Chapter 21

After delivering the furniture to Liwan Apartments, Zhao Dawei returned to the Guijia Furniture Store.

The pickup truck pulled steadily into the parking lot. The driver’s side door popped open, and Zhao Dawei hopped out.

It was already noon, and he hadn’t eaten a thing all day. His stomach growled uncontrollably.

As he walked toward the back door of the furniture store, Zhao Dawei pinched the fat on his belly, trying to combat the hunger by sucking it in.

Just then, the elusive store manager suddenly poked his head out from around a corner and said to Zhao Dawei, “Another big order came in from Liwan Apartments. They need over a hundred chairs delivered to the auditorium at Linjiang Agricultural University.”

At that exact moment, Zhao Dawei’s stomach let out another loud, hungry rumble.

The manager paused, his gaze shifting downward toward the protruding beer belly. “Are you raising a Ghost Infant in your stomach? Keeping pets is fine, but please do not play with them during working hours.”

Zhao Dawei looked embarrassed. “No, I’m not raising anything. I’m just hungry…”

A look of realization dawned on the manager’s face. “My apologies. I have been dead for so long that I forgot humans need to eat.” With that, he turned and hurried into the nearby warehouse.

After a bit of rustling, the manager emerged holding a bag of food.

“This is your staff meal for today. Eat it in the vehicle while you make the delivery. That big order for Liwan Apartments is quite urgent.”

Zhao Dawei rummaged through the bag and found some bread and milk.

Although the expiration dates looked suspicious, the bread packaging wasn’t bloated, and there were no signs of mold on the surface.

He wasn’t about to be picky now; as long as it filled his stomach, it was fine.

Zhao Dawei returned to the parking lot. Just as he was about to climb back into the pickup truck, the manager called out to him, “Take the big lorry.”

The back door of the furniture store was cracked open just a sliver. The manager huddled in the shadows behind the door, speaking in a low, eerie voice. “There are too many pieces of furniture in this order; the pickup won’t fit them all. The children have already moved all the chairs into the back of the lorry.”

“The lorry’s driving code is posted on the driver’s side window. Read it thoroughly and memorize it. The ones you’re delivering this time are all children; they might be a bit rowdy, but just ignore them.”

Before Zhao Dawei could ask what he meant by “children,” the manager retreated back into the darkness.

He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but it felt as though the manager’s body was becoming increasingly stiff as time went on. Even his facial features looked as if they had been painted on… he was practically a living mannequin.

However, having long since grown accustomed to the oddities of the furniture store, Zhao Dawei wasn’t overly surprised. He located the large lorry, pulled open the door, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

The driving code inside the vehicle was very prominent, taking up nearly half of the windshield.

Zhao Dawei’s eyes immediately landed on the first rule. He quickly set his food aside and scrambled to buckle his seatbelt.

[Guijia Furniture Store Lorry Driving Code]

1. Fasten your seatbelt immediately upon entering the vehicle.

2. Do not stop the vehicle or open the windows during delivery.

3. No matter what you hear, do not step on the brakes—even if you hit someone, and even if there are screams coming from the back of the lorry.

4. Do not remove the red cloth covering the rearview mirror.

5. Do not tear down this driving code.

6. Do not turn on the windshield wipers, even in heavy rain.

7. Do not open the doors at will after boarding. Wait for the doors to open automatically before exiting.

Zhao Dawei scanned the list quickly, committing the rules to memory.

The vehicle started up slowly. Since there was absolutely nothing for him to do as a driver, he pulled a loaf of bread from the bag on the passenger seat and began to eat contentedly.

After driving for about twenty minutes, whispers suddenly began to drift from the back of the lorry.

Zhao Dawei, who had been feeling drowsy after eating his fill, was jolted awake.

To prevent himself from accidentally hitting the brakes out of fear, he pulled his feet back as far as he could and covered his ears tightly.

Yet even with his ears covered, the whispering voices still drifted in clearly.

