Chapter 27

Zhou Fangdong held his breath and gently pushed open the door to Room 103.

Unlike the other rooms on the first floor where one could tell at a glance that a crime had occurred, Room 103 was uninhabitable in a different sense.

There was simply too much stuff inside.

The last tenant to live in Room 103 must have been a hoarder. Looking in from the doorway, one could see not only trash piled to the ceiling but also mountain-like heaps of folk art collectibles—things like opera costumes, shadow puppets, lanterns, and classical musical instruments.

The shock of opening that door was no less than standing at the foot of a mountain and seeing a mudslide that had already reached the halfway point.

Just opening the door made Zhou Fangdong fear that the draft from the movement would cause the delicately balanced piles inside to collapse, let alone trying to walk in.

In this situation, even professional cleaners would have a hard time knowing where to start.

It was a struggle for someone of Zhou Fangdong’s build to enter Room 103; Hong Zhong’s physique was equivalent to two of him. If Hong Zhong went in, he’d likely knock over a trash mountain within two steps and end up buried under a pile of junk.

He reasonably suspected that Room 103 became a haunted house because there was too much stuff.

For example, perhaps one day these collections collapsed, burying the owner underneath. With no way to call for help, they suffocated to death. By the time they were finally found, they had turned into a mummified corpse within the trash mountain, becoming, in a sense, just another collectible in the room… Of course, this was just Zhou Fangdong’s wild speculation. He wouldn’t know the truth of Room 103 until he investigated.

The total area of Room 103 was likely around a hundred square meters. Since he couldn’t get inside, Zhou Fangdong bought an Automatic Cleaning Tool at the door that could cover fifty square meters to test it out. The system promptly informed him that the room required two cleaning tools.

While the Automatic Cleaning Tool was versatile—capable of clearing dust, stains, grease, damaged furniture, corpses, and trash, as well as restoring contaminated walls and floors—it had its limits.

Room 103 didn’t just contain trash; it contained folk art collectibles. Such items were outside the scope of the cleaning tool’s capabilities.

Even after using the cleaning tools, those mountain-like heaps of clutter would remain in the room, leaving Room 103 still uninhabitable.

Perhaps because Zhou Fangdong lingered at the door of Room 103 for too long, a system mission window suddenly popped up:

[Side Mission 5: Renovate and Rent Out Room 103]

① Clean the room and remove dust and grime.

② Organize the clutter and remove collectibles that pose a threat to a tenant’s life.

③ Discard broken furniture and purchase new furniture.

④ Find the ghost hidden in the room and figure out its killing rules.

⑤ Draft a Rental Contract and find a tenant to move in.

[Side Mission 5 Rewards: 300 Ghost Coins, 1000 Experience Points, Skill Point x1]

Looking at the second objective of Side Mission 5, Zhou Fangdong felt a bit of a headache coming on.

Based on the mission description, it seemed there were cursed items among the collectibles in Room 103.

What exactly did the previous tenant of Room 103 do for a living?

While complaining internally, Zhou Fangdong opened the System Mall.

When he was buying the phone for Zhao Dawei earlier, it seemed the System Mall had unlocked many new items, but he hadn’t had time to look closely then.

After a quick scan, Zhou Fangdong’s gaze settled on an item called [Low-level Automatic Storage Tool].

[Low-level Automatic Storage Tool]

Price: 90 Ghost Coins

Range: 100 square meters, usage time: one hour

Description: Can separate clutter from trash and organize items within the room. (Note: This tool only has an organizing function, not a cleaning function.)

Now wealthy and influential, Zhou Fangdong didn’t hesitate to buy one storage tool and two cleaning tools.

Since accumulating more Ghost Coins, he was full of confidence, no longer the pauper who hesitated over spending 30 Ghost Coins.

After purchasing these three items, he had 1250 Ghost Coins remaining.

Closing the System Mall page, Zhou Fangdong first used the storage tool on Room 103, then called out to the system in his mind:

“System, if I use the cleaning tools on this room before the storage tool finishes organizing, will it interfere with the storage process?”

[It will not. Cleaning-type items can be used in stacks; the next item will only activate after the effect of the previous one has concluded.]

