Chapter 48

As soon as dawn broke, after confirming that all his tenants were safe, Zhou Fangdong headed to the second floor of the apartment building.

Just as he had anticipated yesterday, the flesh and blood in the second-floor corridor had mostly been cleared away. The thick, bloody stench in the air had faded significantly, reaching a bearable level.

However, Zhou Fangdong noticed that although the bulk of the flesh had been removed, the lack of Cleaners in this section of the corridor meant that fresh flesh was still sprouting like mushrooms from the corners of the walls and the gaps between floor tiles.

If left unchecked, it would eventually return to yesterday’s state.

Following the pitch-black corridor, Zhou Fangdong reached the elevator shaft. Unlike the first floor, which had a bright and open foyer in front of the elevator, the area in front of the second-floor elevator was just a short, ordinary hallway.

The overall layout of the second floor was shaped like a regular square. The elevator shaft sat in the center, flanked by two corridors: one was a windowless, doorless passage, and the other led to the tenant rooms.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t linger in front of the elevator. He walked quickly to the corner ahead and reached the section where the second-floor rooms were located.

In this hallway, he found the three afro-haired Cleaners.

They had already cleared the area in front of Room 201 and were working their way forward.

At this rate, by the time they finished cleaning the hallway with the tenant rooms, the flesh in the other corridor would likely have grown back, forcing them to rush back and start over.

It took three Cleaners working together just to barely balance the growth rate of the flesh on the second floor… If an accident occurred and one of them couldn’t make it to work, the corridor would be reclaimed by flesh once again.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t know what effect this flesh had on ordinary people, but he personally detested it, and the bloody smell made him very uncomfortable. He didn’t dare gamble on whether an ordinary person touching this stuff would be afflicted by some malevolent curse, similar to touching cat tallow.

To control the spread of this flesh and make it easier for tenants to move around, he needed to find the remaining two Cleaners who were missing as soon as possible.

Furthermore, it wasn’t just the issue of the corridor growing flesh; the state of the ghosts on the second floor was completely different from the first floor.

Yesterday, because his attention had been entirely consumed by the flesh occupying the hallway, Zhou Fangdong only noticed the ghosts on the second floor today.

Just during his walk to the door of Room 201, he witnessed several fights between ghosts.

It wasn’t just simple fighting; it was slaughter—tearing at each other, devouring each other, refusing to stop until one soul was completely dissipated. The stronger ghosts would eat the weaker ones.

Compared to the carnage on the second floor, the bickering between the Long-tongued Ghost and the Wedding Dress Ghost seemed like child’s play.

Although these ghosts didn’t dare attack him, given their frenzied state, any ordinary person stepping into this corridor would surely be torn to shreds just like the weaker ghosts.

If the ghosts he had encountered in the first-floor corridor had been in this state, Zhou Fangdong wouldn’t have dared to walk around even with the kerosene lamp extinguished… even knowing they wouldn’t attack him, it was still terrifying.

Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized something and called out to the system in his mind:

“System, the stabilization of the Yin Energy on the first floor wasn’t just because I rented out the rooms, was it? Was the Yin Energy in the first-floor corridor already more stable than the other floors the day I first arrived at the apartment?”

He had a feeling that the normal state of the apartment corridors should be like the second floor.

[The first floor is the novice zone. Before the Host’s arrival, the system did indeed adjust the difficulty, using surplus power to stabilize the Yin Energy of the first-floor corridor. If the environment of the novice zone were too harsh, it might have caused the Host to be overwhelmed by fear and refuse to leave his room.]

Zhou Fangdong opened his mouth to speak but hesitated.

While it made sense, he had the nagging suspicion that the system was subtly insulting him.

Given the current situation, if he wanted to rent out the rooms on the second floor, he first had to ensure that tenants followed the rules when using the stairs so they wouldn’t be eaten.

Secondly, he had to ensure that tenants weren’t blocked by the flesh in the corridor, nor could they be terrified by the ghosts slaughtering each other.