“Finally out of that warehouse! I was suffocating in there. Where are we going this time? We won’t be returned again, will we?”

“Hehe, this is an order from the apartments. The apartments never return items. I wonder if there are any empty rooms left there; I really want a room of my own.”

“Forget it. There are so many powerful ghosts in those apartments; things like us couldn’t even snatch a room on the first floor.”

“But I heard the manager say we aren’t going to the apartments, but to some agricultural college.”

“What’s an agricultural college? Is it a university? We don’t even have middle school diplomas; can we get into a university?”

“You idiot, we’re all ghosts now. Is there anywhere we can’t go?”

“Waaaah, it hurts… it hurts so much… it’s so dark here… Mommy, Daddy, why haven’t you come for me yet… it hurts…”

“The crybaby is crying again! Hahaha, shame on you!”

“Damn that school, damn that auditorium! I hate that I’m trapped in this chair. If I ever find out who oversaw the construction of that school auditorium, I’ll crush their bones and flesh inch by inch, and use their meat and soul to make a chair…”

“Restrain your resentment; don’t scare off the customers. If no one buys us, we’ll be trapped in these damn chairs forever.”

“I hope we don’t get returned again. I’ve had enough of the warehouse. Sitting still in a chair like this is unbearable.”

“Waaaah, I want to go home… Mommy… Daddy…”

…

Throughout the drive to the agricultural college, the noise in the back never stopped. It was as if a hundred energetic children were chattering in his ear. By the end of it, Zhao Dawei felt like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Teachers really are noble, he thought, to be able to patiently instruct such noisy children.

From listening to them along the way, Zhao Dawei had pieced together the origin of these chairs.

They likely came from a middle school auditorium. Due to a shoddy construction project¹, a group of children who had just started middle school had met untimely deaths, and their souls had become tethered to the chairs.

Zhao Dawei sighed. It was quite pitiful, leaving the world at such a young age.

The furniture store lorry arrived at the gates of Linjiang Agricultural University.

It was currently summer break. Furthermore, because over two hundred graduates had vanished into thin air from the auditorium during the graduation ceremony, the entire university was deserted. Only patrol cars from the Bureau of Paranormal Oversight were circling the vicinity.

However, when the furniture store lorry reached the cordoned-off school gates, the investigators on guard didn’t even ask a single question. They simply raised the barrier and let it through.

Zhao Dawei, who happened to be looking out the window, caught a glimpse of an investigator’s face. For a split second, it seemed to transform into the smooth face of a mannequin.

The lorry proceeded without hindrance and stopped in front of the auditorium.

Sitting inside, Zhao Dawei could hear the sound of the back tailgate being dismantled by something. This was followed by the sound of heavy objects hitting the ground and the screech of chairs scraping against the pavement…

After a long while, Zhao Dawei looked through the window, his jaw dropping. He watched as rows of wooden chairs, coated in shiny red lacquer, lined up in an orderly fashion. They moved their four legs, waddling and shuffling their way into the auditorium.

Once the last chair had entered the building, the driver’s side door swung open.

Zhao Dawei hesitated for a moment, then picked up the delivery slip and climbed down.

Since this wasn’t a delivery for Liwan Apartments, the manager had instructed him that he needed the customer to sign for it upon successful delivery.

…He had to collect over a hundred signatures.

Zhao Dawei felt his life was truly bitter.

He just hoped the customer wouldn’t return the items; the return process was even more of a headache to handle.

Zhang Shan was an ordinary graduate of the College of Agriculture at Linjiang Agricultural University. He should have graduated this year, but instead, he was trapped inside the auditorium. He had been chosen by something called the Main God System and forced to play a life-and-death game of Werewolf² with ghosts.

Even now, Zhang Shan felt like he was dreaming.

No, he couldn’t have conjured such an absurd plot even in his wildest dreams.

After they had narrowly won the game, the Main God’s Points System still refused to let go of the victorious students.