Zhou Fangdong nodded and used the two cleaning tools on Room 103.

This was very convenient. He just had to wait one night, and Room 103 would be clean by tomorrow morning.

Before teleporting back to his room, Zhou Fangdong checked the rental interface. Zhao Dawei and Miao Zheng were both staying obediently in their rooms, but Duan Wenyu hadn’t returned yet.

He took out the Linjiang City Map and looked at it. Seeing that the red dot representing Duan Wenyu was still at the location of the Bureau of Paranormal Oversight, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Zhao Dawei had stayed out overnight once before; staying at the Bureau of Paranormal Oversight should be very safe, so there was no need to worry.

Just then, a loud crash suddenly erupted from inside Room 103.

Zhou Fangdong instinctively looked at the tightly closed door of Room 103.

After a long silence, curiosity finally triumphed over fear.

Zhou Fangdong turned sideways, pressing himself against the wall next to the door. Once he was sure his body wasn’t directly in front of the opening, he carefully reached out his arm and pulled the door open with force.

The imagined scene of endless clutter surging out like a flood did not happen.

Zhou Fangdong waited for a moment to ensure nothing was coming out before poking his head in to look.

Inside Room 103, the storage tool was still operating. The trash and collectibles in the room seemed to have come to life, lining up and moving slowly, one by one, to their designated spots.

The only thing in the room unaffected by the tool was a set of opera costumes hanging above a low cabinet.

It appeared to be clothing for a young woman. Zhou Fangdong hadn’t studied opera and didn’t know the professional name for the outfit.

The White Opera Costume was entirely plain white, made of a fabric that was light but opaque, with light purple embroidery on the collar and hem. The water sleeves¹ were exceptionally long, extending far past the hem of the skirt. A wig with a headpiece hung above the clothes, with a layer of white gauze behind the headpiece.

Without the water sleeves and the opera headpiece, the outfit reminded Zhou Fangdong of Zhao Yazhi’s portrayal of Bai Suzhen².

This opera costume hung steadily on the wall, completely unaffected by the storage tool; not even a corner of the fabric fluttered.

Meanwhile, other garments that looked like opera costumes were busy folding themselves and flying into wooden crates.

Beneath the White Opera Costume, a wooden clothes rack lay on the floor, completely fallen apart.

From the scene before him, the loud crash just now must have been caused by clothes inside the low cabinet beneath the opera costume trying to fly out. Their path was blocked by the costume, so they tried to bypass it, accidentally knocking over the wooden rack in the process.

Though he didn’t know what was up with this White Opera Costume, Zhou Fangdong took it down directly so it wouldn’t get in the way anymore.

The process of taking it down was smooth. The clothes didn’t resist, nor did a ghost suddenly crawl out of the fabric to attack him.

So, what was so special about this outfit? Why wasn’t it affected by the tool?

Thinking this, Zhou Fangdong casually flipped open the lapel of the White Opera Costume.

And then, he locked eyes with a human face inside the garment.

…The lining of this opera costume seemed to be made from a human skin.

After an awkward moment of staring at the face, Zhou Fangdong silently hung the costume back in its original place.

Sorry for the intrusion.

This must be the ghost of Room 103.

Ghosts were outside the scope of the storage tool’s organization, which explained why the costume had stopped moving.

Wait, hold on… since he had found the ghost of Room 103, he should use his skill to check its killing rules!

Zhou Fangdong realized this a beat too late. He hurriedly took the costume down again and used Skill 1: [Gentle Mind Reading] on it.

However, the skill did not take effect.

He pulled open the lapel of the robe in confusion, only to find that the human skin inside the costume had already vanished.

What a pity. He had stumbled upon the Room 103 ghost by pure chance, yet he had forgotten to use his skill in the moment.

Looking at the clutter flying around Room 103, Zhou Fangdong let out a heavy sigh.

Trying to find that ghost again amidst all this chaos wouldn’t be easy; it was like looking for a needle in a haystack… He would just have to wait until he finished cleaning everything up before coming back to Room 103.

After teleporting back to his own room, Zhou Fangdong checked the rental app on his phone.

