Chapter 59 Entering the Basement (Bonus Chapter at 16,000 words) Cleaner Recruitment...
Unexpectedly, repairing the damaged stairs also resulted in a hidden space.
Zhou Fangdong decided to finish the half-finished side quest at the garbage station first, and check out the newly unlocked apartment basement later.
The tremor quickly subsided, and Hong Zhong looked at Zhou Fangdong with suspicion: "Landlord, what was that tremor just now...?"
Could it be that something strange happened to the apartment after he signed the work rules for the garbage dump manager?
"It's nothing, just a change that happened after the apartment staircase was repaired. It will be safer for apartment tenants to go up and down the stairs in the future," Zhou Fangdong said casually, glossing over the matter.
Hong Zhong nodded with some skepticism. "The garbage station's operating rules say that I just need to press the start button before dark to switch the garbage station to night mode... so it should be okay for me to leave the apartment and go to the station now, right?"
"Okay, you can go ahead and do your work. I need to take care of other things too."
After Hong Zhong left, Zhou Fangdong also teleported back to his room, took out paper and pen and began to write the cleaning staff duty roster.
Side quest 4 is almost complete, except for creating the cleaning staff duty roster.
He's only unlocked two floors so far. The first floor is currently the most dangerous, so Quan Wuming and Ming Wuqian must stay there to keep an eye out for any corpses coming from the back building... As for Qian Duolai and the others, they can do whatever they want; the three of them can clean the two floors as they please.
As for the shift schedule, we'll rotate them. Quan Wuming and Ming Wuqian will take shifts in the morning and afternoon, while the remaining three will take turns every day, in the order of 1-2, 2-3, 3-1.
Zhou Fangdong finished writing in a flourish and submitted it directly to the system. Anyway, the system would automatically replace it with a printed version, so there was no need to worry about the cleaners not being able to read the handwriting.
[Schedule approved. Please select your payment method.]
The cleaners' wages can be paid with Ghost Coins. Headless cleaners require 2,000 Ghost Coins per month, while headed cleaners require 3,000 Ghost Coins per month.
[You can also pay with incense offerings. Headless cleaners need three incense offerings per week, while headed cleaners need five incense offerings per week.]
Zhou Fangdong decisively chose to pay for the offering of incense.
The five cleaners need a total of 76 incense sticks per month. With his current health, he can make 88 sticks with 200 ghost coins, so it's more cost-effective to pay with incense sticks.
The host needs to pay one month's salary in advance, which will be stored in the system and automatically disbursed by the system.
Zhou Fangdong now only had 73 offering incense sticks left. Seeing this, he simply used the [Offerer] skill to make another 88 incense sticks, and submitted 76 of them to the system.
Side Quest 4: Repair the Apartment Garbage Disposal Station (Completed)
[Task Reward: 500 Ghost Coins, Cleaner Recruitment Interface Unlocked]
[Beep - Garbage station repairs complete, all corridor renovation purification devices unlocked, anomaly detection added]
Zhou Fangdong first opened the [Cleaner Recruitment] interface.
This interface is divided into two parts: the left half shows "[Hire]", and the right half shows "[Hiring]".
[Hire] There stood five pixelated figures standing in a row, with the names of Qian Duolai, Quan Wuming, and the other two marked on their heads.
The "[Hiring]" section only has a small billboard that reads: You can actively invite people or ghosts to become cleaners, or you can use the system's recruitment function to automatically recruit cleaners.
Actively inviting others carries the risk of rejection, while automatic recruitment by the system guarantees success, but each recruitment by the system costs 200 Ghost Coins.
He has only unlocked two floors so far, and five cleaners are enough for now. He can talk about hiring later when he needs more manpower.
Zhou Fangdong then activated the [Public Area Beautification Feature].
The details of the newly unlocked detection function state: If the device detects contamination by evil spirits or intrusion by abnormal ghosts that do not belong to the front building, it will be marked on the floor plan and a pop-up reminder will be displayed.
Zhou Fangdong breathed a sigh of relief.
With this feature, you can find out when the ghost that's secretly transporting corpses to the building in front will appear. When that time comes, you must catch it and squeeze a lot of ghost coins out of it to vent your anger.
Before closing the system interface, Zhou Fangdong opened the tenant profile and casually claimed the reward for unlocking the [Intermediate Tenant - Rank B Investigator] profile.
The four tenants in room 201 are all B-level investigators and belong to the same type of tenants, so they were only given a reward of 300 Ghost Coins.
He currently has 10,890 Ghost Coins left... That's good. As long as it doesn't drop below 10,000, he feels very secure.
With the side quest complete, it's time to find the newly unlocked apartment basement.
Since the basement was unlocked after the stairs were successfully repaired, it should also be located in the stairwell, just like the activity room.
However, after Zhou Fangdong walked around the corridor, he found that apart from the activity room door and the newly installed wall lamps, there was nothing new in the corridor.
The six newly installed wall lamps emitted a warm yellow light. The headless little ghosts in the hallway were very interested in this light that wouldn't hurt them, and they circled around the wall lamps as if dancing around a campfire.
