Chapter 19 triggers a hidden quest to undermine the God System.
Duan Wenyu didn't wait long at the bus stop before a brand-new bus slowly pulled up.
The bus didn't stop at any station; instead, it stopped directly in front of Duan Wenyu, just like a taxi.
Duan Wenyu had lived in Linjiang City for seven years and had never seen such a strange bus.
The bus didn't indicate which route it was, and it didn't even have a license plate. All the windows were opaque, so you couldn't see inside from the outside.
Moreover, he wasn't the only one waiting for the bus at this bus stop, but it seemed that only he could see this strange bus.
Duan Wenyu had a premonition that this vehicle was very likely the bus mentioned in the post that could take him to Liwan Apartment.
After glancing at the death-defying countdown, Duan Wenyu no longer hesitated and boarded the eerie bus.
The bus was completely empty, with the driver's seat blocked off by a thick metal plate.
There are only three stops on the train door: [Delicious Slaughterhouse] - [Liwan Apartment] - [Guijia Furniture Store].
Duan Wenyu had never heard of that delicious slaughterhouse, but Liwan Apartment and Guijia Furniture Store were both notorious ghost towns in Linjiang City.
Duan Wenyu randomly found a seat and sat down.
Ever since he boarded this bus, he had inexplicably felt a sense of panic and shortness of breath.
This is very wrong... Duan Wenyu frowned and patted his chest.
This inexplicable sense of panic did not belong to him.
Duan Wenyu was fully aware of the consequences of moving into the Liwan Apartments. It was his choice, and he wasn't the kind of person who would regret his decision.
So... who is really afraid?
Duan Wenyu looked at the top left corner, at the countdown that had been floating in his field of vision.
Whether it was his imagination or not, the pale blue numbers seemed a little distorted, flickering slightly as if the signal was bad.
After Duan Wenyu was settled, the car door slowly closed.
Sitting inside the bus, you can't see the outside scenery through the windows; you can only confirm that the bus is moving by the roar of the engine.
The car body swayed slightly, and the interior lights flickered as if the current was unstable.
Duan Wenyu noticed that the frequency of the carriage lights was gradually coinciding with the frequency of the countdown numbers.
As the lights flickered on and off, a different scene unfolded inside the carriage.
The once clean and tidy carriage was now unusually dilapidated, with bloodstains everywhere. The partition obscuring the driver's seat was gone, and a corpse lay on it, pus seeping from the body causing its flesh to bleed into the seat.
Dozens of mannequins lay scattered in the aisle like dismembered corpses. The back seats were full of people, their faces covered with yellow talismans pasted on their foreheads, sitting upright like statues, the talismans on their faces swaying from side to side with the movement of the carriage.
Duan Wenyu's Adam's apple bobbed, and his heart pounded. But even though he was terrified, he didn't do anything rash. He just sat stiffly in his seat, head down, pretending he hadn't seen anything.
After enduring the agonizing half hour of sitting, Duan Wenyu, noticing the bus had stopped, forced himself to get off as quickly as possible, despite the pain in his ankle.
As soon as I got off the bus, a gloomy 18-story building came into view.
Looking at the dilapidated building in front of him, with its doors and windows nailed shut, as if it had been abandoned for a long time, Duan Wenyu closed his eyes in despair.
That paranormal streamer's check-in vlog was definitely filtered.
The real-life Liwan Apartments looked even more dilapidated than the apartment in the streamer's video. It was a classic haunted building, shrouded in a gray haze. Visible, chilling black mist continuously drifted out of the building, filling the fading gray fog around it... This building was practically a giant tombstone suppressing countless ghosts and monsters, a place no human could live in.
However, Duan Wenyu no longer has the chance to regret it.
He dared not get on that cursed bus again; with his lame leg, he couldn't possibly get out of this desolate suburb.
Duan Wenyu took a deep breath, mustered his courage, and limped toward the dusty apartment door.
*
Zhou Fangdong encountered some trouble.
He had been carrying a kerosene lamp around the apartment for the past two days and hadn't noticed anything amiss. It wasn't until today that he realized the apartment's entrance hall seemed to be the domain of some kind of ghost.
Although he had the landlord's key, the ghosts wouldn't attack him, but they also wouldn't avoid him like they used to when he used the kerosene lamp.
Because he was using skill 3, Zhou Fangdong, who had a "living person filter," saw a beautiful girl with long hair sitting on the crystal chandelier above the apartment entrance, swinging her legs as if she were on a swing.
Immediately afterwards, a bride wearing a traditional Chinese wedding dress and a red veil, whose face was obscured, suddenly appeared from the shadows next to the elevator.
