Chapter 40

Zhou Fangdong closed the system pop-ups first and spoke to Zhang Zhiwu in a hurried tone:

“Taoist Master, I’ll have to trouble you to draw four talismans first. Then, have Zhang Qingyang recite the ‘Supreme Chapter of the Cat Spirit for House Protection’ a few times in Room 106 to clean up the grease. I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll be going now.”

As the words left his mouth, Zhou Fangdong felt it wasn’t quite right to let someone work for free, so he pulled five sticks of Offering Incense from his inventory.

“Taoist Master, do you need Offering Incense? Consider these as payment for your help.”

“Whoa!” Seeing the five sticks of Offering Incense, Zhang Zhiwu lost his composure for a rare moment.

With a flick of his long sleeve, he snatched the Offering Incense from Zhou Fangdong’s hand with incredible speed. He brought them to his nose, took a sniff, and let out a long sigh of satisfaction. “Little friend, your Offering Incense is masterfully made! This purity, this aroma… Rest assured, I guarantee my young disciple will scrub every last bit of that cat grease from the room!”

“By the way, do you need me to clear out the Cat Ghosts in that room as well? Though it’s a bit of a hassle, for the sake of your Offering Incense…”

“No need, no need! Whatever you do, do not clear out the Cat Ghosts,” Zhou Fangdong hurriedly stopped him.

Furthermore, it was still unclear whether the Cat Ghosts in that room were purely manifestations of resentment, or if that resentment included the souls of the veterinarian and her unborn child.

It would be terrible if they were harmed by mistake. The veterinarian’s life had already been tragic enough; it would be too cruel to have her soul scattered after death.

To be safe, Zhou Fangdong added another warning: “Taoist Master, just cleaning the grease is enough. Do not harm the ghosts in the room under any circumstances.”

Heaven knows what Zhang Zhiwu was thinking, but the Taoist Master nodded with an air of profound mystery and lowered his voice: “I understand. I know what you intend to do, little friend… Go ahead and act boldly. This old man will back you up!”

Zhou Fangdong was utterly bewildered. He had no idea what this Zombie Taoist Master was talking about, but the situation with Duan Wenyu was urgent and left him no time to overthink it.

After giving his final instructions, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to his own room.

Once back, he immediately reopened the Instance Erosion page and clicked on the flashing purple dot.

“System, can I use the Instance Corrosion Function now?”

[Available at any time.]

When Duan Wenyu arrived at the location with the abnormal supernatural fluctuations, he never expected to be dragged into another Supernatural Instance created by the Main God¹.

As an intern investigator for the Paranormal Affairs Department, his assignment was merely to approach the supernatural site and record the energy fluctuations with his instruments; he wasn’t required to conduct an on-site survey.

After a full day of intensive training on various instruments at the Bureau of Paranormal Oversight yesterday, Duan Wenyu had driven to the investigation site early this morning.

The place he was supposed to monitor was an abandoned funeral home located in the southern suburbs of Linjiang City.

To his surprise, when he arrived at the funeral home, he saw a young girl nearby.

His detector indicated that the girl was a living person.

She had her hair in two braided pigtails and wore a set of blue short-sleeved shorts with white lace trim. Based on her height and appearance, she looked to be in the fifth or sixth grade of elementary school.

Moreover, she walked with a limp, and her eyes were hollow and unfocused, as if she were blind…

The blind and lame girl stumbled toward the interior of the funeral home, but her body was leaning back and tense, as if she were struggling against some unknown force—it was as if something inside the funeral home was grabbing her, trying to pull her in.

Although he didn’t know how the girl had ended up there, Duan Wenyu couldn’t just stand by and watch her be dragged into a suspected supernatural site by an unknown force.

He jumped out of the car as fast as he could and grabbed the girl’s hand.

Just as Duan Wenyu prepared to pull the girl back, a flash of white light blinded him. When his vision cleared, he found himself inside the funeral home.

Looking at the cold, pale room filled with metal lockers, Duan Wenyu knew he was in trouble.

