Chapter 12: The second tenant, a paranormal livestreamer yearning for fame…
After Zhou Fangdong sent out promotional flyers on the forum, members of the anomaly monitoring department, who were monitoring the rental forum 24 hours a day, immediately contacted Hong Zhong.
When Hong Zhong received the call from his colleague, he was driving to Guijia Furniture Store. He had received another order from Liwan Apartments that morning, asking him to deliver two more pieces of furniture to the apartment.
After hanging up the phone, Hong Zhong contacted a paranormal livestreamer and asked her to schedule a viewing under the rental post. After he picked up the furniture, the two of them would go to Liwan Apartment together.
In this era, paranormal livestreamers are considered unofficial members of the official system, essentially contract workers in the Bureau of Abnormal Monitoring without official status—a high-risk, high-paying job.
The Paranormal Investigation Department is severely understaffed and needs volunteers to investigate suspected haunted locations to verify reports. They also need to leverage the media to educate the public about common ghostly methods and self-rescue techniques after being attacked – after all, official accounts are too serious, and ordinary people won't follow them daily unless something major happens.
Therefore, the Bureau of Abnormal Monitoring has hired a large number of paranormal anchors to popularize science to the public in a semi-entertainment, semi-science popularization format.
These paranormal anchors undergo several months of special training before starting their jobs. Although they are not as professional as the paranormal investigators, they can still survive in the face of ghosts and monsters.
Miao Zheng is such a paranormal livestreamer.
She enjoys being the center of attention. Her childhood dream was to become a big star. She longed for fame and wanted to be loved and adored by the audience.
However, because of his ordinary appearance, Miao Zheng gave up on this dream after he grew up.
Later, due to the popularity of social media, she signed with a company, but because her appearance was not outstanding enough, she was unable to become a blogger and instead became a script planner for the company.
Later, after paranormal events occurred, Miao Zheng resigned from his company and applied for a contract job in the Paranormal Investigation Department, becoming a relatively unknown paranormal anchor.
Even in paranormal live streams, those who attract the most attention are still the handsome men and beautiful women with outstanding appearances... In recent years, the highest number of viewers in Miao Zheng's live stream room was only four hundred.
Although she had a fixed salary from the supervisory bureau and didn't have to worry about income, she always harbored a deep resentment.
Why can everyone else become famous, but she can't? She really wants to experience what it's like to walk down the street and have people ask for photos and autographs.
So, in an attempt to attract viewers, Miao Zheng began venturing into dangerous locations to broadcast bizarre and gruesome ghost stories that others dared not do. However, because these ghost stories were too gory and terrifying, it backfired, and even fewer people watched her live streams.
Although she lacks audience appeal, Miao Zheng's ruthless and fearless spirit is well-known within the Bureau of Abnormal Supervision, and most of the viewership in her live stream comes from bureau employees.
This is why Hong Zhong immediately thought of Miao Zheng.
After receiving Hong Zhong's request, Miao Zheng packed all his luggage as quickly as possible without saying a word and drove to Liwan Apartment.
She's moving in today.
This is Liwan Apartments! It's a notorious haunted building! A haunted building full of haunted houses! A haunted building with hundreds of murders!
The mere name of this Liwan Apartment is enough to attract a huge audience.
Although Hong Zhong had informed her beforehand that there was no internet inside and she couldn't do a live stream... these were minor issues; she could just shoot the footage first and then edit it! She wanted to make a mockumentary, tentatively titled an adventure into a haunted building.
With explosive popularity just around the corner, Miao Zheng seemed to have already envisioned his live stream reaching the top of the homepage's trending list.
As for Hong Zhong saying on the phone that he'd go together... waiting in the haunted building is the same as waiting, so there's no problem. She'll go check it out first. After all, working with a boss has too many restrictions—you can't do this, you can't do that, etc. This time, she wants to take advantage of his absence to shoot as much viral footage as possible.
If it's not for the sake of traffic, then none of this matters! She's determined to use this opportunity of filming the haunted building to become a huge star!
*
Zhou Fangdong looked at the tenant information on the forum who had booked viewings and fell into deep thought once again.
"System, does this [Honest Advertisement] really have no guarantee mechanism? I just posted it and people are already asking to come and see the house. This promotion is too strong."
[Honest Advertisement] There is no guaranteed minimum payment; whether tenants come to view the property depends entirely on the host's efforts.
Zhou Fangdong looked completely bewildered.
"What have I been working on? It seems like all I've done is click to send rental ads..."
The system did not respond.
