Chapter 65

Zhou Fangdong searched the room meticulously once more, but the place seemed perfectly normal. Even using [Ghost Pupils], he couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.

After a moment of thought, he walked back into the living room and tried to open the window.

It opened easily, offering a decent view. Directly below was the courtyard garden, which had been gouged with a deep trench. Looking to the right, he could faintly see the entrance to the Apartment Rear Building.

This was the first time Zhou Fangdong had observed the apartment complex from this perspective. The Liwan Apartments were shaped like the character ‘凹’ (concave), and he was currently located in the protruding section on the right.

Because the opposite building blocked much of the sun, and the restless Yin Energy caused by yesterday’s use of [Death Realm Invasion] in the garden hadn’t fully dissipated, the light coming in from outside wasn’t actually very bright. However, compared to the other rooms in the apartment that were dim and sealed off with boards, this room appeared exceptionally well-lit.

After admiring the gloomy, dilapidated scenery outside for a while, Zhou Fangdong closed the window.

He leaned his back against the windowsill, looking at the open living room. It felt so normal that he truly didn’t know where to start.

Could it be that there were no ghosts in this room?

Zhou Fangdong sighed and decided to stick to his old methods.

He left Room 204, stood by the door, purchased a Scapegoat Doll from the mall, and tossed it inside.

However, something even more confusing happened…

Zhou Fangdong watched as the Scapegoat Doll wandered slowly through the room. It touched the picture frames, poked at the paint, and felt around every corner of the house. Finally, it lay down on the paint-stained bed in the second bedroom with its legs crossed, failing to trigger a single death condition.

Unable to stand how leisurely it was acting, Zhou Fangdong took direct control of the Scapegoat Doll and began maneuvering it through the room.

First, he commanded the doll to open the window.

As the doll performed the action, Zhou Fangdong, who had kept his [Ghost Pupils] active, narrowed his eyes. He finally caught a flicker of change.

—The moment the window opened, a flash of light and shadow seemed to pass by the Scapegoat Doll.

Was it because of the movement of opening the window?

Zhou Fangdong controlled the doll to open and close the window several times in succession.

With every opening and closing, a rapid flicker of light and shadow appeared around the doll, and the phantom became increasingly distinct…

It looked like a gaunt, emaciated corpse crawling on the ground.

Was this the ghost of Room 204?

Did it appear because of the wind?

But why hadn’t the ghost killed the Scapegoat Doll after appearing? Was it because the death conditions hadn’t been fully met?

After some thought, Zhou Fangdong had the doll close the window. Then, he made it pick up a palette from the floor and wave its arms up and down, fanning the air vigorously.

This time, the corpse-like ghost didn’t appear where the wind was generated. Instead, it appeared directly behind the doll.

Only then did Zhou Fangdong get a clear look at the full form of the entity in Room 204.

This ghost wasn’t just a single corpse; it was a long string of emaciated corpses connected together like a human centipede.

These corpses looked identical—all skeletal and gaunt, crawling on the ground with their limbs reversed. They stretched like a chain all the way from the window to the back of the Scapegoat Doll.

It looked exactly like an animation of a corpse crawling through a window, where every single frame of the movement was displayed simultaneously.

The moment this corpse appeared behind the Scapegoat Doll, the doll instantly lost its efficacy, turning back into a simple cloth doll and falling to the floor.

There were no signs of a violent death on the doll. This state looked more like the ghost of the room had stripped away the “duration of use” of the Scapegoat Doll item.

…Was this ghost’s method of killing the deprivation of lifespan? Or the absorption of vitality?

If it truly used such an invisible killing method, it would explain why the doll was fine when opening and closing the window earlier. While the doll appeared unharmed on the surface during those actions, its remaining usage time must have been reduced.

Furthermore, only a single second had passed from the ghost’s appearance to the doll becoming useless.

The ghost in Room 204 moved too fast. Without using skills, its movements were impossible to capture. Once an ordinary person triggered its death condition, there would be no escape.

Speaking of death conditions, the trigger for this ghost didn’t seem as simple as just “the presence of wind.”

Recalling where the ghost had appeared, Zhou Fangdong decided to test it with another Scapegoat Doll.

After the new doll entered Room 204, Zhou Fangdong didn’t have it open the window. Instead, he made it do calisthenics, jumping in place.

Sure enough, as soon as the doll started moving, the ghost appeared again.

The instant the light and shadow flickered, Zhou Fangdong immediately made the doll stop. Once the Scapegoat Doll was still, the shadow vanished along with it.

Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and then made the doll squat down quickly.

With that sudden movement, the ghost appeared once more.

It seemed that in this room, one could not engage in strenuous exercise or allow the air to flow too quickly.

Initially, when Zhou Fangdong and the first Scapegoat Doll were searching the room slowly, the ghost hadn’t appeared. This proved that normal activity in the room was fine.

