Chapter 43

Zhou Fangdong walked up the stairs, stepping onto the steps patterned with dried corpses to reach the second floor of the apartment.

Perhaps because he held the Red Sandalwood Spirit Tablet in his hand, the stairs were quiet this time. No white mist appeared, nor did the endless loop of steps that never seemed to reach the top.

The moment he rounded the corner of the landing and saw the full view of the second floor, Zhou Fangdong froze.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself before coming up, knowing that the second floor—where the Yin Energy was unstable—might differ from the first, he had never imagined a scene like the one before his eyes.

The walls, floor, and ceiling of the second-floor hallway were entirely covered in crimson flesh. Standing in that corridor felt like being inside the intestines of some gargantuan creature.

Everything within his line of sight was a sea of scarlet. Purplish-blue veins snaked through the crimson masses of meat like the thick, gnarled roots of an ancient tree. The flesh was still slowly writhing, as if it were alive, vibrating gently in time with the rhythmic pulse of some massive heart.

Not only that, but the air was thick with a heavy, steaming scent of blood. Every breath felt like swallowing a mouthful of warm, fresh gore, making Zhou Fangdong feel so nauseous he nearly fainted.

He took several steps back, barely resisting the urge to teleport directly back to his room.

This environment was far too suffocating.

If the first floor of Liwan Apartments was just an ordinary abandoned building, the second floor could no longer be described using any real-world architecture. The scene was truly grotesque.

Even though he had seen many bloody and terrifying sights over the past few days, he still couldn’t adapt to a scene like this.

Just then, Qian Duolai, who had been following behind Zhou Fangdong, suddenly rushed onto the second floor in a hurry.

Because he was running too fast, the moment he reached the top of the stairs, his jelly-like, wobbling head of mashed meat flew off due to momentum. It slammed onto the ground, splashing red and white everywhere and merging with the crimson flesh covering the hallway floor.

Qian Duolai immediately scrambled onto the ground, fumbling around frantically as if trying to gather the meat that belonged to his head.

Strangely, as he collected the pulp of his head, the meat covering the hallway floor began to slowly recede, revealing a small patch of marble tile whose original color was now unrecognizable.

Seeing this, Zhou Fangdong was stunned.

Qian Duolai… it looked like he was cleaning?

Right, he was a Liwan Apartments Cleaner…

The second-floor hallway had probably turned into this mess because Qian Duolai had been trapped on the first floor all these days.

No wonder he had been standing in the stairwell for the past few days, staring fixedly up the stairs.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t want to imagine what the second floor of his apartment would have turned into if he had delayed for a few more days.

Qian Duolai’s cleaning speed was very fast. As he repeatedly went through the process of “gathering meat to put on his neck—the meat head exploding because of his large movements—gathering meat to put on his neck again,” several small, clean areas were quickly cleared in the hallway.

However, even though some clean spots had appeared, there was still no room to walk on the second floor.

This was because the cleaner’s method was completely erratic. He would tidy the floor for a bit, then scrape at the walls for a bit, entirely dependent on where the pulp of his head happened to splash.

Watching his frantic efforts, Zhou Fangdong bought a Low-Level Automatic Cleaning Tool for 30 Ghost Coins from the System Mall and tried to use it on the hallway.

As expected, the system informed him that cleaning tools could not remove stains caused by ghosts.

The environment on the second floor was far too wretched; it would likely take a long time to clear enough space to walk, and the smell of blood was truly hard to stomach… Zhou Fangdong decided to go back down and wait a while, planning to return once Qian Duolai had finished most of the cleaning.

Just as he was about to head downstairs, two more ghosts suddenly came rushing down from the upper staircase.

They looked exactly like Qian Duolai—both had heads made of mashed meat and wore blood-stained cleaner uniforms. Even their builds were similar, making them look like triplets.

These two “explosive-head” ghosts also began clearing the flesh from the second-floor hallway the moment they rushed down. With their help, the cleaning speed increased significantly.

Zhou Fangdong looked up toward the direction the two ghosts had come from.

The stairs above should lead to the third floor.

