Chapter 56

Zhou Fangdong squatted in front of the bathtub and poked the puff-like ghost.

Aside from shivering, it showed no reaction whatsoever. If he hadn’t been gripping that metal hose, the ghost would likely have squeezed back into the gap of the bathtub to continue its self-imposed isolation.

It was far too cowardly. Was this really the ghost of a second-floor room?

The memories this ghost held after death were almost entirely of that pitch-black little corner in the bathtub gap. Like an ostrich, it had remained shut away until today. It was impossible to judge whether it had ever killed anyone, or what method it might use to do so.

Zhou Fangdong sighed softly and left Room 203, purchasing a Scapegoat Doll from the System Mall.

He might as well test it with a Scapegoat Doll.

He controlled the Scapegoat Doll to walk into Room 203. Just as he had expected, after he left the room, the ghost in the bathroom had crawled back into the gap.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t have the Scapegoat Doll enter the bathroom immediately. Instead, he had it circle the living room, actively touching the water droplets on the walls and the face-shaped mold spots to see if there were any negative effects.

They seemed to be nothing more than ordinary moisture and mold; the doll suffered no damage after contact.

Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to send the Scapegoat Doll into the bathroom to investigate, the doll suddenly broke free from his control.

The Scapegoat Doll’s expression abruptly turned despondent. It walked dejectedly into the bathroom, knelt in the bathtub, and strangled itself with the metal hose of the showerhead.

Seeing this scene, Zhou Fangdong’s brow furrowed tightly.

The Scapegoat Doll’s method of death was exactly the same as the ghost in Room 203. How exactly was this achieved? Could the ghost in the bathroom kill through the water droplets and mold in the room?

Just as the thought occurred to him, a severed hand suddenly flew in front of him.

For some reason, the two ghosts at the entrance of Room 203 had started fighting, and the struggle was exceptionally fierce—it was the kind of bloody slaughter seen before the Flesh Ganoderma had been cleared out.

Zhou Fangdong was already feeling a bit irritable because the Scapegoat Doll had died so inexplicably, and these two troublemakers had just walked right into his line of fire.

He immediately used [Ghost Pupils] and [Soul Siphon] on the two ghosts. After a smooth combo and harvesting four hundred Ghost Coins, he casually grabbed the two now-terrified troublemakers and tossed them into Room 203.

After throwing them in, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental preview interface.

Since the Scapegoat Doll was gone, he would use these outside ghosts to test the abilities of the entity in Room 203 to see if it actually had the capability to hold the room.

In the rental interface, the two ghosts he had thrown into Room 203 looked desperate to leave, but for some reason, their movements were abnormally slow. Several seconds passed, and they had only moved a single step.

Within a few minutes, one of the ghosts transformed into a human-shaped water stain on the ceiling, while the other turned into a face-shaped mold spot on the wall.

Zhou Fangdong’s frown deepened.

He had originally thought the face-shaped mold and the human-shaped water stains were merely the manifestation of the Room 203 ghost’s obsession. He hadn’t expected them to be trophies—these marks in the room were actually proof of the ghosts it had devoured.

The ghost in Room 203 looked cowardly, but its offensive power wasn’t weak at all. The contrast was staggering.

Zhou Fangdong looked up, intending to catch another fighting ghost to throw into Room 203 for further testing.

However, when he looked, he found the second-floor corridor was unnervingly quiet.

All the ghosts were staying in their places obediently, either standing or crouching. Not a single one was fighting anymore.

They didn’t dare to fight, yet they didn’t dare to run. They all hung their heads, standing stiffly like well-trained greeters.

Zhou Fangdong felt somewhat helpless.

Typical. Just when it was their turn to be useful, they stopped fighting.

Just as he was about to buy another Scapegoat Doll, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t claimed Xiao Xiaoyu’s 80 Favorability reward yet.

Most Favorability reward items were related to the tenants themselves. Zhou Fangdong suspected the system would just hand him one of Xiao Xiaoyu’s items… it was very likely to be a Scapegoat Doll. After all, judging by Xiao Xiaoyu’s tone earlier, she seemed to have made many dolls back when she was an Infinite Flow Player.

With that thought, Zhou Fangdong opened the Favorability interface.