Zhou Fangdong casually stopped a headless kid and asked, "Do you know where the entrance to the basement of Liwan Apartments is?"
The imp shook its neck, and the head it was stepping on spoke up: "We don't pay much attention to these things. Mr. Landlord, you can ask the Gap Ghost in the activity room. It knows everything."
Hearing this, Zhou Fangdong went straight into the activity room and used an incense stick to lure out the Gap Ghost.
Just like that headless little devil said, the Gap Demon really does know everything.
Guided by it, Zhou Fangdong arrived at the mahjong room again—it turned out that the entrance to the apartment basement was not in the corridor, but inside this mahjong room.
He discovered a downward passage beneath the bloodstained iron bed.
I walked down the passage, but after only a couple of steps, a door blocked my way...
Looking at the door that stood before him like a wall, with no handle or keyhole, only covered in blood-red runes, Zhou Fangdong sighed in exasperation.
Did he accidentally stumble upon some low-quality horror indie game that requires decryption to pad out the playtime and prevent players from requesting refunds within two hours?
Why do we need to search for clues again...? Since it's a hidden space rewarded for repairing the stairs, why can't we just open the door and let him in? What's the point of blocking the door here?
Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to leave, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a small, crumpled piece of paper on the ground. It looked very familiar.
The paper was tucked under the door, half on the outside and half on the inside.
Zhou Fangdong squatted down and pulled out the small piece of paper.
The label above reads: "[Revival... Success... or Failure?]"
The handwriting was still very messy, mostly stained with blood, and only a few words were legible.
Resurrection... Right, the mahjong room upstairs is where the Bone Inheritance Society bestows blessings with medicine pots. Could this basement have been the location where the Bone Inheritance Society held resurrection ceremonies?
Zhou Fangdong pondered for a moment while holding the note, then opened the rental preview interface.
In room 202, the thin, pixelated figure bearing the name [He Yansheng] had inexplicably fallen into a negative state again, sitting in the corner with his head down, a dark cloud hanging over him.
His bandaged ghost wife was nowhere to be found; she wasn't by his side.
Zhou Fangdong was teleported directly to Room 202.
Just like before, He Yansheng still showed no reaction to Zhou Fangdong's appearance, his face full of dejection.
After the initial joy of reuniting with his wife's ghost in the apartment faded, countless negative emotions once again overwhelmed him.
What does it all mean now? After doing all those things... does he really deserve all of this?
His wife suffered a lot because of him, both before and after her death, yet he could still shamelessly enjoy this false happiness.
He Yansheng clutched his head in anguish.
He still remembers when he first learned of his wife's death, he stood in the hospital morgue, looking at the familiar silhouette under the white sheet, his whole body was numb, unable to feel any emotion, nor could he feel any touch from the outside world.
For a moment, I thought I was dreaming.
His wife, who works at the same hospital, was just smiling and telling him not long ago that she was going to the cafeteria to bring him food back. But when she came back, she was lying on an emergency bed and being rushed into the operating room for emergency treatment.
The accident came without warning, involving an emotionally distraught patient's family member and an innocent wife who was dragged into it.
...The family member was waving a knife and shouting his name. He should have been the one to die, but his wife stopped him.
He Yansheng was a surgeon who had saved many lives and witnessed many deaths, but he never believed in ghosts or gods... until his wife died.
He wanted to bring his wife back to life, even at the cost of his own life.
The doctor, who had always believed in materialism, began to seek answers that science could not provide and began to pursue the elusive legends of resurrection.
He quit his job to try all the possibilities he had never believed in before.
Just when he had sold his house and car, spent all his savings, and was about to be unable to even pay the electricity bill to keep his wife's body frozen, a follower of the Ossuary found him.
The bald man said that if he believed in their god, the god would grant him everything he wanted.
He Yansheng followed the man to Liwan Apartment and settled into room 202.
The man not only paid his rent but also provided him with healthy and nutritious food, taking care of him like a child.
During this time, his wife's frozen body was also well cared for—the Ossuary kept many ice coffins in the basement of the apartment to freeze the body.
He Yansheng knew that the bald man had ulterior motives towards him, and he also knew that the Bone Society, which stored so many corpses in the basement, was definitely not a normal church... but it didn't matter anymore. As long as he could bring his wife back to life, he was willing to do anything.
After living in the apartment for three months, the bald man told him that the time had come, that the gods would bestow a miraculous medicine to bring the dead back to life, and that the resurrection ceremony was about to begin.
In fact, on the eve of the blessing ceremony, He Yansheng dreamed of his wife. In the dream, she didn't say anything, but just looked at him sadly.
He thought this was a sign that they were about to reunite, but he never expected that the next day he would have a nightmare he would never forget.
After pouring that bowl of dark medicine into his wife's mouth, she really came back to life.
She opened her eyes, sat up from the ice coffin, and looked at him with the same sorrow as in a dream.
Before He Yansheng could rush over to give her a hug, the bald man who brought him there suddenly pulled him aside, shouting, "Oh no! This one failed too, close the door!" and then forcibly dragged him upstairs.
