Chapter 18: The Mysterious Power of the Third Tenant in Creating Paranormal Dungeons...

Zhou Fangdong felt that his two tenants were a bit strange... How come their favorability ratings were increasing so quickly?

Miao Zheng gave him 80 points of favorability as soon as they met, while Zhao Dawei was even more exaggerated. He only comforted him for a few words, and his favorability rating soared to 100.

Could it be a perk from the early game system? Or is the increase in favorability for 'lower-level tenants' always been this consistent?

Seeing Zhao Dawei sitting on the ground crying uncontrollably, Zhou Fangdong sighed. Just as he was about to say something more, the chubby middle-aged man suddenly wiped his face forcefully and said, word by word:

"Don't worry, landlord, I will never betray you. You don't need to help me cancel my job at the furniture store. I'll go back and wash up, then take the bus to work."

After saying that, he walked towards Room 101 without looking back, as if he had made up his mind.

Shortly after Zhao Dawei left, Hong Zhong, who had quickly finished two packs of compressed biscuits in the car, also returned.

Zhou Fangdong led Hong Zhong toward Room 102, giving him instructions as they went:

"When cleaning room 102, do not turn on the main light sources, such as the living room chandelier and the bedroom ceiling light, and do not use open flames. Also, never open the door to the storage room. Ignore any noises coming from inside. You only need to clean the living room and the master bedroom."

Pushing open the door to Room 102, Hong Zhong looked at the scorched earth before him and suddenly didn't know where to begin.

The room looked like it had been in a fire; the ceiling, walls, and floor were all blackened, and you could vaguely see what appeared to be melted electrical wires and water pipes sticking out from the walls and floor.

This not only requires painting and renovating the entire house, but even the water and electricity pipes need to be re-laid.

Hong Zhongdu began to suspect that the landlord might already know something and was deliberately making things difficult for him with this terrifying workload.

...Could it be that they've already discovered their probing?

Hong Zhong suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

If the office building escape incident is indeed related to Liwan Apartments...

For this landlord with unfathomable power, renting out houses and cleaning them is a pastime, and sealing off an entire building to create a human-dead survival game is probably also a pastime.

Hong Zhong didn't know if Zhao Dawei had said something wrong, nor did he know if the fact that the supervisory bureau had secretly contacted the apartment tenants would anger the landlord. But in order to prevent any accidents from happening, he had to take the blame and let the landlord vent his anger on him, and he couldn't let anyone else be implicated.

The most important thing right now is to work diligently, follow the landlord's arrangements, and not back down because of the heavy workload. You need to show that you have no intention of being his enemy by being obedient.

Thinking of this, Hong Zhong carefully considered his words and cautiously said, "Okay, I will follow the rules and complete the cleaning of Room 102. However, the workload for this room is quite large. Could you give me a few days' grace, Mr. Landlord? Five days... no, three days. I can restore the room to a rentable state in three days."

Zhou Fangdong frowned slightly.

Seeing his expression, Hong Zhongxin's heart jumped.

"Then forget it." After a moment's thought, Zhou Fangdong decisively refused.

Just now, Zhou Fangdong asked the system in his mind, and the system said that the fully automatic cleaning tool could also clean room 102 and even repair the burnt water and electricity pipes to their original state.

If that's the case, then there's no need for manual cleaning, as it's both time-consuming and expensive.

Hong Zhong earns 50,000 yuan an hour. It takes him three days to paint a room. Assuming an eight-hour workday, Hong Zhong's salary jumps to 1.2 million yuan in just three days. Although Zhou Fangdong is very rich now, he doesn't want to be taken advantage of. 1.2 million yuan is enough to buy a house.

Hearing such a decisive rejection, Hong Zhong was stunned, and cold sweat seeped out and slid down his forehead.

What do you mean, "that's it"? Does it mean his life is over?

Did he say anything wrong just now?

Hong Zhong's muscles were tense, and he stared at Zhou Fangdong with nervousness, ready to retaliate at any moment.

Even if the landlord's power is unfathomable, he will not sit idly by and wait to be killed.

He was willing to risk his life to help his colleagues find some clues. Afterwards, his colleagues who came to investigate at Liwan Apartment only needed to find the recording device on his body to send the footage of his death back to the Investigation Department.

Just as Hong Zhong's mind was racing, pondering his next move, he suddenly heard the mysterious landlord say, "I'll see you out first. This cleaning order is now over, and I'll reimburse you for your gas money."

The voice was as gentle as ever, the words were considerate, and the pronunciation was clear, but Hong Zhong felt that he couldn't quite understand what the landlord was saying.

Is it really as simple as just ending the cleaning service order? Is it necessary to end his life?

