Chapter 20 The Feud Between the System and the Main God (First Update) The Disappearance of Miao Zheng...
There were too many pop-up windows appearing in the system. In front of Duan Wenyu, Zhou Fangdong couldn't remain silent for too long to examine them carefully, so he closed all of them first.
Zhou Fangdong took the key to room 102 from the landlord's key and handed it to Duan Wenyu, instructing him: "Keep this key safe. Tenants who have the key to the room will not be attacked by the ghosts in the apartment. If you forget the tenant rules, you can check the table; there is a copy there."
Duan Wenyu looked around the room blankly, but didn't see any furniture.
Room 102 was spotless, as clean as a newly painted, unfinished apartment. In this empty two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, your voice would even echo.
Realizing he had said the wrong thing, Zhou Fangdong coughed awkwardly and said, "I've already ordered new furniture, and it will be delivered soon. Before the furniture arrives, you can take the bus out to buy some food."
Duan Wenyu nodded: "I understand."
Actually, he really wanted to go out and see the world.
Although the countdown of his points system disappeared while he was in the apartment, if the points system would reappear if he left the apartment, it would mean that he would have to stay in this haunted building for the rest of his life, which is no different from being sentenced to life imprisonment.
Moreover, Duan Wenyu also wanted to go out and interact with other people to see if he would still be isolated from the world after the points system disappeared.
Seeing that Duan Wenyu had nothing more to ask, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to his room.
After returning to his room, he finally had time to carefully read through all the system pop-ups.
After reading the [hidden quest], Zhou Fangdong asked, puzzled, "What exactly is this Main God System?"
It's a system similar to mine.
The God System doesn't have its own world, but it can corrupt other worlds. It exploits vulnerabilities in other worlds to create supernatural events, drawing humanity into them. These supernatural events are called 'dungeons' by the God System, which it uses to select 'players' who can generate energy for it.
After hearing the system's answer, Zhou Fangdong frowned slightly: "Ordinary people have no ability to resist ghosts and monsters. Making them participate in supernatural events is just sending them to their deaths, isn't it? What's the difference between the operation of this God System and that of terrorists who carry out terrorist attacks?"
The system unusually responded to Zhou Fangdong's complaint, and a surprisingly human-like sense of disgust appeared in its cold, mechanical voice:
[That's right, the Main God System is a ruthless, reckless, disaster-loving, and utterly disgusting terrorist.]
Zhou Fangdong was speechless for a moment.
This resentment is quite strong... Could it be that his real estate management system has some deep-seated grudge against that God system?
Zhou Fangdong suddenly thought of something and asked, "By the way, since the main god created the supernatural dungeon to screen players, if someone successfully completes the dungeon and becomes a formal player, will they be taken away by the main god system?"
Yes, official players will be pulled into the God Realm by the God, and will never be able to return to their original world.
Under the coercion and enticement of the main god, these players will endlessly clear supernatural dungeons in various worlds until they die. The act of players earning points by clearing dungeons is, in effect, stealing energy from other worlds for the main god's system.
Upon hearing this, Zhou Fangdong fully understood why his system hated the God System so much.
This God System is not only a terrorist, but also a combination of human traffickers and unscrupulous capitalists.
If the God System is allowed to run rampant without being stopped, there probably won't be many living people left in this world... If there are no people left, it will be even more impossible to rent out the apartments in Liwan.
Thinking about this, Zhou Fangdong also felt a sense of crisis.
He didn't want to be trapped in the Liwan Apartment for the rest of his life.
Zhou Fangdong reviewed the hidden mission again and asked, "The current progress of capturing the points system is 1/100. Is the points system that has been captured the one on Duan Wenyu?"
Yes, after signing the tenant contract, Duan Wenyu's points system was taken away by the apartment company.
Zhou Fangdong frowned.
If the points system can only be accessed after signing a tenant contract, then this is going to be difficult... He can't clear out 99 rooms in a short time, not to mention there are only six rooms left on the first floor, and he doesn't know how to get to the second floor of the apartment.
"Besides signing a tenant contract, are there any other ways to collect points in the system?"
[Host can check out the furniture purchasing app]
Buying furniture from the Home Furnishings store has the same effect as signing a rental contract for Liwan Apartments. The furniture store can first separate its points system from the existing one, and then transfer the points system to Liwan Apartments.
The furniture store exists because of Liwan Apartments. The store manager will completely obey the host's commands, and all the host needs to pay is a small amount of Ghost Coins.