After the stairs were closed off, it seemed that not only were the first and second floors disconnected, but every floor in the entire Liwan Apartments had been isolated from one another. Thus, these Cleaners had been separated—one trapped on the first floor and two on the third?

…But weren’t there five Cleaners in total? Where were the other two?

As if sensing Zhou Fangdong’s scrutinizing gaze, the two Cleaners who had run down from the third floor paused simultaneously. They turned around in unison, pulled a card out from their newly reshaped meat-heads, and handed them to him.

Zhou Fangdong took the two cards. The cards, which were completely fouled with bloodstains, slowly returned to their original appearance in his hands.

They were Liwan Apartments Cleaner ID cards, identical to Qian Duolai’s. Even the photos of the explosive heads were the same; the only difference was the names.

One was Quan Duolai.

The other was Ming Duolai.

After Zhou Fangdong accepted these two IDs, the progress for the second objective of Side Quest 4—”Hire the deceased Cleaners and put them back to work”—changed to (3/5).

Zhou Fangdong handed the IDs back to the two ghosts and asked, “There are five Cleaners in Liwan Apartments. Do you know where the other two went?”

The three ghosts present shook their heads in unison. With that movement, their meat-heads once again fell apart and splattered onto the ground due to inertia.

The three ghosts went back to their busy work.

Fine, it looked like he would have to find them himself.

Zhou Fangdong looked at the stairs leading to the third floor again.

The second floor already felt very dangerous to him; he didn’t quite dare to go to the higher floors yet.

After all, anyone who played games knew that one should stay in areas corresponding to their level and not attempt to challenge dungeons way above their rank… A player who hadn’t even left the starter village trying to take on the final boss with a basic sword was just committing suicide.

He would let nature take its course. Now that the stairs were open again, perhaps the last two Cleaners were trapped on some other floor and would wander down to the second floor on their own after a while.

Zhou Fangdong walked down the stairs and returned to Room 106.

By now, Room 106 had been cleaned. The furniture from Guijia Furniture Store had arrived and was entering the room one by one.

After entering the room, the ghosts inside the furniture were being chased out one by one by the kittens in the room.

Everything was ready now; all that was missing was Hong Zhong.

He hoped the Bureau of Paranormal Oversight would approve Hong Zhong’s relocation application soon. Zhou Fangdong was eager to see what his main quest reward would be.

Hong Zhong didn’t have time to move yet because he was handling a very difficult and urgent case.

After he submitted his report yesterday, the higher-ups took only two hours to review and approve his application.

Not only did they agree to his request to move into Liwan Apartments, but they also approved his plan to pretend to resign and work as a cleaner there.

The reason he had been delayed until now was that he hadn’t finished the case he was working on.

After submitting the report yesterday, Hong Zhong had intended to go home and pack his bags for Liwan Apartments, but his phone suddenly received an urgent mission transfer notification.

The message stated that a B-rank investigator under his command had gone missing. Hong Zhong needed to follow the existing leads to find the missing investigator within twenty-four hours… dead or alive.

Even if there was no body, he had to recover the recording equipment on the man’s person.

The missing B-rank investigator was named Li Zhe. This young man had been assigned to Hong Zhong as soon as he joined the Paranormal Affairs Department; he was a disciple Hong Zhong had raised entirely by hand.

The supernatural incident Li Zhe had been investigating before his disappearance was related to the recent child disappearances in the city center.

Linjiang City’s center had a strict curfew. Neither adults nor children would go out at night… but for some reason, over the past few days, children were still vanishing mysteriously even while staying inside their homes.

According to witnesses, before their children disappeared, they had all caught a vague glimpse of a peddler dressed in vintage clothing and wearing a large bamboo hat passing by outside their doors.

As the peddler moved further away, the children in the house would vanish shortly after.

Li Zhe had disappeared while investigating this strange peddler. He was the only adult among the victims of these recent disappearance cases.

Before vanishing, the only message he managed to send back to the Paranormal Affairs Department consisted of two words: 【Ghost Market】.