Judging that the prospective tenants should have arrived by now, Zhou Fangdong took out a kerosene lamp and went to the apartment entrance to greet them.
The lamp oil can last for another nine hours... Sigh, the lamp oil in the system store is too expensive. I need to find another way to replenish the lamp oil.
When Zhou Fangdong arrived at the apartment entrance, Miao Zheng's car happened to be parked in front of the apartment.
A woman with an exceptionally tall figure stepped out of the car.
She looked to be around 180cm tall, with beautifully defined arm muscles. She had short hair, wore a sleek black tracksuit, a microphone clipped to her collar, photography equipment slung over her shoulder, a fanny pack across her waist, and a heavy-looking equipment case on her back.
The tenant appears to be a photographer.
What a coincidence! He found a female tenant just because he was looking for one. Room 109 needed to be photographed, and this tenant happened to be a photographer.
Zhou Fangdong began to suspect that the system might have been manipulating things behind the scenes... Seriously, would the system be that kind? Could there be something wrong with this tenant?
The first thing Miao Zheng did after getting out of the car was to take out her camera. She decided to use the panoramic view of the haunted building as the cover of this video.
However, during the shoot, she suddenly saw a figure standing at the apartment door through the camera lens—thinking she had encountered a ghost, Miao Zheng reflexively pressed the shutter.
She carried a video camera in one hand and held a still camera in the other, standing outside the apartment and frantically pressing the shutter button, taking more than sixty photos in just one minute.
After the shoot, Miao Zheng happily flipped through the camera's viewfinder, ready to admire the photos he had just taken one last time.
She froze as soon as she flipped back to the previous page.
In the photo, everything she had just taken had changed. The person holding a kerosene lamp and standing at the apartment door was gone, replaced by a blurry, blood-red shadow with an indistinct face.
The crimson shadows and the dim yellow light of the kerosene lamp intertwined, creating a strange overexposure in the photograph.
Around the excessively bright crimson light, hideous and terrifying ghosts lurked in the shadows. They lay prostrate on the ground, reaching out to grasp at the light, yet seemingly too afraid to touch it. The monsters in the shadows piled up in layers, like demons in an endless hell vying for a single thread of salvation…
This is simply a picture of hell.
Miao Zheng became more and more excited as he looked at it.
She showed no fear of the haunted building, only a thirst for online traffic.
This image is even more eye-catching than the cover of "Haunted House"! Using this as the cover will definitely attract more fans, right?
Zhou Fangdong watched helplessly as Miao Zheng fiddled with her photography equipment.
Why isn't this tenant coming in yet? Didn't she come to rent the apartment? Why is she just standing at the door taking pictures?
Just as Zhou Fangdong's patience was about to run out, Miao Zheng finally put away his camera with satisfaction and walked in carrying his video camera.
Although he had already seen the person standing at the door on camera, Miao Zheng was still shocked by the person's overly exquisite face when he observed him up close in real life.
...She suddenly understood why handsome male and beautiful female live streamers were more likely to attract viewers.
Seeing that the tenant was still carrying a camera after entering and showed no intention of putting it down, Zhou Fangdong frowned slightly: "You can film, but please don't let me be in the shot. If you can do that, we can continue looking at the house. If you can't, please leave."
He has a bit of camera phobia. In the original world, after the rise of social media, Zhou Fangdong hated those store review bloggers the most.
You go out for a meal and unknowingly get filmed, and then those bloggers don't even blur your face, letting an ordinary person be judged. Even worse, you might encounter malicious editing, turning something white into something black.
Hearing Zhou Fangdong say that, Miao Zheng came to his senses and quickly moved the camera away.
Although it was a bit of a pity that he couldn't take photos, Miao Zheng was still very excited to be able to get up close to this mysterious person in the haunted building.
"Are you the landlord who posted the rental ad? Are you human or a ghost? You look quite human, can I touch you? Can I interview you about how you bought these two haunted buildings? I heard these haunted buildings were sealed off by the Paranormal Investigation Department a long time ago, are you from the Paranormal Investigation Department? How much did you spend to buy the haunted buildings? What were your thoughts on renting out the houses in the haunted buildings? Aren't you afraid of the ghosts in the buildings? You..."
Zhou Fangdong was getting a headache from her nagging and repeatedly stopped her, saying, "I'm the landlord. You're not allowed to touch me. I don't give interviews and I have nothing else to say. Stop talking and I'll take you to see the room."
Miao Zheng was in high spirits and not discouraged at all. He asked with great interest, "Are we going to room 109?"