This familiar sensation was exactly the same as when he had been sucked into the Graduation Hall incident.

What made it even more desperate was that in his rush to reach the girl, he had discarded all his heavy gear, leaving his backpack in the car…

He had lost the equipment provided by the Paranormal Affairs Department, as well as the phone he used to contact the Landlord.

Empty-handed, he was now protecting a blind little girl inside what appeared to be a Supernatural Instance created by the Main God.

The Bureau had recorded the abnormal fluctuations as being inside the funeral home. He clearly hadn’t stepped through the front gates, so why had he been pulled in? It was incredibly strange.

Furthermore, a familiar Points System had popped up in his vision.

However, for some reason, the Points System had barely emitted an electronic chime before the sound began to drag out like a skipping record, eventually turning into a piercing scream. Then, the newly appeared Points System vanished from his interface.

…It was almost as if it had been dragged away by something.

It was bizarre, but now was not the time to worry about the Points System…

Duan Wenyu held the little girl and took a step back.

Appearing alongside them in this eerie funeral home were three adult men who looked thoroughly menacing.

These three had appeared at the same time as Duan Wenyu and were currently staring at him with unfriendly eyes.

After a brief standoff, one of the men with a buzz cut spoke with disdain: “Tsk. A newbie and a blind brat? Is the Main God messing with us? Matching us with these two pieces of trash for a B-rank instance?”

Another man with yellow hair was even more blunt: “Newbie! Yeah, I’m talking to you! You and that brat can team up. We aren’t going to look after two dead weights like you—hey! Don’t you dare open your mouth. I’m sick of seeing cannon fodder like you. If you have questions, ask your Points System. I’m under no obligation to explain things to you.”

The last man, a muscular fellow, didn’t say a word, but the expression on his face carried the same contempt.

The three of them ignored Duan Wenyu and left the morgue-like room without looking back.

Duan Wenyu silently swallowed the questions he hadn’t had a chance to ask.

Actually, he had roughly guessed their identities from their words.

These three clearly knew each other, and with their talk of the “Main God” and the “Points System”… it was obvious they were players chosen by the Main God, teamed up to clear the instance.

As expected, this place with abnormal fluctuations was indeed an instance created by the Main God.

The first two Supernatural Instances created by the Main God had been undetectable. Since then, the Bureau must have updated their equipment with something new, allowing them to discover the patterns of the Main God’s instances and find ways to detect them.

Sending him here to record data was likely to verify if these patterns were accurate… and now he had verified it personally; they were indeed quite accurate.

Duan Wenyu actually had a slight suspicion: could the people at the Bureau be trying to use him, a tenant of Liwan Apartments, to test how the Landlord would handle a Main God instance?

No, he shouldn’t harbor such malicious thoughts about people who gave everything to protect the citizens.

The Bureau of Paranormal Oversight wouldn’t sacrifice the life of an innocent person just to test the Landlord’s power.

His superiors had only told him to record, not to enter and investigate. His accidental entry into the funeral home was entirely due to his own actions; he couldn’t blame the Bureau.

At this thought, Duan Wenyu let out a heavy sigh.

Who could have imagined it? Even without entering the funeral parlor, he had been dragged into this mess.

Perhaps Duan Wenyu’s expression of frustration and helplessness was too obvious, for he suddenly felt the little girl he was holding gently pat his arm. She spoke in a soft voice:

“I’m sorry. I’m the one who dragged you into this. I am a player chosen by the Main God; anyone who comes into contact with me will be brought into the dungeon with me.”

After saying this, the little girl paused and made a promise to him: “However, I’m not as weak as you think. Just follow me in this dungeon, and I’ll get you out.”

Although she looked like a girl who had just started primary school, her tone was exceptionally mature. If one ignored that high-pitched, childish voice, her manner of speaking was entirely that of an adult.

