Chapter 129 The Ghost in the Fourth-Floor Corridor, the Missing Landlord's Key, the Hospital...
Zhou Fangdong walked up the stairs to the fourth floor.
The fourth-floor corridor was still the same as when he first came, shrouded in an eerie blue light, and filled with the smell of disinfectant mixed with the stench of rotting blood.
Many corpses lay on the corridor floor, and the silent, grayish-white ghostly figures standing before them resembled tombstones on grave mounds. They were all faceless, and even their bodies looked illusory, like projections with poor signal.
Unlike the motionless, faceless ghosts, these corpses lying on the ground, though all died horribly, still retained their facial features.
Zhou Fangdong activated his [Heavenly Eye] skill, attempting to find the ghost occupying the fourth-floor corridor among these ghostly figures.
Upon closer inspection, he suddenly realized something was amiss.
The faceless ghosts in the corridor gave him the same feeling as the ghosts in the nursing home who had been assimilated into transparent ghosts by the water ghosts—both were in a state of assimilation and manipulation.
The causal threads that spread from them were like puppet strings controlling a puppet, eventually converging at a single point...
Zhou Fangdong looked down at one of the corpses on the ground.
It was a corpse wearing a tattered white coat, its flesh withered and dried like dried meat. Its plaster-like, grayish-white skin was marked with numerous bluish-purple veins resembling porcelain patterns. Its eyes were wide open, its expression one of extreme terror, as if it had witnessed something horrific before its death.
The ghost that's taking over the fourth-floor corridor looks a lot like that polluted water ghost... Did it also come out of the crack in the top floor?
Zhou Fangdong walked up to the corpse and gently kicked it: "Hello, sleeping is not allowed here."
The corpse rolled to the side like a tattered sack, without any reaction, just like a real dead body.
Zhou Fangdong squatted down and patted the corpse's face: "Could you please withdraw your power? The corridor is shared by all the ghosts in the apartment. Even as the landlord, I'm reluctant to take any of the ghost coins from the corridor's ghosts. You, an ordinary vengeful ghost, are occupying the corridor and controlling the ghosts in it. Isn't that a bit too domineering?"
“Liwan Apartments is my property, and all the ghosts in the apartment are mine too. Let me tell you, what you’re doing is illegally encroaching on my private property.”
No matter what Zhou Fangdong said, the corpse did not react at all, as if it were just an ordinary corpse.
"Since you're not going to respond, I'll just get rid of you..."
The corpse on the ground remained unresponsive, as if it were a dead pig that wasn't afraid of boiling water.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Fangdong picked up the corpse and headed towards room 401.
The fact that it occupied the entire corridor but didn't dare to occupy a single room shows that this ghost is a bully who preys on the weak and only dares to bully the low-level ghosts in the corridor.
Since they refuse to communicate, let's give the pregnant ghost in room 401 an extra meal.
Zhou Fangdong hadn't taken two steps when the ghost attached to the corpse seemed to sense his intention and detached itself from the corpse, transferring to another corpse on the ground.
As it detached, the face of the corpse Zhou Fangdong was carrying instantly became blurred, while the face of the new corpse possessed by the ghost returned to the same terrified expression and wide-open eyes, resembling a grayish-white piece of dried meat.
Zhou Fangdong threw down the corpse in his hand and took two steps toward the corpse that the ghost had newly attached itself to. Sensing his approach, the ghost moved onto a new corpse.
Zhou Fangdong sighed, he really didn't have the patience to play this face-swapping hide-and-seek game with this ghost.
As Zhou Fangdong looked in the direction of the ghost, he immediately used [Soul Absorption] on it.
After receiving 500 ghost coins, Zhou Fangdong learned about the ghost's origin.
Contrary to Zhou Fangdong's imagination, this ghost was just an ordinary vengeful spirit. Although its methods of controlling other ghosts were similar to those of the escaped water ghost, it had nothing to do with the crack in the rooftop.
