Chapter 63: The game mechanics for the back building of the apartment officially begin...
Zhou Fangdong stared into deep thought as he looked at the corpses that were still continuously emerging on the first-floor floor plan.
...Should we go out and take a look?
However, it's nighttime now, and the narrow door from which the corpse emerged is right next to the elevator. The zombie-wielding Taoist priest, who's gone mad with killing, is also there. Going out would be 100% dangerous, without a doubt.
No, I can't go out; my life is at stake.
The ghost who moves the corpses isn't important enough to warrant such a risk.
After staring at the floor plan for a while, Zhou Fangdong noticed that the ghost carrying the corpses seemed to have realized that someone in the front building was frantically cleaning up the bodies.
The horde of zombies emerging from the tunnel paused for a moment. Another corpse tentatively appeared through the narrow door, but after being chopped into pieces by the zombie Taoist priest with a wooden sword, no more corpses appeared next to the elevator.
Although no more bodies had been brought out, Zhou Fangdong still did not close the first-floor plan, which was used for beautifying the public area.
Previously, Zhou Fangdong would either be doing role-playing tasks at night or using a stunt double to go out. After returning to his apartment, it would soon be dawn. He had never observed the changes in his apartment during the period from darkness to dawn through the system panel.
Why does the apartment become so luxurious at night? What force has changed everything?
Zhou Fangdong stared intently at the system panel, waiting for the moment when night and day would transition, waiting for the moment when the apartment would return to its dilapidated state.
Just as he was staring intently at the screen, a huge, pixelated, terrifying face that almost filled the entire system panel suddenly emerged from the right side of the screen.
"Holy crap!!!"
Zhou Fangdong was so startled that he leaned back.
However, the system panel was not an electronic screen, but existed in his mind. It was not something he could move away from, nor could he see it by closing his eyes... Even though he was so frightened that he shrank to the head of the bed, that terrifying ghost face was still very close to him, like a shadow.
Completely unprepared, Zhou Fangdong was so frightened that his mind went blank, and he even forgot how to close the system panel.
In Zhou Fangdong's mind, his room was absolutely safe, and the system was also absolutely safe. In this completely unprepared situation, a ghost suddenly appeared on the system panel.
The ghost face itself wasn't particularly scary, it was just the way it appeared...
It feels like that creepy picture that went viral on social media. First, it grabs your attention with a comparison image of finding the differences, and then when you're staring intently at that image, a ghostly face suddenly pops up to scare you—is this crazy?!
Zhou Fangdong felt his heart pounding.
On the system panel, the pixelated ghost face opened its mouth wide, as if eating something, and began to devour the entire first-floor floor plan. As the ghost face, which filled the entire screen, opened and closed its mouth, the originally lavishly decorated apartment floor plan disappeared, replaced by the familiar daytime scene of a dilapidated apartment.
Zhou Fangdong only recovered after the ghost face completely disappeared from the screen from right to left.
...What exactly is that giant ghost face? Is it the reason the apartment changes at night?
Before Zhou Fangdong could figure out what was going on, a familiar system pop-up appeared:
[Dynamic Event: Night Attack of a Hundred Demons (Countdown: 11 days)]
Zhou Fangdong took a deep breath and closed the system panel.
Then I left the room and walked towards the narrow door next to the elevator on the first floor.
In the first-floor corridor, three cleaners had already started their shift and were cleaning up the corpses scattered all over the floor.
When passing by Quan Wuming, Zhou Fangdong added, "Don't bring the mutilated body into the activity room, just throw it in the garbage station."
The Taoist priest who kills zombies at night is decisive; once he strikes, he ensures that his opponent is incapacitated. Therefore, the corpses at night are all in a scattered state with broken arms and legs, making them unsuitable for use as lamp oil workers.
Zhou Fangdong emerged from the tunnel and returned to the abandoned garden between the two buildings.
He is preparing to enter the back building of the apartment today.
The fright he received from that big-headed ghost had stirred up Zhou Fangdong's rebellious spirit, and he realized he couldn't continue to be such a coward.
He'll have to get into the back building sooner or later; if he doesn't move forward, he'll never catch that troublesome ghost.
Even if the back building is dangerous, can it be more dangerous than an apartment at night?
Use the kerosene lamp when you encounter danger. If the kerosene lamp doesn't work, use the [half-body shrine].
The biggest side effect of this skill is eating ghosts, right? Whatever! Just treat it as dreaming of eating cockroaches! Anyway, I don't feel anything while eating them, so what if I wake up with cockroach antennae or broken cockroach legs in my mouth?
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment.
...He was disgusted by the analogy he had come up with.
No, this is really not okay. Eating cockroaches is more disgusting than eating ghosts; the two are not comparable.
And there's no need to be so pessimistic. He might not even need the skill, and there's a 50% chance he won't be unlucky enough to draw the shrine with the side effects.
After bypassing the trench dug yesterday, just as he was about to reach the entrance of the back building of the apartment, Zhou Fangdong suddenly remembered something and looked at the garbage disposal station not far away.
He recalled the job instructions at the garbage dump, which stated that after the garbage processing station finished grinding the trash at night, it would produce varying amounts of ghost coins in the morning.
The footsteps that were walking towards the back building turned a corner and came to the front of the garbage station.