“The name of this dungeon is ‘Scapegoat,'” the little girl continued. “The dungeon description says: ‘Those who die a violent death before their natural lifespan is over must seek a substitute for their soul. Use a human-shaped paper effigy as a replacement; burn it and feed it, and one may escape the calamity of death.'”

“So, in this dungeon, the five of us will face the pursuit of five fierce ghosts seeking a Scapegoat. Before that happens, we need to find the paper effigies that belong to us and let them die in our place.”

Pausing again, the little girl added, “But this is a B-rank dungeon. You can’t fully trust the dungeon description; there will be traps inside.”

“It’s possible that the fierce ghosts looking for substitutes are hiding among those paper effigies. The dungeon description guides us to actively seek out the paper dolls, which might just be leading us to our deaths.”

After saying all this, the little girl’s expression turned visibly dejected. She let out a long sigh: “Sigh… I finally drew a dungeon that belongs to my original world, but I ended up accidentally involving a newcomer. Forget it, I suppose it’s fate. I’ll probably never be able to go home in this lifetime.”

A dungeon belonging to her original world… Duan Wenyu suddenly realized something.

Could this little girl have once been a person from his world?

When she appeared outside the funeral parlor just now, was she fighting against the power that wanted to pull her into the dungeon?

It seemed that in his attempt to help her, he had actually done more harm than good…

Duan Wenyu’s heart was filled with bitter regret.

If he had only known… Sigh, he had been too reckless.

But regret was useless now; the most important thing was to find a way to survive this dungeon.

Duan Wenyu asked, “How do we find the paper dolls that belong to us?”

His question left the little girl stunned. “Don’t you know what your identity is in this dungeon? The Points System should have given you a prompt. The paper doll everyone needs to find is different, and you have to search based on the hints.”

Thinking of his Points System that had been dragged away by an unknown force, Duan Wenyu felt a wave of guilt. “I… I don’t have a Points System.”

The little girl was even more shocked. “How is that possible?! You’re inside a Main God dungeon right now, which means you’re a chosen player. How could you not have a Points System…” Mid-sentence, the little girl suddenly thought of something, and her face changed. “Quick, carry me and run. I’ll give you directions. Let’s try to reach the exit of the funeral parlor.”

Though he didn’t know what she intended to do, Duan Wenyu obediently followed her instructions and ran out of the mortuary.

Duan Wenyu did farm work and carried fertilizer every day at school. Although he looked thin, he was covered in lean muscle. Even carrying a little girl didn’t affect his running speed. Besides, she wasn’t heavy—about the weight of a fifty-pound bag of rice.

Even though the little girl was blind, she seemed extremely familiar with the layout of the funeral parlor. Under her direction, they actually managed to run all the way to the entrance of the first-floor assembly hall.

Seeing the open doors at the end of the hall—the doors that represented the exit of the funeral parlor—Duan Wenyu’s spirits lifted. He immediately accelerated and charged into the hall.

But at that exact moment, the lights in the hall suddenly flickered.

Immediately after, the lid of a coffin placed against the wall suddenly flew up, slamming directly toward Duan Wenyu.

Startled, he quickly swerved and retreated back into the corridor.

In the next instant, the sound of the coffin lid smashing against the wall rang out. Exploding wood splinters even flew into the corridor, scratching Duan Wenyu’s cheek.

Duan Wenyu stood in the corridor holding the little girl, but her vacant eyes seemed able to see the situation inside the hall through the walls.

“Oh no, there’s a paper doll in the hall. It’s floating toward us. I don’t know if it’s the one we’re looking for or a life-taking ghost coming to catch us.”

Duan Wenyu was also starting to panic. “Where do we go next?”

“I originally wanted to see if you could leave this dungeon since you don’t have a Points System… Forget it, let’s avoid this thing first. Regardless of whether it’s the paper doll we need, we can’t let it get close right now.”

Duan Wenyu nodded and ran back the way they came, carrying the girl.

During the run, the little girl seemed to have a bad premonition, and her expression grew increasingly grim.

