Chapter 22

Zhou Fangdong couldn’t afford to rest any longer. He forced himself to stand up.

He tossed the bundle of Offering Incense into his Inventory. To save time, he directly teleported to Room 101.

After leaving Room 101, Zhou Fangdong quickly walked towards the elevator.

Miao Zheng had a personality that loved adventure. After reading her Tenant Illustrated Guide, Zhou Fangdong had mentally prepared himself.

There was no choice. Even though the tenant he chose was prone to causing trouble, he couldn’t just watch her die in the hallway.

Moreover, if Miao Zheng died, not only would the Dismemberment Ghost she shared the apartment with not pay this month’s rent of 1,000 Ghost Coins¹, but the reward for Side Quest 1 would also be reclaimed by the system. Additionally, Room 109 would have to remain vacant for another month before it could be rented out again.

Simply put, Zhou Fangdong would directly or indirectly lose 2,300 Ghost Coins… He didn’t even have 2,300 in total assets right now. Losing that much money was as good as a death sentence for him.

Miao Zheng didn’t know how long she’d been trapped on this staircase. Exhausted, she sat on the steps and glanced at her phone, which had no signal.

The phone screen was still distorted. Forget about contacting the outside world for help; she couldn’t even check the current time.

Only now did Miao Zheng truly feel the horror of Liwan Apartments… She had underestimated this infamous haunted building.

Miao Zheng deeply regretted her reckless actions from the previous night.

Yesterday, because of the protection from the Room 109 key, she wasn’t harmed by the ghosts in the building. She managed to capture a lot of interesting horror footage in the apartments.

Additionally, the videos she edited, [Liwan Apartments Move-In Vlog] and [Daily Life with the Female Ghost Sister], were uploaded in the morning and both went viral by noon.

Miao Zheng, who had never seen such a massive surge of traffic, was overjoyed and even forgot the training content from the Paranormal Affairs Department.

Relying on the Room 109 key to move freely within the apartments, she ventured out of Room 109 at night, during the peak of ghost activity, without any prior investigation.

Before leaving the room, a ghostly hand from a black plastic bag at the doorway even tried to stop her, but in her excitement, she paid it no mind and rushed out with her camera.

After all, the Tenant Rules for Room 109 didn’t prohibit tenants from going out at night, and traffic only comes to those who dare to try.

But trying led to dying.

The moment Miao Zheng stepped out of the room, she sensed something was wrong—the nighttime Liwan Apartments were completely different from the daytime.

The originally dilapidated and dark corridor turned into a brightly lit scene at night, with a faint, pleasant scent of gardenias in the air.

The ever-present dust on the floor vanished, replaced by gleaming marble tiles. Areas frequently traversed by tenants were even covered with thick, sound-absorbing red carpets.

The windows, once boarded up, were now clear of wood, with clean glass and red velvet curtains neatly tied with wheat-shaped tassels at the sides of the window frames.

The ceiling, which originally had exposed metal pipes, now appeared finished with a ceiling, complete with painted patterns.

Two European-style bud wall lamps emitted a soft, warm glow, hanging in front of each apartment door.

—This was no longer the rundown apartment from the day; it was like a lavishly decorated five-star hotel.

The scene before her terrified Miao Zheng, and her earlier excitement turned into cold sweat, trickling down her forehead.

Having been a paranormal streamer for the Paranormal Affairs Department for years, often venturing into haunted locations for live streams, she knew all too well how terrifying such a supernatural force that could alter reality was.

An A-level… no, at least an S-level ghost was needed to achieve this.

Miao Zheng’s trembling hand touched the velvet curtain, her heartbeat quickening.

An A-level ghost could create illusions, but only an S-level ghost could change reality.

A B-level ghost could easily kill her, let alone an S-level one.

Miao Zheng turned to return to her room, but the door to Room 109 was locked. Just as she was about to use the key hanging around her neck to open it, the door vanished.