As Zhou Fangdong approached the garbage station, the two window shutters of the large tin shed shook, and then a wisp of black smoke drifted out of the window labeled "Human Garbage."
[Congratulations, host, you have received 250 Ghost Coins]
...Is this junkyard expressing its dissatisfaction with this strange amount of ghost coins? This thing has quite a personality.
Zhou Fangdong gently patted the square tin shed.
After taking the ghost coins, he didn't hesitate any longer and walked straight into the back apartment building.
Just as I entered the back building, a system pop-up window suddenly appeared:
[Beep—Host detected entering the back building of the apartment; Main Quest 4 officially begins]
[Main Mission 4: Clean up all the rooms on the first floor of the back building, clear the boss room, and obtain the final reward for the first floor.]
[Rewards for Main Quest 4 are not yet disclosed]
[Mission Description: The rooms on the first floor of the back building are divided into four types: reward room, ghost room, hidden room, and boss room.]
The reward room will randomly contain various items, including but not limited to special items, cursed items, strange items, and ordinary supernatural items.
[Various ghosts will randomly spawn in the ghost room. The ghosts in the back building are all uncontrollable and cannot be retrieved. The host needs to clear all of these ghosts. There is a small chance that ghost tenants may spawn in the ghost room. Ghost tenants in a conscious state can move into the apartment rooms in the front building. Please carefully identify them before capturing them.]
The items in the hidden rooms are not fixed and will randomly refresh. Even if you don't find the hidden room, the floor is considered successfully cleared.
The boss room will only appear after all the bonus rooms and ghost rooms on a floor have been cleared. The boss rooms on each floor are extremely dangerous; please be very careful before entering.
The ghosts or haunted tenants wandering in the back corridor are all newcomers and are not part of the main quest; the host can deal with them as they see fit.
After reading these system pop-ups, Zhou Fangdong nodded knowingly: "I understand, the back building of this apartment building uses a roguelike tower-climbing game mechanic?"
[The host can understand it this way]
That makes things simple. If he had known this would happen, he wouldn't have been worried at all; he should have come in yesterday.
All the dangerous ghosts are in the room; as long as he doesn't enter, nothing will happen.
Even so, Zhou Fangdong still opened the system shop, intending to buy himself some attack items.
His kerosene lamp can dispel all approaching ghosts regardless of their level, but it cannot kill ghosts.
The [Dead Zone Invasion] skill cannot be used inside the apartment, and there is a 50% chance of losing consciousness after using [Half-Body Shrine], so he wants to buy some attack talismans.
After the back building of the apartment was unlocked, many more useful items appeared in the system shop.
[Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talisman] Price: 400 Ghost Coins
Item Description: Can kill monsters below Rank A.
[Intermediate Suppression Talisman] Price: 150 Ghost Coins
Item Description: Can imprison ghosts below Rank A for three hours.
Zhou Fangdong robbed 4,000 ghost coins from the cultists of the Bone Inheritance Society last night, and this morning he received another 250 ghost coins from the garbage station. His current ghost coin balance has reached an astonishing 15,640.
With over 15,000 ghost coins in hand, he decisively bought two [Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talismans] and two [Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talismans].
After buying the talisman, Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment and took out the [Ancestral Magic Weapon - Iron Hoe] he had obtained from unlocking the Zombie Taoist Master's Illustrated Guide from his inventory.
This is the hoe that Zhang Zhiwu used to dig the ground and plant vegetables during his lifetime. It is about the length of an adult's forearm. The iron hoe is inlaid with five emperor coins, and the handle is made of jujube wood struck by lightning. It can ward off ghosts even if an ordinary person holds it.
With a heavy little hoe for exorcising ghosts in one hand, a kerosene lamp readily available, and [Intermediate Ghost-Slaying Talisman] and [Intermediate Evil-Suppressing Talisman] in his inventory, he felt incredibly safe.
Zhou Fangdong looked at the two corridors in front of him and chose to go to the right corridor first.
To his surprise, he saw a figure as soon as he entered the corridor.
The figure was tall and straight, with messy, curly hair, and wearing a somewhat familiar uniform. From behind, he looked like an ordinary adult male.
Because of the Landlord's Clothes' innate ability to walk silently, Zhou Fangdong's appearance went completely unnoticed by him. The man continued to do his own thing with his back to him.
Zhou Fangdong initially thought this guy had nothing to do with the ghost he was looking for, but when he got closer and saw what the guy was fiddling with, Zhou Fangdong's blood pressure spiked.
He was handling a corpse that looked very familiar—its face was mummified, but its body was bleeding, as if it had just died.
There were many hunched black shadows around the man's feet. He casually picked one up from the ground and then placed it squarely on the neck of the corpse.
—It really was this guy throwing the body into the building in front of the apartment!
It was because he carelessly disposed of corpses that he was constantly worried that the ordinary tenants on the first floor would be murdered, so he spent a lot of ghost money to buy talismans for the tenants.
Because he had to keep an eye on the corpses this guy created at night, he was startled by the huge ghost face that suddenly appeared on the system panel in the morning.
hateful.
With both old and new grudges combined, Zhou Fangdong didn't hesitate to throw a [Intermediate Suppression Talisman] at him, and then, while he was stunned, he directly hit the guy on the head with a hoe.
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