Chapter 113 The Meat Pigeon Restaurant Behind the Apartment Building Launches the Infamous Liwan Apartment...
Absolutely safe zone...
Zhou Fangdong was stunned after reading the contents of the system pop-up. He never expected that reputation points would be so useful.
He had thought that the reputation, like the purification and protection device, would only stabilize the yin energy in the apartment, but he never expected it to directly create a safe zone.
The first floor has the most ordinary tenants. With this safe zone, there will be no need to worry about the first-floor tenants encountering danger.
Zhou Fangdong opened the system panel, wanting to see if the apartment's reputation value had changed after increasing by 300 reputation points.
...It's still -999.
Well, it seems he underestimated the extent of the bad reputation spread by Liwan Apartments. Three hundred reputation points are just a drop in the bucket compared to this plummeting reputation.
Zhou Fangdong then opened the lamp oil production interface.
He was preparing to start mass production of the [lamp oil pendant]. Gaining 300 reputation points would allow him to build a safe zone, which was an incredibly high return.
There's no need to go to the basement to craft items; you can control it directly through the system interface.
Zhou Fangdong dragged a corpse out of the ice coffin and put it into an iron pot, then told the lamp oil workers to continue boiling lamp oil.
Then, I took a jar of lamp oil from my inventory and placed it in the byproduct crafting interface of the workbench. I also paid 10% of my health bar to continue producing the [Lamp Oil Pendant].
After finishing all this, Zhou Fangdong continued writing the tenant rules for room 302.
After much revision and editing, the system finally approved it.
Because the phone couldn't access the internet, and out of Zhou Fangdong's sight, after a morning of discussion, the topic of Liwan Apartments had already become a trending topic on various social media platforms.
After the initial post sharing the effects of using the [lamp oil pendant] appeared, other sharing posts sprang up like mushrooms after rain.
Some renters in the suburbs even said that they were safe all night under the protection of the [lamp oil pendant], and that the suburban house was even safer than the house they rented in the city center.
There's a lot of online discussion about the relationship between the online store "Liwan Apartment" and the "Liwan Apartment haunted building" in the suburbs.
Some even made outrageous claims, saying that the [lamp oil pendant] might have come from that haunted building, that the online store was actually run by ghosts, and that the lamp oil in the pendant might be corpse oil. Using the [lamp oil pendant] is equivalent to putting an even more terrible curse on oneself. The ghosts saw that the pendant user was being targeted by Liwan Apartments, so they didn't dare to attack, which is equivalent to fighting poison with poison and drinking poison to quench thirst.
As a result, these remarks were ridiculed as sour grapes.
After all, the Bureau of Supervision's attitude has been ambiguous so far. There has been no large-scale account bans or prohibitions on discussion, and no one has reported that their [lamp oil pendant] has been recalled by the Bureau of Supervision. Even the online store called 'Liwan Apartment' is fine, it's just that the sold-out items have not been relisted. Therefore, it is believed that the [lamp oil pendant] is a new type of protective item developed by the Bureau of Supervision.
The atmosphere within the Bureau of Abnormal Inspections was far from pleasant at that moment.
The research department, in particular, was shrouded in gloom, with everyone wearing a resentful expression.
The head of the research department even grabbed the heads of the logistics and operations departments by the collar and launched into a tirade in the conference room:
"You didn't even manage to snatch a single [lamp oil pendant], what are you all good for?! What did I say during the peddler incident? Since that landlord wanted the cultists' corpses, we should just capture more cultists as reserve currency. But one by one, you all said you didn't have time or felt it was inhumane, wanting to bury the cultists' corpses—I'll give you a piece of my mind! What kind of humanity are you talking about with those cult lunatics? We treat them like human beings, but did they treat the ordinary people they harmed like human beings?"