Today, he had directly converted Room 104 into a convenience store. Since it didn’t need to be rented out, he hadn’t used his daily [Honest Flyer] quota yet.

Even though Room 103 wasn’t fully cleaned, the ghost’s killing rules were unknown, and no rental rules had been established, Zhou Fangdong decided to post the rental advertisement for Room 103 anyway.

Waste was shameful, and there was no point in letting a free use go to waste. If he couldn’t find a tenant today, he could just post it again tomorrow.

To Zhou Fangdong’s surprise, not long after the Honest Flyer was sent out, a tenant replied to the post asking for an appointment to view the room… Heavens, had the apartments in Liwan Apartments become this popular now?

This time, the appointment was actually for a married couple.

Zhou Fangdong hesitated for a moment, then pretended not to see it, temporarily ignoring the viewing application.

After all, the Rental Contract for Room 103 hadn’t been written yet.

He had only used the Honest Flyer because he didn’t want to waste the once-a-day free use; he hadn’t expected to actually attract a tenant.

Until the landlord approved the viewing application, the tenant had no way of knowing how to get to Liwan Apartments, so Zhou Fangdong wasn’t worried about the couple suddenly showing up tomorrow.

He would leave it for now. It wouldn’t be too late to reply tomorrow after he finished writing the Tenant Contract for Room 103.

Zhou Fangdong paced around his room and realized he didn’t seem to have anything to do tonight.

He couldn’t sleep, and he didn’t have the patience to read. Waiting until morning would be too boring and a waste of time.

…Maybe he should try the roleplay function again? Perhaps he could randomly trigger a Roleplay Task related to the ghost in Room 103.

Thinking back to the terrifying hunger he felt after his last successful roleplay, Zhou Fangdong felt a lingering fear.

That unbearable feeling probably only happened when playing a ghost. After all, they had all experienced unimaginable pain during their lives, and their lingering resentment after death turned them into fierce ghosts.

But the system had said that in a Roleplay Task, he needed to play a tenant who had once lived in Liwan Apartments—it was impossible for every tenant he played to be the ghost of the room, right?

If he just played an ordinary tenant, it shouldn’t be too painful… Zhou Fangdong comforted himself.

He lay on the bed and called out to the system in his mind: “System, activate the roleplay function.”

[Roleplay Task beginning. Please be prepared, Host.]

After the familiar sense of vertigo passed, Zhou Fangdong straightened up from a desk.

His arm felt a bit numb. In this Roleplay Task, the tenant he was playing seemed to have fallen asleep hunched over the desk yesterday.

Zhou Fangdong quickly scanned his surroundings—unfinished junior high school test papers on the desk, a junior high school uniform on the back of the chair that hadn’t been tossed into the washing machine yet, basketball star posters on the wall by the bed, and several pairs of sneakers thrown messily under the bed. This time, the tenant he was playing was likely a junior high school boy who liked basketball.

The bedroom was about fifteen square meters, with a desk and a single bed. The decor was warm, and the room was free of trash or clutter. On the surface, nothing seemed unusual.

Such a normal room probably wasn’t Room 103.

Zhou Fangdong couldn’t find a phone in the room; he only saw a digital alarm clock on the desk.

It was 6:30 AM on a Saturday. There was no school. Zhou Fangdong pushed open the bedroom door and walked out.

After seeing the layout of the entire house, Zhou Fangdong was even more certain that this wasn’t Room 103.

Although he couldn’t see the full layout of Room 103 because of the clutter, he could tell it was the type of floor plan where the living room was visible as soon as the door opened.

But the unit he was in now had no living room at all, only a hallway. There was no natural light in the hallway; the only source of light was a dim ceiling lamp above the entrance door.

It was a strange layout. Entering from the front door led straight into a long hallway with two doors on each side. The overall floor plan was shaped like the character “干”.

Zhou Fangdong remembered that when he inspected all the rooms on the first floor, he hadn’t seen a room with a similar layout.

Could it be that this Roleplay Task hadn’t randomized a tenant from the first floor?

Feeling a bit uneasy, Zhou Fangdong opened the four doors one by one.