Before his death, he was an unlicensed and unscrupulous cosmetic surgeon who ran an illegal clinic on the tenth floor of the Liwan Apartment building.
It not only performs cosmetic surgery, but also handles fetal sex determination and abortion services. If it encounters a beautiful female patient, it will even sexually assault her while she is under anesthesia.
Due to the clinic's poor hygiene conditions, he had countless patients who died from severe bleeding during abortions or from infections following cosmetic surgery.
This guy was stabbed to death by a patient who had a botched plastic surgery. After his death, he was filled with resentment and kept wandering around the apartment.
Later, a collapsed area appeared in the apartment corridor. Although the yin energy emanating from the collapsed area was not as terrifying as that from the cracks on the top floor, it still had a very scary polluting power.
The restless yin energy can not only greatly enhance the strength of ghosts and monsters, but also erode their sanity, turning them into slaughtering machines that only know how to kill.
But even though the ghost of this plastic surgeon was corrupted by yin energy, its strength was still very weak. Then it was beaten from head to toe by the ghosts on the higher floors, and finally kicked down to the fourth floor.
Because it was too weak, it focused its skill points on survival and disguise—it could control other weak monsters by stripping them of their faces, making them its substitutes to die in its place.
The corpses were collected by it to conceal its presence.
Zhou Fangdong could spot the ghost at a glance using his [Heavenly Eye] skill, but to other ghosts, the ghost attached to the corpse was just an ordinary corpse, without any ghostly aura.
Relying on this cunning ability to disguise itself, this ghost would assimilate any ghost it could defeat, and if it couldn't defeat one, it would possess the corpse and launch a surprise attack. Eventually, it slowly assimilated all the ghosts in the fourth-floor corridor into its own substitutes.
After breaking free from the ghost's memory fragments, Zhou Fangdong didn't hesitate at all. He took out a kerosene lamp, activated its explosive state, and used [Soul Absorption] to dismantle the ghost into ghost coins and devour them.
A truly trashy ghost, not only is he trashy as a human and as a ghost, but all his possessions are also trash, with only five thousand ghost coins... The ghosts on the third floor can pay four thousand ghost coins a month for rent, which shows how weak this guy is. He only occupies the fourth-floor corridor by sneaking around and using his sneaky disguise skills.
As the garbage ghost completely disappeared, the eerie blue light that had enveloped the fourth-floor corridor also dissipated.
The illusory bodies of the gray-white, faceless ghosts standing motionless in the corridor quickly became real, and their stripped faces returned to them.
Soon, the fourth-floor corridor became lively, restoring the bustling scene of a normal apartment corridor, where ghosts and monsters roamed freely, their spirits seemingly growing on the walls, floors, and ceilings.
Zhou Fangdong nodded in satisfaction.
Just then, the system notification sounded:
The purification and protection devices for the fourth floor renovation have been installed, and the fourth floor renovation page is now open.
Zhou Fangdong opened the decoration interface and dragged the pregnant ghost's corpse out of the warehouse.
The installation completion notification came at just the right time; it's perfect for decorating the hallway with the pregnant ghost's corpse.
The moment the renovation was completed, a stone pillar appeared out of thin air on the wall where the elevator was located, near the corner of the corridor leading to the tenant's room.
Compared to the sharply defined Roman columns on other floors, the columns on the fourth floor, which are actually the transformed pregnant ghosts, look more artistic. The exposed sections of the columns are wavy and curved, like two curved vases placed one above the other, mouth to mouth.
The pattern on the base of the column is composed of countless baby faces, and the facial features of the babies are mostly curved, which looks very harmonious with the column body.
After finishing the corpse renovation, Zhou Fangdong checked his renovation value and ghost coin balance.
Including the renovation points given by the ghost's corpse, the apartment's current renovation value is 1811. Add another 189 and it will reach 2000.
The decoration page shows that new features will be unlocked after the decoration value reaches 2000, so let's continue decorating. Anyway, his ghost coin balance is currently very sufficient.
