Chapter 75

The garbage station spat out fewer Ghost Coins today than yesterday, only 150.

Zhou Fangdong decided to let the garbage station accumulate for a while before coming back to collect the money.

After all, he still couldn’t teleport directly to the garden in the middle of the apartment building. It was quite a hassle to walk back and forth through such a long tunnel every day just for a few Ghost Coins.

After collecting the Ghost Coins, Zhou Fangdong returned to the second floor of the apartment.

Then he was surprised to find that another anomaly had occurred in the second-floor corridor. Many bandages were hanging inexplicably from the ceiling.

Dark red blood dripped from the bandages onto the corridor floor. Those blood-stained bandages seemed like eerie, living vines, swaying incessantly from side to side.

While the bandages occupied the corridor, the ghosts on the second floor were all huddled pitifully in the corners, seemingly terrified that the bandages might touch them.

The blood-stained bandages hanging from the ceiling were intertwined and tangled, completely blocking the path forward.

Just as Zhou Fangdong was thinking about whether to return to his room and bring the Giant Blade he used for clearing the Flesh Ganoderma to deal with these bandages, they seemed to notice his presence.

The tangled bandages quickly parted to both sides like an automatic door, clearing a path for him.

…They even make way. It seems this isn’t some kind of malevolent ghost mutation.

Curious about what these bandages were trying to do, Zhou Fangdong stood in the hallway for a moment.

Then he saw the bandages pause for a second before piercing directly through the floor, dropping down to the first floor.

When they retracted back to the second-floor corridor, the end of each strip was wrapped around food… mostly instant products like cup noodles, ham sausages, potato chips, and bottled mineral water.

After obtaining the food, the bandages began to retreat toward the corridor where the tenant rooms were located.

Zhou Fangdong seemed to understand something and followed the bandages all the way to the door of Room 202.

Then he watched as the bandages completely ignored the laws of physics, dragging food much larger than the door gap into Room 202 through the narrow slit.

As expected, these bandages in the second-floor corridor were all extensions of the Bandage Ghost in Room 202.

Since He Yansheng moved into the apartment, Zhou Fangdong had never seen him leave his room. He had thought He Yansheng would at least leave to eat, but he hadn’t expected that all the food he ate these past few days was brought up from the convenience store downstairs by his wife.

This was far too decadent. He didn’t even step out the door. If this continued, he would turn into a giant baby completely dependent on his wife.

Zhou Fangdong planned to find some work for He Yansheng in a couple of days. Although He Yansheng couldn’t leave the apartment freely, he could be given something to do within the building to distract him… staying cooped up in a room like this would make even the most positive person become depressed.

After transporting the food, all the bandages retracted into Room 202.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t linger in front of Room 202 and walked to the door of Room 206.

Before opening the door, he thought of something and looked toward the Renovation Purification Device at the end of the corridor: “System, is the semi-polluted Evil God Avatar Core from yesterday finished purifying?”

【Purification complete. The host may extract it at any time.】

After receiving the affirmative reply, Zhou Fangdong walked straight to the end of the corridor and pressed his hand against the metal cabinet.

【Ding! Congratulations to the host for obtaining an Evil God Avatar Core. The system is working hard to digest it…】

He only needed one more core to unlock another function in the Evil God Disguise Interface.

After taking the core, Zhou Fangdong returned to the door of Room 206 and pushed it open.

The smell in Room 206 was very strange, like the scent of many perfumes mixed together after several bottles of cosmetics had been knocked over.

The room was fairly tidy, with no obvious stains or trash on the floor. It was impossible to tell the identity of the previous tenant from the living room’s decor; it was just a very ordinary room.

As Zhou Fangdong stepped into the room, the system quest panel popped up:

【Side Quest 12: Clean and Rent Out Room 206】

① Clean the room and tidy up

② Discard broken furniture and purchase new furniture

③ Find the ghost hidden in the room and determine its Killing Pattern

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

【Side Quest Rewards: 500 Ghost Coins, 2000 Experience Points, Random Skill Point x1】

Casually closing the system window that blocked his vision, Zhou Fangdong began searching for the ghost in this room.

The decor of Room 206 was very minimalist, with no soft furnishings. The walls were just plain white, and a set of broken folding tables and chairs sat lonely in the center of the living room. Aside from that, there was no other furniture. It looked empty, and it felt like there would be an echo if one spoke in the room.

However, fewer pieces of furniture made it easier for him to find the ghost… Zhou Fangdong activated his Ghost Pupils and scanned the living room. Finding no clues, he walked toward the bedrooms.

Unlike the other rooms on the second floor, Room 206 was a three-bedroom unit and was significantly larger. In addition to the common bathroom outside, the master bedroom had its own ensuite.

Zhou Fangdong first entered the master bedroom… it also lacked any furniture, containing only a broken folding bed frame. Cardboard was spread on the floor, with some toiletries and mineral water bottles scattered haphazardly on top.

The master bathroom was as crude as the common one outside, with no mirror or sink, only a toilet. The floor and walls weren’t tiled, and there was no ceiling installed, just rough concrete walls with water and sewage pipes exposed.