Zhou Fangdong opened the blue furniture purchasing app and found that in addition to the furniture purchasing function, it also had a function to assign tasks to furniture store managers.
Posting a task requires 30 Ghost Coins or 3 Offering Incense sticks.
"System, what is incense offering?"
Offering incense: Incense and candles blessed by a celestial master's spiritual power or blood have a powerful attraction to ghosts of any level. Offering incense can repair the damaged souls of ghosts and make them feel full. Like offering paper money and ingots, it is a popular form of currency in the underworld.
What a useful tool! I can look into how to obtain this offering incense when I have time. With this, I can command the ghosts in the building, and maybe I can even train a whole building of free cleaners.
Next, all we need to do is wait for Duan Wenyu to return, ask him for the location of the selection instance he experienced, and then issue the task to the furniture store manager.
Duan Wenyu was once a prospective player of the Infinite Flow game, and there must be many others like him who were drawn into the selection process for Infinite Flow players.
Once you find the remaining reserve players, use Ghost Coins to issue a task to the furniture store manager, asking him to sell furniture to them. This will allow you to successfully capture their points system and complete the hidden mission.
Having figured out how to complete the hidden mission, Zhou Fangdong relaxed and continued to check the unlocked tenant profiles.
Tenant Profile: [Special Tenant - The Unlucky College Student]
Illustration Description: A hapless college student who finally graduated, only to be kidnapped by a human trafficker's god system. He longs for freedom and a peaceful, ordinary life.
Traits: He has a resilient character and no difficulty can completely break him. He will strictly follow the tenant rules. Although he is timid and easily frightened, he will gradually adapt to living with ghosts. Even if he is evicted, he will not give up the lease.
Special Tenant Encyclopedia Unlock Reward: [Low-Tier Item - Linjiang City Map]
Zhou Fangdong took out the map of Linjiang City and checked the prop instructions.
[Linjiang City Map]
Item Description: A reusable low-level item that allows you to view the location of tenants outside the apartment on the map.
It's a pretty useful tool. If your tenants don't come home at night, you can use this map to check their location and see if they've run into trouble.
Zhou Fangdong added the [Linjiang City Map] to his inventory.
He checked his 12 inventory slots, which currently contained: a monthly bus pass, a complete guide to fishing spots in Linjiang City, high-quality fishing gear, a low-level talisman for peace, a protective amulet, a ghost-repelling talisman, and this [Linjiang City Map].
The bus pass, fishing spot guide, and high-quality fishing gear are all useless items that take up three inventory slots.
Zhou Fangdong took them all out and threw them into a corner of the room.
My inventory looks much cleaner now.
After completing side quest 2, he received 300 Ghost Coins, bringing his total to 340 Ghost Coins.
Zhou Fangdong then opened his character attribute panel.
The experience gained from completing the mission leveled him up, gave him three attribute points, unlocked a new skill, and also granted him a random skill point.
He didn't plan to use the random skill points; he intended to save them for upgrading other skills later.
Zhou Fangdong casually tapped on the newly unlocked skill.
After figuring out the system's pay-to-win tactics, he no longer had any expectations for the skills he unlocked in the early stages.
But to his surprise, the system gave him a pleasant surprise this time.
[Skill 4: Bloodline Buff - Supporter]
[Skill Description: Your donor bloodline has awakened. You can transform ordinary incense and paper money into offering incense and offering paper money by consuming half your health. Offering incense and offering paper money have an irresistible attraction to ghosts; they are willing to pay ghost coins for them and willingly obey the holder of the offering incense.]
(Note: This skill is exclusive and cannot be disassembled.)
(Note: Consuming half of the health bar is a fixed percentage for skill usage; even if the health bar increases, the consumption will not decrease.)
After reading the skill description, Zhou Fangdong felt a sense of surprise, like he had won the lottery.
Although using a skill consumes half of your health bar... it doesn't mention a limit on the number of times you can use it!!
If he buys a bunch of incense and paper money wholesale from a funeral home and then resells it to the ghosts in the apartment...
Does this mean he won't need to use the Ghost Coin anymore?
Perhaps sensing his thoughts, the system's cold, electronic voice sounded again:
The quantity is not unlimited; the number of offering incense sticks produced is related to how much health the host consumes. To produce more offering incense, the host can allocate attribute points to their health bar.
After being reminded by the system, Zhou Fangdong realized that he still had 3 attribute points left to allocate after leveling up.
"System, add three points to the Spirit bar."
【……？】
[Just to confirm, is the host sure they want to allocate attribute points to the Spirit bar, and not the Health bar?]
