Chapter 115 The new garden decorations disappeared after being driven into the ground, and the ghost tenant also...
Zhou Fangdong arrived at the entrance to the hidden room, lifted the door, and went down the stairs.
Ke Yan was intently fiddling with something on the table and didn't react to his arrival.
When Zhou Fangdong got closer, he discovered that Ke Yan wasn't studying the corpse as usual. Instead, she had somehow gotten a bunch of glass jars and was stuffing them with soil.
The room, which originally resembled a morgue, was now quite messy and dirty thanks to Ke Yan's antics. The floor and table were covered in dirt, and on the table in front of him were many glass jars filled with soil, each with test strips stuck into it, as if he were testing for pH levels or something similar...
After filling the jars in his hands, Ke Yan put down his work and smiled at Zhou Fangdong, who was standing behind him, saying, "Landlord, you're really well-informed. Are you here to visit my new experiment?"
Zhou Fangdong looked down at Ke Yan's feet and casually replied, "Yes, I'm very interested in your new experiment... Could you please move a little to the side?"
Ke Yan was bursting with a desire to share, and just then Zhou Fangdong came over, so she couldn't wait to share her new research ideas with him.
He stepped aside to make room for Zhou Fangdong, and then said excitedly, "After working in the fields with Dr. He yesterday, I was inspired. I have now found another research path."
"Because of my own experience, I used to focus too much on using supernatural props to modify corpses to achieve resurrection, while ignoring the potential of the corpses themselves—what if the corpses involved in the resurrection were zombies that could move on their own?"
"Zombies can also be considered a kind of resurrection in another sense. If the corpse itself can move, first make the body move, and then let the soul control the body, giving the corpse consciousness—the first movement leads to the second movement, ultimately forming a perfect cycle of movement!"
"Hmm, great idea, not bad." Zhou Fangdong said as he picked up the giant blade in his hand and started digging without even looking up, using the machete as a shovel.
His [Heavenly Eye] skill detected an abnormal flow of Yin energy here, and he could vaguely see a causal line related to the Ghost Postman—something related to the Ghost Postman must be buried here.
Ke Yan didn't care that Zhou Fangdong was tearing down his house in front of him, and continued, "The only difficulty is that I don't know how to create a suitable zombie... So I'm testing the soil's acidity and alkalinity, and I'm preparing to create a zombie-raising ground in the apartment's garden, to create a zombie that can perfectly blend with a vengeful ghost!"
He paused for a moment, then tentatively asked, "I heard from Xiao Xiaoyu that there's a Taoist priest who teaches about zombies in our apartment building. I'd like to ask him for some advice. Could you please introduce me to him, Mr. Landlord?"
Zhou Fangdong was immediately startled and stopped digging.
Although he didn't understand the resurrection experiments that Ke Yan was talking about, he subconsciously assumed that Ke Yan wouldn't succeed.
It's like an architect seeing a child building a house with glue and cardboard. It's obviously just kids playing around, so you don't stop them or say anything.
It doesn't matter what Ke Yan does, but he can't dance in front of that Taoist priest.
Zhang Zhiwu is probably a rather old-fashioned Taoist master. Don't be fooled by his kind and easy-going personality; his illustrated guide states that he felt he had violated ancestral teachings and betrayed his sect by turning himself into a zombie. He certainly couldn't accept Ke Yan's new type of resurrection research, which resembles human experimentation and is a violation of social norms.
Zhou Fangdong was really afraid that Ke Yan would go and ask that Taoist priest how to create zombies, and then be dismantled into parts and buried in the ground by the angry old Taoist priest.
“Don’t go looking for that Taoist priest. Our apartment…” Zhou Fangdong was about to say, “There’s no such person in our apartment,” but after thinking for a moment, he changed to a more frightening way of saying, “That Taoist priest has a strange temper and likes to dismantle magical robots like you that have died and come back to life. If you don’t want to be dismantled into parts, don’t go looking for him.”
Ke Yan was immediately taken aback. He scratched his messy hair and said in a slightly aggrieved voice, "Then, never mind, I'll just figure it out myself." With that, he dejectedly continued to fill his glass jar with soil.
After seeing that he had given up the idea, Zhou Fangdong continued to dig the ground with the knife.
