Chapter 37

Since he didn’t have much luggage, Zhang Qingyang finished tidying up his room quickly. He prepared to head out to Convenience Store 104 to buy a few things.

He had noticed the store the moment he arrived because the Convenience Store Rules posted on the glass door were very eye-catching. He had spotted the words “No payment required for purchases in the convenience store” at a single glance.

Being a tenant at Liwan Apartments was simply too wonderful; the rent was practically free, and one didn’t even have to spend money on food.

If possible, he wanted to grab some food to take back to the Taoist temple. That way, the people there wouldn’t have to endure hunger by eating only one meal a day to save rations, and the children could finally taste what snacks were like.

Just as he reached the entrance of Convenience Store 104, Zhang Qingyang suddenly heard someone calling his name.

Turning his head, he saw the door to Room 103 swing open.

“Little priest, come here~” Mu Yuechan leaned against the doorframe, not stepping out of Room 103, facing Zhang Qingyang with the intact half of his face.

Seeing this familiar face, Zhang Qingyang froze for a moment and instinctively walked over. “Mr. Landlord? What are you doing in this room? Do you need something from me?”

Zhang Qingyang figured that because it was getting dark, the landlord’s terrifying power became uncontrollable at night, causing him to take on this appearance.

Mu Yuechan covered his lips with a flowing sleeve and let out a low, soft chuckle.

His eyes flickered with a cunning light, and he didn’t deny being the landlord. “Yes, I have a task for you. Do you know the general store next to me? Help me get some vanishing cream and hair oil from there. Make sure they have a nice fragrance.”

“Ah, Convenience Store 104…” Zhang Qingyang scratched his head. “Isn’t it right next door to you? Why bother me with such a small thing? Just go yourself. Besides, I don’t know what brand of cosmetics you use.”

He felt that the nighttime version of “Mr. Landlord” in the apartments was very strange—a bit affected and overly sentimental, lacking the decisive, cold ruthlessness he had displayed when they first met last night.

“It’s not that I won’t go, I just can’t get out… please, pretty please~” With that, Mu Yuechan gave a gentle wink, his shimmering eyes fluttering like little hooks.

But in front of Zhang Qingyang, this flirtatious glance was entirely wasted on the blind. He frowned in confusion. “Mr. Landlord, why is your eye twitching?”

“What’s wrong with my eye?” Zhou Fangdong’s voice suddenly rang out from behind Zhang Qingyang.

Zhou Fangdong had come out specifically to find Zhang Qingyang. He wanted to warn him not to leave his room at night or wander around the apartments with his master.

He had originally planned to teleport directly to Room 107, but upon checking the rental preview interface, he saw Zhang Qingyang seemingly talking to Mu Yuechan. Startled, he hurriedly teleported to the entrance of Convenience Store 104.

Hearing Zhou Fangdong’s voice, Zhang Qingyang’s body stiffened. He turned around to see the landlord standing at the convenience store entrance, though he hadn’t noticed when he arrived.

Since Mr. Landlord was at the convenience store, then the one in Room 103 was…

Seeing the confusion in his eyes, Zhou Fangdong explained, “The tenant in Room 103 isn’t me. I only occasionally need to borrow his body to go out. You don’t need to pay him any mind; let him stay in his room.”

Hearing this answer, Zhang Qingyang gasped.

He had heard of ghosts possessing human bodies, but he had never heard of a human being able to possess a ghost’s body… No, Mr. Landlord might not be human either. Regardless, this was too terrifying! How was such a thing even possible?!

While Zhang Qingyang was reeling from the shock, Mu Yuechan was still exhausting all his charms to try and get Zhou Fangdong to relent. “Mr. Landlord~ just let me leave the room~ I promise I won’t leave the apartments~~” He delivered the sentence with so many melodic flourishes it sounded like it had seventeen or eighteen twists¹.

This was a case of path dependency. Back when Mu Yuechan performed opera, he only had to act a little spoiled or beckon with his hand for crowds of people to shower him with money and flowers. He hadn’t expected that after death, he would encounter a master who was completely immune to his antics.

Zhou Fangdong remained entirely unmoved, replying expressionlessly, “I will only consider letting you out once you can fluently read and recite ‘Common Knowledge of Ideology and Morality’ and ‘Common Legal Knowledge’ from memory.”

Seeing that his goal wouldn’t be met, Mu Yuechan’s face instantly changed. “Who could possibly memorize such boring things! Since you won’t let me out, don’t even think about using my body to go out at night anymore!” With that, he rolled his eyes and slammed the door to Room 103 shut.

Zhou Fangdong let out a weary sigh.

