Chapter 63

Zhou Fangdong stared at the first-floor floor plan, watching the corpses that continued to emerge, and fell into deep thought.

…Should he go out and take a look?

However, it was currently night, and the narrow door where the corpses were appearing was right next to the elevator. The Zombie Taoist Master, who had already gone into a killing frenzy, was also right there. If he went out, there was no need to think twice—he would encounter danger with one hundred percent certainty.

No, he couldn’t leave the room. His life was more important.

The ghost hauling the corpses wasn’t important enough to warrant taking such a risk.

After staring at the floor plan for a while, Zhou Fangdong noticed that the ghost transporting the bodies seemed to have realized that someone in the front building was frantically clearing them out.

The tide of corpses crawling out of the tunnel paused for a moment. One more body emerged tentatively from the narrow door, but after the Zombie Taoist Master hacked it into pieces with his wooden sword, no more corpses appeared by the elevator.

Even though no more bodies were coming out, Zhou Fangdong still didn’t close the first-floor plan view provided by the Public Area Beautification function.

In the past, Zhou Fangdong spent his nights either performing Roleplay Tasks or using a double to go out. By the time he returned to the apartment, it was usually dawn. He had never used the system interface to observe the changes in the apartment during the transition from dark to light.

…Why did the apartment become so luxurious at night? What kind of power was changing all of this?

Zhou Fangdong stared intently at the system interface, waiting for the moment when night met day, waiting for the moment the apartment would revert to its dilapidated state.

Just as he was focusing all his attention on the screen, a massive, pixelated, terrifying ghost face that occupied nearly the entire system interface suddenly lunged out from the right side of the screen.

“Holy—!!!”

Zhou Fangdong recoiled in fright.

However, the system interface wasn’t an electronic screen; it existed within his mind. It wasn’t something he could distance himself from by moving away, nor could he stop seeing it by closing his eyes… Even as he scrambled back to the head of the bed in terror, that horrific ghost face remained right in front of him, following him like a shadow.

Completely caught off guard, Zhou Fangdong’s mind went blank with fear. He even forgot how to close the system interface.

In Zhou Fangdong’s understanding, his room was absolutely safe, and the system was absolutely safe. In this state of total lack of defense, a ghost had suddenly popped out of the system interface.

The ghost face itself wasn’t exceptionally terrifying, but its method of appearance…

It felt exactly like one of those “jump scare” images that used to go viral on social media—first, it draws your attention with a “spot the difference” puzzle, and then, while you’re staring intently at the image, a ghost face suddenly screams out at you. There’s something wrong with whoever designed this!!

Zhou Fangdong could feel his heart pounding against his ribs.

On the system interface, the pixelated ghost face opened its massive mouth and began to devour the entire first-floor plan as if it were eating. With every opening and closing of that screen-filling mouth, the beautifully decorated apartment floor plan disappeared, replaced by the familiar sight of the dilapidated daytime apartment.

It wasn’t until the ghost face had completely passed from the right to the left of the screen and vanished that Zhou Fangdong finally recovered.

…What on earth was that giant ghost face? Was it the reason for the apartment’s nighttime transformation?

Before Zhou Fangdong could figure out what was going on, a familiar system notification popped up:

[Dynamic Event: Night Attack of a Hundred Ghosts (Countdown: 11 Days)]

Zhou Fangdong took a deep breath and closed the system interface.

Then, he left his room and headed straight toward the narrow door next to the first-floor elevator.

In the first-floor corridor, the three Cleaners had already started their shift, sweeping up the corpses that littered the floor.

As he passed Quan Wuming, Zhou Fangdong gave an extra instruction: “Don’t bother moving the mangled corpses to the activity room. Just throw them directly into the Trash Disposal Station.”

The nighttime Zombie Taoist Master was decisive; whenever he struck, he ensured the target was incapacitated. Consequently, the nighttime corpses were all in a state of scattered, severed limbs. In such a condition, they likely couldn’t be used as Lamp Oil Workers.

Zhou Fangdong stepped out of the tunnel and arrived once again at the abandoned garden between the two buildings.

He planned to enter the Apartment Rear Building today.

Being startled by that big-headed ghost just now had sparked a sense of rebellion in Zhou Fangdong’s heart. He felt he couldn’t keep being this cowardly.

He would have to enter the rear building sooner or later. If he stayed stagnant, he would never catch the ghost that was causing trouble.

No matter how dangerous the rear building was, could it really be more dangerous than the apartment at night?

If he encountered danger, he would use the Kerosene Lamp. If the lamp didn’t work, he would use the [Half-Body Shrine].

Wasn’t the biggest side effect of that skill eating ghosts? Whatever! He would just treat it like eating cockroaches in a dream! He wouldn’t feel anything while eating them anyway. Even if he woke up with cockroach whiskers or legs in his mouth, so what?

Zhou Fangdong’s footsteps faltered.

…He had disgusted himself with his own analogy.

No, that was definitely not okay. Eating cockroaches was even more disgusting than eating ghosts; the two couldn’t be compared.

Besides, there was no need to be so pessimistic. He might not even need to use that skill. And with a 50% probability, he wasn’t so unlucky that he would definitely pull the shrine with the side effect.

After bypassing the trench he had dug yesterday, Zhou Fangdong suddenly remembered something just as he was about to reach the entrance of the Apartment Rear Building. He looked toward the nearby Trash Disposal Station.

He recalled the work instructions for the station: after grinding up the trash at night, it would produce a varying amount of Ghost Coins in the morning.

His path toward the rear building took a turn, leading him to the front of the Trash Disposal Station.