Sure enough, Xiao Xiaoyu’s 80 Favorability reward was a Scapegoat Doll.

The system really was a profiteer, shearing the tenants’ wool¹ to fill its own prize pool.

After deploying this Scapegoat Doll, Zhou Fangdong followed behind it and walked inside.

He controlled the Scapegoat Doll, making sure it didn’t touch the water droplets on the walls or the mold spots, simply letting it stand in the living room.

After a mere three minutes, the Scapegoat Doll’s expression turned despondent once again. It broke free of Zhou Fangdong’s control and staggered into the bathroom. Just like the previous doll, it knelt in the bathtub and strangled itself.

He seemed to understand the killing conditions of this room’s ghost now.

It was the ubiquitous moisture in the room.

If a human entered the room and touched the water droplets directly, or stood within the range of the mist for more than three minutes, they would be affected by a certain negative emotion and walk into the bathroom to commit suicide.

The ghost of Room 203 seemed pathetic, but in reality, it was one of the most terrifying… it was so deeply mired in its own obsession with regret that it wanted everyone—human or ghost—who entered the room to seek atonement alongside it.

Whether it was killing humans or ghosts, it was silent and invisible.

The moisture constantly filled the room, infecting everyone who entered. An ordinary person simply couldn’t live in Room 203. No matter what Tenant Rules were established, a tenant in this room would be facing a dead end.

Zhou Fangdong walked into the bathroom again, grabbed the metal shower hose, and dragged the reclusive Puff Ghost out once more.

“Could I trouble you to pull back the moisture a bit? At least control it within a small area.”

The Puff Ghost nodded meekly. It still didn’t dare to look Zhou Fangdong in the eye; it simply took a deep breath.

The visible mist began to rapidly recede toward the bathroom. The dampness that had pervaded the living room was sucked into the bathroom, and the mold spots on the walls and water stains on the ceiling began to slowly disappear.

However, the moisture inside the bathroom became increasingly heavy, reaching a point where just breathing felt like drowning.

After finishing its task, the Puff Ghost’s body swelled significantly, its skin stretched so thin it became translucent. It looked exactly like a “giant view²” floater corpse drifting down a river, as if it might explode at any moment.

Simultaneously, the face-shaped mold and human-shaped water stains that had vanished from the living room began to manifest on the bathroom walls and ceiling.

Seeing this, Zhou Fangdong let out a soft sigh.

Could it be that living in Room 203 meant the bathroom was off-limits? That would be far too inconvenient; there were no public restrooms or bathhouses anywhere near the Liwan Apartments.

He decided to leave the room alone for a while to see how long the ghost could maintain its state of containing the moisture. If it could only hold it back for a short time before the dampness spread through the entire room again, then it would be certain: this room simply could not be rented to an ordinary person.

That being said, Zhou Fangdong never once considered getting rid of the Puff Ghost.

The creature had been miserable enough in life. Under his father’s favoritism, he had lived into his twenties like a punching bag. The one time he tried to resist and fight for his own interests, he swung from one extreme to the other, consumed by emotion until he committed murder, caused his father’s accidental death, and finally committed suicide in a total mental breakdown… To have his soul scattered after death for such a history felt like a punishment that exceeded the crime.

Besides, with the furniture peddler Hou San around, there was a high probability that Room 203 could still be rented out.

Hou San was very likely a half-ghost himself; not only did he have four arms, but he could also go out at night and calmly set up a stall in the Ghost Market.

He should be able to coexist harmoniously with the ghost in the room without needing the Tenant Rules, much like Xiao Xiaoyu or He Yansheng.

After leaving Room 203, Zhou Fangdong originally intended to find the five Cleaners who had wandered off to set up a duty roster and continue pushing forward with Side Quest 4.

However, just as he stepped out, he received a message from Duan Wenyu on his phone. It said that Hong Zhong had already selected the team members who would be moving in, and they would be arriving shortly.

Zhou Fangdong immediately changed his mind.

…Better to go to the apartment entrance to greet his four new tenants and finish the side quest for Room 201 first.

Li Zhe, a B-rank investigator, had been ambushed by cultists while investigating The Peddler’s child trafficking case and was only discharged from the hospital today.