A countdown from the Points System hovered constantly before their eyes, informing them that once the timer hit zero, they would have to return to this auditorium for another selection trial.

Because of this damned system, they were completely isolated from the rest of the world. Not only were they unable to contact the outside, but no one else could see them.

The countdown lasted a total of three days. If they hadn’t been able to exchange for food for free through the Points System, these students would likely have starved to death.

Among the surviving students, some had been unable to cope with the psychological trauma of seeing their companions die and chose to commit suicide by jumping off buildings even after their victory. Some local students simply chose to go home and spend their final hours with their parents. The rest had utterly resigned themselves to fate, staying in the auditorium with cold, heavy hearts as they awaited the arrival of the next life-and-death game.

Just as the entire auditorium was shrouded in an atmosphere of stifling despair, a sound suddenly erupted from outside the doors.

Zhang Shan looked toward the noise and saw brand-new red chairs waddling through the door one by one.

It was a grotesque scene, as if invisible people were sitting on these chairs, shuffling them forward.

The students in the auditorium were stunned. They stood up in terror, watching in shock as the chairs moved on their own.

Was this the next selection game? But the countdown in front of them hadn’t ended yet… What on earth was going on with these chairs?

Since the students were all gathered on the stage in the center of the auditorium, the chairs had a clear target. They aimed for the graduates and slowly scooted right up to them.

There were clearly more chairs than graduates in the auditorium, and a few chairs even started fighting each other to claim a student.

The defeated chairs lay dejectedly on the floor, the red paint on their frames visibly dulling.

“Sorry, sorry! Sorry to keep you waiting!”

While the graduates stared dumbfounded at the red chairs parked in front of them, a middle-aged man carrying a notebook ran into the auditorium, panting for breath.

“Hello, I’m the deliveryman from Guijia Furniture Store. The chairs have been successfully delivered. Please sign for the order.”

The students were startled once again. They stared blankly at Zhao Dawei as he spoke to them, their expressions uniform in their disbelief.

He… he could see them?!

Zhang Shan looked at Zhao Dawei standing right next to him. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he said in a hoarse voice, “We… I don’t think we ordered any chairs.”

Zhao Dawei wiped the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead with a handkerchief and handed over the delivery slip and a pen. “A customer named Duan Wenyu ordered them for you. You don’t need to pay; you just need to sign right here.”

Duan Wenyu?

Zhang Shan’s eyes widened. He grabbed Zhao Dawei’s arm. “How is Duan Wenyu doing? What’s the deal with these chairs he ordered for us?”

Duan Wenyu had left the auditorium that morning, saying he wanted to see if there was a way to suppress the curse of the Points System.

Now these self-moving chairs had appeared, along with a middle-aged man who could see them… Had Duan Wenyu actually found a solution?

“Young man, I know you’re anxious, but take it easy… I just started this job today, I’m still getting the hang of things…” Zhao Dawei hurriedly flipped through the delivery slips until he found the standard answers for customer questions in the employee handbook.

“Duan Wenyu is currently a tenant at Liwan Apartments. These chairs are special furniture he ordered for you. You only need to sit on the chairs to signify your acceptance of them. After that, you just sign the delivery slip to finalize the purchase contract, and the chairs will bear the curse on your behalf. Afterward, I’ll give you the maintenance instructions for the chairs…”

Zhang Shan became even more excited. “You mean, as long as we sit on the chairs, the system curse on us will be resolved?”

“Theoretically, yes…”

Before Zhao Dawei could finish, every student in the auditorium grabbed the chair in front of them and sat down. Their movements were so perfectly synchronized it looked like they had rehearsed it.

“The countdown is gone! It’s really gone!!!”

“My god, I must be dreaming. I’m actually free from that Points System…”

“Wait, why does the countdown reappear when I stand up?”

“We need to sign! We haven’t signed yet—give me the delivery slip, I want to sign!”

Zhao Dawei was instantly swarmed by the frantic students. The scene made him hallucinate a zombie apocalypse.