Not long ago, the system digested the evil god cores captured from Liwan Hospital and gave him 10,000 ghost coins. With the 5,500 given by the trash ghost, he could renovate the entire floor of the fourth floor... The renovation value given for the floor of one floor is exactly 200.
Zhou Fangdong bought basic flooring and laid it all over the fourth floor.
[Corpse pillars have been installed on floors one through four of the apartment building, enhancing its protective capabilities. The elevators on floors one through four are operational during the day. These four floors will isolate the main god instance and prevent the evil god's invasion.]
[The apartment's renovation value has reached 2000. All renovation functions for the apartment's surrounding facilities have been unlocked. The guide quest "[Find the Landlord's Key]" has been unlocked.]
The quest is to find the landlord's key.
Looking at the task name, Zhou Fangdong belatedly remembered something.
When you obtain the [Landlord's Key] item, it is displayed as incomplete, with only the key to the fifteenth floor, and the top three floors are missing.
It seems that this task will reveal where the missing keys were lost.
Zhou Fangdong clicked on the guidance task.
[Finding the landlord's keys]
Task Description: Want to know where the keys to the top three floors of the apartment are? Go find them! I put them all... but they were all eaten by ghosts (sadly).
Once the decoration value reaches 2,000, at the turn of day and night, the decoration purification device at the end of the corridor on all floors will spit out a note indicating the floor where the Key Ghost is active. The host can search for the Key Ghost on these floors and retrieve the key.
Looking at the task description, Zhou Fangdong was speechless.
...They were all eaten by ghosts, huh? System, could you please put the key somewhere safer?
No wonder he was given a guiding task. Without that task, finding those ghosts who ate the keys in the vast ghostly sea of the apartment would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
The instructions will be posted at night, so we'll have to wait until then to find the keys.
Zhou Fangdong closed the task panel, opened the cleaner page, and added the fourth-floor corridor to the cleaner's work area.
As he worked, a paper-headed cleaner quickly ran up.
Zhou Fangdong instructed, "Don't throw these corpses on the ground into the garbage dump. Put them all in the basement entrance of the activity room."
"Okay, Mr. Landlord."
Although the garbage ghost disappeared, the corpses on the ground did not. These corpses were not a skill effect, but real objects collected by the ghost from various floors of the apartment building.
Zhou Fangdong decided to try making lamp oil workers from these corpses. If not, he would have the cleaners move them to the back building, let them be exposed to the yin energy of the back building, and then move them back after they became 'corpses of the back building'.
The reason for all this trouble is that the corpses in the back building were all disfigured by Ke Yan. Zhou Fangdong suspects that Ying Mei's aesthetic sense is distorted because she spent a long time in the basement looking at these faceless corpses.
In order to reshape the aesthetics of the Shadow Demon, he decided to use some corpses with normal human faces as lamp oil workers.
Watching the paper-headed cleaner struggle to drag five corpses downstairs, Zhou Fangdong looked back at the cleaner job posting page.
We currently have six cleaners responsible for cleaning four floors, which seems like a lot of work... Let's find six more.
This time, instead of relying on recommendations from the cleaners, Zhou Fangdong decided to recruit directly through the system.
Two hundred ghost coins for a single recruitment is nothing to Zhou Fangdong, who now spends tens of thousands of ghost coins to renovate his apartment.
After clicking the "recruit" button six times, a countdown timer appeared on the billboard.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to close the system page, a system notification pop-up suddenly appeared:
[Warning: There is a severe shortage of doctors at Liwan Hospital. Too many patients are unable to receive timely treatment, which will lower the apartment's reputation.]
When Zhou Fangdong saw the "reduce apartment reputation" option, his heart jumped.
...That's enough. You can mess with him, but stop messing with his pitiful apartment reputation. It's already low enough at -999, any lower and it'll be a disaster.
And what's going on at Liwan Hospital? Did the supervisory bureau suddenly betray him and withdraw all the doctors from the hospital? That can't be...
Zhou Fangdong frowned and opened the business page of Liwan Hospital.