Hong Zhong's face was full of confusion as he mechanically followed Zhou Fangdong to the apartment entrance.

It wasn't until he actually left the Liwan Apartments that he finally realized the landlord of the Liwan Apartments had no intention of dealing with him at all.

Watching Hong Zhong drive away, Zhou Fangdong stroked his chin.

The cleaning lady seemed a bit strange today.

Ever since the cleaning lady saw room 102, her expression has been constantly changing; one moment she's deathly pale, the next she's covered in sweat...

Could he be feeling unwell?

Fortunately, the cleaning order was terminated. Otherwise, if I had worked for him while I was sick, the project would have been delayed, and he probably would have had to reimburse my medical expenses.

Zhou Fangdong shook his head helplessly.

When I'm not so short of ghost coins anymore, I'll use items to clean the room. Human cleaning services are just too unreliable.

Zhou Fangdong returned to Room 102.

He originally planned to use the 30 Ghost Coins he had left to buy a set of fully automatic cleaning tools, but as soon as he opened the system interface, he suddenly remembered that he had not yet claimed the reward for Zhao Dawei's favorability rating of 100.

Hoping he might get cleaning tools from the favorability rewards, Zhou Fangdong opened the favorability interface and clicked on Zhao Dawei's name.

There are two sets of rewards, one for 80 favorability points and the other for 100 favorability points.

The reward for Zhao Dawei's 80 favorability points is: a set of basic fully automatic cleaning tools, a monthly bus pass, a fishing spot guide for Linjiang City, and a set of fine fishing gear.

Luckily, they actually gave him cleaning supplies. But the rest were pretty useless... By the way, is Zhao Dawei a fisherman after all? The 80 favorability points reward seems to be closely related to the tenant's hobbies.

Compared to the 80 favorability reward, the 100 favorability reward is much more useful; it's actually a rechargeable item that can be used repeatedly.

[Low-level Talisman - Peace Talisman]: An ancient and orthodox talisman used by Taoist masters to pray for peace and protection from evil spirits.

Item Description: This item protects the wearer from D-rank ghosts and provides immunity to three attacks from C-rank ghosts. The amulet will heat up as a warning when a malevolent ghost lingers near the wearer.

(Note: If the number of protection attempts is exhausted, you can light incense to recharge it.)

Such a useful prop.

Although the talisman had no effect on Zhou Fangdong, it was very important to ordinary people who had no power to resist the ghosts.

Since this item was obtained by getting Zhao Dawei's favorability rating to 100, let's give it to him when he gets off work.

Zhao Dawei works in a furniture store and spends a lot of time outdoors. If he encounters any danger outside, this talisman can protect him.

Zhou Fangdong collected all of Zhao Dawei's favorability rewards and then used the fully automatic cleaning tool on room 102.

It will take about 30 minutes to clean up.

Zhou Fangdong did not linger in the grime-covered Room 102, but teleported directly back to his own room.

A new day begins, and the number of [honesty flyers] posted has been refreshed.

Zhou Fangdong opened the rental forum app and clicked send again.

At the same time the flyer was successfully sent out, Hong Zhong also received a notification from the monitoring department. He quickly asked another paranormal streamer to reply and schedule a viewing.

When Zhou Fangdong received the tenant's reply about viewing the apartment, he unconsciously frowned.

Another instant reply...

Zhou Fangdong checked the replies to the house viewing appointments and, upon discovering that it was yet another paranormal livestreamer who had made the appointment, promptly declined.

The tenant profile for the paranormal streamer is now unlocked, so there's no need to find another one.

Furthermore, paranormal streamers are typically adventurous and prone to courting death. One Miao Zheng is enough for this type; he doesn't have the energy to manage another one for the time being.

After refusing the offer, Zhou Fangdong was prepared that no tenants would reply for a while. However, to his surprise, shortly after he rejected the paranormal streamer, another person booked a viewing.

This time, the person replying was a recent college graduate.

Zhou Fangdong quickly read through his reply and felt that the tenant's conditions met the requirements for room 102, so he agreed to his request to view the room.

I feel like I won't need to spend any more Ghost Coins on flyers anymore. This Honest Flyer definitely has a guaranteed minimum reward; there must be some bug in the system program that's confusing the Honest Flyer with the effects of other flyers.

However, Zhou Fangdong wouldn't remind the system, since this bug had saved him a lot of trouble.

*

Duan Wenyu limped to the bus stop, leaned on a pillar next to the platform, and slowly sat down on the ground.

There is probably no one more unlucky than him in this world.

As an ordinary agricultural college student, he had to extend his studies twice before finally obtaining his bachelor's degree.