Her hand holding the key froze in place. Miao Zheng unconsciously tightened her grip on the key, the jagged edges digging deep into her palm.

The sharp pain brought Miao Zheng back to her senses. She decisively tossed aside her once-precious camera, shedding all burdens, and ran as fast as she could towards the apartment entrance.

Since she couldn’t return to her room, she had to leave the apartment as quickly as possible. If she could escape, there might be a sliver of hope.

However, the corridor seemed endless. Miao Zheng didn’t know how long she had been running, but the room number beside her remained 108—it was as if she was running in place.

The invisible ghost had already set its sights on her.

The moment Miao Zheng realized this, the corridor before her vanished, replaced by a stairway platform.

Facing her was a flight of stairs leading upward.

The stairs had no railing, completely in an unfinished concrete state.

Apart from this staircase, everything was shrouded in a thick white mist, eerily silent.

The brightly lit corridor had disappeared, leaving only darkness and white mist around her, with an unknown staircase ahead.

Faced with this bizarre scene with no apparent escape, Miao Zheng gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and inserted the Room 109 key vertically into her palm, wrapping the key’s string tightly around her hand.

—Unless her hand was severed, the key would not be lost.

The Room 109 key was her only lifeline now. As long as she didn’t lose it, she remained a tenant of Room 109, and the landlord would definitely come looking for her once he noticed her absence.

After doing this, Miao Zheng noticed the white mist around her closing in at a visible speed.

She didn’t dare gamble on what would happen if the mist touched her, so before it could reach her, she resolutely stepped onto the staircase.

The staircase seemed endless; no matter how far she walked, it was always the same concrete steps ahead.

The white mist, like a rising flood, gradually swallowed the path Miao Zheng had taken.

After nearly slipping and missing a step, Miao Zheng dared not continue upward. Exhausted, she sat on the steps.

Miao Zheng didn’t know how long she’d been there. Though her strength was depleted, she didn’t feel thirst or hunger.

What kind of ghostly place was this…

Now she could only hope that when daylight came, this endless staircase would vanish.

Miao Zheng intended to rest on the steps to regain some strength. But for some reason, the moment she sat down, a wave of drowsiness overwhelmed her.

She drowsily closed her eyes, her body lying horizontally across the steps.

The instant she lay down, the white mist below suddenly accelerated, swiftly enveloping Miao Zheng.

Though lying on the cold concrete steps, Miao Zheng felt as if she were cradled in her mother’s arms.

She felt like a baby again, nestled in her mother’s soft embrace, a gentle lullaby in her ears, the scent of gardenias filling her nose… Her consciousness sank deeper, falling into a sweet dream from which she would never awaken.

The white mist gradually swallowed the endless staircase, turning the pitch-black space into a vast sea of clouds, leaving only the step where Miao Zheng lay intact.

Miao Zheng’s body was slowly sinking, seemingly about to merge with the step. At that moment, the key embedded in her palm began to flicker with a faint red light.

This was Zhou Fangdong’s first time walking into the corridor on the left side of the elevator.

Unlike the corridor where the tenants’ rooms were located, this corridor was just a narrow, ordinary hallway, about the width of three people standing shoulder to shoulder, with no windows and no lights.

The [Dark Vision] talent granted by the embedded kerosene lamp allowed Zhou Fangdong to clearly see everything happening in this dark environment.

—A group of children was playing in the hallway.

The most conspicuous were the five boys in middle school uniforms. These children, who had come from the furniture store, had completely blended in with the little devils who liked to play soccer. They had even used their red chairs to make a goal.

Meanwhile, two little girls with red chairs were playing jump rope with two long-haired women.

If one ignored the overly dark environment, the scene before them was warm and harmonious.

A few steps past the group of children was the stairway entrance, an unremarkable flight of stairs. Following the stairs up should lead to the second floor of the apartment.

The red dot representing Miao Zheng was clearly here, yet Zhou Fangdong couldn’t see anything.

He suspected that the living filter from [Skill 3] might have caused him to miss some important information.

