Living In The Haunted House

Chapter 1

Because I wanted to save money, I moved into a haunted house.

The old man downstairs warned me with a look of horror, "Miss, this house is haunted. You shouldn't live here!"

I smiled and reassured him, "It's okay. I'm poorer than any ghost. If I move in, it will be the ghosts who are disturbed."

He didn't know that I had been able to see ghosts since I was a child.

Just last night, I was up late giving a ghost some therapy!

Because I accidentally knocked my boss's wig into the food during a dinner party, I was inexplicably fired the next day.

My job, which included free accommodation, disappeared along with that wig.

After staying up all night searching for a place to live, I finally found a suitable one in the suburbs: a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, and the rent was incredibly cheap.

But you get what you pay for. I searched for news about the area and found stories of strange noises and shadows.

"This area is haunted. I'm serious. I've seen a woman with a neck as long as her arm in the elevator more than once."

Wow, it even has an elevator.

"Once, while taking a bath, I found hair with bits of flesh in the tub. It scared my boyfriend stiff."

And it has a bathtub. This place is amazing.

"One time, I came home late from work and went to the wrong floor. The door to the apartment wasn't locked. When I pushed it open, half the room was bathed in a red glow. There was no furniture inside, just an urn and an old lady burning joss paper. I moved out the next day."

Wow, no nosy neighbors either.

This was my dream home!

With a click of the mouse, I had a new place to live.

The branches outside my window scratched against the glass, sounding like someone was dragging their nails across it. I looked up.

Suddenly, a flash of white light and a rumble of thunder followed by a torrential downpour.

The light above flickered a few times before finally going out, and the small room was swallowed by darkness.

But it wasn't pitch black; I could vaguely make out the outlines of objects.

Wet footsteps sounded behind me. I looked at the mirror on the table, and the face in the mirror blurred.

Another flash of lightning revealed a man's face on my right shoulder.

The face was young, pale, and sickly, with blood-red lips and pitch-black eyes.

"Timothy, I'm leaving tomorrow," I said calmly.

The light came back on, and Timothy's black eyes faded as he plopped down on the bed.

"Just because of a wig?" he asked, bewildered.

I shrugged and started packing my things.

Timothy was a ghost messenger from the Ghost Realm. Because of his poor performance, he was only assigned a small area to manage.

The first time I saw him, he was crying in my bathroom.

I thought he was just another wandering spirit and ignored him, but he cried louder and louder. I even started to think a donkey was braying in my bathroom.

Later, I found out he was crying because he couldn't meet his performance targets and felt like a failure. I ended up giving him therapy all night, despite my exhaustion.

Since then, he would visit me empty-handed from time to time.

"Where are you moving to?" he asked.

I told him the new address, and he got excited.

"You're so lucky! That's the area I most want to work in. There's so much business there, you could get rich in no time!" he said enviously, then added indignantly, "Why do good things never happen to me?"

Do you want this luck?

I twitched my mouth but said nothing.

"I'll come visit you when I have time. Save some clients for me, okay? You're my only friend in the Mortal Realm," he said, winking and giving me a fawning smile.