Chapter 20

The system pop-ups were flooding his vision. With Duan Wenyu standing right there, Zhou Fangdong couldn’t afford to stay silent for too long to examine them closely, so he dismissed them all for the time being.

Zhou Fangdong took the key to Room 102 out of the [Landlord’s Key] ring and handed it to Duan Wenyu, instructing him, “Keep this key safe. Tenants who possess a room key will not be attacked by the apartment’s ghosts while walking through the building. If you forget the Tenant Rules, you can check the desk in your room; there’s a backup copy there.”

Duan Wenyu looked around the room blankly, seeing no furniture at all.

Room 102 was spotless—so clean it looked like a bare-bones shell that had just received its first coat of white paint. In this vast, empty two-bedroom apartment, his voice even produced an echo.

Realizing he had misspoken, Zhou Fangdong coughed awkwardly. “I’ve already ordered new furniture. It should be delivered shortly. Before it arrives, you can take the bus out to buy some food.”

Duan Wenyu nodded. “I understand.”

In truth, he really wanted to go outside and see for himself.

Although the countdown on his point system had vanished while inside the apartment, if it reappeared the moment he left, it would mean he was destined to stay in this ghost building for the rest of his life. That would be no different from a life sentence.

Furthermore, Duan Wenyu wanted to interact with others to see if he was still in that state of being isolated from the world now that the point system was gone.

Seeing that Duan Wenyu had no further questions, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to his own room.

Once back, he finally had the time to carefully read through the system pop-ups from earlier.

After reading the [Hidden Mission], Zhou Fangdong asked in confusion, “What exactly is this Main God System?”

【It is a system similar to myself.】

【The Main God System does not have its own world, but it can erode other worlds. It exploits loopholes in other worlds to create supernatural incidents and drag humans into them. The Main God System refers to these supernatural incidents as ‘Instances,’ using them to select ‘Players’ who can generate energy for it.】

After hearing the system’s answer, Zhou Fangdong frowned slightly. “Ordinary people have no way to fight back against ghosts. Forcing them into supernatural incidents is just sending them to their deaths, isn’t it? How is the Main God System’s operation any different from a terrorist carrying out an attack?”

The system responded to Zhou Fangdong’s complaint with a rare display of emotion; its cold, mechanical electronic voice actually carried a very human sense of loathing:

【Correct. The Main God System is a disgusting terrorist with no bottom line—reckless, disaster-prone, and fond of stealing from others.】

For a moment, Zhou Fangdong didn’t know what to say.

That was quite a lot of resentment… Could his property management system have some deep-seated blood feud with that Main God System?

Zhou Fangdong suddenly thought of something and asked, “By the way, since that Main God creates supernatural instances to screen players, if someone successfully clears an instance and becomes an official player, are they taken away by the Main God System?”

【Yes. Official players are pulled into the Main God Space and can never return to their original world.】

【Under the Main God’s threats and inducements, these players will continuously clear supernatural instances across various worlds until they die. The act of players clearing instances to earn points is how the Main God System steals energy from other worlds.】

Hearing this, Zhou Fangdong fully understood why his system hated the Main God System so much.

This Main God System wasn’t just a terrorist; it was a combination of a human trafficker and a black-hearted capitalist.

If the Main God System were allowed to run rampant without interference, there probably wouldn’t be many living people left in this world… and if there were no people, the rooms in Liwan Apartments would never be rented out.

At this thought, Zhou Fangdong felt a sense of crisis.

He didn’t want to be trapped in Liwan Apartments forever.

Zhou Fangdong re-read the hidden mission carefully and asked, “The progress for capturing point systems is currently 1/100. Is the one already captured the one that was on Duan Wenyu?”

【Yes. After the Tenant Contract was signed, the point system on Duan Wenyu was stripped away by the apartment.】

Zhou Fangdong’s brow furrowed.