"Yes, add it to my spirit bar," Zhou Fangdong repeated.
There's no rush to increase the health bar now; even if it's added, it probably won't increase the number of incense offerings by much.
The fastest way for him to earn ghost coins now is to use mind reading to touch ghosts and trigger [passive skill: plucking feathers from passing geese].
He added to his spirit bar primarily to reduce the side effects of using [Warm Mind Reading].
[Warm Mind Reading] allows him to touch ghosts, but it also makes him bear the ghosts' obsessions and fragments of memories from their past lives.
When Zhou Fangdong was carrying those little ghosts in the apartment entrance, he was almost overwhelmed by the chaotic torrent of emotions. Fortunately, those little ghosts were all low-level spirits, and their resentment wasn't too deep.
If I faint while trying to steal ghost coins from a high-level ghost, and the tenant happens to find me, I'll be incredibly embarrassed.
Three attribute points have been allocated to the Spirit bar.
After adding attribute points, Zhou Fangdong clearly felt that his spirits had improved a lot, and all the negative emotions he had felt from touching those little devils had disappeared.
After adding Duan Wenyu to his list of tenants to watch, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental preview to see what his tenants were up to.
He wanted to ask a tenant who was free to go out and buy some incense and paper money from a funeral home for him; he wanted to test that patronage skill.
To Zhou Fangdong's surprise, none of his three tenants were in their rooms.
Zhao Dawei went to work at the furniture store, Duan Wenyu went out to buy food, Miao Zheng... wait, where did Miao Zheng go?
*
In the morning, after Zhao Dawei went back to his room, washed up, changed into a new outfit, and then left the apartment and took the bus. He successfully arrived at the Guijia Furniture Store before nine o'clock.
Before moving into Liwan Apartment, Zhao Dawei had heard of this furniture store. Apparently, it was shut down because the furniture it sold was haunted.
After two days of training in the suburbs, Zhao Dawei has become much bolder. His status as a tenant in Liwan Apartment has given him a lot of courage. At least after knowing that the furniture store is full of ghosts, he was still able to walk in naturally.
Before the furniture was exposed as haunted, Guijia Furniture Store was the most popular furniture store in the country, so the entire building was occupied by Guijia Furniture Store.
Unlike the dilapidated Liwan Apartments, the Guijia Furniture Store, although it looks like an abandoned building from the outside, is brightly lit inside. Apart from the lack of customers making it seem overly empty, everything in the decoration seems to be in its heyday.
As soon as Zhao Dawei entered the building, the furniture store manager, dressed in a blue and white uniform, came out to greet him.
He looked at Zhao Dawei and said with a smile, "Mr. Zhao, you've arrived. You are indeed a very trustworthy person, worthy of being the tenant chosen by Liwan Apartments."
Although the store manager looks like a living person, his smile is very stiff, and his facial features seem to be drifting uncontrollably.
"Come with me. When we're not doing deliveries, we need you to help organize the furniture in the store." The store manager led Zhao Dawei toward the furniture warehouse at the back.
The furniture store is arranged according to different living areas. The first floor is the bedroom area, which is divided into square spaces. Each space is furnished with different types of furniture and bedding, creating the appearance of small bedrooms for customers to choose from and try out.
To create a warm and inviting atmosphere, mannequins were placed in each area. These mannequins varied in size, but they all had the same thing in common: their faces were completely bald, without any facial features.
Zhao Dawei wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but as he followed the store manager toward the warehouse, he felt like the faceless mannequins were staring at him.
The store manager pushed open the heavy warehouse door, and as soon as the door was opened, a chilling feeling emanated from inside.
This familiar feeling made Zhao Dawei feel as if he had returned to the Delicious Slaughterhouse. The bone-chilling cold emanating from inside the door was exactly the same as the feeling he had when he pushed open the door to the freezer.
Zhao Dawei shuddered reflexively.
Compared to the brightly lit storefront, the warehouse appeared much dimmer.
The warehouse has a very high ceiling; the height of one floor is equivalent to that of three floors outside.
Because the ceiling is too high, the light from the cool-toned ceiling light cannot reach the bottom, leaving the area below in darkness.
In this dimly lit environment, walking among the alloy shelves filled with furniture, one feels completely lost, becoming one of those pieces of furniture, placed on the shelves, never to leave.
Zhao Dawei stopped at the door, not daring to go inside at all.
The furniture store manager didn't suggest he go any further, and pulled out a leather chair from under the shelf closest to the door.