There were two major hurdles before even entering a room. Therefore, the second-floor rooms absolutely could not be rented to Low-level Tenants like Zhao Dawei, who had no resistance against fierce ghosts.

It would be best to find some mid-level tenants like Hong Zhong or Zhang Qingyang… He wondered if Hong Zhong could introduce some employees from the Paranormal Affairs Department. Professionals like them would surely be well-adapted to this kind of supernatural environment.

Zhou Fangdong opened the door to Room 201.

The moment the door opened, system pop-ups appeared one after another:

[Ding—Host has reached the second-floor rooms. Main Quest 3 is now active.]

[Main Quest 3: Clear all rooms on the second floor to a rentable state and find tenants to move in.]

[Quest Reward: Hidden for now.]

[Side Quest 8: Clear and rent out Room 201.]

① Clear the room and clean up.

② Discard damaged furniture and purchase new furniture.

③ Find the ghost hidden in the room and determine the ghost’s Killing Pattern.

④ Draft a Rental Contract and find a tenant to move in.

[Side Quest Reward: 500 Ghost Coins, 2000 Experience Points, Random Skill Point x1.]

The side quest for the second floor offered two hundred more Ghost Coins and one thousand more Experience Points than the first floor… with better rewards, the difficulty had certainly increased.

Zhou Fangdong closed the pop-ups and stepped into Room 201.

Most of the room layouts on the first floor were small, one-room studios suitable for singles or couples; Zhou Fangdong’s own room was like that.

The floor area on the second floor was much larger. It was a family-style apartment suitable for a whole household. The entrance led to a living room, with a dining area and an open kitchen to the side. Further in were two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Zhou Fangdong took a walk around Room 201 and found that the room was surprisingly clean. Aside from a bit of dust and the fact that all the furniture was damaged, there were no issues.

Furthermore, it lacked the bloody stench and rot common in haunted houses. Room 201 only had a faint scent of medicine, like the smell of various herbs mixed together when walking into a traditional Chinese pharmacy.

It was a bit pungent, but not unpleasant.

He didn’t see the ghost in the room… where was it hiding?

After a quick search yielded nothing, Zhou Fangdong didn’t waste any time and directly activated [Ghost Pupils].

This skill allowed him to see fluctuations in supernatural power and predict the movement paths of low-level ghosts.

Following the supernatural fluctuations, Zhou Fangdong arrived at the open kitchen. On the stove, he saw an ancient-looking little Medicine Pot.

It was a very ordinary clay pot used for decocting herbal medicine, appearing quite old. The lid had been stained black by medicinal fluids.

What was strange, however, was that there was no fire beneath the pot, yet the lid was moving on its own. There was a gurgling sound coming from inside, as if something was being boiled.

As Zhou Fangdong appeared in the kitchen, various strange objects began to manifest out of thin air in every corner… dead rats, clumps of mud that looked like cat feces, a bundle of weeds, a rotten orange, dried lizard tails, bat wings, and more…

Looking at these suddenly appearing items, Zhou Fangdong strangely understood what the Medicine Pot wanted to do.

The Medicine Pot seemed to be using this junk to masquerade as medicinal ingredients, wanting him to throw these things into the pot to boil.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t move. He stood to the side with his arms crossed, watching the Medicine Pot’s performance.

If he didn’t boil them, how would the Medicine Pot change? Would a ghost crawl out of it to grab him?

More and more strange “medicinal ingredients” appeared out of thin air in the kitchen, and the bubbling sound from the Medicine Pot grew louder, but the expected scene of a ghost crawling out of the pot did not occur.

After a moment of thought, Zhou Fangdong directly used [Soul Siphon] on the Medicine Pot.

This memory-reading skill was only effective against ghosts with a sense of reason.

If the skill took effect, it would prove there was indeed a ghost in the Medicine Pot; if it didn’t, he would search elsewhere in the room.