"Such an important prop! Such a perfect protective prop!! That paranormal streamer even told the bureau in advance before making the promotional video, asking us to pay attention to the Liwan Apartment online store and prepare sealing objects and cult corpses in advance. As a result, you have spent all this time in meetings—damn formalism! If you had prepared the cult corpses earlier or taken out the sealing objects earlier, our research department would have already started researching that [lamp oil pendant], would we have wasted our breath on you people?"
Growing increasingly angry, the head of the research department slammed his fist on the table:
"Besides, even if there are no cult corpses, there are still sealed artifacts, right? What's the harm in giving the sealed artifacts to the landlord? Keeping those ghostly things in the station is dangerous, takes up space, and wastes manpower guarding them. Even if they get out of control in the Liwan Apartment, it doesn't matter, since there's no one within a ten-mile radius of the apartment! The strange things at Liwan Apartment have been going on for over half a month. If the landlord wanted to harm anyone, he would have done it already. And given the level of terror at Liwan Apartment, he wouldn't need to rely on sealed artifacts to harm anyone. He could just release all the ghosts in the apartment, and Linjiang City would fall—but he didn't do anything! Even the five investigators and one retired investigator living in the apartment are completely unharmed, so what are you all afraid of?"
The head of the logistics department wiped his face and weakly began, "We..."
The head of the research department interrupted him directly: "What do you mean, 'you'? What are you trying to argue about? Isn't it just that you've been dragging your feet on giving us the sealed artifact? Since you've chosen to cooperate and use the Liwan Apartments to deal with the Heirs of the Bone Society and the Main God, stop hesitating and beating around the bush!"
Seeing that the group was about to come to blows in the conference room, the director quickly calmed them down, saying, "Xiao Feng, calm down. The fact that the landlord hasn't taken the item off the shelves means we still have a chance to buy it. If all else fails, we can ask Hong Zhong to help us try to get the landlord to keep some for us after he finishes making the new [lamp oil pendants]. Once we have the 'currency' ready, we can trade privately."
The head of the research department snorted coldly, but out of respect for the bureau chief, he said nothing more and sat back down in his seat with a sullen face.
The head of the operations department sighed: "The problem is that we can't catch the cultists anymore... All the cultists in the city center have mysteriously disappeared. Whether it's the addresses given by the landlord of Liwan Apartment or the Siguhui strongholds that our department investigated, they are all deserted. And the suburbs are too big. Searching one place after another is not only a waste of manpower but also a waste of time."
The head of the Anomalies Investigation Division added, "Moreover, it's not just the cultists of the Bone Inheritance Society. The supernatural power fluctuations in the places we detected that might have descended upon the main god's instance have all returned to normal. I suspect that the landlord of the Liwan Apartments did something to clean up all the anomalies in the city. It's also possible that those cultists and the main god have gone into hiding and are plotting something even more terrifying."
The head of the logistics department sighed, "It's not that we don't want to give you the sealed items, but recently an S-class sealed item went missing from the warehouse, and we're currently investigating it. The missing sealed item is an extremely dangerous paranormal device called a router. It was only because Captain Hu Feng took the curse upon himself that it didn't cause too much trouble. Because it disappeared from the warehouse without a trace, we suspect there's a problem with the guards, and we're checking them one by one. We really don't dare to open the warehouse at this time."
The head of the research department laughed in exasperation: "What a coincidence? Everything's gone wrong?"
He looked at the bureau chief and said solemnly, "Bureau chief, it's not that I'm being unreasonable, but the current situation doesn't allow us to delay any longer."
"Our Linjiang City is the source of the paranormal events, on the front line. Although the paranormal problems are the most serious, our protection is also the best. We developed the protective items first and then promoted them nationwide. At first, thanks to the self-imposed lockdown of Liwan Apartment and the efforts of our bureau, we barely managed to control the spread of paranormal events. But since that main god dungeon appeared, paranormal events are gradually increasing all over the country. Other city bureaus don't have our rich experience in handling paranormal events. If we don't develop more powerful protective items, it could become a nationwide disaster."