The bedroom he had come out of was the room on the west side at the very end of the hallway. Directly across from his bedroom was the master bedroom where the parents lived. Moving forward, the bathroom was on the west side, the kitchen was on the east, and further ahead was the entrance door.

With a nervous heart, Zhou Fangdong opened the entrance door and looked at the room number.

—Room 108.

Room 108??

Zhou Fangdong was a bit stunned.

He remembered that Room 108 was in a state of “ruined war-zone style.” The entire room looked as if it had been hit by artillery fire; it was charred black, with broken bricks and tiles everywhere. Except for the load-bearing walls, everything that could collapse had collapsed.

So this was what Room 108 used to look like… Zhou Fangdong felt a sense of melancholy.

He wondered what the tenants here had done to turn the room into a ruin.

Zhou Fangdong looked around the hallway and finally found the door key in a narrow cabinet built into the wall next to the entrance.

He tucked the key into his pocket and opened the door again, intending to go out and look around.

As he opened the door this time, a gust of icy, chilling wind suddenly hit him, followed by an extremely uncomfortable sensation of being watched.

Zhou Fangdong frowned and looked around warily.

This malicious gaze… it felt like being targeted by some kind of predatory beast, as if he could be pounced upon and have his neck snapped at any moment.

After standing at the door and thinking for a moment, Zhou Fangdong gave up on leaving the room.

With such a glaringly obvious warning, something bad would definitely happen if he went out. He should investigate inside Room 108 instead.

However, he didn’t expect that just before the door fully closed, a hand suddenly reached through the gap and gripped the door tightly.

By reflex, Zhou Fangdong slammed his body against the door.

—He would rather crush this hand than let it into the house.

But his reaction was a step too slow. A greasy, balding man quickly pushed the door open and squeezed inside with a smirk. Zhou Fangdong’s slam sent him crashing directly into the man’s chest.

The bald man steadied Zhou Fangdong and greeted him with great familiarity: “Xiao Di, I saw your parents head out this morning. They didn’t leave any food for you, did they? Are you going out to buy breakfast? Why don’t you come over to my place for a bit? I happened to make too much breakfast.”

Strangely enough, as soon as this bald man appeared, that malicious, peering gaze vanished.

Frowning, Zhou Fangdong pulled away from the bald man’s embrace and took a few steps back.

The bald man looked to be about thirty years old. His face was actually decent with regular features, but the “Mediterranean” bald spot and a mouth full of yellow teeth dragged down his appearance.

He was wearing a very business-casual Polo shirt, had a slight beer belly, and wore suit trousers with a ring of keys hanging from his belt.

Looking at that ring of keys, Zhou Fangdong’s eyes narrowed slightly.

As the landlord of Liwan Apartments, he was intimately familiar with the keys to the apartment doors; he could tell at a glance that one of them was the key to Room 103.

This greasy, balding man was actually the tenant of Room 103!

Zhou Fangdong, who had originally intended to just half-heartedly go through the motions of the Roleplay Task, suddenly perked up. “Sure, thank you, Uncle. Then I’ll come over to your place for a bit. Sorry for the intrusion.”

“No trouble at all, no trouble at all.” The balding man smiled and put an arm around Zhou Fangdong’s shoulder, leading him out of the room and closing the door to 108 behind them.

When they reached the first-floor corridor of Liwan Apartments, Zhou Fangdong squinted his eyes in discomfort.

It was too bright; this was the first time he had seen the apartment corridor under natural light.

Unlike the Liwan Apartments in reality or the version at night, this corridor existing in the past was very ordinary. It was filled with the atmosphere of daily life, not nearly as dilapidated, and devoid of any luxury decorations.

As Zhou Fangdong walked toward Room 103 with the balding man, he observed the hallway.

In front of the entrance doors on the right, some had shoe racks, while others had bags of trash ready to be taken out. It seemed to have rained yesterday, as there were still some muddy footprints on the marble floor of the corridor that hadn’t been mopped clean.

Through the windows on the left, he could see the green belt outside the apartment and the vehicles in the parking lot not far away…

Zhou Fangdong looked at the scenery outside the window almost greedily. Although he had only lived in Liwan Apartments for a few days, he felt as if he hadn’t seen sunlight in a long time.