"Yes, the new furniture will be delivered in a while. You can take a look at the room layout, and if you are willing to rent it, you can sign a tenant contract."
“I’d love to!” Miao Zheng nodded decisively.
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment, then turned back to look at Miao Zheng with some surprise.
She agreed to it before even seeing room 109? What is she even here for? Is she really here to rent a room?
Seemingly sensing Zhou Fangdong's question, Miao Zheng smiled and said, "To be honest, I'm a paranormal livestreamer, and I'm looking for a suitable place to shoot videos and do livestreams. I think Liwan Apartment is a perfect match for my profession! Actually, I've wanted to come here for a long time, but my applications have always been rejected by my superiors. Fortunately, my superiors finally approved it today. I just happened to come across your rental post, so I packed my bags and came over."
Zhou Fangdong suddenly realized, "So she's a paranormal anchor. No wonder she's so bold."
"Okay, in that case, let's go to room 109 and sign the rental agreement directly."
If every tenant who comes to view the apartment were like Miao Zheng, it would save him the trouble of racking his brains to figure out how to keep the tenants.
After the two arrived at room 109, Zhou Fangdong handed the rental contract to Miao Zheng.
【Rules for Residents of Room 109】
①Room 109 is only rented to female tenants, and tenants are prohibited from bringing males into the room.
② Do not open windows, do not open or discard black plastic bags, do not cover stains on the walls, and do not touch the saw in the corner.
③ Please treat the black plastic bags on the ground as ordinary furniture; do not ignore them, nor look at them directly for a long time.
④ You need to use photography equipment to film black plastic bags every day, or start a live broadcast of black plastic bags, and the filming time should not be less than 3 hours.
⑤ Tenants in room 109 are not allowed to cover their bodies with blankets while sleeping, and are prohibited from engaging in any "hiding" behavior in room 109.
⑥ Tenants must carry the key to room 109 with them at all times. Losing the key will be considered an automatic termination of the tenancy agreement.
⑦ If you discover any outsiders or ghosts invading your private space, please do not panic. If you follow the above rules, the landlord will come to resolve the issue for you as soon as possible.
⑧ A monthly payment of 30 yuan in cash is required. Failure to pay will be considered an automatic termination of the rental agreement.
After reviewing the rental agreement, Miao Zheng seemed to realize something and gasped as if he had a toothache: "I think I've seen news footage of this dismemberment case... Could those black plastic bags contain corpses? Are you making me live with a dismembered ghost?"
Zhou Fangdong did not reply immediately. He was carefully considering his words, trying to beautify the rented environment.
After all, the lease for room 109 was rather harsh. Although Miao Zheng was a paranormal streamer who sought thrilling horror content, living with dismembered body parts was far too stimulating, and most normal people would find it unacceptable.
But it's clear that Miao Zheng is not a normal person.
She picked up the pen and signed her name on the rental agreement without hesitation. "That's so cool! The ghost sister in room 109 must be the kind of person who's socially awkward, possessive, and a bit yandere, right? This kind of eerie ghost sister persona is really popular online, perfect for making videos. Don't worry, landlord, I don't have a single friend in real life, I guarantee I'll be best friends with the ghost sister."
Zhou Fangdong's carefully crafted explanation was stuck in his throat.
...Never mind, as long as she's happy.
Zhou Fangdong took the rental contract and 30 yuan in cash from Miao Zheng and handed her the key to room 109: "This is your room key. With this key, you can freely enter and exit the apartment. There is a copy of the rental contract on the table. If you don't remember any of the rules, you can go and check it."
"Be sure to follow the residential rules; tenants who abide by the rules are safe."
Miao Zheng took the key and said with a grin, "OK, don't worry, I will definitely follow the rules. There is no one in the world more law-abiding than me, Miao Zheng, hehehe."
Zhou Fangdong felt a chill run down his spine from her laughter.
...Something feels off; we need to keep a close eye on this tenant in the future.
After the tenant contract handover was successful, the familiar system electronic voice sounded:
[Ding—Congratulations, host, for completing side quest 1: Clean and rent out room 109]
[Tenant profile unlocked]
[Tenant Profile: [Low-Level Tenant - Ghostly Streamer Aspiring to Fame] is now lit up (x)]
Please open the encyclopedia in the system interface and claim your rewards promptly.
[Side Quest 1 Completion Rewards: 300 Ghost Coins, 1000 Experience Points, 1 Random Skill Point]
[Beep - Host experience points detected, character level increased, character-specific skill unlocked]
Please check your character level page regularly to see which skills you have unlocked.
A note from the author:
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