He was delayed in graduating the year before last because his graduation thesis was stolen by some elderly people who appeared out of nowhere. He was delayed in graduating last year because the graduation thesis of the veterinary department next door ate his graduation thesis.

This year, he simply applied to the Department of Distortion for a specially made tent and lived in the farmland, guarding his graduation thesis day and night.

After getting three shades tanned and covered in mosquito bites, Duan Wenyu finally graduated successfully.

However, this successful graduation was the beginning of a nightmare—an accident occurred during the graduation ceremony.

More than two hundred graduates were trapped in the auditorium by a mysterious force.

They were unable to contact the outside world, and could not even ask their mentors in the same auditorium for help.

The professors couldn't see them, nor could the students' parents who came to observe the ceremony. These two hundred-plus graduates seemed to be isolated from the world by some mysterious force.

Not long after, a strange points system suddenly appeared on these graduates.

This system claims to be a subsystem of the Infinite Flow God System. It is bound to the player, records the points the player earns in dungeons, and helps the player exchange items with the God using those points.

The system told them in a cold, electronic voice that this graduation hall was a beginner-level dungeon used to select players of the Infinite Flow game. All of them, the graduates, had been chosen by the Infinite Flow God and needed to play a game with a vengeful ghost. The winner would gain the qualification of an 'Infinite Flow player'.

Then, these two hundred-plus graduates were divided into ten groups by the system and began an absurd and cruel real-life werewolf game.

As long as the ghost hidden among the graduates cannot be found, one student will die in each round.

These dead students were all living, breathing people... They were junior students from the next department whom you only had a nod to, classmates who studied and worked hard together in the fields, and roommates who spent two years with Duan Wenyu and extended their studies together.

Finally, after more than half of the students had died, the ghosts hiding among them were finally found—four out of ten groups of students were wiped out, and the remaining six groups of students who had defeated the ghosts also suffered heavy casualties.

However, this is not the end.

Even if they won the game, these surviving students were still isolated from the world, unable to contact the outside world, unable to interact with others, and even reporting the case directly to the Bureau of Abnormality was useless.

The points system said that because there were too many winners, a second round of selection was needed, and they would have to return to the auditorium in three days.

Duan Wenyu must be tired of living to come back to this godforsaken place.

But the points system kept haunting him, and a pale blue countdown kept ticking in front of him.

...He desperately needed a sanctuary, a sanctuary where he could fight against this strange power.

To deal with this monster, we need to find something even more ferocious than it.

Almost immediately, the words "Liwan Apartment" came to mind.

Before the graduation ceremony began, Duan Wenyu had come across a video.

The video was posted by a paranormal streamer named [A Zheng, are you serious?], with the title [My daily life living with a female ghost sister].

The video had a high number of views and even went viral, but the comments below it were full of hostility, with sarcastic remarks like "Photoshopped," "It must be special effects," and "It looks fake."

Out of curiosity about the streamer's other videos, Duan Wenyu clicked on her homepage and found her check-in vlog, which she filmed outside the Liwan Apartment.

His only thought after watching the video was to admire the paranormal streamer's courage—he truly never expected that someone would dare to live in this haunted building just to gain views.

However, now, he is the one who desperately wants to live in the haunted building.

I hope the rumors about Liwan Apartments are true, and that everyone associated with Liwan Apartments is indeed haunted by evil spirits and meets a bad end, just as the legends say.

Even if it's like drinking poison to quench thirst, even if he's destined to die after moving into the Liwan Apartments, it's still better than dying silently in the auditorium three days later... At least he still has time to say goodbye to his parents.

Moreover, since that paranormal anchor dared to move into Liwan Apartments, she may very well have a way to break the curse of the haunted building. Perhaps in the end, he can both get rid of this points system and be lucky enough to survive.

Although he had made his decision, Duan Wenyu did not know the exact location of Liwan Apartment, and his mobile phone had no signal and no internet connection, so he could not use map navigation.

While he was refreshing his phone repeatedly in an attempt to find a signal, he accidentally tapped the app store on his phone.

In the app store that was stuck in a loading screen, a green rental forum app suddenly appeared. And even without an internet connection, the app was downloadable and installable.

With a "let's give it a try" attitude, Duan Wenyu installed the app.

Then he came across a post on the rental forum about rooms for rent in Liwan Apartment.

...Perhaps it was truly his destiny to survive.

With trembling fingers, Duan Wenyu wrote a reply requesting to view a house.

After receiving a reply from the landlord, he followed the instructions in the post and went to the nearest bus stop to wait for the bus that would take him to Liwan Apartments.

A note from the author:

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