Chapter 25

The Long-tongued Ghost and the Wedding Dress Ghost, who frequently fought in the corridors, were not only at odds after death; their relationship had been terrible during their lives as well.

The Long-tongued Ghost and the Wedding Dress Ghost were once biological sisters—fraternal twins. The Long-tongued Ghost was the elder sister, and the Wedding Dress Ghost was the younger.

The elder sister was very beautiful, while the younger sister’s appearance was quite ordinary.

From childhood to adulthood, the elder sister heard nothing but praise from others. The younger sister, however, most often heard the sigh of “What a pity…” whenever people looked at her after finishing their compliments to her sister.

Because she was beautiful and pampered by her parents from a young age, the elder sister grew up in an environment of constant praise, becoming increasingly cheerful and lively. Meanwhile, the younger sister grew more silent by the day.

Whether it was their parents, classmates, or teachers, everyone favored the beautiful, outgoing elder sister.

Because her sister looked ordinary, the elder sister refused to play with her when they were children. During their teenage years, she subjected her sister to cold violence and pretended not to know her. By high school, she took pleasure in suppressing and mocking her sister, even condoning her followers to bully her.

Even when the younger sister told their parents about the elder sister’s actions, the biased parents would only offer a few simple words of comfort. They never truly intervened in the elder sister’s behavior.

The two sisters grew up this way until they graduated from university.

In the year they graduated, the family company encountered a crisis in its capital chain. They needed to secure an investment from a wealthy tycoon through a marriage alliance.

That tycoon possessed immense assets and held significant power and influence in both legal and illegal circles. To help his only son recover his health, he was currently residing in Linjiang City.

His only son had been frail and sickly since childhood, surviving on various medications since birth and remaining bedridden for long-term recuperation.

The reason the tycoon chose to form a marriage alliance with the daughter of an obscure small company owner was that he had heard from a master that their daughter’s birth chart was the most compatible with his sickly son’s. After the marriage, his son’s illness might even improve.

Ultimately, the sisters’ parents chose the ordinary-looking younger sister to marry the tycoon’s only son.

The elder sister was furious when she learned the news.

Although the marriage partner was sickly, the tycoon’s net worth was among the best. Once married into that family, one could achieve a leap in social class and enter the true upper-crust circles of society.

The two sisters were born only minutes apart. The elder sister would never allow an “ugly freak” like her sister to obtain such benefits.

While the elder sister was arguing with her parents about the choice of the bride, the younger sister stood outside the room.

Leaning against the wall with her head lowered, the younger sister listened to her elder sister shamelessly acting spoiled with their parents, trying to snatch away the marriage that belonged to her. Her hands clenched tighter and tighter, her nails digging deep into her flesh.

From childhood to adulthood, their parents had always favored the elder sister.

The elder sister always got first pick of everything, leaving the younger sister with the leftovers.

Anything the younger sister liked, the elder sister would snatch away, even if she didn’t actually want it.

Now, finally, her parents had favored her for once. She finally had a chance to use this marriage to leave this suffocating home. Why was her sister still trying to steal it from her?

This marriage alliance was her only path to freedom…

Recalling the history of being bullied by her sister since they were young, the hatred in the younger sister’s heart grew deeper. Unwilling to listen any longer to her sister’s wheedling, she ran out of the house.

As she left, the younger sister did not hear the final words the parents said to the elder sister.

“Silly girl, if this marriage were actually a good thing, would we let your sister go? That tycoon said that the couple must share the same bed in life and the same grave in death. They live together while alive, and they are buried together when they die… Do you understand what that means? It means if that sickly boy dies, his wife will follow him into the coffin and be buried in the grave!”

Hearing her parents say this, the elder sister immediately gave up on fighting for the marriage contract.

She hadn’t lived long enough yet; she had no desire to be buried alive as a funerary sacrifice.

However, the elder sister didn’t have many days left to live either.

When the younger sister ran out of the house, she encountered a fortune-telling master wearing a skullcap.

That master not only recounted the younger sister’s life experiences but also saw through her predicament at a glance.

Under the master’s inducement, the younger sister—whose rationality had been destroyed by boundless hatred—directly staked twenty years of her lifespan and her fortune to cast an extremely vicious “mutual life and death” curse on herself and her sister.

The elder sister’s skin would fester and peel away day by day within seven days. The younger sister’s appearance would become more beautiful within seven days, her skin becoming smooth and flawless.

The elder sister’s limbs and body would become increasingly deformed and twisted, while the younger sister’s posture would become more upright and her figure more curvaceous.

The elder sister’s tongue would grow longer and longer, and it would not stop growing even after death, leaving her unable to speak even as a ghost. Meanwhile, the younger sister’s personality would become more cheerful, and she would become eloquent and persuasive.