She pulled out a silver longevity lock² and two heavy small gold bars from somewhere and stuffed them into Duan Wenyu’s chest pocket, her voice urgent:

“My name is Xiao Xiaoyu. I live in Penghu Gardens in the Jinxi District. My home address is on the back of the longevity lock. Since you don’t have a Points System, there’s a high probability you can leave the dungeon. Please, go check on my parents. If they have a new child, don’t disturb them. If they’ve been looking for me all this time, tell them that their child who went missing ten years ago was adopted by a kind foreign couple and is currently living happily abroad and doesn’t want to return. If they don’t believe you, give them this lock. These two gold bars are your reward; they should be worth about two hundred thousand.”

Duan Wenyu was about to say something when he suddenly noticed a figure appearing at the other end of the corridor, running toward them—it was the man with the buzz cut!

In this short amount of time, he seemed to have gone through a fierce battle. His face was bruised and swollen, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He looked like he was running blindly in a panic.

When he saw Duan Wenyu and the little girl, the buzz-cut man’s eyes lit up, and he ran straight toward them.

He moved as if he could teleport, appearing before them in just two steps before the little girl could even react.

The buzz-cut man looked at Duan Wenyu and the girl, a cruel smile curling his lips. After using a charm item, he vanished into thin air.

The little girl seemed to realize what was happening and let out a roar: “Put me down, quick!!”

Duan Wenyu reflexively let go, and the little girl landed nimbly on the floor.

At the same time, a paper doll suddenly appeared out of thin air where the buzz-cut man had vanished.

The paper doll’s face was twisted and eerie; it was clearly a life-taking fierce ghost.

It scanned the area, its gaze locking directly onto Duan Wenyu.

The little girl wasn’t idle during this time. She pulled out a bone-cleaving knife from nowhere and hacked off her own left leg, pulling a blurry, transparent chain out from the flesh and blood of the limb.

Even though she was blind, she seemed to see the ghost’s trajectory. She swung the transparent chain to the left of the paper doll, and the doll—as if coordinating with her—slammed straight into the chain.

The paper doll that had been lunging at Duan Wenyu was bound by the chain, frozen in mid-air. Duan Wenyu took the opportunity to hoist the one-legged girl onto his shoulder and ran toward the other end of the corridor.

However, at this critical juncture, the yellow-haired man and the muscular man suddenly appeared in the opposite corridor—they had actually lured two more life-taking paper dolls over with them!

Looking at their expressions, it was clear they were doing this on purpose. Their goal was to sacrifice Duan Wenyu and the girl, using these two living people as their own Scapegoats.

Wolves in front and tigers behind—it was a dead end.

But just then, the little girl in Duan Wenyu’s arms suddenly let out a cry of alarm. Completely ignoring her bleeding, broken leg, she struggled with all her might to leap down from his embrace.

Before Duan Wenyu could understand why she was running, he suddenly saw his own stomach bulge at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Several pairs of tiny, pitch-black hands reached out from inside his belly.

The smell of burning, accompanied by flickers of forest-green phosphorus fire, filled the dim corridor. The faint but shrill cries of infants echoed out of thin air.

The ceiling light in the hallway, already dim, suddenly shattered without warning. Immediately afterward, countless small, black handprints appeared out of nowhere on the floor and walls… As the handprints multiplied, the eerie, flickering ghost fires increased as well, dyeing the entire corridor a ghostly green.

The three paper effigies present began to spontaneously combust amidst the ghastly green ghost fire.

Their expressions were twisted in extreme agony. They seemed to want to flee, but they were pinned in place by some terrifying force, left with no choice but to wail silently within the flames.

…Upon closer inspection, the bellies of those paper effigies also seemed to be bulging.

After reaching a breaking point, three charred infant corpses crawled out from the stomachs of the paper effigies. The paper figures themselves popped like punctured balloons, bursting into countless pieces of burning scrap paper with a loud bang.

At the same time, a half-person-tall, deformed mass of black flesh squeezed its way out of Duan Wenyu’s bulging stomach.