If the point system could only be captured after signing a Tenant Contract, things would be difficult… He couldn’t clear out 99 rooms in a short amount of time. Moreover, there were only six rooms left on the first floor, and he currently had no idea how to reach the second floor.

“System, is there any other way to capture point systems besides signing a Tenant Contract?”

【The Host may check the furniture procurement app.】

【Purchasing furniture from the Guijia Furniture Store has the same effect as signing a Rental Contract for Liwan Apartments. The furniture store can strip the point system first, then transfer it to Liwan Apartments.】

【The furniture store exists because of Liwan Apartments. The store manager will follow the Host’s commands completely, and all the Host needs to pay is a small amount of Ghost Coins.】

Zhou Fangdong opened the blue furniture procurement app and found that, in addition to the purchasing function, a new feature had been unlocked to issue tasks to the furniture store manager.

Issuing a task cost 30 Ghost Coins or 3 sticks of Offering Incense.

“System, what is Offering Incense?”

【Offering Incense: Incense sticks consecrated with the spiritual power or blood of a Heavenly Master. They have a powerful attraction for ghosts of any level. Offering Incense can repair a ghost’s damaged soul and provide a sense of satiety. Like spirit money and gold ingots, it is a hard currency popular in the underworld.】

What a practical item. He would have to research how to obtain this Offering Incense when he had time. With this, he could command the ghosts in the building. Perhaps he could even train an entire building of free janitors in the future.

Next, he just needed to wait for Duan Wenyu to return, ask him for the location of the selection instance he had experienced, and then issue a task to the furniture store manager.

Duan Wenyu was once a trainee player for the infinite flow system; there were surely many others like him who had been dragged into those selection instances.

Once he identified the remaining reserve players, he could use Ghost Coins to issue a quest to the furniture store manager. By having the manager sell furniture to them, Zhou Fangdong could successfully capture the point systems bound to them and complete the hidden mission.

With the path to completing the hidden mission clear, Zhou Fangdong relaxed and continued browsing the unlocked Tenant Illustrated Guide.

Tenant Illustrated Guide: [Special Tenant · Unlucky College Student]

Guide Description: An unlucky college student who managed to graduate only to be abducted by the human-trafficking Main God System. He desires freedom and a stable, ordinary life.

Traits: Possesses a resilient personality; no hardship can completely break him. He strictly follows the Tenant Rules. Although he is timid and easily frightened, he will gradually adapt to living with ghosts. Even if driven away, he will not terminate his lease.

Special Tenant Guide Unlock Reward: 【Low-grade Item · Linjiang City Map】

Zhou Fangdong took out the Linjiang City Map and checked the item description.

【Linjiang City Map】

Item Description: A reusable low-grade item. This map allows the user to track the locations of tenants outside the apartment.

This was a very useful item. If his tenants stayed out late, he could use this map to check their locations and determine if they had run into trouble.

Zhou Fangdong stored the 【Linjiang City Map】 into his inventory.

He checked his twelve-slot inventory. It currently contained: a Bus Monthly Pass, The Complete Guide to Linjiang City Fishing Spots, professional fishing gear, a low-grade talisman (Peace Talisman), Amulet x1, Ghost-Expelling Talisman x1, and now the 【Linjiang City Map】.

The Bus Monthly Pass, the fishing guide, and the fishing gear were all useless items that took up three slots.

Zhou Fangdong took them all out and tossed them into a corner of the room.

The inventory felt much cleaner now.

After completing Side Mission 2, he had earned 300 Ghost Coins, bringing his total to 340.

Zhou Fangdong then opened his character attribute panel.

The experience from the mission had leveled him up once. He had gained three attribute points, unlocked a new skill, and received a random skill point.

He didn’t plan on using the random skill point yet, intending to save it for upgrading other skills later.

Zhou Fangdong casually clicked on the newly unlocked skill.

Ever since he had seen through the system’s pay-to-win schemes, he no longer held any expectations for these early-game skills.