The bride climbed up the wall to the ceiling, seemingly preparing to ambush the long-haired girl sitting on the chandelier.
When Zhou Fangdong walked to the chandelier, war was about to break out.
The two 'people' started fighting on the chandelier right in front of him. They were pulling each other's tongues and veils, and the chandelier chains creaked under the strain, as if they might fall at any moment.
While the two ghosts on the chandelier were fighting, a group of children ran out from the corridor to the left of the elevator, chattering and laughing, and started kicking a ball around in the open space in the entryway.
While he could ignore the long-haired girl and the red wedding dress fighting on the chandelier, he had to deal with the group of kids playing soccer below, because Zhou Fangdong noticed that his new tenants had arrived at the apartment door.
The group of children were running around in the entryway, completely blocking the way for the new tenants to enter.
The college student who had made an appointment to view the apartment froze on the spot after opening the apartment door, his dark face turning as if it had turned green.
Seeing this, Zhou Fangdong quickly seized the time to deal with these little brats.
[Skill 1: Warm Mind Reading] allows Zhou Fangdong to come into contact with ghosts. Relying on the fact that these ghosts would not attack him, he used the skill directly, grabbing each of the children by the back of their necks and throwing all of them back into the corridor. He also kicked the ball rolling on the ground back into the corridor.
As he touched these ghosts, he triggered [Skill 2: Plucking Feathers from a Passing Goose], plucking 10 ghost coins from these little ghosts.
Zhou Fangdong's eyes lit up.
Who says these three skills are bad? These three skills are absolutely amazing! They're practically a perpetual motion machine for earning Ghost Coins.
I will never curse the system again.
After cleaning up the group of mischievous children, Zhou Fangdong patted non-existent dust off his hands and casually said to the college student at the door, "You must be a tenant looking at the apartment. I'm the landlord of Liwan Apartment. Sorry to keep you waiting. Please follow me."
Duan Wenyu's face turned green, then white, then black, his body was completely stiff, and his feet seemed to be stuck in the mud, so he dared not move at all.
God knows what he just saw.
I finally mustered up the courage to walk into the apartment, only to be greeted by a group of headless little devils kicking their own heads in the entrance hall.
Blood was still gushing from the cut surfaces of the little devils' severed necks.
The young man who claimed to be the landlord seemed oblivious to the terror emanating from these little devils. He simply stuck his hand into their necks and tossed them into the adjacent hallway like bowling balls.
The way he frantically threw the little devil around was just like how he hurriedly kicked all his dirty socks and clothes under his bed in the dorm when he found out his mother was coming to visit...
"Ahhh, what is he thinking?!" Duan Wenyu clutched his head in despair and let out a silent howl to the sky.
As he looked up, his gaze met that of the two ghosts on the chandelier.
A ghost, covered in blood and without an inch of skin, its limbs twisted and contorted, clung to the chandelier like a giant gecko. A purplish-red tongue protruded from its wide-open mouth, tightly strangling the neck of the wedding-dress-clad ghost opposite it.
The unusually tall, wedding-dress-clad ghost was not to be outdone. Its withered hands, painted with scarlet nails, plunged directly into the already bloodied scalp of the giant gecko, tearing off a layer of flesh.
Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the bright red wedding dress of the ghost bride was actually sewn with layers upon layers of human faces. Those faces were so lifelike that they kept making distorted and painful expressions, with their mouths wide open, as if they were screaming silently.
Duan Wenyu also wanted to scream.
He had never seen such a haunted house before, never! Even though he had prepared himself mentally before coming, he never expected the apartment to be so terrifying!
Zhou Fangdong followed Duan Wenyu's gaze and, upon seeing the two ghosts fighting on the chandelier, softly reassured them, "Ah, don't worry, they're just ghosts, they have no weight. Don't be fooled by how badly the chandelier is swaying, it won't actually fall."
Duan Wenyu is on the verge of a breakdown.
Brother, is it a problem with the chandelier? Is he worried that the chandelier might fall down?
“If you’re really scared, you can hold my hand and I’ll take you away.” Zhou Fangdong extended his hand to him.
He was always very patient in order to make a good impression on potential tenants who viewed the apartment.
Looking at the young landlord smiling like a fox, Duan Wenyu, who was already on the verge of collapse, became even more frightened.
Could this guy be a ghost too...? Would holding his hand trigger his murder condition? Like a water ghost looking for a scapegoat, if I hold his hand, will he stay in this haunted building in place of the landlord?