The skill activated, and the memory retrieval was successful. There was indeed a ghost in the pot—a tenant who had once lived in Room 201.

The upgraded mind-reading skill not only removed the need for physical contact but also significantly reduced the side effects.

Previously, after using the skill to read a ghost’s memories of its life, his mind felt as if it had been forcibly stuffed with clutter. Under the influence of those obsessive memory fragments, he would experience noticeable mental fatigue and physical pain as if he were experiencing their suffering firsthand.

Now, however, reading memories was more like watching a short play from a third-person perspective, with no adverse physical reactions.

He wasn’t sure if this was due to the skill upgrade or the accessory he was wearing that increased his Spirit Bar by 25%.

Furthermore, after using the [Soul Siphon] skill, the ghost in the Medicine Pot actually offered him five hundred Ghost Coins as tribute.

He felt a bit like a bullying landlord committing a home invasion, forcing a ghost to pay protection money…

But this skill felt incredible. This sense of security, knowing he could pick up Ghost Coins everywhere, gave Zhou Fangdong the urge to go spend some money in the System Mall.

The ghost in the Medicine Pot had been a patient suffering from a rare disease during his lifetime.

Because the illness wasn’t covered by medical insurance, the patient had exhausted his wealth after a period of medication and could no longer afford hospital fees.

Having sold his house to pay for treatment, he found the place with the lowest rent in the city and moved in, then began searching for various folk remedies.

Not long after the patient moved into the Liwan Apartments, he met a kind-hearted middle-aged man.

This benefactor was also a tenant of the apartments, living in Room 103.

The middle-aged man gave the patient a Medicine Pot, claiming that it could not only produce its own medicine but that the medicine brewed from it could cure all ailments.

With nowhere else to turn, the patient followed the middle-aged man’s instructions and drank the medicine from the pot, clinging to his last shred of hope.

To his surprise, it actually worked. His condition gradually began to improve.

However, one day, the Medicine Pot suddenly produced a large amount of “medicine.” The patient had to brew five full batches just to use up all the “medicine” that had appeared out of thin air.

Not wanting to waste the divine medicine, he drank all five bowls.

The moment the fifth bowl was drained, the patient died on the spot. After death, he turned into a Sickness Ghost and merged with the Medicine Pot, remaining in Room 201 until now.

When the patient first moved into the Liwan Apartments, the building’s sinister reputation had already spread throughout Linjiang City. Coupled with the patient’s horrific appearance at death—his body covered in festering, oozing sores and pustules as if he carried a contagious plague—no other tenants had moved into Room 201 after him.

The Sickness Ghost had never killed anyone, so its Killing Pattern could not be learned from its life experiences.

The Medicine Pot possessed no reason; it seemed to be just an ordinary cursed item, making it impossible to obtain its Killing Pattern through the skill…

Could it be that as long as one didn’t touch the “medicinal ingredients” appearing in the room and didn’t drink the medicine from the pot, they would be safe?

Surely any normal person would avoid such eerie things… Were the ghost Killing Patterns on the second floor really that simple?

Zhou Fangdong was still uneasy.

He suspected that because the person entering Room 201 was him, the ghost in the room didn’t dare to fully show its hand.

From the moment he entered, the Sickness Ghost had been hiding from him. After being found and robbed of five hundred Ghost Coins, it was likely even more afraid of him now.

After pondering for a while, Zhou Fangdong left Room 201 and browsed the System Mall, purchasing a Scapegoat Doll for five hundred Ghost Coins.

Zhou Fangdong looked silently at the doll that appeared in his hand.

The doll’s design was rather crude—a clump of cotton covered in a layer of cloth, with rubber bands used to cinch out a head and limbs, looking like a dried-up white starfish. The face was drawn very abstractly, just a simple doodle¹… This doll looked like a piece of after-school homework a primary schooler had rushed through to fool their teacher.

Whatever, as long as it worked.

