little girl's room, crawled under the bed, opened the chest, and took half of the gold and jewels inside.
But after they got back, before they could split the loot, something went wrong.
After stealing such a huge treasure, they celebrated with a drinking session that night.
But as they drank, things started to feel strange.
There were only three of them, so how could the table be full? Who were all those other people sitting there?
He turned his head and looked.
There were no heads!
Not only were all the seats at the table filled with headless people, but the entire room was as well.
They were terrified at the time and grabbed knives to slash away.
The third brother ran out in the chaos, leaving Old Cannon and Yang Laodier surrounded by a dense crowd of headless people.
"I hid in the toilet and didn't dare to come out. The rest you know... Laodier cut off his own head, and I guess the third brother also... When he ran out, there were headless people following him..."
Old Cannon finished recounting the entire theft with a deathly pale face.
"Headless people?"
Being surrounded by a group of headless people, it sounds terrifying!
Lu Fei and the others exchanged glances, inevitably thinking of Erdan's stories about the headless chickens.
"How could a normal household have so many headless chickens? There must be something wrong here." Zhang Molin frowned.
"Yeah!" Huzi rubbed the goosebumps on his arm, "If all the chickens in my house lost their heads, I'd have thrown them as far away as possible!"
"And there's one more thing. Look at this family. Their gold and jewelry were stolen, but they didn't react at all. The problem isn't with the house, but with the people inside!" Lu Fei said, then turned to Lao Pao, "When you went in to steal, did you notice anything else strange?"
"We were too focused on taking the stuff, we didn't pay much attention."
Lao Pao gave a grimace that was uglier than crying, thinking for a moment, he said, "Right, that little girl grinds her teeth while sleeping! When we first entered her room, we heard a chattering sound and got quite a scare. We listened closely and found out it was the sound of teeth grinding."
"While we were opening the box under her bed, the little girl was grinding her teeth above us, and it sounded different from normal teeth grinding, like she was chewing on something."
"Before we left, I specifically looked back. The little girl was sleeping with the blanket over her head, completely still..."
Talking about this, Lao Pao shivered himself.
Now, he realized that although the family seemed normal on the surface, everything about them was actually eerie.
"Anything else?"
"No, they were all sleeping soundly. We took what we came for and left quickly." After Lao Pao finished speaking, he looked at Lu Fei and the other two nervously, "Master, what's really going on? Are they humans or ghosts?"
"You want to know?" Lu Fei glanced at him indifferently.
"Yes!" Lao Pao nodded emphatically.
"Return what you stole!" Lu Fei pushed open the car door and jumped out, his eyes fixed on the three-story house.
"Are you really going?" Panic appeared on Lao Pao's face, "It's not that I can't bear to part with these things, I'm scared! What if they are really ghosts, do you have a plan, Master?"
"At a time like this, you still want to dilly-dally!" Hu Zi kicked him out of the car.
Lu Fei and the other two walked toward the family, with Lao Pao following behind hesitantly.
They arrived at the family's doorstep.
Zhang Molin took the initiative to step forward and knock on the door.
"Lu Fei, let's be polite first. E'r Dan was also involved in the theft. No matter how strange that family is, E'r Dan was in the wrong first, so we should apologize to them first."