He was unable to leave the apartment’s main entrance; only when he stood at the foyer waiting for tenants to come and go could he occasionally catch a few rays of sunlight spilling in from outside.

However, at that moment, that malicious, peering gaze appeared again—this time, it was behind him.

Zhou Fangdong was startled. He didn’t turn his head, but instead stared fixedly at the reflection in the corridor window.

In the reflection of the glass, he saw the person who had been watching him… it wasn’t a person, but a ghost. A thin face consisting of nothing but a layer of skin was attached to the back of his head, slowly poking its head out.

While he was using the reflection to look at the ghost face, the ghost face was also watching him through the glass.

The ghost face split its mouth open, revealing a chilling smile.

Zhou Fangdong reached back to touch the back of his head, but his hand met only empty air. Yet in the glass, the image of that ghost face remained.

Noticing that Zhou Fangdong hadn’t kept up, the balding man turned back in confusion and asked, “Xiao Di, what’s wrong?”

The moment the balding man spoke to him, Zhou Fangdong noticed that the ghost face in the reflection vanished again.

Zhou Fangdong shook his head and quickly walked to the man’s side, choosing not to mention the incident.

The two of them soon arrived in front of Room 103.

The balding man used his key to open the door, and a stale scent wafted out from inside.

It was the smell of ink and paper that had been piled up for years without seeing the sun, mixed with the scent of decaying wood and dust, as if walking into a long-sealed archive room.

Standing at the doorway, Zhou Fangdong looked at the collectibles that crammed the room to the brim and nodded with satisfaction.

Aside from the lack of trash, this room looked much the same as Room 103 in reality.

This balding man was likely the last tenant of Room 103; he should be able to obtain clues related to the Room 103 ghost from him.

It seemed this Roleplay Task wouldn’t be without its rewards.

Although Room 103 in the Roleplay Task also looked cluttered, it wasn’t as chaotic as in reality; there was still space to receive guests.

The balding man led Zhou Fangdong to a fabric sofa and gestured for him to sit.

Zhou Fangdong saw a familiar White Opera Costume hanging right above the fabric sofa.

Compared to the costume in reality, this one looked much older. The white fabric was tinged with yellow, and the embroidery at the collar and hem had many loose threads with uneven colors, showing obvious signs of repair.

Seeing that he hadn’t sat down, the balding man followed his gaze.

After realizing Zhou Fangdong was looking at the White Opera Costume, he said with a smile, “Xiao Di, you have a good eye. This is an old piece I acquired not long ago. I heard it was worn by a very famous Dan³ actor… Have you heard of ‘The Living Capture of Sanlang⁴‘?”

The balding man gestured as he spoke. Although his figure had grown portly, his movements were quite poised, as if he had once performed opera himself.

“That’s a famous ghost play. I heard that when the Dan actor wearing this costume to play Yan Xijiao⁵ performed for the last time, he used his water sleeves to strangle the actor playing Zhang Wenyuan⁶ to death, then knelt on the stage and strangled himself as well.”

“Since you’re interested in these things, Xiao Di, I’ll tell you more after we eat. I don’t have much else here, but I do have plenty of these old objects.” The balding man smiled and patted Zhou Fangdong on the shoulder, making him sit on the sofa. “I’ll go bring the food over first. You can have some of the drinks on the coffee table to tide you over.”

With that, the balding man left the living room and walked into the kitchen inside.

Because there were too many miscellaneous items blocking the way, even though it was an open kitchen, Zhou Fangdong, sitting in the living room, could not see at all what the man was doing in the kitchen.

From the moment he appeared until now, the balding man had acted very cordially, appearing to be just a kind uncle who liked taking care of the neighborhood kids.

Zhou Fangdong looked at the drinks on the coffee table.

They were all canned drinks with the type of stay-tab that you press down. When pressed, the tab would come into contact with the liquid inside… if something had been smeared on the tab, the person drinking would certainly fall victim to it.

Despite thinking this, Zhou Fangdong still opened a can and held it in his hand.