There were two ways to use the Scapegoat Doll. One was to keep it in its doll form and carry it; it could block one lethal attack for the user within twenty-four hours.

The other method was to apply a drop of blood to the doll after activation, causing it to take on the user’s appearance. The user could share the doll’s vision and use it to scout dangerous areas for a duration of five hours.

During the scouting process, the doll would act on its own according to the logic of an ordinary person, though the user could also take direct control of its actions.

Zhou Fangdong planned to have the doll simulate a normal person and enter Room 201 to test the Killing Pattern of the Medicine Pot and the Sickness Ghost.

However, to make the doll transform into his likeness, he needed to apply a drop of blood.

Zhou Fangdong looked at his finger.

What should he use to prick it? He didn’t seem to have anything sharp on him…

Just as the thought occurred, the system’s cold electronic voice suddenly rang out urgently:

[Host, please do not harm yourself!!]

Zhou Fangdong was startled by the agitated electronic voice.

…What was going on? Since when did the system care so much about him?

[The system failed to update the usage conditions for the Scapegoat Doll in a timely manner. They have now been updated. Compensating the host with five hundred Ghost Coins.]

The updated usage method for the Scapegoat Doll no longer required a drop of blood; it only required mental control.

That was fine. Although he didn’t know what had gotten into the system, the change saved him from pricking his finger and even got him a free Scapegoat Doll.

The successfully activated Scapegoat Doll transformed into Zhou Fangdong’s likeness and walked into Room 201.

After the Scapegoat Doll entered, a video window appeared in Zhou Fangdong’s field of vision. Next to the video window was the doll’s status panel, allowing him to see exactly what damage the doll sustained.

He didn’t take control of the doll immediately, instead letting it act freely.

Through the live broadcast, Zhou Fangdong discovered that as soon as the Scapegoat Doll entered Room 201, the Sickness Ghost emerged from the Medicine Pot.

This Sickness Ghost was different from the hiding, cowering state it had been in when Zhou Fangdong was in the room. After crawling out of the pot, it began pacing the room with its hands behind its back, its expression deeply solemn, like a melancholy poet.

Low coughs escaped the Sickness Ghost’s mouth. Simultaneously, large patches of pustules began to surface on its dark, bruised face.

Because the Sickness Ghost appeared very close to the Scapegoat Doll, all the symptoms appearing on the ghost’s body spread rapidly to the doll like a plague.

The smell of medicine filled the room again, the Medicine Pot made brewing sounds, and strange “medicinal ingredients” appeared out of thin air on the kitchen counter.

This time, there weren’t as many “ingredients” as when Zhou Fangdong had been in the room—only two items.

Driven by survival instinct, the Scapegoat Doll rushed to the kitchen, coughing as it placed the ingredients into the Medicine Pot.

Only a few seconds after the “ingredients” were added, a bowl of dark, murky medicinal soup appeared out of thin air next to the pot. The Scapegoat Doll drank the bowl of medicine, and its symptoms vanished instantly, as did the strange herbal scent permeating the room.

However, the side effect of drinking the medicine was the loss of its hearing.

Watching the live broadcast, Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment, then took over control of the doll, maneuvering it toward the Sickness Ghost once again.

When the doll came within a two-meter radius of the Sickness Ghost, it was infected once again. Simultaneously, the smell of medicine filled the room, and the Medicine Pot underwent another strange transformation.

Following the previous procedure, the doll drank the medicine again. This time, it lost its sense of taste.

So, infection occurs within a two-meter range of the Sickness Ghost…

Zhou Fangdong directed the doll to approach the Sickness Ghost again, but this time, he chose not to let it take the medicine.

After five minutes of being infected, the Sickness Ghost, which had been pacing with its hands behind its back, slowly turned its head and looked over.

Those pitch-black eyes, devoid of any whites, stared fixedly at the Scapegoat Doll. In the next instant, the Sickness Ghost appeared out of thin air directly in front of the doll and merged with it.