As soon as Zhou Fangdong approached, the two window shutters of the large corrugated iron shed rattled, and a wisp of black mist drifted out from the [Human Trash] window.

[Congratulations to the host for obtaining 250 Ghost Coins.]

…This specific number of Ghost Coins… was this Trash Disposal Station using this to express its dissatisfaction with him? This thing actually had quite a personality.

Zhou Fangdong lightly patted the square iron shed.

After collecting the Ghost Coins, he no longer hesitated and walked straight into the main entrance of the Apartment Rear Building.

Just as he entered the rear building, a system notification suddenly appeared:

[Ding—System has detected the host entering the Apartment Rear Building. Main Quest 4 has officially begun.]

[Main Quest 4: Clear all rooms on the first floor of the Rear Building, defeat the Boss Room, and obtain the final reward for the first floor.]

[Main Quest 4 Rewards: Currently undisclosed.]

[Quest Description: Rooms on the 1st floor of the Rear Building are divided into four types: Reward Rooms, Ghost Rooms, Hidden Rooms, and Boss Rooms.]

[Reward Rooms will randomly spawn various items, including but not limited to special items, cursed items, strange items, and ordinary supernatural items.]

[Ghost Rooms will randomly refresh with various ghosts. All ghosts in the Rear Building are uncontrollable and cannot be recycled; the host must clear all these ghosts. Ghost Rooms have a small probability of refreshing Ghost Tenants. Ghost Tenants in a conscious state can be moved into the Front Building apartment rooms. Please distinguish carefully before capturing.]

[The contents of Hidden Rooms are not fixed and will refresh randomly. Even if the Hidden Room is not found, the floor will still be considered successfully cleared.]

[The Boss Room will only refresh after all Reward Rooms and Ghost Rooms on a floor have been cleared. The Boss Room on each floor is extremely dangerous; exercise extreme caution before entering.]

[Ghosts or Ghost Tenants wandering in the corridors of the Rear Building are late arrivals and do not count toward the Main Quest; the host may handle them at will.]

After reading these system pop-ups, Zhou Fangdong nodded in realization. “I get it. The Apartment Rear Building uses a Roguelike tower-climbing game mechanic?”

[The host may understand it that way.]

Then it was simple. Had he known this earlier, he wouldn’t have been so worried; he should have come in yesterday.

The dangerous ghosts were all inside the rooms. As long as he didn’t enter a room, nothing would happen.

Despite this, Zhou Fangdong still opened the System Mall. He planned to buy some offensive items for himself.

His Kerosene Lamp could ignore levels to repel any approaching ghosts, but it couldn’t kill them.

The [Death Realm Invasion] skill couldn’t be used inside the apartment, and using the [Half-Body Shrine] carried a fifty percent chance of losing consciousness, so he wanted to buy some offensive talismans.

After the Apartment Rear Building was unlocked, many useful items had appeared in the System Mall.

[Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talisman] Price: 400 Ghost Coins.

Item Description: Can slay ghosts below A-rank.

[Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talisman] Price: 150 Ghost Coins.

Item Description: Can imprison ghosts below A-rank for three hours.

Zhou Fangdong had snatched four thousand Ghost Coins from the Sigu Society cultists last night, and this morning he had received a tribute of two hundred and fifty Ghost Coins from the garbage station. His current Ghost Coin balance had reached a staggering 15,640.

With over fifteen thousand Ghost Coins in hand, he decisively bought two [Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talismans] and two [Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talismans].

After purchasing the talismans, Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and took the [Ancestral Dharma Tool: Iron Hoe], which he had obtained from unlocking the Zombie Taoist Master entry, out of his Inventory.

This was the hoe Zhang Zhiwu had used to till the soil and plant vegetables during his lifetime. It was roughly the length of an adult’s forearm. The iron hoe was fused with Five Emperor Coins, and the handle was made of lightning-struck jujube wood¹. Even an ordinary person could repel ghosts while holding it.

With the heavy ghost-repelling hoe in one hand, the Kerosene Lamp ready to be pulled out at any moment, and the [Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talismans] and [Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talismans] in his Inventory, his sense of security surged.

Zhou Fangdong looked at the two corridors before him and chose to check the corridor of rooms on the right first.

To his surprise, as soon as he entered this corridor, he saw a figure.

The figure was tall and straight with a messy head of naturally curly hair, wearing a uniform that looked somewhat familiar. From the back, he looked like an ordinary human adult male.

Because of the [Silent Walk] talent inherent in the [Landlord’s Clothing], Zhou Fangdong’s appearance didn’t attract his attention at all. The man remained with his back turned, preoccupied with his own business.

Originally, Zhou Fangdong thought this fellow had nothing to do with the ghost he was looking for, but when he drew closer and saw what the man was tinkering with, Zhou Fangdong’s blood pressure spiked.

He was fiddling with a very familiar-looking corpse—the face was mummified, but the body was dripping with fresh blood, looking as if it had only recently died.

A crowd of hunched black shadows surrounded the man’s feet. He casually plucked one from the ground and pressed the shadow firmly onto the corpse’s neck.

—It really was this guy throwing corpses into the Front Building!

Because of his reckless corpse-dumping, Zhou Fangdong had been living in constant fear that the ordinary tenants on the first floor would be harmed, leading him to spend a fortune in Ghost Coins to provide them with talismans.

Because he had to keep an eye on the corpses this guy manufactured at night, he had even been startled by that giant ghost face suddenly appearing on the system panel this morning.

Detestable.

With new grudges added to old ones, Zhou Fangdong didn’t hesitate to slap an [Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talisman] onto the man. Then, while the fellow was still stunned, he swung the hoe directly at the guy’s head.

Translator’s Notes