Then he stood up from the sofa and, pretending to be interested in the collection, began to browse the clutter piled in the living room.

He was looking for the cabinet where the White Opera Costume hung in the real world, to see if he could encounter the ghost of Room 103 near it. After all, finding clues about the Room 103 ghost was his primary objective for this Roleplay Task.

It would be best if he encountered it now, but it didn’t matter if the ghost hadn’t appeared yet. Once Room 103 was cleaned out tomorrow, the ghost would have nowhere to hide, and he would find it sooner or later.

When that time came, he would use Mind Reading on it, and everything would become simple.

Zhou Fangdong arrived at the location of that cabinet.

In reality, there was a low wooden cabinet here with a hanging rod on top and a flip-top storage bin below.

But in the Roleplay Task, this was a curio shelf against the wall, displaying various worthless trinkets that looked quite aged—such as a dusty rattle-drum⁷, a rabbit lantern⁸ made of bamboo strips, and an inkstone with a missing corner…

Zhou Fangdong leaned in cautiously, gauging the size of the curio shelf.

He felt that something was slightly off about this space. When he had taken down the opera costume in front of the cabinet before, there had been a lot of clutter piled on the floor nearby… but now he felt the floor area was a bit narrow, as if it couldn’t possibly hold that much clutter.

As Zhou Fangdong stepped back, he didn’t notice the junk under his feet and his ankle twisted. Fortunately, his reflexes were fast, and he braced himself against the wall the curio shelf was leaning on, neither hitting the shelf nor spilling the drink in his hand.

Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he felt the texture of the wall under his hand was wrong. Immediately after, the wall shook violently. His body, which had just regained its balance, tilted again. Half the drink in his hand splashed out, nearly falling directly into the wall as it rotated.

Zhou Fangdong had considered the possibility of hidden mechanisms, but due to the habitual thinking ingrained by TV dramas, he thought the mechanism to open a secret room would be on the curio shelf. He hadn’t expected at all that it would actually be on the adjacent wall.

The shelf functioned like a sliding door; as the mechanism activated and it slid fully open, the shelf came to rest against the wall of a secret room.

Zhou Fangdong saw the familiar wooden cabinet, but he also saw the walls of the secret room covered in runes drawn with a bright red liquid.

However, none of these were the main point. The focus was what hung from the clothes rail inside that cabinet—they were unmistakably human skins!

Symbols similar to those on the walls were embroidered onto the skins using hair. The reason he guessed it was hair embroidery rather than paint was that the shiny black threads forming the runes still reflected light, making the surface of the human skins look uneven and pulling the translucent skin into shriveled, puckered folds.

Zhou Fangdong was stunned. The scene before him wasn’t particularly bloody or terrifying; his psychological endurance had been strengthened significantly under the training of the ghosts in the apartment.

What made him feel sick was the sheer discomfort of seeing human beings treated like livestock, skinned and put on display.

Anyone capable of producing such things didn’t deserve to be called human.

After first meeting that bald man, Zhou Fangdong had speculated about his identity with the darkest thoughts possible. He had thought the bald man might be a pyramid scheme scammer, a human trafficker, an organ harvester, or perhaps a creepy uncle who liked little boys… but he realized he had still been too kind in his imagination.

He never expected this dead bald guy to be a purely psychopathic serial killer! The kind who harmed others for no gain, killing purely for his own amusement.

It would be strange if Room 103 wasn’t haunted! He could only say that the ghost in Room 103 had killed well; that bald man deserved his death.

“Xiao Di, how did you find your way in here? Sigh, I was planning to introduce it to you after dinner…”

A cold, greasy voice, like a venomous snake flickering its tongue, suddenly sounded in his ear. Without a second thought, Zhou Fangdong spun around and splashed the remaining half-can of soda directly into the bald man’s face.

Completely caught off guard by Zhou Fangdong’s decisive move, the unprotected bald man was blinded instantly. It was unclear what kind of “extra ingredients” the dead bald guy had added to the drink, but he crouched on the ground, howling in extreme agony.

To help alleviate his pain, Zhou Fangdong grabbed a nearby chair and smashed it several times against that shiny, polished bald head.