Various horrific symptoms erupted simultaneously on the Scapegoat Doll’s body, and the doll was ultimately tortured to death by the illness.

If one is infected by the Sickness Ghost in Room 201, it triggers the Medicine Pot to brew medicine. If the tenant doesn’t drink the medicine, they are killed by the Sickness Ghost; if they do drink it, they merely suffer a random loss of one of the five senses…

However, the medicine brewed by this pot cannot be consumed consecutively. The Sickness Ghost itself had died in life after drinking five bowls of medicine in a row.

Therefore, to rent and live in this room, one must stay away from the randomly appearing Sickness Ghost and drink the medicine immediately once the smell appears, or else be killed by the ghost.

There was a margin for error. Being infected by the Sickness Ghost wasn’t an instant death sentence; one could be saved by the Medicine Pot at the cost of losing one sense. As long as one didn’t make the mistake five times in a row, there was hope.

Zhou Fangdong decided to buy another Scapegoat Doll to experiment further, wanting to see if any other Killing Pattern would be triggered if the Sickness Ghost was avoided entirely.

The previous doll had essentially been a freebie from the system, and since he had snatched five hundred from the Sickness Ghost, his Ghost Coin balance remained unchanged even after buying another Scapegoat Doll.

The Scapegoat Doll entered the room again. This time, Zhou Fangdong controlled it to completely avoid the Sickness Ghost.

During this period, he discovered that the Sickness Ghost’s appearances were irregular. Sometimes it would crawl out of the Medicine Pot after half an hour, and sometimes there was no movement for an hour. However, every time the Sickness Ghost appeared, it was accompanied by a low coughing sound—this was the only omen to judge its arrival.

Once the Sickness Ghost appeared, it would pace around the room for roughly ten minutes.

When the doll completely avoided the Sickness Ghost and was not infected with any disease, the Medicine Pot showed no reaction.

After a moment of contemplation, a thought suddenly occurred to Zhou Fangdong—what if a tenant wasn’t infected by the Sickness Ghost, but was already ill or injured upon entering the room?

With this in mind, Zhou Fangdong controlled the Scapegoat Doll, sending it to the kitchen to find a knife and cut a wound on its hand.

As expected, the Medicine Pot underwent another transformation.

He had the doll drink the medicine. After finishing it, the wound that had just been sliced by the knife healed instantly.

In a sense, this Medicine Pot was actually a rather useful healing tool.

Five hours passed, and the Scapegoat Doll’s usage time expired. It reverted into a crudely made rag doll and fell to the floor.

Zhou Fangdong had now roughly figured out the Killing Pattern of the ghost in this room.

To live in this room, it all depended on whether one could avoid the Sickness Ghost, ensure they weren’t carrying any pre-existing injuries or illnesses, and avoid drinking the medicine from the Medicine Pot five times in a row.

Furthermore, based on the five-hour experiment, Zhou Fangdong discovered that the debuff of losing a sense only disappeared when the Sickness Ghost refreshed.

Therefore, in this room, knowing the Sickness Ghost’s refresh location in a timely manner was of the utmost importance.

Not only did he need to write the Tenant Rules, but to increase the tenants’ survival rate, he also seemed to need to prepare items for them that could detect the appearance of ghosts… The System Mall had many newly unlocked items; he would look for one in a bit.

He hoped the item wouldn’t exceed five hundred Ghost Coins. Completing Side Quest 8 only rewarded five hundred Ghost Coins; anything over that would be a losing bargain.

Sigh… it would be great if future tenants of Room 201 had their own abilities or items to sense the presence of ghosts.

Zhou Fangdong stepped back into Room 201. The Sickness Ghost that had been wandering the room reacted as if it had seen a ghost itself, retreating into the Medicine Pot as fast as it could.

