Chapter 15

Staring at the malformed mass of black flesh inches away from him, Zhou Fangdong hesitated for a moment before finally using a Low-grade Protection Amulet on himself.

He didn’t know the killing rules of this ghost yet. It was better to be safe than sorry; security was the top priority.

While spending an amulet worth 90 Ghost Coins right at the start was a bit extravagant, it would grant him immunity from attacks by any ghost below B-rank for the next thirty minutes. As long as he didn’t do anything suicidal, he should be safe.

Zhou Fangdong reached out with a trembling hand, preparing to use his skill on the black mass.

As his hand drew closer, the black flesh remained unresponsive, as if it truly were nothing more than a lump of modeling clay.

Finally, Zhou Fangdong’s hand successfully touched the top of the mass.

【Skill 1: Gentle Mind Reading】

A deluge of complex emotions and fragmented memories surged into Zhou Fangdong’s brain like a flash flood.

His vision went black, and he collapsed to his knees.

No one told him that using this skill would be so agonizing… his head felt like it was splitting open.

Among the chaotic swirl of emotions, the most prominent was a terrifying sense of hunger.

It was a violent burning sensation in the abdomen, as if his internal organs were devouring one another. As the hunger reached its peak, a wave of nausea followed. The stomach and esophagus contracted and writhed uncontrollably, as if they wanted to crawl out of his mouth to find food themselves.

Hidden beneath that hunger was a deep, stifled sense of grievance.

She didn’t understand why her father always looked at her like she was an enemy. She didn’t understand why her mother clearly hated her yet claimed to love her. She didn’t understand why her mother blamed her for every hardship they endured…

Zhou Fangdong gradually recovered under the onslaught of memories and emotions, and he realized the true identity of the ghost in Room 102.

The malformed black mass before him was the very child of Room 102 he had once portrayed.

While Zhou Fangdong was making contact with the ghost in Room 102, Miao Zheng was in Room 109, humming a song as she unpacked her luggage.

After learning she could safely live with a real ghost, Miao Zheng was beyond thrilled.

As long as she lived here, she could capture fresh horror material at any moment.

Liwan Apartments currently had no internet and no cell signal, so she couldn’t livestream. For now, she had to set up her filming equipment to record everything, planning to edit and upload the footage later.

However, videos like that would likely be dismissed as CGI or special effects.

Miao Zheng sighed.

Livestreaming was much more effective. She would have to ask the Landlord for help setting up broadband in the room once he was free.

She had already thought of a title for the stream: 【Shocking! Internet First! My Daily Life Living with a Female Ghost Sister】.

At the thought, Miao Zheng couldn’t help but giggle foolishly again.

Just as she was organizing the shoe rack by the entryway, the sound of a door hinge creaking suddenly echoed behind her.

Something had pushed the door open and entered.

Miao Zheng’s expression turned serious as she discreetly reached for her waist.

As a contract worker for the Paranormal Affairs Department, she didn’t have a firearm permit, and she certainly wasn’t allocated the special ammunition capable of killing ghosts.

The equipment the logistics department gave to contractors consisted of outdated products developed during the early stages of the supernatural outbreaks. The telescopic steel baton in her hand was one such item. These tools couldn’t kill ghosts; they could only temporarily repel them, and using them effectively required significant physical skill.

The Landlord had said she would be safe as long as she followed the Tenant Rules, but if an outside ghost invaded the room…

The sound of the door opening was immediately followed by the ear-grating noise of something heavy dragging across the floor.

Without warning, Miao Zheng spun around and swung the steel baton toward the source of the sound.

Clang!

A sharp metallic ring echoed. The impact left Miao Zheng’s wrist numb, and the baton nearly flew out of her hand.

Rubbing her wrist, she looked at the intruder in confusion.

Entering through the door was a pile of unassembled alloy clothes racks, followed by a floor-standing single bed.

It wasn’t an invading ghost, but furniture… Was this the “home delivery” the Landlord had mentioned?

Miao Zheng looked around but saw no one moving the items.

Was a ghost delivering them?

Keenly sensing a great opportunity for footage, she immediately grabbed her camera from the kitchen counter and aimed it at the door.

However, no delivery ghost appeared, nor did the furniture move on its own. Instead, the two black plastic bags at the entryway of Room 109 began to move.

A dense, chilling black mist drifted out from the bags, enveloping the two sets of furniture. Then, two blood-stained ghost hands reached out from the plastic bags.

The hands gripped the clothes rack and the single bed respectively.

As the ghost hands touched them, the rack and the bed both shuddered.