One could tell how dangerous his situation was from such a brief message… Li Zhe likely only had enough time to type those two words.

After an afternoon of investigation yesterday, Hong Zhong discovered that the last place Li Zhe appeared was in the southern suburbs of Linjiang City.

To gather more clues, he had driven there directly this morning.

Then, in the southern suburbs, he discovered a strange factory—a factory that was still in operation and had human activity: the Delicious Slaughterhouse.

Just as the Director of the Delicious Slaughterhouse finished hanging the fresh goods he had bought from the Ghost Market, he suddenly sensed movement outside the factory.

Thinking it was another security guard coming to apply for a job, he put away his chainsaw and teleported to the factory entrance.

…And then he saw a young girl, about 1.8 meters tall, frantically filming at the factory gate with a video camera on her shoulder.

Seeing him emerge from the door, her eyes lit up. She shoved the camera directly into his face.

The Director took a step back and silently pulled out his chainsaw.

Sensing things were going south, the person carrying the camera quickly pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to him.

Sensing the familiar and terrifying aura emanating from the card, the Director’s hand, which was about to start the chainsaw, paused. He retracted the saw and took the card from her.

Written on it was: 【Delicious Slaughterhouse Visitor’s Pass】

The corner of the Director’s mouth, hidden beneath his mask, twitched.

His gaze shifted downward to see the name and the one-inch ID photo below.

【Miao Zheng, Tenant of Room 109, Liwan Apartments】

The Director held the visitor’s pass, turning it over and over, occasionally glancing at Miao Zheng, trying to find any possibility of it being a forgery.

Miao Zheng stared back at him eagerly, completely unafraid of his malicious, scrutinizing gaze.

The Director let out a heavy sigh, slapped his head hard, closed his eyes, and opened them again… the visitor’s pass was still in his hand, and the girl with the camera was still standing before him.

“Fine, follow me.” The Director finally compromised, though his muffled voice sounded somewhat pained.

The Director originally thought that enduring the humiliation of leading a human on a tour of the factory was painful enough, but he hadn’t expected this visitor to be so incredibly talkative. She was like a mosquito, buzzing incessantly in his ear.

“Director, Director, how much money does a big factory like this make every year? Do you pay taxes? Do the employees working here have social security and a housing fund¹? What made you decide to open a factory in the suburbs? What does your factory mainly slaughter? Where are you taking me next?”

The Director stopped abruptly and turned to glare fiercely at Miao Zheng. His eyes, the only part of his heavily covered face visible, showed signs of turning red.

As if blind to this, Miao Zheng continued to ask with a grin, “Oh right, Director, can we take a photo together for an autograph? I’m from the countryside; it’s my first time seeing such a big factory and my first time seeing a legendary Director.” As she spoke, she somehow produced a still camera out of thin air.

Bloodstains began to seep through the Director’s grey long-sleeved uniform.

He took a deep breath and said through gritted teeth, “You. May. Not! Photography is not allowed inside the factory! Put away all those naughty little toys of yours, including the ones hanging from your chest and waist!”

“Tch.” Miao Zheng curled her lip and obediently put the video camera, still camera, portable action camera, thumb camera, and pinhole camera back into her equipment bag.

“Dammit, if you weren’t a tenant of Liwan Apartments…” Faint sounds of teeth grinding came from beneath the Director’s mask.

“Dammit, the guy who came to apply for a security job to mess with me was the same. Do you people think my place is some amusement park haunted house? Coming and going as you please… truly dammit… if only I could beat you… dammit…”

As he led Miao Zheng into the factory, the Director kept muttering to himself. Eventually, his voice became blurred, sounding like a beast’s growl, until the only word that could be clearly heard was ‘dammit.’

Miao Zheng acted as if she heard nothing.

With the visitor’s pass given by the Landlord, she was naturally going to treat this like a haunted house and play to her heart’s content. What else would she do?

The Director led Miao Zheng into the workshop closest to the entrance.

Upon entering, they were in a warehouse for storing ‘goods.’ The goods were all in their raw, uncleaned state, suspended from the ceiling by hooks pierced through their collarbones. Dripping blood stained the warehouse floor red.