Halfway through digging, the big knife suddenly became unresponsive. It was only after Zhou Fangdong recharged it with 500 ghost coins that it obediently continued digging.
Sure enough, when they dug to the end, they found a package wrapped in yellow paper.
So many years have passed, yet the yellow paper has not decayed at all, as if it was just buried yesterday.
Zhou Fangdong opened the yellow paper and found that it contained hair, nails, and a small wooden plaque with the birth date and time engraved on it.
It's the birth date and time of a twelve-year-old boy. The boy's surname is also Cai, so he should be the son of the Ghost Postman.
After obtaining the yellow paper package, the cause-and-effect relationship before Zhou Fangdong became increasingly clear.
He left the hidden room in the basement and, following the causal path, arrived at the door of room 109, where he dug out another yellow paper package at the end of the corridor.
This time it's a girl's birth chart. Except for the name, gender, and hour pillar, everything else is exactly the same as a boy's... This is a pair of twins, a boy and a girl.
Later, Zhou Fangdong found the Ghost Postman's birth date and time next to the stairs in another corridor, and then found his wife's at the end of the corridor.
The four characters wrapped in yellow paper were located at the four corners of the apartment.
As the four yellow paper packages were unearthed, the building behind the apartment suddenly began to tremble slightly.
Zhou Fangdong sensed something and quickly ran back to the corridor where the tenant's room was located.
On the wall at the end of the corridor directly opposite him, a blurry human figure was slowly emerging from the wall.
The wall itself seemed to transform into the surface of water, and a complete human silhouette emerged from beneath this solid surface.
Her features became clearer and clearer, revealing the face of a young girl. Her eyes were closed, and her hands hung naturally at her sides, as if she were still alive.
The small, thin body quickly broke free from the wall's restraints, and as she struggled free, she leaned straight forward and fell to the ground.
The body was covered in grayish-white dust, like a limestone sculpture. When Zhou Fangdong walked up to the body, it opened its eyes without warning.
Those eyes were completely scarlet, with no distinction between pupil and sclera, as if they were soaked in blood, flowing with viscous malice and undisguised, icy killing intent.
She died young and unjustly, and was suppressed under a building after her death, never to see the light of day. Her reason had long been devoured by boundless hatred.
Once freed from the seal, she will unleash her decades-long pent-up resentment on whoever is her savior or the one who harmed her.
She had just swung her arm, trying to grab the person in front of her, when she met their eyes.
Those dark, deep eyes were like a bottomless abyss, silently swallowing all the light around them. The moment you met their gaze, all your outward emotions were instantly drained away, and your frantic consciousness plunged into darkness, trapped in an invisible cage from which you could never escape...
Under Zhou Fangdong's gaze, the murderous intent in Fu Su's corpse vanished instantly, leaving it in a wooden, dazed state, like a puppet being manipulated, obediently standing in place.
The [Heavenly Eye] skill's mind control effect was even better than Zhou Fangdong had imagined, especially against these irrational ghosts.
When the girl's body was discovered, a noise was heard in the hidden room where Ke Yan was.
Zhou Fangdong rushed over with the girl's body. When he returned to the basement, he found that Ke Yan had already subdued the boy's corpse that had been overturned.
After signing a contract with the apartment and becoming a ghost tenant, Ke Yan's strength increased significantly, and he also became very experienced in dealing with Fu Su's corpse. When Zhou Fangdong arrived, he was holding a scalpel and gesturing at the boy's corpse.
Zhou Fangdong quickly stopped him: "Wait, spare his life!"
After regaining control of the boy's body from Ke Yan, Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief and led the two ghosts back to the first floor.
The two children of the Ghost Postman are also in the state of Ghost Tenants. It should be the effect of the sealing effect of the life-sustaining stake. Their souls and corpses have become one.
However, both of them were in extremely poor condition, both in a state of irrational berserk rage. Once he released them from control, they would definitely attack everyone indiscriminately.
Let's take them to room 107 first and clear the boss room first.
Zhou Fangdong manipulated the two corpses and pushed open the door to enter room 107.
The room was also a bare, unfinished concrete structure. As soon as the door was opened, a low sobbing sound came out.