The Guijia Furniture Store has been locked down for too long. Some of the shelves in the warehouse have collapsed, and the stockpiled furniture has been piled up and squeezed together, causing secondary damage to the furniture.
Zhao Dawei's job is to help tidy up the scattered furniture, and occasionally he needs to put the ghosts that have fallen out of the furniture back in.
Currently, he only needs to clean the area closest to the warehouse entrance; he doesn't need to go further inside.
"Excuse me, I didn't quite hear you just now..." Zhao Dawei's face was a little pale. "What did you mean I occasionally need?"
"We need to put the ghosts that fell out back into the furniture," the furniture store manager said earnestly. "Our store is reopening, and both the furniture and the ghosts need to be presented to our customers in a brand new and clean manner. Don't worry, I'll show you how."
As he spoke, the store manager gestured for Zhao Dawei to look at the chair in his hand.
It was a leather armchair about half a person's height. The leather backrest had been completely flipped up due to scratches, revealing the hollowed-out cotton inside... The holes pried out of the cotton were actually shaped like human figures.
“Like this…” The shopkeeper forcefully tore at the leather back of the chair, then pulled out a mummy-like figure from under the collapsed shelf next to him. “See the cotton hole in this human-shaped chair? Just stuff this ghost back into the chair in its original shape.”
As he spoke, he deftly stuffed the mummy inside, then took out a needle and thread from his pocket and skillfully sewed it onto the chair back.
"Did you understand?"
Zhao Dawei nodded blankly.
"You can take your time if you're not skilled yet. We're not focused on quantity, just quality." The furniture store manager patted Zhao Dawei on the shoulder and took a toolbox from the shelf next to him, handing it to him.
"All the necessary tools are inside. If you need anything, just let me know and I'll find it for you."
In order not to embarrass the landlord, Zhao Dawei gritted his teeth and diligently completed the task assigned by the furniture store owner, even though his hands were trembling with fear.
Zhao Dawei discovered that he was actually able to touch a ghost in this furniture store.
When entering and leaving the Liwan Apartment, because there were so many ghosts in the corridor, one would often hang down from the ceiling or grow out of the ground. Sometimes Zhao Dawei would run into these ghosts because he didn't have time to dodge.
But the ghosts in the Liwan Apartments have no physical form; even if you encounter one, it feels like you've encountered a cold gust of wind.
But in this furniture store, Zhao Dawei could actually feel the ghosts just like touching the furniture.
This unfortunate middle-aged man tried his best to ignore the strange sensations in his hands and completed the furniture repair work.
The simplest repair work is to stuff the ghosts into a closet or help them crawl back under the bed.
The medium difficulty level involves stuffing a ghost with a fixed shape into a chair or back into a mattress. These ghosts that parasitize chairs or mattresses have bodies like weathered mummies, with stiff joints that are completely immovable. It would require tearing the entire leather of the chair apart... and that leather would be very difficult to sew back together.
However, the hardest part is stuffing the mushy ghosts back into the steel pipe... because these mushy ghosts like to blend in with their own kind, and when you scoop them up, they're a cold, slippery lump, making it hard to tell which piece of flesh belongs to which ghost.
Fortunately, just as Zhao Dawei was at a loss facing a large mass of ghosts, the store manager walked in.
"We received an order from Liwan Apartments for furniture for room 102. Could you go and deliver it?"
The store manager led Zhao Dawei to the back door of the furniture store.
Stepping out the back door leads to the furniture store's parking lot, where three vehicles are parked: a pickup truck painted dark blue, a large truck painted blue and white, and a bus that looks very familiar.
The store manager pointed to the pickup truck and said to Zhao Dawei, "The furniture and everything else have been packed and put in the truck bed. You just need to sit in the driver's seat. You don't need to operate the vehicle or move the furniture. You just need to sit in the driver's seat and wait for the truck to start."
"Also, it's working hours now, so you don't need to get out of the car to follow up on these small orders. After arriving at Liwan Apartment, you are not allowed to open the car door or leave the driver's seat."
"While the vehicle is in motion, please remember, no matter what happens, do not step on the brakes..." At this point, the store manager's voice suddenly turned cold, and he said, word by word, "If you step on the brakes, even if you are a tenant of Liwan Apartment, your safety cannot be guaranteed."
As soon as he finished speaking, his thick eyebrows and large eyes became completely flat, like melted paint, with all his features slowly sliding down his smooth cheeks.
Zhao Dawei was so frightened that he took a step back, but in that one step, all the strange things about the shop manager disappeared, as if what he had seen before was just his hallucination.
Zhao Dawei wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
It seems this furniture store manager isn't a real person either...