Afterward, the younger sister went home and lured the elder sister out, allowing the master to capture her and implement the vicious curse.

The elder sister suddenly vanished, leaving the parents frantic and unable to focus on preparing for the younger sister’s wedding.

However, the tycoon’s family placed great importance on the younger sister. They not only prepared a heavy dowry of gold jewelry and bought every wedding dress she liked, but they even bought a yacht as a gift for her and held a lavish engagement party on it.

Having never received such attention, the younger sister believed this was the beginning of her happy life.

Although the engagement party was lively, the tycoon only invited immediate family members on the wedding day.

On the day of the wedding, the sisters’ parents did not attend; they were still searching for the elder sister.

The younger sister didn’t care whether her parents showed up or not, as she had moved directly into the villa the tycoon gave her after the engagement party.

The tycoon’s family was very traditional and preferred a Chinese-style wedding. On the wedding day, they prepared a traditional red wedding dress for her.

The younger sister happily changed into the red wedding dress, put on the red bridal veil, and sat on the villa’s bed, waiting for her fiancé to come and collect his bride.

But on the very day of the wedding, the tycoon’s only son passed away.

Yet, the wedding did not stop.

The younger sister was held up by others to complete the wedding ceremony with her fiancé’s corpse. Afterward, still wearing her wedding dress, she was placed into a coffin and died of suffocation once it was nailed shut.

After her death, she and her husband moved into the building behind Liwan Apartments where corpses were kept.

Following the younger sister’s death, the parents also found the elder sister’s gruesome corpse.

Overcome with grief, the parents heard that the Feng Shui of Liwan Apartments was excellent. They begged the tycoon—asking him to consider that the younger sister had entered a ghost marriage¹ with his son—to allow the elder sister to also stay in the building behind Liwan Apartments, hoping to secure a smooth path for her in the next life.

In the end, neither sister had a next life. Both became vengeful ghosts filled with resentment. Even after death, they continued to fight, vying for the same room in the apartments.

After reading about the sisters’ past lives, Zhou Fangdong felt as if he had watched a ridiculous, melodramatic family drama.

It was hard to say who was right or wrong. The elder sister was certainly at fault; if she hadn’t spent years cruelly bullying and suppressing her sister, she wouldn’t have died so miserably.

The younger sister was also at fault. She could have sought revenge, but to go that far… forget it. One shouldn’t judge another’s actions without having walked in their shoes. It could only be said that biased and hypocritical parents had created a broken home.

Judging by the clothing of the three mummified corpses hanging from the ceiling of Room 104, the young man in the red Chinese-style formal wear was likely the younger sister’s husband.

As for the two middle-aged mummies, a man and a woman, their clothes suggested they were the sisters’ parents.

He didn’t know what happened to the tycoon, but anyone associated with Liwan Apartments likely met a grim end… he was probably dead too.

Zhou Fangdong let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his throbbing temples.

What struck him as odd was that in the younger sister’s memories, the face of the master wearing the melon-skin cap²—the one who had guided her to curse her older sister—was actually blurred.

This master was the pivotal turning point that had changed the lives of both sisters. It was impossible for the younger sister to have forgotten him… unless the master had deliberately hidden his features, preventing her from remembering.

Hiding one’s head and showing only the tail³; it was truly suspicious.

While Zhou Fangdong was examining the [Ghost Clues], the Long-tongued Ghost and the Wedding Dress Ghost appeared in Room 104 at some unknown point.

One crawled along the ceiling while the other stood in the corner, both staring fixedly at Zhou Fangdong.

The Long-tongued Ghost’s mangled, deformed body began to drip blood, leaving a distinct pool on the ceiling. Its purplish-red tongue dangled like a rope, stretching all the way from the ceiling to the floor.

The Wedding Dress Ghost seemed to have grown taller; its head, covered by the red bridal veil, pressed right against the ceiling. It tilted its head slightly, the veil falling forward to completely obscure the lower half of its face. However, the human faces sewn onto its wedding dress were not as calm as it was; they were all twisted in extreme agony, their features contorted and their skin wrinkled into knots.

Having to choose one of these two ghosts to be the resident of Room 104… it was a difficult decision.

To be honest, Zhou Fangdong didn’t want either of them, as both sisters harbored immense resentment and deep malice toward humans.

He intended to use Room 104 as the convenience store storefront, a public facility for all the apartment tenants. If he left them in this room, Zhou Fangdong truly feared that his tenants might all end up dead if he wasn’t careful.

Thinking of the convenience store, Zhou Fangdong suddenly remembered something and pulled two employee ID cards from his Inventory.

These were the rewards for completing Hidden Quest ①.

An ordinary apartment room might only need one ghost, but Room 104, which was about to be converted into a convenience store, could accommodate two.