A long-haired woman wearing a bright red nightgown sat in the middle of the room, covering her face and weeping.
The moment Zhou Fangdong saw her, the woman vanished into thin air, and the location of the crying changed... The female ghost appeared behind him.
The female ghost's face, which had been hidden by her hand, was now fully revealed. Her face was as pale as paper, and her scarlet eyes were filled with blood tears and murderous intent.
Because Zhou Fangdong had just recharged the giant blade with 500 ghost coins, the female ghost suddenly appeared behind him and was almost beheaded by the cleaver.
Fortunately, Zhou Fangdong managed to pull the chain connecting the blade in time, thus preventing a tragic incident of decapitation.
The female ghost appeared behind Zhou Fangdong intending to attack him, but at that moment, she saw her children.
The murderous intent vanished instantly, and the female ghost embraced the corpses of the two children, beginning to weep again.
Looking at the three ghosts who were crying with their heads in their hands, Zhou Fangdong felt that it would be a bit of a killjoy to just stand there doing nothing, so he secretly used [Soul Drain] on the crying female ghost.
...It is the ordinary [soul absorption] of the mind-reading version, which has not been amplified by the kerosene lamp.
After receiving a paltry eight hundred ghost coins, Zhou Fangdong learned about the ghost's past life.
Around the 1980s, this family lived in the old town of Linjiang City. The land was bought by a real estate developer who wanted to build an apartment building.
However, the compensation for the demolition was too unreasonable, so the Ghost Postman family of four never agreed to the demolition.
Because the development was stalled, one night, the unscrupulous developer bribed local thugs to demolish the Ghost Postman's house under cover of darkness, even though they knew someone was living there.
The ghost postman noticed something was wrong outside, but when he went out, he was run over and killed by thugs driving a bulldozer.
Afterwards, the ghost postman's wife ran out of the collapsed house with her two children, and was not buried under the rubble.
Although they managed to escape, they were beaten to death by thugs who were waiting outside with wooden sticks.
The developer was rich and powerful, and with his money, the missing ghost postman and his family were left unattended.
The developer bought the land to build the building with the intention of creating a feng shui arrangement to boost his business. Fearing retribution from vengeful ghosts, the developer, on the advice of a certain "master with a melon-shaped hat," sealed the bodies and souls of the ghost postman's family of four into "living stakes" and buried them at the four corners of the foundation of the apartment building under construction.
After that, the ghost postman's wife remained in a daze in the darkness until she was taken to room 107 by an unknown force.
After reading about the ghost postman's wife's experiences, Zhou Fangdong asked, "System, could the ghosts in the boss's room also be ghost tenants?"
The ghost postman's wife and her two children were in the same situation. Because their souls and bodies were sealed together and pressed under the apartment, they also became ghost tenants with physical forms.
Yes, the boss room is generated last. After the host clears all the ghost rooms on a floor, a ghost will be randomly selected as the boss. There is a small chance of drawing a ghost room.
Zhou Fangdong looked at the three irrational tenants at the door, sighed, and asked, "System, what should I do now? Does this mean I've cleared the level?"
He could sense that once he released the skill control, the two children would immediately enter a frenzied state where they only knew how to kill.
The female ghost is currently being controlled by the two children. If the children lose control, she will definitely join them in attacking others.
Zhou Fangdong didn't want to use violence to get rid of these three ghost tenants, but he didn't know how to pass the level.
[The host has unlocked a special peripheral facility [Hidden Mirror Space in the Apartment]. If you don't want to deal with the ghost tenants, you can imprison them here to clear the dungeon.]
"How should I imprison them? Should I take them to the mirror world?"
[The system will assist in the imprisonment... Host, are you sure you want to imprison [The Weeping Ghost], [The Human Pillar Boy], and [The Human Pillar Girl] in the hidden mirror space?]
"Sure."
The three ghost tenants have been successfully detained.
[Congratulations, host, you have successfully cleared the first floor of the back building of the apartment. Main quest 4 is complete. Reward...]
Zhou Fangdong ignored the reward pop-up and continued to ask, "Is it possible for these three ghost tenants to regain their sanity? After I drew the ghost postman, he signed a contract with me and became an apartment tenant, and he seemed perfectly normal... Does this mean that if I also sign a contract with those three ghost tenants, they will also regain their sanity?"