Before the door closed, He Yansheng saw his wife's body visibly rotting rapidly, as if it had been splashed with sulfuric acid. Her body convulsed, her joints twisted, and her bones made unnatural popping sounds, turning her into a horrifying, bloody monster.
Before the door closed, the monster rushed to the entrance at incredible speed and nearly pierced the bald man's head with its claws.
He Yansheng was then imprisoned in Room 202 again.
He still dreams of his wife, his wife covered in bandages and bloodied and mangled, still looking at him with those gentle eyes.
Later, whether he was hallucinating from being locked up or for some other reason, he often saw his wife's figure in room 202, that blood-red figure wrapped in bandages.
She stayed quietly by his side, her figure gradually becoming clearer as she moved from a blurry silhouette to a more defined one.
After her wife's figure solidified completely, she killed the bald man who had entered the room to deliver food and pushed He Yansheng out of the room.
Then the wife stood in front of the door, and from her mouth, which was tightly bound with bandages, came a breathy sound that resembled a whisper: "Live... hurry up and go..."
Although He Yansheng was captured by the Bone Inheritance Society not long after leaving the apartment, his wife's words seemed to have taken on a kind of blessing.
In that abandoned hospital, no matter how cruelly He Yansheng was reformed, he lived and remained conscious, as if watching someone else's experience from a third-person perspective, seeing himself as a worm barely clinging to life in the hands of the Bone Inheritance Society.
After an unknown amount of time, he was brought back to the apartment by a strange combination of a bodybuilder and a little girl, and returned to room 202.
His wife was still in the room, waiting for him, as if the two had never been apart.
He Yansheng thought this reunion was a fairytale ending after all the suffering, and that they were finally together again.
At first, he did feel a brief moment of happiness, but soon a deeper despair enveloped him.
Because his wife was so good... She was still so gentle, and her eyes were like a deep sea that could embrace everything. She understood, forgave, and comforted him, as if nothing had happened.
But He Yansheng could not forgive himself.
Why isn't she sad? Why doesn't she hate him? She should hate him.
...She should have killed him.
Driven by his obsession, he desecrated his wife's body, causing her to be unable to find peace after death. She became a vengeful ghost, trapped in this apartment building, never to be freed.
The more tolerant his wife was, the more he felt ashamed of himself. The gentler she was, the more unable he was to let go of his resentment.
He Yansheng still remembers the book his wife had been reading in the library when they were first dating.
He remembered her turning to one of the pages and looking at it for a long time. So, as he stared blankly at his wife, he too memorized that little poem—
'In this world, those who love me try every means to hold me back. You are different; your love is far greater than theirs. You set me free.' Note ①
However, he chose to hold on to her both times—the first time he held onto her body, and the second time he held onto her soul.
...So he didn't love his wife at all; he was just a selfish man who loved himself and clung to his wife, unwilling to let go.
So, after doing so many terrible things, why is he still alive?
He Yansheng didn't want to commit suicide; he wanted his wife to kill him.
...He had wanted his wife to kill him for many years.
Just now, He Yansheng made this request to his wife, but she disappeared from the room as if she had never existed.
It all seemed to be just his fantasy.
He Yansheng is still alive, but he is trapped in the hell he created and can never escape.
Zhou Fangdong looked at He Yansheng, who was huddled dejectedly in the corner, his face deathly pale.
I don't know what happened while he was away, how this person went from having a happy look on his face to looking so depressed now.
Zhou Fangdong, who had originally intended to ask He Yansheng about clues regarding the basement, hesitated for a moment and asked softly, "Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell? Where is your wife?"
"Sigh... Mr. Landlord, you've arrived." He Yansheng gave a wry smile and pushed up his glasses. "I'm fine, but I suddenly realized something... the so-called life is..."
"Stop." Zhou Fangdong had witnessed He Yansheng's rambling, negative state in the abandoned hospital instance before, so he quickly interrupted him.
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment, then ultimately gave up on offering comfort and chose to get straight to the point: "You went into the basement of the Liwan Apartment to try and bring your wife back to life, didn't you? Do you know how to open that basement door?"
When Zhou Fangdong mentioned the basement, He Yansheng paused for a moment, his expression freezing.
Finally, all the complex emotions coalesced into a bitter smile. He Yansheng sighed and said wearily, "Sigh... So, Mr. Landlord, you also have someone you can't let go of?"
"No, I just want to go into the basement."
"Alas... We live in this world with nothing in reality; everything we possess is merely a fleeting experience. The people we love, everything we cherish, only proves, through the act of loss, that we once truly possessed them. Clinging to possession is nothing but clinging to our own obsessions; the more we try to grasp at those ephemeral things, the more we..."
“I don’t want to bring people back to life, I just want to get into the basement.”
"Alas... life is a constant process of loss. All things in this world arise and cease due to causes and conditions; it is all about unfulfilled desires and separation from loved ones. If..."
"Excuse me, farewell." Zhou Fangdong left room 202 as quickly as possible.
My head hurts. I need to think of another way to get into the basement.
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Author's Note: Note ①: Quoted from Tagore's *Gitanjali*
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