“Take it slow, line up! Everyone can sign… Don’t mix up the chairs you just sat on. Bring your chair with you to sign here—”

After signing, the students fell into a state of pure ecstasy. Some embraced and wept, some jumped and danced on the stage, and others immediately called their families to cry about the bizarre ordeal they had survived.

Zhao Dawei awkwardly smoothed out his rumpled suit. It was his only suit, and it had nearly been torn to shreds by the excited college students.

Though Zhang Shan was also thrilled, he didn’t lose his head like the others.

He remembered Zhao Dawei mentioning maintenance instructions, so he reached out to him. “Give the maintenance instructions to me. I’ll distribute them later. It’ll take them a while to calm down, so don’t let them delay your work.”

“Right, right. Thank you so much.” Zhao Dawei wiped his sweat again and pulled a stack of papers from his backpack. “Please make sure to distribute these. Our company will not be held responsible for any issues arising from a failure to follow the maintenance protocols.”

“Understood.” Zhang Shan took the stack and quickly scanned the contents.

[Guijia Furniture Store Chair Maintenance Rules]

1. The chair requires one hour of outdoor activity daily (walking, running, or hiking are all acceptable).

2. The chair requires three sticks of incense daily to maintain the luster of its paint (standard incense from a funeral shop is fine; if using Offering Incense, once a week is sufficient).

3. The chair will bear all curses on its owner’s behalf and bind you firmly to this world. Please treat the chair well and chat with it occasionally (if you don’t have time to talk, you can play videos for the chair on a tablet; most chairs enjoy cartoons).

4. While in possession of the chair, you are immune to harassment from ghosts and monsters. Any noises the chair makes at night are normal.

5. Should you encounter a ghost that the chair cannot handle, do not worry; the Manager of Guijia Furniture Store will personally provide after-sales service.

6. If the maintenance rules are violated, the chair will become you, and you will become the chair.

After reading the rules, Zhang Shan felt cold sweat pouring down his back.

This didn’t feel like buying a chair; it felt more like raising a ghost.

However, just as Duan Wenyu had said, only a curse more vicious than the Points System could completely suppress it. No matter what the future held, at the very least, they were alive… That was right. They had survived. They no longer had to worry about being dragged into games with ghosts by that system.

Zhang Shan took a deep breath and solemnly promised Zhao Dawei, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure these rules reach every single student.”

Zhao Dawei nodded with relief. After double-checking the signatures, he walked toward the few chairs that had lost the fight earlier.

As he approached the chairs lying on the ground, Zhao Dawei thought he could faintly hear the sound of a child crying.

He pulled out the delivery log and found the solution for the current situation.

—If there are extra chairs, there is no need to return them to the furniture store; they can be delivered directly to the customer.

It seemed he needed to transport these extra chairs to the Liwan Apartments.

Looking at the chairs slumped on the ground, looking listless and bedraggled, Zhao Dawei could almost see several children huddled on the floor, weeping.

He couldn’t help but think of his own two children who had died in an accident, and his voice softened. “Don’t worry, you won’t be returned. You don’t have to go back to the furniture store warehouse. I’ll take you to the Liwan Apartments.”

Hearing this, the chairs “fluttered” upright and rushed out of the auditorium even faster than they had arrived.

A fatherly smile appeared on Zhao Dawei’s face as he followed the chairs out of the hall.

By the time the furniture store truck drove back to the Liwan Apartments, Duan Wenyu had already returned with a large pile of incense, candles, and joss paper.

Because his foot was injured, he had been dragging his limping leg back and forth for several trips. After handing the supplies over to Zhou Fangdong, Duan Wenyu was so exhausted that he collapsed onto the bed in Room 102 and fell fast asleep.

When the truck arrived at the apartments, Zhou Fangdong signed for the extra chairs on Duan Wenyu’s behalf.

The moment he finished signing, a system notification popped up:

[Hidden Quest ①: Find a Stable Supply Chain – Completed]

[Current Progress: Capture Infinite Flow Points System 114/100]

[Hidden Quest over-completed, rewards doubled.]