To his surprise, however, the system gave him a genuine shock this time.

【Skill 4: Bloodline Buff · Provider】

[Skill Description: Your Provider bloodline has awakened. By consuming half of your health bar, you can transform ordinary incense, candles, and joss paper into Offering Incense and Offering Paper Money. Offering Incense and Offering Paper Money have an irresistible attraction to ghosts; they are willing to pay Ghost Coins for them and will willingly submit to the commands of the Offering Incense holder.]

(Note: This is an exclusive skill and cannot be unequipped.)

(Note: Consuming half of the health bar is a fixed ratio for skill usage. Even if the health bar increases, the consumption ratio will not decrease.)

After reading the skill description, Zhou Fangdong felt the thrill of hitting the jackpot.

Even though using the skill once consumed half his health… it didn’t mention a limit on quantity!

If he went to a funeral parlor shop to buy a bulk load of incense and paper money, then turned around and sold them to the ghosts in the apartment…

Did this mean he would never have to worry about Ghost Coins again?

As if sensing his thoughts, the system’s cold electronic voice rang out again:

【The quantity is not unlimited. The amount of Offering Incense and candles formed is related to the amount of health consumed by the host. To produce more Offering Incense, the host can allocate attribute points to the Health Bar.】

Reminded by the system, Zhou Fangdong remembered he still had three unallocated attribute points from his level-up.

“System, put all three points into the Spirit Bar.”

【…?】

【Please confirm. Does the host wish to add attribute points to the Spirit Bar instead of the Health Bar?】

“Yes, put them in the Spirit Bar,” Zhou Fangdong repeated.

He wasn’t in a hurry to increase his health. Even if he added points now, it likely wouldn’t increase the quantity of Offering Incense by much.

Currently, his fastest way to earn Ghost Coins was to touch ghosts using mind reading and trigger the [Passive Skill: Plucking Feathers from a Passing Goose].

He was increasing his Spirit Bar primarily to reduce the side effects of using [Gentle Mind Reading].

While [Gentle Mind Reading] allowed him to touch ghosts, it also forced him to endure their lingering obsessions and memory fragments from when they were alive.

Just moments ago, when he was carrying those little ghosts in the apartment foyer, Zhou Fangdong had nearly been overwhelmed by the chaotic flood of emotions. Fortunately, those little ghosts were low-level entities with relatively shallow resentment.

If he were to pass out while trying to strip Ghost Coins from a high-level entity and be discovered by a tenant, it would be a massive embarrassment.

【3 attribute points have been added to the Spirit Bar.】

Once the points were allocated, Zhou Fangdong felt a noticeable improvement in his mental state. The negative emotions lingering from touching the little ghosts vanished completely.

After adding Duan Wenyu to his Special Watchlist, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental preview to see what his tenants were currently doing.

He wanted to send a free tenant out to a funeral shop to buy some incense and paper money so he could test the Provider skill.

To his surprise, none of his three tenants were in their rooms.

Zhao Dawei had gone to work at the furniture store, Duan Wenyu was out buying food, and Miao Zheng… wait, where did Miao Zheng go?

That morning, after Zhao Dawei had returned to his room to wash up and change into new clothes, he had left the apartment and boarded a bus. He successfully arrived at the Guijia Furniture Store before nine o’clock.

Before moving into Liwan Apartments, Zhao Dawei had heard of this furniture store. It had supposedly been shut down because the furniture sold there was haunted.

After the past two days of “training” in the suburbs, Zhao Dawei’s courage had grown significantly. His status as a tenant of Liwan Apartments gave him great confidence. At the very least, even knowing the store was full of ghosts, he was able to walk inside with a natural expression.

Before the rumors broke that the furniture was haunted, Guijia Furniture Store had been the most popular furniture shop in the country. Consequently, the entire building served as its storefront.