Communicating with Mu Yuechan gave him an inexplicable flashback to his university days when he worked as a tutor to earn living expenses and encountered a bratty child. That kid was just as disobedient, even lying to his parents that he was being physically punished just to find an excuse not to study.

It was truly a headache.

Reshaping a brat’s personality was a difficult task indeed.

Zhang Qingyang, who had witnessed the entire exchange from the side, asked curiously, “Mr. Landlord, so those audio files you had me download were for this ghost to listen to… Does this ghost have a personality problem? Is he too bloodthirsty? Or does he just lack human morals?”

Zhou Fangdong sighed heavily and said tiredly, “All of the above.”

Zhang Qingyang rubbed his chin. “My master said that education should be fun. Mr. Landlord, you asked me to find literacy materials, so I assume this ghost is illiterate? In that case, playing these textbook-style books for him is useless. It might even trigger his rebellious streak.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Let me think… Tomorrow, I’ll go out and download some audio collections of tear-jerking stories. Things like ‘Stories of Motherly Love’ or ‘Heart of a Boy.’ These kinds of educational short stories are easier to understand.”

Hearing this, Zhou Fangdong felt a sudden moment of clarity.

It really paid to brainstorm. The method Zhang Qingyang came up with felt like it would be much more effective than his own.

After a moment of thought, Zhou Fangdong said to Zhang Qingyang, “In addition to that, I’ll have to trouble you to buy a media player and some highly-rated tragic drama discs. The kind that are especially heartbreaking and tear-jerking.”

In Mu Yuechan’s era, there probably weren’t video players that allowed for close-up viewing. He would definitely be interested and able to get absorbed in them.

Letting him watch more of these tragic dramas should help cultivate a better character in him… He didn’t expect him to become a self-sacrificing saint like the heroines of those dramas, but at the very least, he needed a normal human sense of right and wrong.

“Alright,” Zhang Qingyang nodded. “By the way, Mr. Landlord, why don’t you just buy him a computer? It would be much more convenient for downloading videos and recordings.”

Zhou Fangdong shook his head. “The atmosphere on the internet isn’t very good right now. I can’t let him have access to the web.”

In this parallel world, ordinary people lived very difficult lives, struggling to survive every day under the oppression of ghosts and monsters.

The more oppressive reality became, the more people would let loose on the internet. There were likely many people who would start flaming others indiscriminately just to vent their negative emotions. Zhou Fangdong was truly afraid that if Mu Yuechan accessed the internet, he would end up hating ordinary people even more.

If Mu Yuechan got into an online argument and, being an illiterate ghost, couldn’t win the verbal spat, he might resort to creating some kind of curse to kill the other person through the internet cable… Given his personality, Zhou Fangdong felt he was very likely to do exactly that.

“True, we definitely can’t let him go online.” Zhang Qingyang seemed to have thought of something as well and nodded in agreement. “I’ll go hunt for some discs for you tomorrow. Mr. Landlord, if there’s nothing else, I’ll head into the convenience store now.”

“One more thing,” Zhou Fangdong called out to stop him. “Do not leave your apartment room after dark, and do not follow your master as he wanders around the apartments.”

Zhang Qingyang froze. He was about to say that his master was very powerful and that he wouldn’t encounter any danger following him, when he heard the landlord add softly, “This is an order, not a suggestion. If you want to die, you are free to ignore me.”

Though the voice remained gentle, Zhang Qingyang felt an indescribable sense of dread from it.

Cold sweat instantly slid down from his temples. Zhang Qingyang nodded hurriedly and said with a solemn, serious expression, “Rest assured, I swear I won’t wander around the apartments at night, nor will I follow my master around.”

The landlord of the apartments acted so reasonably and seemed so much like a normal person that Zhang Qingyang had almost forgotten what a terrifying existence he truly was.

He couldn’t be careless; he absolutely could not violate the landlord’s orders. His master had been resurrected by the landlord, the Taoist temple had been repaired by the landlord, and the ordinary people in the temple were under the landlord’s protection. If he made a single wrong move, it wouldn’t just be him who died, but everyone he cared about.

“Go back to your room after you finish buying things at the convenience store. It’s getting dark…” After giving this final instruction, Zhou Fangdong teleported directly back to his own room.

Zhou Fangdong had originally intended to check out Room 106, but talking to Mu Yuechan had taken up some time… Forget it, he would go tomorrow instead.

After returning to his room and waiting for nightfall, Zhou Fangdong opened the Avatar Interface.

Looking at the two pixelated figures on the screen, he pondered for a moment before finally choosing Mu Yuechan.