He had intended to continue following up on The Peddler case, only to be told by his captain that the matter had been resolved in a single day—not only were the missing children found, but the cultists controlling The Peddler had all been brought to justice.

Currently, Hong Zhong was leading a team to wrap things up at the North Suburb Abandoned Hospital. The Sigu Society cultists had imprisoned many civilians there; the team was rescuing them and transferring them to a hospital for treatment.

…Moreover, the cultists and ghosts in that abandoned hospital had apparently been dealt with single-handedly by Hong Zhong this morning.

Before Li Zhe even had time to marvel at when his captain had become so heroic, he was informed by Hong Zhong that his luggage had already been packed and tossed out of the staff dormitory. He was told to take his bags and thirty yuan in cash to live in the Liwan Apartments.

He couldn’t help but rack his brain, trying to remember how he had offended the captain recently or if he had said something wrong just now. Otherwise, why would he be banished to such a terrifying place?

There were three other brothers-in-misfortune who were being driven to Liwan Apartments to rent rooms alongside Li Zhe; they were all investigators under Hong Zhong’s command.

Hong Zhong led a total of twenty members, divided into groups of four.

The three going with Li Zhe were investigators from his own group. They had fought side-by-side for years, trained together, and investigated supernatural sites together. Their rapport was so perfect that a single glance was usually enough to understand what the others were thinking.

After receiving Hong Zhong’s order to move into the Liwan Apartments, the four of them held a small meeting to discuss the deeper meaning behind the captain’s command.

Regarding Captain Hong’s order to “get the apartment keys”—firstly, “getting the keys” certainly wasn’t as simple as just picking them up.

The keys were likely a vital clue surrounded by ghosts; they would need to deal with the entities guarding them to obtain the keys.

Secondly, regarding becoming tenants of Liwan Apartments—Li Zhe had vaguely heard that his captain had recently been investigating anomalies at the complex.

By sending them to rent rooms and gain tenant status, the captain surely wanted them to help verify something… Therefore, they had to investigate and record everything diligently. They could not let the captain down.

Thus, Li Zhe and the other three simply treated this “rental operation” as an S-rank investigation mission. They donned all their equipment, applied for the highest-spec offensive items they could get their hands on, and drove to the Liwan Apartments in a grand procession.

Upon arriving at the Liwan Apartments and seeing the legendary haunted building with their own eyes, Li Zhe and his team realized that its national reputation was well-deserved… They felt the pressure before they even stepped out of the car.

The grim building, shrouded in black miasma, looked like a massive tombstone suppressing countless evil spirits. It stood there silently, wordlessly devouring all light and sound.

Facing this building was like facing the most primal fears in the depths of the human soul. The group almost instinctively held their breath.

Though the Liwan Apartments were even more terrifying than imagined, the thought of their captain’s expectations and the weight of their responsibility pushed them to step out of the car without hesitation.

At that moment, the apartment’s main gate suddenly swung open automatically, as if it had known they were coming and was welcoming them.

The wide-open gate resembled the gaping maw of a great beast, waiting for its prey to walk right in.

As their eyes adjusted to the darkness within the entrance, Li Zhe’s group was startled to find a person standing in the foyer.

It was a pale young man who seemed to possess a certain magnetic power; the moment they noticed his presence, they could no longer see anything else.

No matter how terrifying the environment, it could not suppress his presence. It felt as if everything existed for him—that he was the master of the Liwan Apartments… or rather, that he was the incarnation of these two haunted buildings.

He stood there quietly and peacefully, like a divine statue perched upon a high pedestal, waiting for believers to come and pay their respects. Those dark, emotionless eyes felt like a projection from a thousand years ago, piercing through the river of time and the dust motes dancing in the light to gaze upon these ignorant, irreverent intruders.

Li Zhe and the other three almost subconsciously lowered their heads, not daring to meet his gaze again.

But in the next moment, they heard a cold voice, devoid of any emotional fluctuation and sounding like a demon’s whisper, drift out from behind the door:

“Aren’t you here to rent a room? Come on in.”

He knew why they were here!

Li Zhe and his teammates exchanged terrified glances.

Ultimately, their sense of duty to complete the mission triumphed over everything. Steeling themselves, they stepped into the terrifying building that felt like the entrance to hell.