[Hidden Quest Rewards: 300 Ghost Coins x2, Room 104 Ghost Clues x2, Convenience Store Employee Name Tags x2]

Zhou Fangdong’s gaze was firmly locked onto the “300 Ghost Coins x2.”

Excluding the 30 Ghost Coins he had spent to issue the quest to the furniture store owner, he now had a total of 910 Ghost Coins in his hand!

Zhou Fangdong suddenly felt a great sense of accomplishment. It hadn’t been easy, but he was finally wealthy; he was no longer that poor ghost who couldn’t even bear to spend 30 Ghost Coins!

Once the rewards were in hand, Zhou Fangdong immediately bought two Ghost Expelling Talismans. Combined with the one he already had, he now possessed three.

He planned to distribute these three Ghost Expelling Talismans to his tenants once they all returned in the evening.

Speaking of tenants, Zhou Fangdong thought of Miao Zheng, who had been missing for nearly the entire day.

Seeing that evening was approaching, he wondered how she was doing.

The cold electronic voice of the system rang out again:

[Ding—Detected that Hidden Quest ① is complete. Hidden Quest ② is now open.]

[Hidden Quest ②: Clear out an apartment room to serve as a convenience store storefront.]

Clear a room… Zhou Fangdong looked at the [Room 104 Ghost Clues] rewarded from the first quest and decided to clear out Room 104 next.

Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized something and asked, “System, if I choose to clear Room 104 for Hidden Quest ②, will it still trigger a side quest during the cleaning process?”

[No. Side quests require renting out the cleaned room. A room that has become a convenience store storefront cannot be rented out, so it will not trigger a side quest.]

Fair enough.

It was a bit of a pity; he had thought he could exploit one room to get two sets of quest rewards, but the system was shrewder than he had imagined.

The task of clearing the room could wait until tomorrow. For now, he wanted to use his [Provider] skill to find out how much Offering Incense he could produce with half a Health Bar.

Before leaving the foyer, Zhou Fangdong looked at the seven red chairs by the apartment entrance.

His Skill 3 was always active. Through his “Living Person Filter,” he saw seven children in school uniforms sitting on those chairs—two girls and five boys, all appearing to be around twelve or thirteen years old.

Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment, then pointed to the corridor to the left of the elevator and said to them, “See that corridor over there? There are children about your age there. You can go over and play soccer with them. You can move around the corridor as you like, but do not enter the rooms on the first floor. Most of the rooms here are already occupied.”

The children on the chairs nodded in unison.

One of the short-haired girls tried jumping off her chair. Upon discovering she could leave it, she happily hugged another girl and started crying.

The boys also looked incredibly excited, hoisting their chairs and rushing toward the left corridor.

Seeing this, Zhou Fangdong didn’t disturb them further and teleported directly back to his room.

Duan Wenyu was a very honest man; he had literally dragged a lame leg around to buy two large burlap sacks of incense and joss paper for him.

Thinking of Duan Wenyu’s foot injury, Zhou Fangdong opened the Favorability interface, clicked on Miao Zheng’s name, and claimed the rewards for her 80 Favorability.

—1-month free broadband voucher, 30 Ghost Coin mobile data package, basic medical kit, and a “Spend 30 get 20 off” food delivery coupon.

To prevent these items from taking up space in his Inventory, Zhou Fangdong took them all out and placed them on his desk.

Then, he opened the basic medical kit.

Inside were some basic medicines: cold medicine, fever reducers, anti-inflammatories, painkillers, iodophor, alcohol, and bandages.

Duan Wenyu’s foot had been sprained after accidentally falling off the auditorium stage; there was no obvious external wound, just a bruised ankle.

Zhou Fangdong picked up the bandages from the kit.

As soon as he touched them, an item description popped up.

[Ordinary Bandages]

[Has all the effects of ordinary bandages. Remaining uses: 3]

(Note: Has a special effect when used on apartment tenants; can directly repair a tenant’s physical injuries.)