Zhou Fangdong took a deep breath, prepared himself mentally, and turned off the skill.

The scene before him instantly changed.

The previously warm scene of children playing vanished, replaced by headless boys and boys in school uniforms with bodies smashed to pieces playing soccer.

The boys in uniforms ran around, blood streaming from their heads, chunks of flesh falling everywhere. Five or six round, child-sized heads rolled at their feet, emitting gleeful laughter.

On the girls’ side, a smashed little girl used her intestines and those of her friends to connect, looping them around the feet of two black-haired, white-clad women, joyfully jumping rope.

The two women holding the intestine rope looked identical, dressed in white with black hair covering their faces. The exposed skin was a bluish-purple, covered in dense, raised suture scars.

As the girls jumped happily, the scars on the women began to repeatedly open and close, as if helping the girls count. The stitches on the scars stretched open and shut, revealing the bloodless, pale flesh beneath, resembling a fish mouth opening and closing.

Even with mental preparation, Zhou Fangdong was still terrified by the bizarre scene before him, his scalp tingling.

He tried to maintain his composure, quickly searching among the ghosts for any sign of Miao Zheng.

But he still couldn’t find her.

Zhou Fangdong looked towards the nearby stairs.

If she wasn’t among these ghosts, she must be on the stairs… Could Miao Zheng have gone up to the second floor of the apartment?

But the ghosts completely blocked the way forward. Just looking at them made Zhou Fangdong nearly lose his composure. Passing through them would be too much of a test for his mental endurance.

Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and took out three sticks of Offering Incense from his Inventory.

After silently chanting to use them, the three sticks ignited without flame, emitting a pleasant sandalwood fragrance.

All the ghosts present paused, turning their heads in unison to look at Zhou Fangdong’s position.

The ghosts in the corridor eyed the Offering Incense in Zhou Fangdong’s hand, their faces full of greed.

But due to the deterrent buff of the Landlord’s Key, they dared not approach, merely standing in place, sniffing incessantly.

Zhou Fangdong inserted the three sticks of incense into the gap of a metal water pipe on the wall, then stepped aside, saying softly, “Come and eat.”

All the ghosts immediately rushed towards him.

The first to arrive were the little soccer-playing ghosts, who kicked their heads over, accurately landing them under the water pipe.

As the sandalwood scent spread, the child-sized heads showed expressions of intoxication, rolling around under the pipe like cats high on catnip.

Next were the two adult female ghosts covered in scars. Agile as two large spiders, they climbed the wall, reaching above the water pipe, their scars fully opening to greedily capture the aroma of the burning incense.

Then came the group of red-chair ghosts, picking up their fallen flesh and carrying their intestines as they ran over, squatting obediently under the pipe like stray animals begging for food, their bloodied faces filled with happiness, whispering as they ate.

“I told you coming to the apartment is much better than being bought by someone else. Where else could you eat such delicious Offering Incense among humans?”

“Exactly, not only can we leave the chairs and move freely, but we can also play with so many friends. It’s so much fun.”

“Move over a bit, you’re crowding me.”

“Don’t fight, don’t fight, the gentleman is watching. We should behave politely in front of him.”

Zhou Fangdong tried to acclimate to the scene before him, silently reassuring himself that these were all haunted house NPCs, all special effects makeup.

After watching for a while, he began to get used to it. Indeed, mental endurance is built through experience.

Spending more time with these little ghosts, Zhou Fangdong noticed something: the ghosts from the furniture store seemed more human-like than those in the apartment—they were more rational, more talkative, retaining their personalities from life. If one ignored their gory appearance, they seemed human.

Zhou Fangdong still couldn’t determine the state of the ghosts inside the apartment rooms, as he had only briefly encountered the little ghost in room 102.

But the ghosts wandering the apartment corridors were highly aggressive, harboring genuine malice towards humans. Zhao Dawei, who first came to view the apartment, nearly lost his life because of them—they were completely driven by their obsessions from life, acting on instinct like beasts driven by hunger.