Although the middle schooler’s body Zhou Fangdong was currently using liked basketball, his physical fitness didn’t seem very good. This series of actions actually left him a bit winded and gasping for air.

The bald man collapsed on the floor, motionless. The shirt that had been tucked into his waistband was pulled out, revealing a faint tattoo pattern on his beer belly.

Using a chair leg, Zhou Fangdong flicked the shirt open.

It was a very strange rune, looking like a shorthand version of the runes on the secret room walls. The overall shape resembled a large-headed tadpole or a distorted, oval-shaped question mark, surrounded by a ring of strange characters missing limbs and parts.

Zhou Fangdong memorized the symbol. Just as he was about to enter the secret room to investigate, he suddenly heard movement from the bedroom—five bald men holding knives emerged from the room.

Zhou Fangdong never expected people to be hiding in the bedroom. He didn’t hesitate for another second and ran out of Room 103 at top speed.

Hearing the footsteps chasing from behind, Zhou Fangdong didn’t dare look back. He charged straight back to Room 108, then slammed and locked the door, shutting the group outside.

Having narrowly escaped back home, Zhou Fangdong was exhausted to the point of collapse. He slumped against the door, sitting on the floor and panting heavily.

Right then, at the end of the hallway, the master bedroom door opened, and a middle-aged man and woman stepped out.

Zhou Fangdong had seen the wedding photo in the master bedroom; these two should be Xiao Di’s parents.

The middle-aged couple walked toward Zhou Fangdong with faces full of concern.

Zhou Fangdong was just about to ask when they had returned when he saw the middle-aged man pull a knife from behind his back. With a zero-frame startup, he slashed Zhou Fangdong’s throat in one swift motion.

The carotid artery was severed instantly. Blood sprayed like a fountain onto the walls and ceiling. Zhou Fangdong desperately clutched the wound on his neck, staring at the middle-aged couple in disbelief.

The rapid blood loss made his brain spin with vertigo. His hands gradually lost their strength, and his body slumped to the floor. As his position shifted, blood flowed back into his windpipe and flooded his lungs; his body began to cough and twitch involuntarily…

As his consciousness began to fade, Zhou Fangdong saw Xiao Di’s parents open the front door and let the bald men from Room 103 inside.

The men with knives seemed to know Xiao Di’s parents, as they stood around his corpse arguing loudly about something.

But Zhou Fangdong could no longer hear them.

[Roleplay Failed. Please continue to work hard next time, Host.]

[Hint: Dynamic Event: Night Attack of a Hundred Ghosts (Countdown: 16 days)]

Back in his own room, Zhou Fangdong bolted upright in bed, clutching his neck and coughing violently.

…What kind of lunatics were these people in Room 103 and Room 108? One—no, six skinning murderers, and a middle-aged couple who would even kill their own son.

This was truly an eye-opener. Humans were scarier than ghosts; this roleplay difficulty was absolute hell.

No matter what the child named Xiao Di wanted to do in the Roleplay Task, it felt nearly impossible to succeed with this group of maniacs interfering.

Right, Xiao Di also seemed to have a human-faced ghost attached to him.

Unbelievable. How could this kid Xiao Di be so miserable?

After recovering slightly, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental interface with a cold expression. He teleported directly to the 104 Convenience Store and walked aggressively toward the neighboring Room 103.

He was going to find the ghost of Room 103 and use Mind Reading on it.

By now, the nature of the game had changed.

It was no longer as simple as finding the killing rules of the Room 103 entity.

Zhou Fangdong now wanted to use the memories of the Room 103 ghost to figure out exactly what that group of psychopathic killers was after—why they had peeled so many human skins, and why they were so determined to kill Xiao Di.

And whether they were still alive now.

If that group of twisted, murderous freaks was still alive, he wouldn’t mind sending them on their way in reality as well.

Translator’s Notes

• shaped like the character “干”: The character ‘干’ (gān) consists of a vertical line bisected by two horizontal lines. In architectural terms, this describes a ‘double-loaded’ corridor layout where rooms are arranged symmetrically on both sides of a central hallway, resembling a cross or a ‘T’ shape with an extra bar.