The smell of medicine reappeared in the room, and the Medicine Pot was trembling violently. The lid rattled with increasing intensity, and the gurgling sound from inside was as loud as boiling water. Yet, despite its fear, the Medicine Pot could not resist its own rules, uncontrollably causing various strange ‘medicinal ingredients’ to appear in the kitchen.

Zhou Fangdong felt it was a bit strange.

He had no illness or external injuries, so why was this Medicine Pot spitting out so much medicine? Did it want him to drink it that badly?

But it didn’t matter. Even if he didn’t drink the medicine, that Sickness Ghost wouldn’t dare attack him.

Zhou Fangdong bought an Automatic Cleaning Tool (Intermediate) worth 80 Ghost Coins from the mall and used it on the room.

This was also a newly unlocked item in the System Mall. One intermediate cleaning tool could clean an area of one hundred and fifty square meters, equivalent to three low-level cleaning tools. However, buying three low-level ones would cost 90 Ghost Coins; buying the intermediate one directly saved 10 Ghost Coins.

Although Zhou Fangdong wasn’t short on Ghost Coins now, he had to save where he could. It was important to cultivate the good habit of being thrifty.

Watching Room 201 enter its cleaning state, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to his own room. He opened the furniture procurement app, ordered a batch of furniture, and requested the Furniture Store Manager to deliver it in two hours.

To his surprise, just after the order was successfully placed, he received a call from the furniture store.

This was the first time Zhou Fangdong had received a call from someone else since arriving in this world, and for a moment, he felt quite unaccustomed to it.

Once the call connected, the Furniture Store Manager’s voice rang out: “Mr. Landlord, are you ordering furniture for the second floor of the apartment?”

“Yes. I believe I noted on the order that the furniture is for Room 201.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Finally, the manager said cautiously, “I’m sorry, but I cannot deliver the furniture to the apartment.”

Zhou Fangdong was stunned. “Why? Doesn’t the furniture store have deliverymen? I recall Zhao Dawei isn’t off today.”

“It’s not a problem with the deliverymen…” The manager paused and sighed. “It’s a problem with the second floor. As a ghost created by the apartment, I can sense that the state of the Yin Energy in the second-floor corridor isn’t very good.”

“The reason I felt safe sending furniture before was because you not only gave me a body again but also stabilized the Yin Energy in the first-floor corridor, preventing it from eroding the sanity of ghosts. Although the Yin Energy in the first-floor corridor isn’t as potent as inside the rooms, it still serves to nourish the soul.”

“After the children return to the apartment from the furniture store, they can not only regain their freedom from the furniture but also repair themselves and steadily grow their strength by absorbing the Yin Energy of the first floor. Therefore, I was at ease.”

At this point, the Furniture Store Manager let out another heavy sigh.

“More than half of these children I stuffed into the furniture were those who couldn’t adapt to the original apartment environment, which is why I brought them to the furniture store.”

“My intention was to protect these weak ghosts. It’s already pitiful enough that they died innocent deaths within the apartment; it would be truly… sigh, if their souls dissipated after death. In my furniture store, although they are imprisoned and lack freedom, they can maintain their sanity. It’s better than staying in the apartment to be eaten by other ghosts or becoming mindless monsters due to the erosion of the apartment’s Yin Energy.”

“Mr. Landlord, surely you’ve seen how the ghosts in the second-floor corridor devour each other?”

Zhou Fangdong fell silent.

That scene was indeed cruel and bloody. The ghosts on the second floor were killing each other at every moment; the corridor was like a bloody colosseum for resources.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Landlord. Until you have properly handled the issues on the second floor, I cannot send the children to the apartment. It would be no different from sending them to their deaths.” After a final apology, the Furniture Store Manager hung up the phone.

Staring at the “Call Ended” screen on his phone, Zhou Fangdong felt a headache coming on.

He never would have expected that the thing holding him back wasn’t cleaning the second-floor rooms, but cleaning the hallway…

Without furniture, the rooms on the second floor couldn’t be rented out, which made things quite difficult.

Translator’s Notes