Duan Wenyu stared dumbfoundedly at this mass of flesh he had just “given birth” to, his mind a total blank.

It didn’t hurt at all; he hadn’t felt a thing… What exactly had he just birthed? Nezha³?

The yellow-haired man and the muscular man who had lured the paper effigies over were both paralyzed with shock… Were they dreaming? How could this unremarkable newcomer be even more terrifying than the ghosts in the instance?

Watching the live broadcast on the system interface, Zhou Fangdong let out a heavy sigh of relief.

Just in time, finally made it. Who would have thought that using the ghosts from Room 102 to perform an Instance Erosion would actually require a progress bar?

Watching Duan Wenyu get pincered by the paper effigies in the corridor earlier had made him pace around his room in an anxious frenzy. Fortunately, the progress bar finished just in time. If he had stayed at the door of Room 106 to say a few more words to Zhang Zhiwu, Duan Wenyu might have been a goner.

The three pitch-black Ghost Infants that had crawled out of the paper effigies scurried to Duan Wenyu’s feet, merging into one with the deformed black mass of flesh that had come out of him.

At that moment, the yellow-haired man and the muscular man seemed to snap back to their senses. They turned to flee.

“Quick, make your Ghost Infants kill them! You can’t let them leave this instance alive!” Xiao Xiaoyu screamed. “They already know you’re the anomaly in this instance. If they return to the Main God Space and report this to the Main God, you’ll be the one who dies!”

Duan Wenyu really wanted to say that he had no idea how to control these Ghost Infants… Even though this thing had come out of his stomach, it wasn’t following his orders at all.

Zhou Fangdong heard what the little girl said and simply tapped on the three men on his screen.

Even if the girl hadn’t spoken, he would have controlled the Ghost Infants to kill them.

These three were pure scum.

The real-time feed the system broadcasted to him was like a surveillance network. While observing Duan Wenyu, Zhou Fangdong could see what was happening in every room of the funeral parlor.

Zhou Fangdong had seen exactly how those three had plotted to make Duan Wenyu and Xiao Xiaoyu their Scapegoats.

Because searching for paper effigies in this instance carried a fifty percent risk of death, choosing living players within the same instance to serve as their Scapegoats was much safer. It just so happened that the reward the three of them had obtained in the previous instance was a charm that could transfer curses.

However, this curse-transferring charm required the curse to be triggered first before it could be moved, so they still needed to find the paper effigies.

But with Duan Wenyu and Xiao Xiaoyu as their safety net, they had become much bolder. If they pulled a Scapegoat paper effigy, they would use it to leave the instance; if they pulled a life-taking vengeful ghost, they would find Duan Wenyu and Xiao Xiaoyu to transfer the curse.

The three of them were merely teammates in name, harboring their own hidden agendas. The bruises and swelling on the buzz-cut man’s face had been caused by the yellow-haired man and the muscular man. Since Duan Wenyu and Xiao Xiaoyu could only serve as Scapegoats for two people, one of the three still had to risk being killed by a vengeful ghost to find a paper effigy that could serve as their own Scapegoat.

Thus, the buzz-cut man had been cast out of the group.

As luck would have it, the first paper effigy he encountered was a life-taking ghost, but he happened to run into the corridor where Duan Wenyu was. After using a hate-transferring item on Duan Wenyu, he had teleported away instantly, escaping the paper effigy’s pursuit.

Although the buzz-cut man was no longer in the corridor, he couldn’t escape the pursuit of the child ghost from Room 102.

Now that the Instance Erosion was complete, the instance originally titled ‘Scapegoat’ had completely become the home turf of the Ghost Infants.

Every time the forest-green ghost fire flickered, a Ghost Infant would be born from the shadows created by the shifting light. In Room 102 of the Liwan Apartments, the number of Ghost Infants could be counted on one hand, but in this funeral parlor, they seemed capable of infinite multiplication. Wherever there were shadows, Ghost Infants existed.

Furthermore, the temperament of these Ghost Infants had become exceptionally savage.