"We must obtain that [lamp oil pendant] as soon as possible so that our research department can study it and strive to mass-produce it. One hundred [lamp oil pendants] are still too few for Linjiang City, which has nearly 20 million citizens."
The director nodded: "I know your concerns. I've also seen the paranormal event report from the monitoring department. There is indeed an increasing trend of paranormal events outside. Roads leading out of Linjiang City are now under traffic restrictions, which should slow down the spread of paranormal events to other areas."
The head of the Investigation Department added, "The matter of the [lamp oil pendant] has been assigned to Hong Zhong. He's been sent to contact the landlord, and he's already on his way to Liwan Apartments. We should receive a reply by noon."
The head of the research department still looked grim: "In that case, I'll head back now. I hope to receive some good news from you."
*
After finishing writing the tenant rules for room 302, Zhou Fangdong opened the rental interface to take a look.
Inside the 104 convenience store, Xiong Lei, the pixelated little figure, was still fast asleep.
Judging from his appearance, he must have stayed up all night last night, and he'll probably need to sleep for a while longer.
Seeing this, Zhou Fangdong did not immediately teleport over to disturb him. He planned to talk to Xiao Lei about renting a house after Xiao Lei woke up.
I'll take this opportunity to go for a walk in the back building of the apartment.
Zhou Fangdong plans to finish main quest 4 today.
The fourth main quest is to clean up the rooms on the first floor of the back building, clear the boss room, and obtain the final reward for the first floor of the back building.
The apartment rooms on the first floor of the back building are divided into four types: bonus room, ghost room, hidden room, and boss room.
After clearing all the ghost rooms, you can see the boss room. There is also a certain probability that ghost tenants will spawn in the ghost rooms. If the ghost tenants are in a conscious state, you can let them move into the apartment room in the front building.
The two [Intermediate Demon-Slaying Talismans] that Zhou Fangdong bought when he first entered the back building of the apartment were still in his inventory. After thinking for a moment, he teleported to the hidden room on the second floor and took out the giant blade with hooks from the slime's body.
Although the machete given to him by the butcher in the ghost market cannot be stored in his inventory and requires him to recharge ghost coins to use it, it is a very useful item that combines offense and defense.
Not only can it be controlled by thought to attack, but the giant blade itself can also target enemies.
The flesh-shaped Ganoderma lucidum that was killed by this knife immediately lost its activity; it is unknown how effective it was at killing ghosts.
After confirming that he was ready, Zhou Fangdong teleported directly to the apartment garden.
In the garden, He Yansheng was already working in the planting area.
He was watering the plants while muttering to the ghostly props still buried in the ground, instilling his pessimistic philosophy into them.
Zhou Fangdong wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but it seemed that as He Yansheng kept muttering, the flowers in the flowerbed next to the planting area were also wilting, looking dejected. Even the few clusters of dahlias with their eyeballs looked listless.
...In a sense, He Yansheng is quite strong.
Zhou Fangdong tiptoed around the planting area without attracting He Yansheng's attention, and then quickly entered the back building of the apartment.
He was no longer the timid newbie who dared not approach the back building of the apartment. Now, with a large number of supernatural items and powerful skills, entering the back building was as natural as returning to the front building.
The hidden room on the first floor of the back building is now occupied by Ke Yan. The ghosts and corpses that used to roam the corridor on the first floor have been used for his experiments, so it looks cleaner than the front building.
Looking at the closed doors of the rooms in the tenant corridor, Zhou Fangdong prepared to clean them one by one in order.
He walked to room 101 in the back building and pushed the door open.
In the very center of room 101, there was a strange prop that looked like a pair of glasses.
I was lucky; the first room wasn't a ghost room, but a bonus room.
Zhou Fangdong walked over and picked up the prop.
[Congratulations, host, you have obtained [Special Item: Appraisal Glasses]]
[X-Identification Glasses]: After use, it allows you to see through the side effects of all supernatural items and the curses carried by humans. If the supernatural item has a random curse, you can use these glasses to confirm what random side effects it will have before using it.