The interior of the building was like any other supernatural zone, feeling somewhat chilly due to the excessive Yin Energy.

However, what surprised them was that this ghost building, which had been sealed for years, didn’t have a single speck of dust inside… in fact, it seemed a bit too clean.

Aside from some facilities looking dilapidated due to years of neglect and the windows being boarded up with wood—causing the light inside to be dim—there wasn’t a single piece of trash within their line of sight. The marble floors were spotless and polished to a mirror-like shine, as if they had just been meticulously mopped several times by hardworking Cleaners.

Seeing the four of them enter, the mysterious young man introduced himself: “I am the landlord of Liwan Apartments. Follow me; I’ll take you to see your room.”

Li Zhe’s expression was grave. Maintaining a defensive posture, he and his teammates formed a back-to-back formation, cautiously following the young man deeper into the apartments.

After they moved into formation, the young man claiming to be the landlord seemed to glance back at them.

Li Zhe wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but he thought he saw a hint of confusion in that glance.

What was he confused about? Was he wondering why they were so weak yet still refused to give up their resistance?

…That was right. Even if the fierce reputation of Liwan Apartments was known to everyone, they wouldn’t give up easily. This was the professional integrity of an investigator! As long as they accepted a mission, they would absolutely investigate and send useful clues back to the Supervisory Bureau!

Li Zhe and his group followed the eerie landlord as he turned into an exceptionally dark corridor. There were no windows in this hallway, and no light from the outside could enter, severely interfering with their vision.

The four of them simultaneously clicked on the searchlights on their helmets.

As the light flared up, the figure walking ahead paused for a moment, as if just remembering something. He said softly, “Ah, I forgot you can’t see in the dark… It seems I should add a few lamps to this corridor.”

By now, Li Zhe could no longer tell if this landlord was human or a ghost.

If he was a ghost, the detection devices gave no warning. If he was human, his behavior was truly abnormal.

He had originally suspected his detection equipment was malfunctioning, but when several headless child ghosts ran past them giggling with their heads in their hands, the detection device did indeed trigger an alert.

Facing these child ghosts running back and forth in the corridor, Li Zhe forcibly suppressed the urge to draw his gun.

Liwan Apartments was indeed a ghost nest worthy of its name, but under the lead of this strange landlord, not a single ghost attacked them. This made them afraid to act rashly, fearing they might provoke the landlord, whose true nature remained unknown.

The group was led to a set of stairs, where the landlord spoke again:

“Whether you are going up or down, you must only step on the stairs that have the patterns of mummified corpses. Be careful; if you step on a blank stair, you might be eaten by the staircase and become a mummified corpse pattern on the steps yourself.”

Li Zhe felt his palms start to sweat.

…This man was saying such terrifying things with total nonchalance. Although it was presented as a warning about danger, it felt more like a threat.

The group reached the second floor of the apartments without further incident.

Upon arriving at the second floor, the investigators were surprised to find that while the ghosts on the first floor coexisted harmoniously and played together, there were actually ghosts fighting on the second floor.

Before they could even draw their weapons in caution, something even more terrifying happened—

The mysterious landlord walking in front of them merely gave a casual glance, and the two fighting ghosts immediately stopped their slaughter. They crawled on the ground, trembling violently in a posture of total submission.

The four men gasped in unison.

What terrifying power. Is this the landlord of Liwan Apartments?!

Alongside the shock, a deep sense of powerlessness welled up in their hearts.

The group exchanged desperate looks, a pessimistic thought rising in all of them at once.

How are we supposed to fight this?

Did the Captain send them here expecting them to snatch the keys from this landlord?

For B-rank investigators like them to fight this terrifying landlord… it was probably no different from suicide.

Li Zhe and the others moved their feet mechanically, following the landlord with heavy hearts to the door of Room 201.

The landlord pushed the door open and introduced them: “This is your room.”

Although the light inside was dim, the room was unexpectedly tidy.

The area was large, roughly a two-bedroom, two-living-room layout, which was more than enough for the four of them. The furniture was in the style popular during the last century—there was Chinese-style rosewood furniture, an Eight Immortals table³, and a pale green refrigerator covered with a lace dust cloth… Although the furniture styles weren’t uniform, they strangely combined into a sort of eclectic vintage look.