The special tenant watch list had just sent him Zhang Zhiwu’s movement trajectory; the Zombie Taoist Master had left Room 108 as soon as it got dark.

He still didn’t know what Zhang Zhiwu went out to do every night, but if he tried to use the Possession Feature on Zhang Zhiwu’s body now, there was a high probability he would be rejected.

It wasn’t a matter of Favorability; it was that the Taoist Master likely had business to attend to at night and wouldn’t agree to lend his body out.

Recalling the state the Zombie Taoist Master was in when they first met, and linking it to his archive information, Zhou Fangdong felt certain that Zhang Zhiwu harbored many secrets. Perhaps he could obtain important intelligence regarding Liwan Apartments from him.

However, those matters would have to be investigated later. After all, he didn’t dare leave his room at night right now. If he encountered danger again, the system didn’t have enough energy to save him a second time.

Zhou Fangdong clicked on the pixelated Republican Era Dan and activated the Possession Feature.

The scene shifted, and the interior of Room 103 appeared before his eyes once more.

While the possession went smoothly this time, Mu Yuechan seemed to be giving him the silent treatment. Before his consciousness fell into slumber, he merely let out a “Hmph” and didn’t say a single word, which allowed Zhou Fangdong to breathe a small sigh of relief.

He was truly a bit afraid of this person saying more strange things.

Mu Yuechan was truly difficult to get along with…

Scolding him increased his Favorability, and giving him the cold shoulder also increased it. But if Zhou Fangdong were to actually speak to him with a kind and gentle face, he couldn’t swallow his pride, always remembering the arrogant attitude Mu Yuechan had when they first met, looking down on everyone…

Sigh, he hoped the touching stories and tragic dramas he asked Zhang Qingyang to collect would work to correct this terrible personality.

Zhou Fangdong shook his head, putting Mu Yuechan out of his mind, and opened the exploration interface.

The Linjiang City Map expanded before him. Looking at the flickering red dots on the map, he thought for a moment and decided to choose the one furthest from the city.

Zhou Fangdong felt that a harmful cult like the Sigu Society would be like rats living in the sewers; they wouldn’t dare go to crowded places. The more remote the location, the more likely it was to be their headquarters.

He hoped he could successfully select one of their strongholds. He didn’t expect to wipe them out in one go, but killing a few high-ranking members would be a good start.

His vision accelerated again, and this time Zhou Fangdong could clearly feel that the passage of time in the images was longer than before.

When the scene finally stabilized, Zhou Fangdong found himself in a quaint, old-fashioned small town.

It looked like an abandoned tourist town. It wasn’t large, consisting of only a single street that one could see the end of at a glance.

The town was built along a river. Weeds grew through the cracks in the flagstone road. On one side of the river were traditional residences and shops, with several uncollected stalls still standing on the street.

A mask stall had a dozen or so masks hanging sporadically. After long exposure to wind and rain, the patterns on the masks had completely faded, leaving behind stark white molds that looked like pale human faces hanging on a rack.

A snack vendor’s cart had also been eroded beyond recognition by the elements, the leftover food inside turned into a dark, indistinguishable mass.

There were also souvenir stalls that looked as if a gale had swept through; not a single ornament was intact, and some of the iron racks used to display goods had even been overturned.

In the middle of the flagstone road was a stone bridge leading to the other side of the river. There were no houses on the opposite bank, only a giant modern stage, likely used for song and dance performances in the past. Although it looked relatively intact, the stage floor was rusted beyond belief, covered in large patches of dark black rust that looked as if it would collapse the moment someone stepped on it, plunging them beneath the stage.

No…

Zhou Fangdong narrowed his eyes, looking closely at the stage floor.

Those didn’t look like rust stains on the floor, but dried blood. Layers upon layers of dark red blood had piled up, making it look like black rust.

Just as Zhou Fangdong was observing the stage, a system notification suddenly appeared.

[Detected a Supernatural Instance created by the Main God System. Instance Corrosion Function automatically activated.]

[Detected host’s current avatar is [Republican Era Dan · Mu Yuechan]… Ghost Tenant power is automatically spreading and eroding…]

Seeing these two pop-ups, Zhou Fangdong was stunned.

Wait, hadn’t he teleported here to find the Sigu Society’s base? How did it turn into eroding a Supernatural Instance? Where did this instance come from? Could the system have used his teleportation as an excuse to bring him here specifically to target the Main God?

Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong called out to the system in his mind:

“System? Didn’t I record the supernatural aura fluctuations of the Sigu Society’s ritual last time? Where did this exploration teleport me? Is this still the Sigu Society?”

[This is a high-frequency activity area for members of the Sigu Society. It is a key location for the cult’s followers to obtain human materials.]