Zhou Fangdong wondered how the furniture store owner managed it. If possible, he would like to learn… After all, communicating with more human-like ghosts would be more convenient.

Seeing the three sticks of Offering Incense almost consumed, Zhou Fangdong took out three more from his Inventory: “Has anyone seen a short-haired girl about my height come to the stairs? These three sticks are a deposit. Help me find her, and I’ll pay three more.”

As soon as he finished speaking, all the ghosts with visible faces in the hallway showed obvious excitement.

Just as they were about to approach, they suddenly seemed to see something, freezing in their tracks. Then, climbing up the walls and rolling across the ground, they scattered like birds and beasts.

While Zhou Fangdong was bewildered, a purple-red rope suddenly dangled down from above, wrapping around the three sticks of incense in his hand.

Looking up along this purple-red ‘rope’, Zhou Fangdong saw a ghostly face stripped of skin.

Its temporomandibular joint opened at an impossible angle, the crimson mouth taking up most of the face, and the purple-red ‘rope’ that wrapped around the Offering Incense was actually a tongue extending from its mouth.

Faced with such a close-up of the face, Zhou Fangdong was so frightened he quickly let go of the incense.

Then he watched as the three sticks were rolled up by the tongue and stuffed into the exaggerated mouth as if being pocketed.

Meeting again… Zhou Fangdong suddenly felt a headache coming on.

This ghost was the same one that had initially hung from the chandelier, nearly strangling Zhao Dawei.

It was also the ghost that had hanged the couple in Room 102 during Zhou Fangdong’s first Roleplay Task there.

And it was the same ghost that appeared on the apartment’s foyer chandelier, fighting with the Wedding Dress Ghost when Duan Wenyu first came to view the apartment.

Zhou Fangdong remembered that when he passed by the apartment foyer earlier, he hadn’t seen it. He had no idea where this guy had popped out from.

Now he could only hope that after receiving the Offering Incense, it would leave quietly.

As Zhou Fangdong silently faced off with this ghost, it lowered its tongue again.

Seeing Zhou Fangdong unresponsive, the tongue twisted and pointed toward the stairs.

Zhou Fangdong seemed to understand its meaning in a daze: “Are you saying you saw that tall, short-haired girl? You want to take me to find her?”

The Long-tongued Ghost nodded its tongue, swung its deformed limbs with reversed joints, and crawled along the ceiling toward the stairs.

Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to follow, he suddenly felt a chilling coldness behind him.

Instinctively turning his head, he saw a bride in a red wedding dress, over three meters tall, appearing behind him without him noticing.

The Wedding Dress Ghost’s face was completely hidden under the red veil, and even from below, he couldn’t see its face. Instead of eyes, there were layers of human faces on the wedding dress—all with hollow eyes staring at Zhou Fangdong.

An eerie sense of telepathy suddenly occurred, and Zhou Fangdong sighed lightly, understanding what this Wedding Dress Ghost wanted.

To prevent this Wedding Dress Ghost from fighting with the Long-tongued Ghost again and delaying his search for Miao Zheng, Zhou Fangdong simply handed it three sticks of Offering Incense.

A withered right hand with bright red nails reached out, took the three sticks of incense, and tucked them into its wide sleeve. Immediately, the vivid red veil moved as if alive, revealing a ghastly pale lower face. The lips, painted with scarlet lipstick, curled into an exaggerated smile that seemed to tear half the face apart.

It was probably expressing gratitude…

Seeing that the Wedding Dress Ghost made no further moves, Zhou Fangdong didn’t delay and walked in the direction the Long-tongued Ghost had gone.

He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but although the cold feeling behind him had lessened, it still seemed to linger, shadowing him.

Zhou Fangdong glanced back again to confirm that the Wedding Dress Ghost had disappeared.

He shook his head, forcing himself not to dwell on it… The most important thing now was to find the missing Miao Zheng as soon as possible.