Therefore, if a tenant wanted to live here, the most important thing was to remain emotionally stable. If something dropped, they couldn’t panic and squat down quickly to grab it; if they were startled, they couldn’t dodge rapidly; even the action of opening and closing doors had to be slow.

As for cooking, dishes that required stir-frying were definitely out of the question, and boiling water was likely dangerous… Forget it, it would be best to just forbid the tenant from cooking in this room.

To rent this place out, he needed to find a tenant who was emotionally stable, easygoing, disliked exercise, hated cooking, and was generally a “salted fish” type.

Thinking of this, the image of a capybara¹ inexplicably flashed through Zhou Fangdong’s mind.

He shook his head, clearing the capybara from his thoughts.

He still needed to leave some room for error for the tenant… Therefore, there was one more thing to confirm: besides the light and shadow, were there any other omens before this ghost appeared?

Unfortunately, when controlling the Scapegoat Doll, the control interface only displayed external injuries sustained by the doll.

Although he could share the doll’s field of vision, he could not share its physical sensations, making it impossible to perceive what the Scapegoat Doll felt before the ghost appeared.

Zhou Fangdong simply walked into the room and stood beside the Scapegoat Doll, controlling it to continue hopping in place.

However, once Zhou Fangdong entered the room, no matter how violently the Scapegoat Doll moved, the ghost of Room 204 did not appear again.

He had originally intended to use [Soul Siphon] on this ghost, but since it wouldn’t show itself, the skill had no target to lock onto.

He would have to think of another way.

Zhou Fangdong recalled the Scapegoat Doll and purchased an Intermediate Automatic Cleaning Tool from the mall, letting it start cleaning the room first.

Then, while the cleaning tool was working, he teleported directly to Chuyun Temple.

When in doubt, ask a Taoist. The appearance of the ghost in Room 204 was truly peculiar and didn’t seem like an ordinary spirit; that Zombie Taoist Master might have heard of such an existence.

This time, when Zhou Fangdong stepped out of the main hall of the temple, he found Zhang Zhiwu standing by the entrance with his hands behind his back.

In the small courtyard before him, Zhang Qingyang was leading several children in sword practice.

Zhang Qingyang held a thin iron sword that looked very much like plastic; it rattled loudly with every movement, just like the Tai Chi swords used by elderly people for morning exercises in the park.

The children behind him each held a small wooden sword, mimicking Zhang Qingyang’s movements and striking poses with great seriousness.

Since he frequently visited Chuyun Temple to treat the Taoist like a living encyclopedia, Zhou Fangdong skipped the empty pleasantries and got straight to the point, asking Zhang Zhiwu about the entity in Room 204.

After listening to Zhou Fangdong’s description, Zhang Zhiwu stroked his beard and said somewhat hesitantly, “Little friend, what you describe sounds a bit like a Soul-Chaser.”

“Soul-Chaser?” Zhou Fangdong subconsciously repeated the name of the creature.

Zhang Zhiwu nodded. “Yes. A Soul-Chaser has no physical form or substance; it manifests through light, shadow, and shifting winds. To the naked eye, it looks like a distortion of light and shadow, or perhaps a gust of wind. This thing is a collective of spirits, usually appearing only near sites of great disasters or battlefields where large-scale routs occurred.”

His voice carried a hint of confusion, as if he couldn’t quite understand how such a thing could appear in an apartment building.

“This kind of ghost is formed from the obsessive thoughts of countless departed souls who ‘wanted to run faster.’ These souls died because they weren’t fast enough to escape disaster in time. Consequently, it loathes anything that moves quickly. It seeks to chase down all fast-moving objects and devour their speed and life force. Anyone attacked by a Soul-Chaser will have their flesh and essence drained at extreme speed, eventually becoming part of the Soul-Chaser themselves… Even ghosts cannot escape the pursuit of a Soul-Chaser.”

Hearing Zhang Zhiwu’s explanation, Zhou Fangdong had a rough idea of how this thing had appeared in the apartments.

It was the mutation of the Flesh Ganoderma on the second floor… When he had viewed Qian Duolai’s memories of his past life, Zhou Fangdong had seen many tenants on the second floor trying to flee, only to have their path blocked by cultists and that rapidly growing flesh, leading to their deaths on that floor.

Sighing inwardly, Zhou Fangdong continued to ask, “Taoist Master, are there any omens before a Soul-Chaser appears? If one is targeted by it, how can they escape?”

“Omens of its appearance…” Zhang Zhiwu pondered for a moment before speaking. “If I had to name a sign, when a Soul-Chaser is behind you, those with strong spiritual intuition might hear the clicking sound of joints rubbing together or feel an unnatural cold wind.”