…What if he just kept them both?

Looking at the three corpses in the room, Zhou Fangdong decided he should clean the place up before considering anything else.

Currently possessing 1,060 Ghost Coins, Zhou Fangdong chose the fastest and most convenient cleaning method.

He went directly to the System Mall and purchased two Low-grade Automatic Cleaning Tools for 30 Ghost Coins each to begin tidying Room 104.

Hidden Quest ② was to clear the room and clean out the convenience store storefront. Based on the patterns he had observed from completing side quests after renting out previous rooms, Zhou Fangdong guessed that Hidden Quest ③ would likely involve establishing the Convenience Store Rules.

To save time, while the tools were cleaning Room 104, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to his own room. He began drafting the Convenience Store Rules, pondering what kind of regulations could suppress the aggressive impulses of the two ghosts in Room 104.

While Zhou Fangdong was researching the Convenience Store Rules, Zhao Dawei, who was working at the furniture store, encountered a strange customer who entered the shop of his own accord.

At the time, Zhao Dawei was working in the warehouse. He was stuffing ghosts into furniture while listening to the manager tell stories about the store’s past.

As it turned out, some of the ghosts in the furniture were stuffed in by the manager, while others came with the furniture itself.

Before the Guijia Furniture Store became haunted, it didn’t just sell its own assembled furniture; it also offered a second-hand furniture recycling service for environmental reuse.

The shop would dismantle and refurbish second-hand furniture. Because the prices were very cheap, the appearance was no different from ordinary furniture, and the quality was solid, many families with tight budgets chose to buy these refurbished pieces.

These recycled and refurbished pieces of furniture were essentially all infested by ghosts.

As for the ghosts the manager had stuffed into the furniture, he didn’t say where so many ghosts came from, nor did he explain why he had to stuff them all into furniture.

However, Zhao Dawei learned from the manager why the ghosts in these pieces of furniture would fall out.

It was because the furniture store was sealed off. These haunted pieces hadn’t been purchased for a long time and had no contact with humans. Being trapped inside the furniture was too uncomfortable, so the ghosts grew depressed and wanted to break free to get some fresh air.

But without the manager’s permission, these ghosts couldn’t even leave the warehouse. Thus, they could only lie there like corpses in a state of depression.

When they separated from the furniture like this, it made the furniture look unappealing, which meant even fewer people would buy it… it was a vicious cycle.

So, the manager thought about hiring a human employee.

An ordinary human who came into direct contact with the ghosts in the furniture without a purchase contract would drop dead on the spot. However, the tenants of Liwan Apartments would be fine, which was why the furniture store owner had asked the landlord to help him recruit an employee.

Upon hearing the manager say that ordinary people would drop dead upon touching the ghosts in the furniture, Zhao Dawei’s hand slipped while he was stitching a chair, nearly stabbing the needle into his own palm.

It was at that moment that the strange customer walked into the furniture store.

The customer was a handsome young man with long hair, sword-like eyebrows, and bright eyes. He had a carefree aura and wore a black Tai Chi suit with gold trim—the kind usually worn by old men in parks—yet on him, it looked like a niche national-style fashion brand.

He didn’t enter through the furniture store’s front door; instead, he walked in through the back.

Consequently, Zhao Dawei, who was working in the warehouse right next to the back door, heard his voice clearly:

“Manager! Is the manager in? I’m here to buy furniture, don’t release any ghosts. I’ve brought two sticks of Offering Incense this time. Can you let me pick out a larger chair?”

Hearing the man’s voice, the manager signaled for Zhao Dawei to stop his work and follow him out of the warehouse.

When the handsome young man saw the manager in his human form, he raised an eyebrow in surprise. When he saw Zhao Dawei following behind the manager, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “Whoa, hold on! How is there a living person here?”

The strange customer stopped mentioning the furniture and walked quickly over to Zhao Dawei. After sizing him up carefully, he launched into a standard charlatan’s spiel: “Uncle, I see your forehead is darkened, your eyes are bloodshot, there are horizontal lines on the bridge of your nose, and the ‘soaring snake’ lines enter your mouth. I’m afraid you’ll face a bloody disaster in the near future!”

Zhao Dawei looked at the strange customer speechlessly. He thought to himself, I’m already sleeping in a haunted house and working in a ghost furniture store. Could things possibly get any unluckier?

Besides, a few days ago, his family and colleagues had all met with accidents, leaving him as the sole survivor. This so-called “bloody disaster” had already come to pass.

The customer is king, so despite his internal grumbling, Zhao Dawei didn’t directly challenge the young man who looked very much like a fraud. Instead, he played along and said casually, “Yes, I know I have a bloody disaster coming, so I’ve obtained a Peace Talisman. You don’t need to try and sell me any charms or the like, sir.”