Unlike the Liwan Apartments, which were dilapidated inside and out, the Guijia Furniture Store appeared to be an abandoned skyscraper from the outside, but the interior was brightly lit. Aside from the excessive silence caused by the lack of customers, the decor looked exactly as it had during its prime.

As soon as Zhao Dawei stepped into the building, the store manager, dressed in a blue and white uniform, came out to greet him.

He looked at Zhao Dawei and said with a smile, “Mr. Zhao, you’ve arrived. You truly are a man of your word, a tenant worthy of being chosen by Liwan Apartments.”

Although the manager looked like a living person on the surface, his smile was incredibly stiff, and his facial features seemed to drift uncontrollably.

“Follow me. When there are no delivery tasks, I need you to help organize the furniture in the store.” The manager led Zhao Dawei toward the furniture warehouse in the back.

The store was arranged according to different living areas. The first floor was the bedroom section, divided into square spaces. Each space featured different types of furniture and bedding, set up like small bedrooms for customers to browse and test for sleep.

To create a cozy atmosphere, mannequin models were placed in each area. These mannequins came in various sizes, but they all shared one common trait: their faces were completely smooth, devoid of any features.

Zhao Dawei couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination, but as he followed the manager toward the warehouse, he felt as if those faceless mannequins were watching him.

The manager pushed open the heavy warehouse doors. The moment they swung wide, a wave of bone-chilling cold drifted out from within.

This familiar sensation made Zhao Dawei feel as if he had returned to the Delicious Slaughterhouse. The piercing chill emanating from the room was identical to the feeling of opening the doors to the freezer room.

Zhao Dawei shuddered instinctively.

Compared to the brightly lit storefront, the warehouse was much dimmer.

The ceilings were high, with a single story equivalent to the height of three floors outside. Because the ceiling was so high, the cold-toned lights fixed to it couldn’t reach the floor, leaving the area below in a state of gloom.

In this dim environment, walking among the alloy shelves packed with furniture felt like one could get completely lost inside, eventually becoming a piece of furniture themselves—placed on a shelf, never to leave.

Zhao Dawei stopped at the entrance, not daring to step further inside.

The manager didn’t seem to intend for him to go deep into the warehouse either. He pulled a leather chair out from under the shelf closest to the door.

Guijia Furniture Store had been sealed off for too long. Some of the shelves in the warehouse had collapsed, causing the stockpiled furniture to pile up and crush against each other, resulting in secondary damage.

Zhao Dawei’s job was to help organize the scattered furniture and, occasionally, stuff the ghosts that had fallen out of the furniture back inside.

For now, he only needed to tidy up the area nearest to the warehouse entrance; there was no need to go further in.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that…” Zhao Dawei’s face was a bit pale. “What did you say I occasionally need to do?”

“You need to stuff the ghosts that fell out back into the furniture,” the store manager said seriously. “Our store is reopening. Both the furniture and the ghosts need to greet the customers with a fresh and tidy appearance. Don’t worry, I’ll demonstrate how to do it.”

As he spoke, the manager gestured for Zhao Dawei to look at the chair in his hand.

It was a waist-high leather armchair. The leather on the backrest had been completely torn open due to scraping, revealing the hollowed-out cotton inside… The cavity where the cotton had been removed was, surprisingly, in the shape of a human.

“Like this…” The manager forcefully tore at the leather of the backrest, then dragged a mummy that looked like dried meat from under a nearby collapsed shelf. “See this human-shaped cavity in the cotton? Just stuff the ghost into the chair according to its original shape.”

He spoke while nimbly shoving the mummy inside. Then, he took a needle and thread from his pocket and skillfully sewed up the back of the chair.

“Do you understand?”

Zhao Dawei nodded dumbly.

“If you’re not skilled at it, you can take your time. we’re not looking for quantity, only quality.” The manager patted Zhao Dawei on the shoulder and handed him a toolbox from a nearby shelf.

“All the tools you need are inside. If you’re missing anything, just call me, and I’ll find it for you.”