The Director’s sinister voice suddenly rang out:

“Welcome to the Delicious Slaughterhouse’s slaughter line… these are the unprocessed goods of our factory.”

“This one is a disobedient security guard who broke the rules and triggered a taboo.”

“This one is a semi-ghostified guard who was corrupted by resentment and Yin Energy, having lost his sanity.”

“This one is a guard whose body was possessed; he looks human on the surface, but inside he is a fierce ghost.”

“I can provide you with a chainsaw, a bone cleaver, and other tools. Which one do you want to slaughter?”

The Director stared at Miao Zheng with ill intent, seemingly waiting for her to make a choice so he could drop the one with the highest danger rating.

Miao Zheng looked at these guards hanging from the ceiling, their faces twisted and hideous, no different from fierce ghosts. She hesitated to speak.

She really wanted to comment that ‘the danger rating for being a security guard at your slaughterhouse is quite high.’

Was this the Delicious Slaughterhouse or the Security Guard Slaughterhouse?

Miao Zheng shook her head and declined the activity. “Are there any other tour activities? This kind of bloody slaughtering is a bit much for a weak woman like me to handle. Just show me around the factory more; it’s not like you have anything better to do anyway.”

The Director looked at the ‘weak woman’ before him—1.8 meters tall with arm muscles as perfectly defined as a statue of David. After a moment of silence, he continued leading her further inside.

Further ahead was the slaughterhouse’s assembly line, which was highly mechanized. Several workers dressed in long-sleeved uniforms, hats, and masks—dressed much like the Director—were busy inside.

They were living humans who seemed completely unable to see what kind of goods they were processing with the machinery. Everyone’s expression was normal, their movements professional and fluid.

The place where the Director and Miao Zheng appeared was the start of the assembly line. A pile of ‘goods’ hung here, waiting for the conveyor belt to start and transport them down the line.

Miao Zheng immediately noticed the person hanging on the outermost edge.

The clothes on his body… were the investigator uniform of the Paranormal Affairs Department.

The male investigator was pale, his eyes tightly shut, and his hands were bound by iron chains. A hook hanging from the ceiling passed through the gap in the chains, suspending him in the air like a pig or sheep waiting for slaughter.

His face looked somewhat familiar; she had definitely seen him at the Paranormal Affairs Department before.

“Can I take this one with me?” Miao Zheng asked, pointing at the investigator.

The factory manager gave a cold snort. “Little girl, this is cargo our slaughterhouse is about to process. I have to sell him after the slaughter. This concerns our factory’s business turnover; it’s not within the scope of your tour or play. If you want to play with cargo in human form, I can release a few more security guards possessed by fierce ghosts for you.”

Miao Zheng shook her head. “I want this one. Are you selling him? How much do you want?”

The factory manager let out a cold laugh. “This is fresh stock I just bought from the Ghost Market this morning. It’s going for three hundred Ghost Coins. Can you afford that?”

“Ghost Coins?” Miao Zheng scratched her short hair and thought for a moment. She pulled a palm-sized, miniature black plastic bag from her pocket. “Is it this?”

This was something the Female Ghost Sister from Room 109 had stuffed into her hand before she left. The ghost had written in blood on the floor to tell her that this was ‘money,’ and that she should buy whatever she liked while she was out and not deprive herself.

The factory manager took it and weighed it in his hand… not a coin more, not a coin less, exactly three hundred Ghost Coins.

He silently opened the plastic bag, and a thick cloud of black energy drifted out, merging directly into his body.

The factory manager closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of satisfaction. His previously irritable state relaxed visibly to the naked eye.

“Fine, take the kid and get lost,” he waved Miao Zheng away impatiently.

“Huh? The tour is over already? But I haven’t—”

“Get the hell out!”

“Oh, okay, I’m going.” Sensing that the factory manager’s patience had completely run out, Miao Zheng, who was very good at reading the room, instantly became obedient.

She took Li Zhe down from the hook as fast as she could and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of flour.