As he spoke, Zhao Dawei pulled out the Peace Talisman hanging around his neck and waved it in front of the customer.

The landlord had given him this Peace Talisman yesterday. Zhao Dawei’s intention was to end the conversation as quickly as possible to avoid the customer’s subsequent sales pitch.

To his surprise, upon seeing the Peace Talisman, the man became even more excited. He reached out and grabbed Zhao Dawei’s hand—the one holding the talisman—with both of his own. “This is—where did you get this talisman?!”

His sparkling eyes were full of deep emotion, exactly like someone who had just laid eyes on their dream lover.

This ancient drawing technique, this perfect infusion of spiritual energy—wasn’t this exactly the kind of talisman he had been searching for so desperately to restore his sect’s glory?!

Zhao Dawei struggled with all his might but couldn’t break free; the young man’s hands were like iron pincers, firmly gripping his hand.

The furniture store manager stepped forward then, pulling the strange customer away and shielding Zhao Dawei behind him.

The store manager’s voice carried a cautionary tone. “Please refrain from harassing my employee. This employee of mine is a tenant of the Liwan Apartments.”

“Oh, a tenant of the Liwan Apartments…” The handsome young man sucked in a sharp breath, his face twisting as if he had a sudden toothache. “Never mind then. Sorry for the trouble. Goodbye, just pretend I didn’t say anything.”

He pulled out two sticks of incense and handed them to the manager. “Here’s the incense. Give me another chair.”

The manager took the incense and sniffed it. “No, the quality of this incense is lacking. I can only count it as one stick.”

Hearing the manager’s assessment, the young man’s expression shifted into a look of misery. “Manager, cut me some slack. I have elders and children to support, and I really need your furniture. Last night, a bunch of brainless idiots showed up near my Taoist temple to hold some cult ritual. They ended up attracting several powerful ghosts. Damn them! There are plenty of ordinary people in my temple, but those bastards just summoned the ghosts and ran off, leaving me to clean up their mess.”

The manager remained silent for a moment before finally compromising. “For your master’s sake, I’ll give you a bed.”

The young man looked pleasantly surprised.

Since when had this manager become so generous?!

The manager continued, “However, that temple of yours won’t last much longer, will it? Besides, if there are too many ghosts, my furniture can only help you temporarily. If you truly find yourself at a dead end, you could always rent a room at the Liwan Apartments…”

As he spoke, the curve of the manager’s mouth grew wider, and his human features showed signs of sliding off his face again. “Compared to ordinary people, the Landlord would certainly be much happier if you became a tenant… Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The early bird gets the worm; go late and there will be nothing left. Plus, if you go now, you might even see an acquaintance.”

The young man’s expression turned strange, as if he were recalling a past he didn’t want to remember.

He waved a hand dismissively. “We’ll talk about it when I truly can’t hold out anymore. Laymen see the surface, but experts see the truth. Ordinary people might be brave enough to live there, but I wouldn’t dare go near that haunted place.”

With that, he turned and headed toward the warehouse. As he passed Zhao Dawei, he offered a kind warning: “I know you’ve had a run of bad luck lately; after all, people who aren’t unlucky don’t end up living in the Liwan Apartments. Just a friendly tip: that bloody calamity hanging over you looks like it only started today. And it’s not caused by ghosts—it’s a man-made disaster.”

“Be careful. Don’t end up surviving the ghosts only to die at the hands of your own kind.”

Hearing this, Zhao Dawei instinctively gripped the Peace Talisman hanging from his neck.

A man-made disaster? He hadn’t offended anyone recently…

An hour later, when Zhou Fangdong finished writing the Convenience Store Rules and returned to Room 104, he found a brand-new room, free of any strange odors or corpses.

Aside from the two ghosts still lingering in the room, everything looked perfect.

As expected, system items were much more convenient and efficient.

[Hidden Quest ②: Clear out an apartment room to serve as the convenience store storefront—Completed]

[Quest Reward: 300 Ghost Coins]

[Hidden Quest ③: Create the Convenience Store Rules and find two new employees for the store]

Upon hearing the new hidden quest, Zhou Fangdong walked over to the Long-tongued Ghost and the Wedding Dress Ghost, handing each of them a convenience store employee ID card.

Once the two ghosts took the ID cards, the Convenience Store Rules Zhou Fangdong had written vanished from his hand.

[Ding—Commencing compatibility check between the Convenience Store Rules and the employees…]

Translator’s Notes

• silly roe deer: The term ‘sha pao zi’ (傻狍子) refers to the Siberian roe deer, known for its perceived lack of fear and ‘clueless’ behavior. In Chinese slang, it is a humorous or derogatory way to call someone an idiot or a ‘lovable dimwit’ who is oblivious to danger.