Chapter 2The Haunted Housekeeper

Marcus and I didn't exactly get along.

Marcus came from money. At the company, he looked down on everyone, especially people like me who'd fight over a few dollars in coupons.

I opened the door.

Marcus waved his hand in front of his nose with a disgusted expression, standing at the doorway.

"Preston, you actually live in this dump? It's like a trash heap."

His eyes swept over my one-bedroom apartment, full of contempt.

"I heard you got this place dirt cheap. Is there something wrong with it?"

I said flatly, "It's fine. Spacious, bright, friendly neighbors."

Marcus laughed exaggeratedly. "Neighbors? Do you dare go out at night in this building? I heard someone died here."

He just came to laugh at my misfortune.

I couldn't be bothered with him and turned to close the door.

But Marcus squeezed his way inside.

"Hey, don't be so quick to kick me out. I came here out of kindness to check on you. What's with that attitude?"

He walked around the place uninvited, wrinkling his nose like he was inspecting a slum.

"So clean? Did you hire a cleaning service? Doesn't seem like your style."

He walked to the table and suddenly stopped, pointing at a vase in the corner.

"You even have an antique decoration? Is this real or fake?"

My heart tightened. "Just a regular decoration."

It was here when I moved in.

Marcus curled his lip and reached out to grab it.

"Let me take a look."

"Don't touch it!" I tried to stop him.

But it was too late.

Marcus's hand touched the vase, and as if he didn't hold it properly, the vase fell straight toward the floor.

My heart jumped to my throat.

Just as the vase was about to make intimate contact with the floor, it stopped.

It just floated in mid-air, less than a centimeter from the ground.

Time seemed to freeze.

Marcus's smile froze on his face, his eyes wide as saucers.

The next second, the vase wobbled up and flew back, landing steadily on the corner of the table, completely undamaged.

The room was deathly silent.

Marcus's face turned from red to white, then from white to green.

He pointed at the vase with a trembling finger. "It... it..."

He stuttered "it" for a long time without forming a complete sentence.

Suddenly, he let out a short, strange cry and ran outside.

Stumbling and scrambling, not looking back.

I watched his pathetic retreat, then looked at the vase on the table and sighed.

"Evelyn, I've told you so many times—keep a low profile."

I scolded the empty air.

"If that vase broke, how expensive would it be? Would you pay for it?"

The air remained completely still.

I didn't expect her to answer anyway.

That night, lying in bed, I proactively chatted with Evelyn for the first time.

I told her about the annoying things at work, about how obnoxious Marcus was today.

I said how much I wanted to make good money, buy my own place, and stop having to look at people's faces.

As I talked, I fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up freezing.

The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped to freezing.

I pulled the blanket tight but still shivered from the cold.

I opened my phone and saw a text from the electric company.

This month's electricity bill: three thousand eight hundred dollars.

I stared at that number for a full minute.

Thirty-eight hundred?!

How could my electricity usage possibly be that high?

Then I suddenly remembered something.

The faucet turning on by itself, the TV lighting up in the middle of the night, and those damned meals that appeared on time every day!

Did these paranormal phenomena also consume electricity?

A surge of anger shot straight to the top of my head.

I leaped out of bed, grabbed my phone, and roared at the empty room:

"Evelyn! Come out here!"

"What's with this electric bill? Thirty-eight hundred! Why don't you just rob me!"

"You're paying this bill!"

My voice echoed in the small room, filled with uncontrollable anger.

The lights in the room started flickering wildly, on and off.

A chill shot up from the soles of my feet, even colder than the low temperature before.

I saw the shadow in the corner of the wall begin to wriggle and gather unnaturally.

A silhouette darker than the darkness itself slowly peeled away from the shadow.

Her figure was slender, but her entire body was shrouded in an indistinct black mist.

I couldn't feel any wind, but it felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out.

A cold, emotionless voice—not through my ears but directly in my head—spoke.

"Say that again."