“It is also very easy to shake off once targeted. You only need to stand perfectly still, or slowly sit or lie down. Remain motionless for fifteen minutes. When encountering this thing, the greatest taboo is panicking. The more intense your reaction, the more the Soul-Chaser will fixate on you.”

So he really did need to find an emotionally stable tenant…

“Alright, I understand. Thank you for clearing that up, Taoist Master.”

“You are most welcome. If you have any questions in the future, little friend, you may come to the temple to find me at any time.”

Tang Huili had decided to move. She felt that the Penghu Gardens neighborhood was no longer safe.

Two days ago, when she was about to go out to pick up a food delivery, she had caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man wearing a skullcap in the hallway.

That man gave her the sensation of a venomous snake poised to strike at any moment.

At the time, Tang Huili didn’t show any outward panic. She simply placed her trash outside the door, closed it as if nothing were wrong, and huddled in her room for an entire day without eating.

Since childhood, Tang Huili’s intuition had been incredibly sharp. She could sense others’ likes and dislikes toward her, and she could sense impending major crises.

She had once been troubled by this overly sensitive perception.

Too many people wore smiles on their faces while wishing for the other person’s death in their hearts… This sense of fragmentation led her to become increasingly unwilling to socialize or show her emotions to others.

However, it was precisely because of this sharp intuition that Tang Huili hadn’t encountered a single ghost during all the years since the supernatural outbreaks began.

Of course, it might also have been related to her being a shut-in… As a professional manga artist, her record was five years without leaving her house.

Therefore, Tang Huili trusted her intuition implicitly. The moment she realized something was wrong, she—someone who hated exercise and cleaning more than anything—immediately packed everything overnight, ready to move.

Even though she hadn’t chosen a new place yet, she moved out of Penghu Gardens anyway.

Large pieces of luggage could be put into storage; she only needed to carry her drawing tools and a few changes of clothes with her.

In any case, she had to leave this neighborhood as quickly as possible.

Driven by this impulse, Tang Huili stood at the Penghu Gardens bus stop with her carry-on luggage.

For a moment, she didn’t know where to go.

As Tang Huili stood under the bus stop sign feeling lost, the name of the famous haunted building, “Liwan Apartments,” eerily surfaced in her mind.

…Why would she suddenly think of that godforsaken place?

Could it be because she had stumbled upon that paranormal streamer’s channel a couple of days ago?

Speaking of that recently viral paranormal streamer, she was truly formidable. To gather material for her videos, she actually dared to move into the Liwan Apartments.

Then again, only a streamer with the Supervisory Bureau backing them up would dare to pull a stunt like that. For an ordinary person, entering that haunted building would be a one-way trip to the grave.

Despite thinking this, Tang Huili still felt a lingering desire to move into the Liwan Apartments.

Even Tang Huili herself found it incredible that such a thought had surfaced in her mind.

While she had always trusted her intuition, this time it felt a bit beyond the pale.

From what she knew alone, over a hundred people had died in the Liwan Apartments, and there were likely others that hadn’t been disclosed or made the news… So many people had died in that apartment complex that the news outlets didn’t even dare to report on it anymore, fearing people might go there out of curiosity or be lured by the low rent.

Was she really going to such a godforsaken place?

Tang Huili pondered for a long time before finally choosing to trust her intuition once more.

Yes, she was going.

The moment this firm resolve took root in Tang Huili’s heart, a brand-new bus suddenly pulled into the station without a sound.

Tang Huili looked at the eerie bus stopped before her, picked up her suitcase, and stepped aboard without hesitation.

After returning from the Taoist temple, Zhou Fangdong took advantage of the cleaning tools working on Room 204 to return to his own room and write out the Tenancy Rules for the unit.

Once the Tenancy Rules were finished, he ordered a batch of furniture from the Guijia Furniture Store.

This time, the Furniture Store Manager did not reject the order and delivered all the items very quickly.

Fortunately, the ghosts inside the furniture could carry the pieces upstairs themselves. Otherwise, it would have been quite a struggle for Zhou Fangdong to haul so many large items up the stairs on his own.

Just as Zhou Fangdong finished tidying up Room 204 and was considering whether to use the long-neglected [Honest Flyer] to post a listing on a rental app, a system notification suddenly popped up.

[Ding—A new tenant has been detected at the apartment entrance looking to view a room. Host, please proceed to the apartment foyer as soon as possible.]

Seeing this sudden pop-up, Zhou Fangdong was stunned.

In the past, the system had merely rigged the [Honest Flyer] to guarantee a result, but now it wasn’t even pretending anymore. He hadn’t even used a flyer, yet a tenant had shown up at his doorstep…

Sometimes the system was truly quite considerate, acting as if it were terrified he wouldn’t be able to find a tenant.

He decided to head to the entrance first to see if this tenant was a good fit for Room 204. If not, he would still have to post the flyer.

Translator’s Notes