Unbeknownst to him, his shadow on the stairway floor had somehow turned a strange dark red.

When Zhou Fangdong reached the stairs, the Long-tongued Ghost crawled down from the ceiling, clinging to the stairs like a giant gecko.

Seeing Zhou Fangdong at the bottom of the stairs, it pointed its tongue at one step, then climbed up. It then pointed its tongue at a step one level up from the previous one, skipping the intermediate step and sprawling on the next.

Zhou Fangdong understood—some steps could be stepped on, and some could not.

The Offering Incense was well worth it. Without the ghost’s guidance, even though he had teleportation skills and wouldn’t be trapped by the stairs, finding Miao Zheng would be difficult.

As he climbed the stairs, Zhou Fangdong noticed that the steps the Long-tongued Ghost pointed out all had patterns.

The patterns on those steps… resembled mummified corpses curled up within stones.

In a sweet dream, Miao Zheng seemed to hear heavy footsteps.

Her consciousness gradually cleared, and she groggily awoke from her dream.

Upon waking, she was shocked to find half her body sunk into the stairs, still slowly descending as if into a swamp.

The only part fully exposed was her right hand, holding a key.

In this situation, Miao Zheng couldn’t afford to think much. She gritted her teeth against the pain, using her right hand to push against the ground, trying to pull her upper body out of the stairs.

However, no matter how hard she tried, it was futile. She couldn’t sit up, and the sinking speed only increased.

The heavy footsteps grew closer, and Miao Zheng was gradually filled with despair.

Surrounded by a white fog, she couldn’t see anything clearly, unable to discern whether the approaching footsteps were human or ghostly.

Under the combined physical and psychological torment, Miao Zheng felt her spirit stretched to a breaking point, ready to snap at any moment.

She vowed that if she were rescued this time, she would never act so impulsively again.

As the footsteps approached, there seemed to be a rustling sound of something crawling.

Miao Zheng’s face grew increasingly pale.

Finally, the footsteps stopped on the steps below her.

The chilling fog suddenly parted like a curtain, and a figure slowly emerged from the mist.

He held a stick of golden incense, the smoke rising straight up unaffected by the surroundings, like a sharp blade slicing through the swirling white fog.

As the fog cleared, Miao Zheng saw a familiar face.

That face, carved like white jade, looked exhausted and unnaturally pale, as if he had just recovered from a severe illness.

Yet, despite the frail appearance, there was an indescribable aura of intimidation.

Just standing there silently, he made the surrounding fog freeze, and the invisible pressure emanating from him was suffocating, as if even the air had solidified.

Those captivating eyes were slightly lowered, watching Miao Zheng without any emotional fluctuation. There was no scrutiny or reproach, just a gaze like that of a deity seated high above, observing the worshipping believers below through the ethereal incense smoke, with an eternal compassion.

In stark contrast to this godlike sense of salvation were the terrifying ghosts lingering around him.

A flayed ghost, its body dripping with blood and composed of crimson flesh, lay at his feet, its purple-red tongue coiled around his ankle like a venomous snake.

Not only that, but a tall Wedding Dress Ghost was also crouched behind him.

Its withered hands with crimson nails gently rested on his shoulders, the voluminous red wedding dress draping like a cloak behind him, completely enveloping his body. Countless faces were sewn into the bright red dress, constantly twitching and writhing as if alive, their gaping mouths silently screaming.

Compared to the gentle young man she first met, the landlord now exuded an extremely eerie, inhuman aura.

It was hard to tell whether he brought salvation or terror, but his terrifying power that made all ghosts unconditionally submit to him gave an indescribable sense of security.

Just seeing him appear, all of Miao Zheng’s tension dissipated.

Miao Zheng let out a heavy sigh of relief, secretly making a decision in her heart.

Even though the landlord simply stood there, silently watching her without saying a word, Miao Zheng could already understand what he wanted to convey.

Liwan Apartments, the ghosts within, were not something to be treated lightly with a gaming mindset. If she continued to recklessly take risks, she would eventually be abandoned.