After quickly scanning the status of each floor of the hospital, Zhou Fangdong realized that he had misunderstood the Supervision Bureau... It wasn't that the Supervision Bureau had secretly withdrawn the doctors, but rather that there were simply too many patients.
All five floors were packed, with even the first-floor corridor filled with patients lying in beds.
On the system page, newly admitted patients will have an exclamation mark above their heads. Clicking the exclamation mark will allow you to preview the patient's condition.
When the hospital is too busy, Zhou Fangdong can manually check the conditions of these pixelated figures, drag them to the appropriate examination room, and also create treatments to use on these pixelated figures.
However, after clicking on several newly admitted patients, Zhou Fangdong discovered a problem—these patients had no physical injuries, were in good spirits, and had plenty of energy; they were just in a deep sleep.
None of the drug formulas he currently possesses are suitable for these patients.
...These patients may have been in a deep sleep because of some supernatural event caused by a ghost or a curse from some supernatural object.
Inquiring about the cause of the illness can wait; right now, we need to focus on addressing the issues of patients not having hospital rooms and a shortage of doctors.
These newly admitted pixelated characters have exclamation marks above their heads to check their condition, as well as emoticons representing their mood.
Based on Zhou Fangdong's gaming experience, once those smiling yellow faces representing mood values turn into angry red faces, the apartment's reputation value will definitely drop as well... No way, his negative apartment reputation value is already bad enough.
"System, how many ghost coins are needed to expand the hospital?"
[Similar to the cost of expanding Izumo-kan, the initial expansion of all apartment complexes and surrounding facilities costs 1,000 Oni Coins.]
"System, expand Liwan Hospital."
Okay, expansion countdown begins...
"Stop the countdown, System. I'll use Ghost Coins to speed things up and finish the expansion immediately."
At this moment, Zhou Fangdong was very glad that he had the habit of accumulating Ghost Coins in the past. The more than 30,000 Ghost Coins in his account balance were his greatest source of confidence.
[Okay, deduct 500 Ghost Coins, Liwan Hospital expansion successful]
On the hospital's management page, a floor appears out of nowhere.
The doctors, nurses, and investigators in the hospital must have also sensed the expansion of the hospital—every pixelated employee had a look of horror on their face, and a big exclamation mark appeared above their heads.
However, Zhou Fangdong didn't have time to worry about the moods of these employee trolls. He opened the hospital's renovation interface and directly purchased the medical equipment and ward furniture needed for the hospital wards from there.
Once the renovation value of Liwan Apartment reaches 2,000, the renovation function of the surrounding facilities of the apartment will be unlocked.
Although buying furniture directly from here requires spending Ghost Coins, Zhou Fangdong had no choice but to bite the bullet and buy it under the terrifying threat of losing reputation points.
Fortunately, the system wasn't too greedy. Compared to the expenses required for decorating an apartment, decorating in a hospital was much cheaper. It only cost 300 ghost coins to furnish a three-person ward... In an apartment, 300 ghost coins could only buy a crystal chandelier.
After one ward was set up, the other wards could be renovated in batches according to the same structure. Therefore, in a very short time, all 30 triple beds were set up.
After the ward was set up, Zhou Fangdong used the speed of a rhythm game player to quickly drag all the patients who had been placed in the corridor to the ward on the new floor.
Since the patients were all unconscious, they wouldn't be frightened. As for the mood of the doctors and nurses, that was completely outside Zhou Fangdong's consideration, since their fear wouldn't lower their reputation.
With just enough wards available, Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the patients' moods gradually improve.
The next step is to extract the ghosts of doctors from the morgue, put the ghost doctors and nurses to work, and then investigate the cause of these patients' coma.
Zhou Fangdong was teleported directly to Liwan Hospital... He planned to go to the scene to investigate in person.
Once he catches the troublemaker, he'll make that guy pay back all the ghost coins he spent, with interest.
The hospital's ownership had just been transferred to him when he caused such a serious accident. What's the difference between this and slapping him in the face in public? It's truly despicable.
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