The moment the four of them stepped through the door, a piece of paper appeared out of thin air in their hands.

[Room 201 Tenancy Rules]

1. While in the room, you must always pay attention to the sound of coughing. When coughing occurs, the Sickness Ghost will appear. Pay attention to where the Sickness Ghost appears; do not let the Sickness Ghost come within a two-meter range, or you will be infected with a disease.

2. If you are accidentally infected by the Sickness Ghost, you must place the medicinal ingredients that appear out of thin air into the Medicine Pot in the kitchen within five minutes and drink the medicine produced by the Medicine Pot.

3. If you enter the room carrying an existing injury or illness, you will smell medicine in the room. Drinking the medicine produced by the Medicine Pot will immediately heal the injury or illness.

4. It is normal to randomly lose one of the five senses after drinking the medicine. This state will disappear once the Sickness Ghost refreshes.

5. Drinking five bowls of medicine in a row results in certain death.

6. Inside Room 201, if even one person violates the Tenant Rules, all tenants will share the consequences with them.

7. Tenants must carry the Room 201 key at all times. If the key is lost, the tenancy contract is considered automatically terminated.

8. A monthly rent of 30 Ghost Coins in cash must be paid. If this is breached, the tenancy contract is considered automatically terminated.

9. If you discover an outsider or a foreign ghost invading your private space, do not panic. As long as you abide by the above rules, the landlord will arrive immediately to resolve the issue for you.

Just as the group finished reading the contents of the paper, they heard the mysterious landlord speak again: “Ghosts might emerge from the furniture, but there is no need to worry. They are very weak. If the Sickness Ghost does not consume them in time, you may deal with them yourselves.”

“What you hold in your hands are the tenancy contracts. If there are no objections, you may sign your names at the bottom.”

Li Zhe stared at the paper in his hand.

It was called a tenancy contract, but it felt more like a guide to survival.

Following these rules was not particularly demanding for investigators like them, who each carried a detection device. With the devices, they could detect abnormal supernatural fluctuations and determine the Sickness Ghost’s general location before it fully manifested.

Was this what the Captain meant by “obtaining the status of a Liwan Apartments tenant”—signing this tenancy contract? No wonder he had specifically instructed them to bring thirty yuan in cash.

The group exchanged glances once more.

Out of trust for their Captain, they stopped hesitating. They pulled out thirty yuan in cash and signed their names directly onto the paper.

As the final stroke was completed, the signed contracts and the cash in their hands vanished simultaneously.

Before they could even register their surprise, the Landlord spoke again: “These are your keys; keep them safe. As long as you carry the room key with you, the ghosts in the building will not attack you. If you forget the contents of the Tenancy Rules, you can find a copy on the table.”

Four identical keys appeared in the hands of the Liwan Apartments landlord.

Li Zhe and the other three hesitantly accepted the keys.

Looking at the shimmering Room 201 keys in their hands, they all looked up at the same time, their faces wearing identical expressions of bewilderment.

Was it… really that simple?

They had obtained the keys and become tenants of Liwan Apartments just by signing their names… Was this right?

The Captain likely intended for them to investigate Liwan Apartments and gather clues, but it felt like they had simply followed this landlord on a tour of the apartment and completed the mission.

Technically, this counted as completing the mission, right?

Once he was certain the four tenants had secured their keys, Zhou Fangdong left Room 201.

He had originally been wondering how to distribute the keys since there was only one, but he hadn’t expected the [Landlord’s Key] to be so considerate; it had automatically duplicated four keys based on the number of tenants.

Room 201 was successfully rented out. Simultaneously, a pop-up window signaling the completion of the mission appeared:

[Side Mission 8 Completed. Rewards: 500 Ghost Coins, 2000 Experience Points, Random Skill Point x1]

[Tenant Illustrated Guide: “Intermediate Tenant · B-Rank Investigator” unlocked. Host, please claim your guide unlock rewards promptly.]

[Evil God Avatar Core digestion successful ahead of schedule. System protection upgrade complete. Apartment protection upgrade complete.]

[New devices capable of detecting and eliminating Evil God pollution have been constructed in the corridors of every floor. The Host may inspect them at any time.]

[Ding—Important function, “Evil God Disguise Interface” has been unlocked.]

Translator’s Notes