She must never act so recklessly again as she did today.

…In fact, Zhou Fangdong was contemplating how to pull Miao Zheng out of the stairs.

He initially intended to place the Offering Incense he held beside Miao Zheng, but worried that the half-burned incense might not be effective enough, he took another stick from his inventory and placed it on the ground.

The use of the Offering Incense was something he discovered by accident.

Just after Zhou Fangdong ascended this section of the stairs, an unexpected event occurred shortly thereafter, as if he had fallen into a ghostly trap. The stairs, which didn’t seem long, suddenly became endless.

Although the Long-tongued Ghost had provided guidance to avoid the traps on the stairs, if they continued to delay, they would eventually exhaust their strength.

Moreover, at some point, a strange white mist began to rise around them. In this critical moment, Zhou Fangdong recalled a saying he had heard before.

It was said that when encountering a ghostly trap, lighting three sticks of incense and bowing in all directions was akin to giving the ghost that created the trap a “toll fee” in exchange for safe passage.

Incense itself also had the effect of purification and warding off evil, and it was said to disperse negative energy.

Although he didn’t know what had created the ghostly trap on the stairs, nor whether the white mist was indeed negative energy, Zhou Fangdong decided to light the incense first.

However, he only had Offering Incense, which he had crafted at the cost of half a vial of his own blood. Without knowing if lighting the incense would be effective, burning three sticks of Offering Incense seemed too wasteful.

So, Zhou Fangdong lit just one stick to test its effect.

Fortunately, it was indeed effective. After he lit the incense, not only did the white mist recede, but after just a few steps, he saw Miao Zheng.

When Zhou Fangdong found Miao Zheng, she was in a dire state. The left half of her face and body had completely sunk into the steps, her posture eerily resembling those mummified corpses curled within the stairs.

If he had arrived any later, she might have completely sunk into the steps like those mummified corpses, becoming an inconspicuous pattern on the staircase.

Since lighting the Offering Incense had been so effective, after finding Miao Zheng, Zhou Fangdong decided to try placing a stick of incense beside her.

While inserting the incense, Zhou Fangdong felt a weight on his back, a chilly sensation, as if something was clinging to him.

Having encountered so many ghostly entities today, he was sure something had latched onto him… Well, once he returned to his room, it would be fine, as neither ghosts nor humans could enter his room.

Despite thinking this way, Zhou Fangdong still felt a bit scared, which made his expression increasingly serious and his face paler.

The Offering Incense worked well. As the incense burned down, the cement encasing Miao Zheng slowly receded. In the end, not only did Miao Zheng escape, but after the incense completely burned out, the steps also expelled a spirit tablet².

The spirit tablet appeared to be made of dark purple sandalwood, intricately carved, with the inscribed side facing down on the ground.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t pay attention to the spirit tablet at first; instead, he helped Miao Zheng up.

At the same time, the system’s electronic voice sounded:

[Ding—Detected that tenant Miao Zheng from room 109 has reached a Favorability of 100]

[Tenant Favorability has reached the threshold. You can claim your reward in the Favorability interface]

As Zhou Fangdong helped Miao Zheng up, he noticed a key embedded in her right palm, with blood still dripping from the wound… Just looking at it made his own palm ache with phantom pain. Such resolve—no wonder she managed to hold on until he found her.

After confirming that Miao Zheng could stand on her own, Zhou Fangdong picked up the red sandalwood spirit tablet.

Before he had a chance to read the writing on the tablet, the system’s electronic voice sounded again:

[Congratulations to the host for finding the control key to the apartment stairs]

[Liwan Apartments’ stairway is now officially unlocked. The host can choose to fully open the stairs or keep them closed]

[Hint: The Red Sandalwood Spirit Tablet has other hidden functions. Please continue to explore. You might try conversing with tenant Miao Zheng from room 109, as she seems to have discovered an important clue last night]

Translator’s Notes