From inside the hollow steel tubes of the alloy rack, a puddle of red and white mangled flesh crawled out, reluctantly slithering out the door.

There was movement under the mattress of the single bed as well. A woman with twisted joints, dressed in white with black hair covering her face, slowly crawled out from the gaps in the mattress. Her exposed skin was covered in dense, protruding scars. Her malformed limbs, mottled with purple cadaveric spots, climbed the door frame with extreme agility, scurrying along the frame and onto the hallway ceiling.

Once the ghosts hidden within the furniture had left Room 109, the two crimson ghost hands protruding from the black plastic bags gave the rack and the bed a forceful tug.

As the hands pulled, the plastic bags ignored the size of the furniture and swallowed them whole… The bulging black bags acted like black holes capable of devouring everything.

Miao Zheng couldn’t help but let out a cry of wonder. “Ohhh! That’s amazing!”

At her exclamation, the writhing of the black plastic bags paused noticeably. Then, the bag at the entryway went still, while the one on the kitchen counter began to writhe again.

The sequence of the bags’ transformations made it seem as though an invisible person was stepping on them as they walked deeper into the room.

Seeing this, Miao Zheng followed the trail of shifting plastic bags with her camera, filming all the way into the bedroom.

Finally, the black plastic bag in the corner of the bedroom opened. Two ghost hands emerged once more, pulling the single bed and the unassembled clothes rack out of the bag.

Throughout the process, Miao Zheng kept her camera rolling, filming the scene while exclaiming in wonder:

“This is way too cool! You can actually transport furniture like this?”

“Sister, your hands are so photogenic! The black plastic bag really complements your skin tone!”

“Could you change the angle? Yes, yes, exactly! This angle makes your fingers look incredibly slender! Perfect!”

Miao Zheng’s voice was filled with irrepressible joy and excitement. Her stream of compliments hadn’t stopped since the furniture appeared, providing maximum emotional value.

The ghost inside the black plastic bag was clearly unaccustomed to such enthusiastic praise. Once the furniture was moved, the ghost hands didn’t linger for a second, retracting instantly into the bag.

Having captured her footage, a delighted Miao Zheng set her camera on the table and resumed unpacking her clothes.

Having memorized the Tenant Rules, Miao Zheng knew that the female ghost in Room 109 hated anything that could hide a person. Consequently, she hadn’t used a suitcase, opting instead to pack her clothes in transparent plastic bags.

After assembling the rack, she began taking out her packed clothes one by one to hang them up.

However, she was only halfway through when a sudden, sharp cramp hit her abdomen.

Damn it. There was something wrong with that takeout she ate before coming to the apartment.

That cursed vendor. They promised it wasn’t pre-packaged food, yet they’d scammed her. She was definitely leaving a one-star review later.

Miao Zheng didn’t know how to cook. She lived on a long-term diet of oily, salty takeout, and her job forced her to habitually stay up all night drinking coffee. As a result, her stomach was incredibly fragile; one bite of something unclean and she was headed for a disaster.

Luckily, this new room had running water… Miao Zheng stumbled blindly toward the bathroom.

After a satisfying release, a sudden realization dawned on her.

Miao Zheng realized with despair that she had forgotten to put toilet paper in the bathroom.

She had bought a pack of rolls that morning, but since she had just moved in and everything was a cluttered mess, she’d forgotten to bring them inside.

In the depths of her desperation, a spark of inspiration flashed through her mind. She whipped her head around to look at the black plastic bag next to the sink.

She hesitated for a moment, but ultimately, the desperation of being stranded without paper triumphed over her sense of shame.

Mustering her courage, Miao Zheng spoke up sheepishly, “Um, Female Ghost Sister, this is a real emergency… Could I trouble you to grab me a roll of toilet paper? The new pack I bought is on the kitchen counter right across from the bathroom.”

The black plastic bag in the bathroom trembled slightly but didn’t change.

However, the black plastic bag in the kitchen opened on its own, and a blood-stained ghost hand reached out.

Before grabbing the roll, the ghost hand specifically tore off a few sheets of paper to wipe the blood off its fingers. Only then did it grab the roll and retract into the bag.

Simultaneously, the black plastic bag by the bathroom sink slowly opened.

First, a pale arm holding the roll extended from the bag. Initially, it was only the length of a normal human arm, but as it kept emerging, it dragged out a calf muscle attached to the cross-section of the arm. Behind the calf was another arm, and at the end of that arm trailed a bone that looked like a spine…

Several severed limbs joined together to form a grotesque rope that spanned the entire bathroom, delivering the toilet paper right to Miao Zheng’s hand.