Outside the apartments, the child ghost seemed to have become the leader of the Ghost Infants. It didn’t lean toward burning things with ghost fire like its four older sisters; having starved to death, it preferred to use its mouth to tear and devour its prey…

Just as Xiao Xiaoyu finished telling Duan Wenyu to kill the yellow-haired and muscular men, she saw the pitch-black deformed mass that had crawled out of Duan Wenyu’s belly stretch and grow tall like a piece of highly malleable clay. It transformed into a tall, slender, black humanoid monster that reached the ceiling.

On its pitch-black face, where no features could be seen, a massive crack appeared, revealing rows upon rows of hideous teeth arranged like the rotating blades of a meat grinder.

It simply leaned down slightly and swallowed the yellow-haired man and the muscular man, who were standing frozen in terror, in a single bite.

The stomach-churning sound of grinding meat emanated from its closed mouth. Once the sound faded, its form began to shrink, reverting back to the half-person-tall deformed mass from before.

Meanwhile, its Ghost Infant sisters had also found the buzz-cut man hiding on the second floor of the funeral parlor.

The Ghost Infants swarmed over him. Amidst the sound of rustling gnawing, the buzz-cut man’s figure gradually vanished.

Devouring these three Infinite Flow⁴ Players was not the end; the Ghost Infants began a carpet search for the vengeful ghosts within the instance.

Exaggerated sounds of chewing echoed throughout the funeral parlor, as if one had accidentally stumbled into a buffet restaurant hosting a competitive eating contest.

Finally, after confirming that no ghosts remained in the instance, the overwhelming swarm of Ghost Infants returned to the corridor where Duan Wenyu stood, merging back into the black mass of flesh by his legs.

Then, the deformed black mass crawled up Duan Wenyu’s pant leg to his waist and burrowed back into his stomach.

Duan Wenyu stared silently at his flat belly.

Xiao Xiaoyu stared silently at his flat belly.

The two of them looked up and met each other’s eyes at the same time. Then, Xiao Xiaoyu dragged her broken leg and silently took a step back.

“Um, listen, I can explain…”

“It’s nothing, no need to explain. I was the one who failed to recognize a master,” Xiao Xiaoyu said, respectfully cupping her hands toward him. “Big boss, can we go out now?”

Duan Wenyu’s expression was incredibly conflicted.

He didn’t know if they could go out now either.

[Congratulations to the host for successfully eroding another Main God Supernatural Instance!]

A pop-up window appeared before Zhou Fangdong’s eyes. For some reason, the system seemed particularly joyful this time, even setting off several small digital fireworks next to the window.

[Instance Erosion triggered by a tenant cannot be converted into apartment facilities. The ghost of Room 102 has completely destroyed the Main God instance. Rewards are being converted…]

[Recalling the tenant of Room 102…]

[Detected that the tenant of Room 102 brought back an Infinite Flow Player when exiting the instance. Automatically stripping the Points System from said player.]

[Successfully captured the Points Systems of four official players. Rewards are being calculated…]

For some unknown reason, the calculation for this Instance Erosion reward took an exceptionally long time.

Just as Zhou Fangdong was growing impatient and preparing to head to Room 102 to see if Duan Wenyu had returned, the system’s reward window finally appeared.

Upon seeing the first few lines of the reward pop-up, Zhou Fangdong froze in his tracks.

[Infinite Flow Player Xiao Xiaoyu has been automatically converted into a tenant.]

[Detected that Room 105 is vacant. Utilizing excess energy obtained from the Instance Erosion to clean the room…]

[Detected that this Infinite Flow Player possesses a half-ghost constitution and carries “Yin-Yang Eyes” and “Soul-Binding Rope.” She can coexist peacefully with the ghosts in the room; no Tenant Rules need to be established.]

[Xiao Xiaoyu has been settled into Room 105.]

[New Tenant Illustrated Guide unlocked: Special Tenant—The Infinite Flow Player Hunted by the Main God.]

Translator’s Notes