Thinking of this, the adrenaline surged from his survival instinct, causing Duan Wenyu to jump backward and, dragging his limping leg, leap directly out of the apartment door.
The pale blue countdown reappeared before my eyes.
Duan Wenyu paused for a moment, then suddenly realized something.
It seemed that the countdown of the points system disappeared the moment he entered the Liwan Apartments!
Duan Wenyu took another step forward and entered the apartment building again.
The countdown has ended.
Then he jumped back one step.
The countdown has begun.
Zhou Fangdong looked on with a puzzled expression as the new tenant hopped back and forth at the apartment entrance.
Is his new tenant a college student from the sports academy? Is this his workout time? Even with a foot injury, he still exercises at the apartment entrance... So strong, so self-disciplined.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was pondering how to persuade the new tenant to view the apartment with him, Duan Wenyu, dragging his limp leg, suddenly rushed up to him and gripped Zhou Fangdong's hand with the same reverence and determination one would show for a stack of hundred-yuan bills:
"Landlord, if I stay here, can you guarantee my safety?"
"Tenants who follow the rules are safe."
"Let's sign the rental agreement now!"
Suddenly he became so agreeable... To prevent the tenant from changing his mind, Zhou Fangdong didn't agree immediately, but said to him, "Let's go see the room."
"Okay, okay, no problem." Duan Wenyu was no longer afraid. His gaze was incredibly firm as he followed closely behind Zhou Fangdong toward room 102.
After the two arrived at room 102, Zhou Fangdong handed him the tenant's contract.
【Room 102 Resident Rules】
①Room 102 is only rented to single tenants, and tenants are not allowed to bring their partners into the room.
② It is forbidden to sleep in the master bedroom, open the windows, turn on any main light source (living room chandelier, bedroom ceiling light), and any source of fire is not allowed in Room 102.
③ Tenants must not feel hungry or diet while renting room 102. When eating, they should serve an extra portion and place it under the bed in the storage room.
④ Do not enter the storage room outside of mealtimes. Do not open the storage room door if you do not have food in your hand.
⑤ If you hear any noise in the storage room outside of mealtimes, please immediately take the snacks, open the storage room door, and place the snacks under the bed in the storage room.
⑥ If tenants are leaving the room for an extended period of time, they need to leave enough food under the bed in the storage room.
⑦ On October 16th, the tenant needs to prepare a birthday cake in advance and put it in the storage room.
9. Tenants must carry the key to room 102 with them at all times. Losing the key will be considered an automatic termination of the lease. A monthly payment of 30 yuan in cash is required. Failure to pay this amount will be considered an automatic termination of the lease.
⑩ If you discover that an outsider or ghost has invaded your private space, please do not panic. If you follow the above rules, the landlord will come to solve the problem for you as soon as possible.
Duan Wenyu quickly read through the rules and then asked Zhou Fangdong again, "As long as I follow these rules, the ghosts won't attack me, right?"
"Yes."
After receiving a positive answer, Duan Wenyu quickly signed his name at the bottom of the contract, then took out thirty yuan in cash from his pocket and handed the contract and the cash to Zhou Fangdong.
[Tenant Profile: [Special Tenant - Unlucky College Student] is now available]
Please open the encyclopedia in the system interface and claim your rewards promptly.
[Side Quest 2 has been completed - Quest Completion Rewards: 300 Ghost Coins, 1000 Experience Points, 1 Random Character Skill Point]
[Beep - Host experience points detected, character level increased, random skill unlock count +1]
Please check your character level page regularly to see which skills you have unlocked.
[Beep—A special tenant selected by the Main God System has successfully checked in, triggering a hidden quest]
[Hidden Mission: Build a convenience store!]
[Task Description: As more and more tenants move into the apartment, establishing a convenience store can solve their daily food needs, making the apartment more livable and improving their happiness index.]
Hidden Mission 1: Find a stable supply channel
[Capture the points system on players in the infinite flow game's reserve, and use these points to acquire goods at no cost.]
[Task Description: The points system is a non-intelligent system program. Players in the infinite flow mode will earn points after clearing dungeons, which they can use to exchange for items from the main god. Exchanging for basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter is free and does not require points.]
[To ensure the smooth operation of the Liwan Apartment Convenience Store, please try your best to poach points from the Main God System and capture as many points as possible from the infinite flow aspiring players, so that the convenience store can have a stable supply channel.]
[Current progress: Capturing the Infinite Flow Integral System 1/100]
[Hint: The new tenant seems to have a lot of clues about the points system; talking to him might speed up the task.]
A note from the author:
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