No, the Ghost Postman was selected by the system to enter the lottery pool a long time ago, and was not deeply corrupted by resentment, so he retains his rationality.
To restore the ghost tenant's sanity, the host can increase the apartment garden's decoration value and decorate the garden with the ghost tenant as a decoration. After a while, the sanity will naturally be restored. For details, please refer to the rewards of main quest 4.
"Decorations??" Zhou Fangdong thought he had misheard, so he opened the history page of his conversation with the system to check it again.
The system did indeed say 'use ghost tenants as decorations in the garden'.
This is going too far, system. I wouldn't say anything if you used ghost corpses to decorate the apartment, since corpses are inanimate objects and could be used to some extent.
But it's decorated with ghost tenants...
Zhou Fangdong unlocked the main quest reward 4.
He wanted to see how the system was going to operate.
[Main Quest 4 Reward ①: Ornament - Weeping Lady Fountain Statue]
This decoration can be installed above the fountain in the apartment garden and costs 20 decoration points. It has a very high compatibility with the weeping ghost tenant, allowing the ghost tenant to be contained within it.
The ghost tenant will sleep in the decorations. As the garden decoration value increases, the damaged soul of the ghost tenant can be nourished and will wake up smoothly after a period of time.
Note: This decoration will become highly aggressive after it houses a ghost tenant. Do not allow non-tenants to approach it.
It turned out it was contained within a decoration. Thank goodness... Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief.
The reward for main quest 4 is 5,000 Ghost Coins.
This run of the dungeon netted me 30,000 Ghost Coins.
He earned more money in just half a day than he had saved up all these days... It's much easier to earn ghost coins by farming dungeons in the back building. I should have come here to farm resources earlier.
Zhou Fangdong continued to check the other rewards.
The rewards from the main quest in the back building are fewer than those in the front building, with only three in total. The last one is for decoration, consisting of five ceiling lights for the apartment corridors.
After you finish fixing the third-floor ceiling, install this ceiling light.
Zhou Fangdong took out the [Weeping Lady Statue], randomly selected a fountain, and placed it on the marble pillar in the middle of the fountain.
A lifelike white stone statue of a woman appeared on the pillar. The woman covered her face with her hands and wept, and gushing bright red liquid flowed through her fingers, merging into the fountain below and dyeing the fountain water, which was mixed with long black hair, a beautiful light red.
Zhou Fangdong nodded in satisfaction.
"System, please help me contain the Ghost Tenant - Weeping Ghost into this decoration."
[The [Crying Ghost] has been moved to the decorations...]
[The resentment of the ghost tenant is rapidly increasing... Please decorate the apartment garden with [Human Pillar Boy] and [Human Pillar Girl] as soon as possible, otherwise the decorations may break, allowing the weeping female ghost to escape.]
Oops... Why didn't you say so earlier!
Zhou Fangdong quickly opened the garden decoration interface, swiped rapidly in the [Decorations] section, and found a [Girl Fountain Statue] and a [Boy Fountain Statue].
...These statues are so expensive, they cost a thousand ghost coins each, enough to repair a fountain, but they only give 20 decoration points.
The system did this on purpose, didn't it? First, it gave him a portion of the reward set for free, then lured him to buy the other two small statues. How despicable! It has learned the essence of pay-to-win games.
...Buy it! He's not short of money anyway. Besides, the free reward statue is about to break if he doesn't buy it soon.
Zhou Fangdong bought them all in a domineering manner, and also repaired a fountain.
His original garden only had two fountains, enough to decorate only two statues.
After taking the two child ghost tenants into the statue, Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief.
That should be fine now.
After dealing with the matters in the back building, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental preview interface and saw that Xiong Lei in the 104 convenience store had woken up and was sitting in a chair eating.
It looks like I can get him to sign the rental agreement for room 302 soon.
But before that, he needs to collect all the favorability rewards.
Today, the favorability ratings of Lu Mingbian, the tenant of Room 301, the Ghost Postman of Room 209, and Tang Huili, the tenant of Room 204, all reached 80.
He also hasn't claimed the reward for unlocking Xiao Di's illustration yet.
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