“So the Supernatural Instance created by the Main God System just happens to overlap with the location of the Sigu Society members?”

He found that hard to believe; it was a bit too coincidental.

[It is not a coincidental overlap. This instance has always existed. After the instance concludes, Sigu Society followers come here to collect the remains of players who failed to clear it, using them as ritual materials.]

Hearing the system’s explanation, Zhou Fangdong’s expression darkened.

So those cultists treated this place as a ritual material respawn point… The Supernatural Instances created by the Main God System were man-eating beasts, and those cultists were jackals scavenging for carrion. Not only would they not stop the instance from appearing, they likely hoped even more people would die inside.

Something occurred to Zhou Fangdong, and he asked again, “System, something’s not right. This place is so remote, how could ordinary people constantly be drawn into the instance? Even if someone was desperate for work, they wouldn’t look in a town that clearly looks long-abandoned.”

[This instance is a player screening instance. The Main God System will independently select ordinary people who meet the player criteria and teleport them into this instance.]

Hiss… that’s sinister. If that’s really how it works, it’s truly impossible to guard against.

Recalling the bloodstains he had just seen on the stage, Zhou Fangdong felt his scalp go numb.

Just how many people had died… If you win, you’re taken by the Main God; if you die, your corpse is taken by the cultists. Being dragged into this instance truly meant there would be no trace of you left, dead or alive.

The thought of those vulture-like cultists made Zhou Fangdong’s blood boil.

“System, those cultists are just lurking outside the instance, right? Can the Instance Corrosion Function expand the instance’s range? Can it pull all those bastards in too?”

[Rest assured, Host. It’s a wrap—I guarantee they will all be dragged in.]

Zhou Fangdong was completely relieved now.

That was perfect. He would deal with this instance and the cultists together tonight.

While Zhou Fangdong was chatting with the system, this ancient-style town had completely transformed into a different state.

It was as if time in the entire town had suddenly jumped forward ten years. The wooden buildings, which were already beginning to rot, became even more dilapidated. White lanterns emitting a faint, eerie blue light were hung under the eaves of every house.

The street vendors remained in their spots, looking the same as before, but at some unknown point, flickering figures had appeared in front of those tattered stalls… Upon closer inspection, they were all paper effigies holding lanterns.

Paper money with square holes in the center drifted down like snowflakes from an unknown source, covering the weed-choked stone paths.

A faint, ghostly green fluorescence rose from the river’s surface. The modern stage that was originally on the opposite bank had vanished, replaced by a massive opera stage draped with white funeral banners.

Several people were sitting on the long rows of wooden chairs below the stage.

Seated in the front row were two men and two women, all four of them young adults around twenty years old. They seemed to know each other.

These four young people were still wearing pajamas, their expressions filled with utter confusion, as if they had no idea why they had appeared in such a place.

Sitting in the back row were six bald men, all middle-aged in their thirties or forties, with identical looks of terror on their faces. If they weren’t trapped in their seats and unable to move, judging by their tense muscles, they likely would have bolted.

Zhou Fangdong stood on the opera stage, directly opposite these ‘spectators,’ but they seemed unable to see him, only glancing around in terror.

After using Mu Yuechan’s power for the Instance Erosion, perhaps triggered by the appearance of the six cultists, fragments of memories related to traditional opera began to surface in Zhou Fangdong’s mind, even though Mu Yuechan’s consciousness was still dormant.

There were taboos regarding performances, the procedures for “breaking the evil” when opening a stage, and certain prohibitions that had to be followed when performing specific plays…

According to the system, memory fragments from a Stand usually only appeared after Stand Proficiency reached 50, yet his proficiency was currently only at 10.

Though he didn’t know why they were appearing now, these memories were perfect for establishing the instance rules.

Because Zhou Fangdong had been teleported to this town before the instance officially opened, the rules of the instance would be entirely determined by him after using the Instance Erosion skill.

The erosion process would only end once the instance was cleared, the system had stolen enough power from the Main God System, and the instance completely vanished.

“By the way, System, are there any rewards after the Main God Instance Erosion ends?”

[The fixed reward is that the instance will become a peripheral facility for the apartment. The remaining rewards will be calculated based on how much energy is stolen from the Main God System during the erosion process.]

“How do we determine the amount of stolen energy?”

[The lower the participation level of the reserve players chosen by the Main God, the more energy can be stolen.]

“Understood. Then we’ll just make sure those four young people can’t move the whole time and let those six cultists perform instead.”

Looking at the six bald men sitting below the stage with faces full of panic and helplessness, Zhou Fangdong smiled.

“Now, let the show begin.”

Translator’s Notes