In order not to embarrass the landlord, Zhao Dawei gritted his teeth and diligently performed the tasks assigned by the manager, even though his hands were trembling with fear.

Zhao Dawei discovered that he could actually touch the ghosts in this furniture store.

When he moved in and out of Liwan Apartments, there were so many ghosts in the hallways—often hanging from the ceiling or growing out of the floor—that he would sometimes bump into them if he couldn’t dodge in time.

However, the ghosts in Liwan Apartments had no physical form; even if he touched them, it felt like passing through a gust of icy wind.

But in this furniture store, Zhao Dawei could feel the ghosts as tangibly as he could feel the furniture.

The unfortunate middle-aged man tried his best to ignore the strange sensations in his hands as he focused all his efforts on repairing the furniture.

The simplest repair task was stuffing ghosts into wardrobes or helping them crawl back under beds.

Medium difficulty involved stuffing ghosts with fixed shapes into chairs or back into mattresses. These ghosts that parasitized chairs or mattresses had bodies like weathered mummies; their joints were stiff and impossible to bend, requiring the entire leather of the chair to be torn open… and that leather was very difficult to sew.

However, the hardest part was stuffing ghosts that had turned into mush back into steel pipes… because these “mush ghosts” liked to fuse with their own kind. Picking them up resulted in a cold, slimy mass, making it difficult to distinguish which pile of meat belonged to which ghost.

Fortunately, just as Zhao Dawei was standing helplessly before a large puddle of ghost matter, the manager walked in.

“An order just came in from Liwan Apartments. It’s for the furniture in Room 102. Go and make the delivery.”

The manager led Zhao Dawei to the back door of the furniture store.

Stepping out the back door led to the furniture store’s parking lot. Three vehicles were parked there: a pickup truck painted deep blue, a large truck in blue and white livery, and a bus that looked strangely familiar.

The manager pointed at the pickup and said to Zhao Dawei, “The furniture and everything else have been packed and loaded onto the truck bed. You just need to sit in the driver’s seat. You don’t need to operate the vehicle, and you don’t need to carry any furniture. Just sit there and wait for the truck to start.”

“Also, it’s working hours now, so there’s no need for you to get out and follow up on such a small order. Once you arrive at Liwan Apartments, you are not allowed to open the door or leave the driver’s seat.”

“While the vehicle is in motion, remember: no matter what happens, do not step on the brakes…” At this point, the manager’s voice suddenly turned cold, emphasizing every word. “If you step on the brakes, even as a tenant of Liwan Apartments, your safety cannot be guaranteed.”

As he spoke, his thick-browed, large-eyed features became completely flat, like melting oil paint. His facial features began to slide slowly down his smooth cheeks.

Zhao Dawei took a terrified step back, but the moment he increased the distance, the abnormality on the manager vanished, as if it had all been a hallucination.

Zhao Dawei wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

It seemed the manager of this furniture store wasn’t a living person either…

In short, the most important thing about transporting this furniture was that his backside couldn’t leave the seat, and he couldn’t brake. With the lesson learned from the Delicious Slaughterhouse fresh in his mind, Zhao Dawei decided to follow the manager’s instructions to the letter and do nothing extra.

Fortunately, Zhao Dawei successfully made it to Liwan Apartments.

The truck was just as the manager had described during the recruitment: it could drive itself. Zhao Dawei didn’t need to touch the steering wheel or the accelerator at all. Although there were indeed strange noises along the way and it felt like he had sent quite a few people flying, he kept the manager’s warning in mind and never touched the brakes.

After the pickup stopped in front of Liwan Apartments for a while, followed by several heavy thuds of items hitting the ground, the vehicle restarted on its own and brought Zhao Dawei back to the Guijia Furniture Store.

By the time this new batch of furniture arrived at Liwan Apartments, Duan Wenyu from Room 102 had also returned from buying food.

In order to get information about the other Infinite Stream player candidates from him, Zhou Fangdong had arrived at the apartment entrance early to wait for his return.