In short, the most important thing when transporting this furniture was that he couldn't leave the driver's seat and couldn't brake. Having learned his lesson from the delicious slaughterhouse incident, Zhao Dawei decided to completely follow the store manager's instructions and not do anything unnecessary.
Fortunately, Zhao Dawei successfully drove the pickup truck to Liwan Apartments.
Just like the furniture store manager described during the job interview, the car could be driven by itself. Zhao Dawei didn't need to operate the steering wheel or the accelerator at all. Although there were indeed unusual noises along the way, and it seemed like several people had been hit, he remembered the manager's instructions and didn't step on the brakes.
After the pickup truck stopped for a while in front of the Liwan Apartment, it started up again on its own after a few thuds as it landed, taking Zhao Dawei back to the Guijia Furniture Store.
After the newly ordered furniture arrived at Liwan Apartment, Duan Wenyu from Room 102 also returned after buying food.
In order to get information from him about the reserve players of the infinite flow game, Zhou Fangdong arrived at the entrance of the apartment early and waited for him to return.
Before Duan Wenyu returned, Zhou Fangdong searched the entire first floor, trying to see if Miao Zheng was in one of the rooms.
However, they couldn't even find a trace of her.
Zhou Fangdong also used the newly acquired item, the Linjiang City Map, but he didn't see Miao Zheng on it, which means she never left Liwan Apartment.
Where did Miao Zheng go?
The last time I saw Miao Zheng was yesterday morning.
Yesterday morning, after Zhou Fangdong used [Warm Mind Reading] on the 102 kid, he encountered Miao Zheng carrying a camera and a drone in the corridor.
She seemed very happy at the time and said she wanted to go outside the apartment to take a panoramic photo.
He set up broadband for Miao Zheng, gaining her 80% favorability rating. After that, he entered the role-playing task in Room 102, which lasted until this morning.
Now it's almost noon, and Miao Zheng is still nowhere to be seen.
Fortunately, the system never warned her that her life was in danger.
Zhou Fangdong pulled up the list of special tenants and checked Miao Zheng's movements yesterday.
Yesterday, Miao Zheng filmed the entire scene outside the apartment and returned to room 109 before noon. She then came out of the room again around 9 p.m., and there has been no further information about her activities since.
Zhou Fangdong really admired the courage of this paranormal anchor. Nighttime is when ghosts and monsters are most active, which is common knowledge that even children know, yet Miao Zheng dared to leave the room at night.
Since she's not in immediate danger, Miao Zheng must be trapped somewhere in the apartment... Let's search for her more carefully after we've dealt with Duan Wenyu's situation.
Duan Wenyu carried the food he bought from the supermarket and stumbled into the apartment building, feeling dizzy and as if he were in a dream.
After signing the lease, he returned to normal! Not only did the countdown disappear, but others could also see him, and he was able to interact with the world as before!
Duan Wenyu suddenly felt like crying.
Ordinary daily life that was once readily available becomes especially precious after it has been lost and then regained.
Standing at the apartment door, Zhou Fangdong took the food that Duan Wenyu had bought from him: "I'll take this food back to room 102 for you. I need your help here, so I need you to go out again."
Duan Wenyu nodded vigorously, his eyes no longer showing fear but even filled with a hint of fanaticism: "Landlord, please feel free to give your orders. I will do my best to do anything I can!"
"It's nothing troublesome. You just need to go to the funeral home and buy some incense, candles, paper money, and gold ingots. I'll reimburse you for the cost when you get back."
"Okay, no problem!" Duan Wenyu agreed repeatedly and turned to leave.
Zhou Fangdong quickly stopped him: "Wait a minute, I have something else to ask you... You must know someone who was selected as a reserve player for the Infinite Flow game, just like you, and who has a points system, right?"
Tell me, where are they?
Duan Wenyu suddenly raised his head and met those dark, deep eyes.
Those deep eyes seemed to see right through his soul, and all the pain and resentment in his heart seemed to be laid bare and fully displayed before the landlord.
The soul that had fallen into the abyss seemed to be lifted up by a gentle force, taking it away from that boundless despair and pain.
—This landlord knew his thoughts and desires, and not only provided him with a safe haven, allowing him to escape the curse of the points system, but also wanted to help him unconditionally and save his friend.
Duan Wenyu felt his heart begin to pound uncontrollably.
This is not some ghost landlord at all...
Duan Wenyu looked at Zhou Fangdong, his voice choked and trembling: "Please save my classmates, they are all in the school auditorium right now..."
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