After reading the description, Zhou Fangdong nodded and tossed the bandages into his Inventory.

He would use the bandages on Duan Wenyu tomorrow; it was quite inconvenient for him to be limping around all the time.

After tidying up his items, Zhou Fangdong pulled a box of incense out of the burlap sack.

It was standard red offering incense, 32 centimeters long, with six bundles per box, totaling 222 sticks.

Given the system’s stinginess, Zhou Fangdong felt that his current Health Bar might not be enough to turn the entire box into Offering Incense.

With a “give it a try” attitude, he used the [Provider] skill on the box of incense.

A faint golden light flashed, and within the box, only one bundle of incense turned gold.

Before he could examine it closely, Zhou Fangdong felt the world spin. He fell straight backward.

He was conscious before he went down and knew he was falling. He tried his best to steady himself, but his body completely ignored his brain’s commands. By the time he could react, his perspective had shifted entirely—he was lying on the bed.

Fortunately, his room was small and the bed was right behind the desk; otherwise, Zhou Fangdong really worried that hitting the back of his head on the floor would have knocked out the rest of his remaining Health Bar.

Zhou Fangdong felt incredibly weak. He lay on the bed for a long time, but his head remained groggy and his temples throbbed painfully.

It felt exactly like the sensation of suddenly standing up from a chair after pulling an all-nighter playing games.

His heartbeat was prominent; lying there, he could hear it clearly in his ears. His heart seemed to be pounding desperately to replenish the half-bar of blood that had vanished.

It was miserable. The side effects of this skill were lethal. Zhou Fangdong had never expected that consuming half a Health Bar would leave him in this state.

He couldn’t eat anything now, so he didn’t even have a way to replenish his physical strength.

“System… are there any health-restoring items? Urgent…”

[As the landlord of Liwan Apartments, the Host can directly absorb Ghost Coins to replenish the consumed Health Bar.]

Absorb Ghost Coins? Do Ghost Coins actually have healing properties?

“How do I absorb them?”

[The host only needs to silently think ‘use’ in their mind.]

Zhou Fangdong pondered for a moment before choosing to use 50 Ghost Coins.

The headache immediately receded significantly. If it felt like the throbbing pain of pulling an all-nighter before, it was now merely the level of fatigue from staying up until two or three in the morning.

His body was still very weak, but he was finally able to sit up.

Zhou Fangdong sat on the edge of the bed and let out a weary sigh, opening his character attribute interface.

Those 50 Ghost Coins had replenished about 25% of his health bar. If he wanted to restore it to full, he would need another 50 Ghost Coins.

Zhou Fangdong picked up the box of incense on the table and found that only one bundle had transformed into Offering Incense.

This bundle contained 37 sticks. If he converted his health bar into Ghost Coins, it meant he had spent the equivalent of 100 Ghost Coins to produce them.

He would take the Offering Incense out in a bit to test it and see how effective it was.

“System, besides absorbing Ghost Coins, are there any other ways to replenish my health bar?”

[The health bar consumed by the host will automatically recover over time. Given the host’s current health bar, it should return to full status by tomorrow morning.]

Zhou Fangdong nodded. He didn’t plan on consuming any more Ghost Coins and prepared to just collapse onto the bed and lie there until tomorrow.

Just then, a sharp electronic alarm suddenly blared:

[Warning! Warning! Tenant Miao Zheng in Room 109 is in mortal danger!!]

The tenant watch list and the tenant room preview both popped up simultaneously. The room preview window rapidly zoomed out, transforming into a floor plan of the apartment’s first floor.

A small red dot representing Miao Zheng appeared in the corridor to the left of the elevator.

Zhou Fangdong vaulted out of bed, a sense of dread sinking into his heart.

What was Miao Zheng doing there?

Damn it, could Miao Zheng be in mortal danger because he had let those chair imps into the corridor earlier?

Translator’s Notes