To think such a place could actually be rented out; the previous tenants of Liwan Apartments were truly not picky.

Because it was so empty, everything in the room was visible at a glance, with absolutely nowhere to hide. Yet, Zhou Fangdong simply could not find the ghost in the room.

He went to check the study and the second bedroom.

The same crude decor, the same lack of furniture… Zhou Fangdong even looked inside the overturned paint buckets and plastic bottles on the floor, but he still couldn’t find the ghost.

Where was it?

Other rooms on the second floor had gaps in furniture or similar hiding spots, but Room 206 was essentially a bare-bones unit with white walls and almost no furniture. Even so, there was no trace of a ghost’s existence. The sense of mockery was palpable.

Zhou Fangdong stopped messing around and stepped out of the room. He took out the Scapegoat Doll he hadn’t finished using in room 204 and controlled it to do a sweep of the area.

The Scapegoat Doll spent over an hour in the room, spreading its wings like a Great Peng^[1], dodging left and right, and jumping back and forth. It touched every corner of the room but still failed to trigger the ghost’s killing conditions. Eventually, its duration ran out, and it collapsed onto the floor as a distorted cloth doll.

Zhou Fangdong sighed and pushed the door open to walk inside.

If only all the ghosts on the second floor were as straightforward as Ghost Granny, he wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble.

Just as he was preparing to search the room thoroughly from top to bottom once more, his phone suddenly buzzed with a notification.

It was likely Hong Zhong sending over the information on the missing persons…

Zhou Fangdong pulled out his phone, but the moment he saw the screen, he froze.

The instant the display lit up, a strand of black hair retracted at lightning speed, like a cockroach scurrying back into the darkness when a light is turned on.

Was the ghost of room 206 inside his phone?

Zhou Fangdong didn’t even bother checking the message from Hong Zhong. He put the phone away and then repeated the action, clicking the screen on again.

Sure enough, several more strands of hair retracted with extreme speed.

Zhou Fangdong immediately used [Soul Siphon] on the hair, but because the strands weren’t the ghost’s true body, the skill didn’t take effect.

He checked the phone again, but this time even the hair was gone. The ghost had fled to parts unknown.

Frustrated, Zhou Fangdong gave the phone a hard shake.

The fact that this ghost could be revealed by his phone screen – did that mean it was a similar existence to the Shadow Wraith? It likely only appeared in the reflections of mediums, such as mirrors, phone screens, or the surface of water…

If he used the camera, would it capture the ghost?

Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong lit up the phone again.

Then he looked at the glowing brick in his hand and realized belatedly that the phone provided by the system didn’t have a camera or recording function at all.

Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and walked into the bathroom, intending to check the reflection in the water.

However, he had underestimated the filthiness of the concrete floor. Once the tap was turned on, the water flowed over the ground, mixing with dust and stains, making it impossible to see any kind of reflection.

Zhou Fangdong let out another heavy sigh.

He had to find a mirror; that would provide a larger surface area for observation…

Wait.

Something occurred to him, and he opened the Favorability interface.

He had kept Hou San’s 80-favorability reward, the [Cursed Item: Ghost Mirror], in this interface without claiming it.

This cursed item was meant for playing Mirror Immortal to gain precognition, though one would also reap misfortune upon seeing the future. The mirror also seemed to be an entrance to some sort of ghost gathering place, and ghosts could potentially emerge from it at any time.

However, none of those functions were important to Zhou Fangdong right now. All he cared about was the mirror’s most basic reflective property.

After claiming the Ghost Mirror, its size caught Zhou Fangdong by surprise.

He had originally thought it would be a palm-sized vanity mirror, but to his surprise, it was a full-length dressing mirror. Fortunately, he had recently added three Attribute Points to his Stamina Bar, which enhanced his reflexes enough to catch the mirror before it fell.

The moment Zhou Fangdong leaned the mirror securely against the wall, he discovered that it didn’t just reflect his own shadow, but also a pitch-black figure.

In the massive dressing mirror, a dark ghostly silhouette was clinging to the top of the glass, positioned upside down.

The hair hanging from its head was like a massive black cloak, covering it from the top of its head down to its ankles, making it impossible to see its form.

Despite being upside down, the ghost’s long hair remained draped over its face as if it were growing directly out of its features.

The black strands weren’t still; they were slowly writhing and twisting like a mass of horsehair worms. As the hair shifted, a small gap occasionally opened, revealing a crimson eye with a needle-thin pupil on the ghost’s face.

What should have been the eyes of a Malicious Ghost filled with nothing but malice instead showed an irrepressible look of terror the moment they met Zhou Fangdong’s gaze.

It was as if the roles of human and ghost had been reversed. The moment the hair-wrapped specter realized Zhou Fangdong could see it, it tried to flee again as a reflexive instinct.

…Got you at last.

Zhou Fangdong didn’t hesitate. Before the ghost could vanish, he targeted it directly with [Soul Siphon].