[This item has been detected to have an extremely high compatibility with the host's [Heavenly Eye] skill and has been automatically integrated into the Heavenly Eye skill.]
[Tianmu] has added a passive appraisal skill.
After the system pop-up appeared, the glasses that were just in Zhou Fangdong's hand disappeared.
To test the effects of the new identification skill, Zhou Fangdong left room 101 and used the [Heavenly Eye] skill.
As the skill took effect, two lines of text slowly appeared above the door numbers of all the rooms—the top line indicated the room type, and the bottom line described what kind of ghost or monster was inside.
The [hidden room] where Ke Yan stayed was even highlighted, confirming that it could be seen immediately.
...With the mod installed, clearing rooms with the perspective mod is so convenient.
Zhou Fangdong arrived at the door of room 102.
The creature in this room is a berserk ghost baby.
Zhou Fangdong hesitated for a moment, then took out a kerosene lamp.
He currently has a sufficient supply of lamp oil and has decided to try out the enhanced [Soul Absorption] effect.
His main purpose in coming to the back building to complete the fourth main quest was to earn ghost coins for renovations.
Because of the evil god and the main god, Zhou Fangdong is very anxious and wants to increase the renovation value as soon as possible to enhance the apartment's security.
Last time, he used the kerosene lamp to amplify [Soul Absorption], which not only destroyed the teddy bear but also earned him two thousand ghost coins.
This time he wanted to try again and see how many ghost coins he could get from a whole ghost.
Zhou Fangdong, carrying a kerosene lamp, pushed open the door to room 102.
As soon as the door opened, a purplish-blue ghost infant roared and pounced on the intruder.
Zhou Fangdong neither dodged nor flinched. He lit the kerosene lamp, turned the flame to its maximum, and then used [Soul Absorption] on the ghost infant.
The hideous ghost infant froze in mid-air, then slowly collapsed like a weathered clay sculpture, the entire ghost turning into a granular black mist that merged into Zhou Fangdong's body.
[Congratulations, host! You have successfully devoured the ghost infant and gained 7500 Ghost Coins.]
Seven thousand five hundred, the results are good, we've made enough to cover the cost of flooring for one corridor.
[Soul Drain] is such a useful attack skill, as it allows you to gain Ghost Coins while attacking.
Zhou Fangdong opened the character attribute panel.
He currently has 12 skill points, which will increase to 13 after renting out room 302. Once rooms 303 and 304 are also rented out, he will have a total of 15 skill points, enough to upgrade one skill.
Zhou Fangdong initially saved up skill points mainly to upgrade the [Half-Body Shrine] skill, because he wanted to figure out what was going on with the corpses in the basement that looked exactly like him.
But after going up to the fifth floor last night, he had a general idea of where those corpses came from.
Now he's hesitating whether to put skill points into [Half-Body Shrine].
Because he was unsure of the effects of upgrading [Half-Body Shrine], he was reluctant to use the skill points he had painstakingly accumulated on this skill.
[Soul Drain] is a much better attack skill than [Half-Body Shrine]. It has a powerful attack effect, can also steal money, and most importantly, it won't make you lose consciousness or have the debuff of insanity.
Furthermore, he suspected that the negative effect of losing consciousness might still exist after the [Half-Body Shrine] was upgraded.
The [Heavenly Eye] skill was upgraded to the maximum level after three upgrades, and the [Half-Body Shrine] skill was also upgraded three times, but not to the maximum level.
Zhou Fangdong felt that given the special nature of this skill, even after using 15 skill points, [Half-Body Shrine] might still not be fully upgraded, and there was still a certain probability that he would lose consciousness when using this skill.
...Let's put those aside for now and clear out the ghosts in the other rooms first, then we can finish the main quest 4.
Perhaps after completing main quest 4, like the reward for main quest 1, all of his skills will be upgraded, and then we won't have to be so conflicted as we are now.
-----------------------
Author's Note: Bonus chapter at 9 PM tonight.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com