And so, carrying a ten-kilogram camera equipment bag on her back and a living person weighing over seventy kilograms on her shoulder, she sprinted out of the Delicious Slaughterhouse.

Before she left, more than half of the factory manager’s grey long-sleeved uniform had been dyed red with blood.

When Miao Zheng ran out of the large iron gates of the Delicious Slaughterhouse carrying the investigator, she happened to run into Hong Zhong, who was pacing outside the factory.

Hong Zhong watched with disbelief, rubbing his eyes as Miao Zheng ran out of the factory with a vigorous stride, carrying Li Zhe.

It really was Miao Zheng.

How could it be Miao Zheng??

What was she doing in the factory? Could it be that she was the one who kidnapped Li Zhe? No, that was impossible…

“Captain Hong? You’re here! I was just about to call you.” With that, Miao Zheng set Li Zhe down from her shoulder. “This should be one of your team members, right? I think I saw him at the Paranormal Affairs Department during special training.”

Hong Zhong checked Li Zhe’s breathing and pulse. After finding that he was still alive, he relaxed slightly.

He looked at Miao Zheng and asked, “Why are you in this factory?”

Fearing that Hong Zhong would scold her for wandering around supernatural locations, Miao Zheng quickly said, “The landlord sent me here!”

In her mind, there was nothing wrong with this statement. After all, she could only enter the Delicious Slaughterhouse for a tour with the landlord’s permission. Furthermore, with the protection of the visitor’s pass given by the landlord, she was very safe inside the factory.

But to Hong Zhong’s ears, these words took on a completely different meaning.

—Could it be that the landlord had already predicted that the missing Li Zhe would appear in the factory, so he specifically sent Miao Zheng to help him?!

Could it be… could this be a benefit of becoming a tenant of Liwan Apartments?

After agreeing to become a tenant of Liwan Apartments, not only would he receive the landlord’s protection, but even people associated with him could receive the landlord’s protection?

At this thought, Hong Zhong sucked in a breath of cold air.

He truly hadn’t expected that the landlord’s strength was not only unfathomable, but that he even possessed the ability of foresight… What a terrifyingly great power! It was simply horrifying!

Back at Liwan Apartments, Zhou Fangdong, who was checking the system interface in Room 106, suddenly felt an itch in his nose, like he was about to sneeze.

He looked doubtfully at the little black Cat Ghosts chasing each other and playing in the room, calling out to the system in his mind: “Do Cat Ghosts shed fur?”

He was allergic to both cat and dog fur, so although he liked small animals, he had never kept any.

[Cat Ghosts are supernatural entities, aggregates of resentment. The system believes they do not have the function of shedding fur.]

Zhou Fangdong rubbed his nose. “Strange… whatever, forget it for now. System, why has a new location, [Ghost Market], been unlocked on my map interface? I don’t think I did anything just now.”

[Detected that Room 109 tenant Miao Zheng has purchased goods originating from the Ghost Market. A Ghost Market teleportation point has been automatically opened for the host.]

“Miao Zheng?” Zhou Fangdong was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized. “Wait, didn’t my tenant go to the Delicious Slaughterhouse for a tour this morning? When did she run off to the Ghost Market?”

Without waiting for the system’s response, he quickly opened the Linjiang City Map. After seeing the small red dot representing Miao Zheng approaching the apartments, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Fortunately, she was fine. He had been worried that Miao Zheng had been caught up in some strange supernatural incident on her way to the Delicious Slaughterhouse.

[Room 109 tenant has finished touring the Delicious Slaughterhouse. Due to the factory manager’s extremely low Favorability toward this tenant, the tenant is temporarily restricted from visiting the slaughterhouse again for one month.]

Zhou Fangdong didn’t care what Miao Zheng had done in the Delicious Slaughterhouse to make the manager’s Favorability so low; as long as she was okay, it was fine.

After confirming his tenant’s safety, Zhou Fangdong exited the Linjiang City Map, enlarged the exploration interface, and clicked on the details for the [Ghost Market].

He wondered what use this newly unlocked place had.

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Translator’s Notes