Witnessing this eerie yet helpful scene, Miao Zheng’s eyes welled with tears of gratitude.

Who said this Female Ghost Sister was bad? She was simply the best!

Sitting on the toilet, she took the paper with both hands, overcome with emotion. “Sister, from now on, you are my one and only Sister.”

After successfully surviving the toilet paper crisis, Miao Zheng had to make several more trips to the bathroom.

Did that bastard owner cook that food with laxatives?

Weakly leaning against the wall as she emerged from the bathroom, Miao Zheng let out a faint sigh. “I need some medicine… Dammit, I swear I’m never eating takeout again. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to learn how to cook…”

As she passed the open kitchen, she was surprised to see signs that the stove had been used. The plastic bags containing ingredients from this morning had also been moved.

Turning her head, she saw a steaming bowl of preserved egg and pork congee sitting on the bedroom table.

Miao Zheng actually started crying. She dropped to her knees and hugged the nearest black plastic bag.

“Mommy!!! You’re the best, Female Ghost Sister! You’re literally a mother figure to me! What did I do to deserve such a great apartment and a roommate as wonderful as you?”

A pale ghost hand squeezed out with some difficulty from the bag in Miao Zheng’s arms. It hesitated for a moment before gently patting Miao Zheng on the back, as if soothing a child.

After using his skill on a ghost, Zhou Fangdong walked out of Room 102 looking exhausted. He ran into Miao Zheng again in the hallway.

Not long ago, Miao Zheng had looked healthy and energetic. But after not seeing her for a short while, her face had turned inexplicably pale, as if she had just suffered a major illness.

Yet, despite looking weak, her face was radiant with happiness. She carried her camera in one hand and a drone in the other, grinning like she had just won the lottery.

To prevent any accidents, Zhou Fangdong took the initiative to ask, “Where are you going?”

Although the tenant keys protected them from being attacked by ghosts in the hallway, Zhou Fangdong didn’t know if the keys would still protect them if a tenant actively harassed a ghost.

Miao Zheng looked exactly like the type who would harass a ghost just for video content.

“I’m filming a move-in vlog. I want to get some panoramic shots of the apartment from outside,” Miao Zheng said, waving her drone. “Oh, by the way, Boss Landlord, can you set up broadband for me? I can’t livestream without internet in the room.”

At that moment, Zhou Fangdong suddenly regretted calling out to her.

More money to spend… Ghost Coins really didn’t last long.

Zhou Fangdong urgently called out to the system in his mind.

“System, how much does it cost to set up broadband for a tenant?”

【90 Ghost Coins per month. There is a discount for a full year: 1,000 Ghost Coins.】

“Once it’s activated, can all the tenants use it?”

【No. Broadband costs 90 Ghost Coins per month per room.】

Scam. This was a total scam.

He only had 120 Ghost Coins on him. After paying for the broadband, he would be nearly broke again.

Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and asked, “System, can I set up a data plan for the tenants similar to the one on my phone?”

【Tenant mobile phones do not belong to the apartment and are outside the system’s scope of modification. Tenants cannot use mobile data plans.】

“Then what if I open a hotspot for Miao Zheng, just like I did for Hong Zhong? You see…” Zhou Fangdong was relentless, desperately searching for any way to save money.

The cold electronic voice cut him off immediately: 【The system does not have this function.】

No matter how much he tried to haggle after that, the system simply repeated the same sentence.

Looking at Miao Zheng, who stood before him with a face full of anticipation, Zhou Fangdong gritted his teeth and bought one month of broadband.

After all, this livestream was part of the Tenant Rules he had set himself. To ensure the tenant of Room 109 could live there safely, broadband was a necessity.

While Zhou Fangdong was shamelessly haggling with the system in his mind, in Miao Zheng’s eyes, the mysterious landlord had simply lowered his head in thought for a moment before speaking to her. “The broadband is set up. You can use the network cables in your room now.”

Miao Zheng let out a cheer. “Thank you so much! Boss Landlord, you’re the best! Thank you for renting me such a great place. I’ll do my best to promote it for you!”

Now that she had internet access, Miao Zheng didn’t linger in the hallway. She ran toward the apartment entrance with a skip in her step, carrying her camera and drone.

【Ding— Detected that Room 109 tenant Miao Zheng’s favorability has exceeded 80. Favorability System interface unlocked.】

【Tenant favorability has reached the milestone. You may claim your reward in the favorability interface.】