Before Duan Wenyu returned, Zhou Fangdong had scouted the entire first floor, trying to see if Miao Zheng was in one of the rooms.

However, he couldn’t find a trace of her.

Zhou Fangdong had also used his newly acquired item, the Linjiang City Map, but he didn’t see Miao Zheng on it. This meant she hadn’t left Liwan Apartments at all.

So where did Miao Zheng go?

The last time he had seen her was yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning, after Zhou Fangdong finished using Gentle Mind Reading on the brat in Room 102, he had run into Miao Zheng in the hallway, carrying her camera and drone.

She had looked very happy then, saying she was going outside the apartment to take some panoramic shots.

He had set up broadband for Miao Zheng and gained 80 Favorability from her. After that, he had entered the Roleplay Task for Room 102 and stayed there until this morning.

Now it was almost noon, and Miao Zheng was still nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, the system hadn’t issued any notifications that her life was in danger.

Zhou Fangdong pulled up the Special Tenant Watchlist and checked Miao Zheng’s movement logs from yesterday.

Yesterday, after filming the panorama outside the apartment, she had returned to Room 109 before noon. Then, around nine o’clock at night, she had left her room again, and there was no further movement information after that.

Zhou Fangdong truly admired the courage of this supernatural streamer. Nighttime was when ghosts and monsters were most active—a fact even children knew—yet Miao Zheng had dared to leave her room at night.

Since there was no immediate danger to her life, Miao Zheng was likely trapped somewhere in the apartment… He would search for her thoroughly after handling the matter with Duan Wenyu.

Duan Wenyu walked through the apartment gates carrying the food he bought from the supermarket, his steps uneven and light, feeling as if he were in a dream.

After signing the Tenant Contract, he had returned to normal! Not only had the countdown in front of his eyes vanished, but other people could see him again. He could interact with the world just like before!

Duan Wenyu suddenly felt like crying.

The ordinary daily life that used to be so easily accessible felt exceptionally precious now that it had been recovered.

Standing at the apartment entrance, Zhou Fangdong took the groceries from Duan Wenyu’s hands. “I’ll help you take these back to Room 102. I need your help with something; I need you to go out one more time.”

Duan Wenyu nodded vigorously, the fear in his eyes replaced by a hint of fanaticism. “Please, give me your orders, Mr. Landlord! As long as it’s something I can do, I will give it my all!”

“It’s nothing too troublesome. I just need you to go to a funeral shop and buy some incense, candles, joss paper, and gold ingots. I’ll reimburse you for the money when you get back.”

“Right, no problem!” Duan Wenyu agreed repeatedly and turned to leave.

Zhou Fangdong quickly called him back. “Wait, I have one more thing to ask… You must know others like yourself who were chosen as Infinite Stream player candidates and have a point system, right?”

“Tell me, where are they?”

Duan Wenyu snapped his head up, his gaze locking with those dark, deep eyes.

Those profound eyes seemed to see right through his soul. All the pain and resentment in his heart felt as if they were being peeled open one by one, fully exposed before this landlord.

His soul, which had already fallen into the abyss, felt as though it was being lifted by a gentle force, pulling him away from that boundless despair and agony.

—This Mr. Landlord knew his thoughts and his every need. He hadn’t just given him sanctuary and allowed him to escape the curse of that point system; he also wanted to help him unconditionally and save his friends.

Duan Wenyu felt his heart begin to thud uncontrollably.

This was no “ghost building landlord” at all…

Duan Wenyu looked at Zhou Fangdong, his voice trembling and choked with emotion. “Please, I beg you, save my classmates. They’re all trapped in the school auditorium right now…”

Translator’s Notes

• joss paper: Also known as ‘ghost money’ or ‘spirit money,’ these are paper crafts burned as offerings in Chinese ancestral worship and traditional folk religion to provide the deceased with funds in the afterlife.