Chapter 144 The True Purpose of the Evil God: Supernatural Tools to Attract Vengeful Ghosts...
Li Ou was cursed by an unknown vengeful ghost at the entrance of the apartment building; he is currently in the lobby on the first floor.
Zhou Fangdong decided to teleport directly to check the curse on Li Ou.
Before leaving the garden, he casually placed the [decoration - little frog] next to a flower bed, and then finished paving the garden path.
The garden path is just the right length to connect the front building tunnel exit and the back building entrance of the apartment.
After placing the decorations, Zhou Fangdong also collected all the supernatural props with negative side effects from the bench, planning to throw them all at the ghost market auction later.
The negative side effects of these paranormal props are somewhat troublesome and unsuitable for tenants to use.
If you can't find a sucker to buy them at the auction, then just give them to a peddler and let him go from street to street and see if he can sell them in other shops in the ghost market.
These trivial matters only took about a minute. When Zhou Fangdong was teleported from the mural to the lobby on the first floor, Li Ou was still panting as she carried things into the elevator.
He was now wearing a set of work clothes covered in mud and paint, his slightly curly long hair was tied into a messy low ponytail, and he was wearing a wavy black headband to keep his hair from obstructing his vision, which swept all the stray hairs on his forehead back... Li Ou no longer looked like the lead singer of a visual kei band, but rather like a poor civil engineer working on a construction site.
Li Ou dragged a heavy bag of clay for the sculpture into the elevator, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
As he looked up, he suddenly noticed that something seemed off about the mural hanging on the wall next to the elevator.
The mural was originally just an ordinary landscape painting depicting the two buildings of the Liwan Apartments. There was a dark stain on the roof of the building, which was either poorly painted or added later.
As Li Ou looked over, the black mark on the rooftop rapidly expanded, filling the entire frame. Eventually, the black mark even materialized, overflowing the picture frame and forming a dark, human-shaped outline on the wall.
Finally, the black humanoid figure detached itself from the wall and transformed into a complete human form—the very same landlord he had met that morning who had asked him to help make the statue.
From the moment the image changed to the human figure detaching from the wall, all the strange occurrences ended in the blink of an eye. The mural remained the same landscape painting; if it weren't for the extra person in front of him, Li Ou would have thought he was hallucinating from exhaustion.
Although she had a vague idea that the landlord was not human, Li Ou was still shocked to see such a bizarre scene with her own eyes.
This landlord seems to have transcended the realm of human or ghost. After witnessing the entire process of the landscape painting changing, Li Ou had the illusion that every brick and tile of the apartment was an incarnation of the landlord.
After Zhou Fangdong teleported to the lobby on the first floor, he found Li Ou standing right next to the elevator. So he immediately activated the [Heavenly Eye] skill and carefully observed the curse on Li Ou's body.
The curse on Li Ou is almost identical to the curses on Lu Mingbian and Xiong Lei in the nursing home incident—the curse on Li Ou should also be a vengeful ghost that escaped from a crevice.
This surprised Zhou Fangdong.
Putting aside the question of why such an irrational and vengeful ghost would obediently listen to the evil god and cause trouble in the apartment... what difference is there between it coming to the apartment at this time and walking right into a trap?
Zhou Fangdong had originally planned to deal with a vengeful ghost from the crevice today, and its arrival saved him the time of searching for it.
After instructing Li Ou to stand by the elevator and not move around, Zhou Fangdong walked to the apartment door.
Although he is still unable to leave the apartment, he can still check the outside world through the apartment door.
Outside the apartment building, the delivery investigator hadn't left; he was still unloading things from the pickup truck bed.
There were still half of the snakeskin sacks left to be unloaded from the truck bed.
In the morning, Zhou Fangdong thought that many temples might need to make statues in the future, so he ordered several more sets of materials.
Most of the statues were made of clay, with clay as the main material and wire and steel bars as the skeleton. These materials, piled together, looked no different from construction materials. Even the physically fit investigators were exhausted and sweating profusely while moving them.
After carrying down another bag of soil, the investigator, who was straightening up while supporting his back, suddenly noticed a figure appear out of nowhere in the dark doorway of the apartment building.
He was a pale-skinned young man with a somewhat gloomy expression, dressed in loose black clothes. His delicate and gentle face had a pair of extremely sharp eyes—the investigator didn't even get a clear look at the young man's face; his attention was completely drawn to those eyes.
Those deep, lifeless eyes seemed to possess a strange, captivating power; the moment one looked into them, it was impossible to look away. It was like knowing before one's eyes that lay a bottomless abyss, yet still standing on the edge of a precipice, on the boundary between life and death. One was only waiting for the owner of those eyes to give the command, and then one would step out and plunge into the all-consuming darkness.
Staring into those eyes, he felt his hair stand on end. A sense of oppression from the depths of his soul made this well-trained investigator want to run away... as if he had activated his most primal survival instinct when facing an extremely terrifying enemy.
However, whether it was defending or escaping, under the gaze of those eyes, his body was completely unable to make any movement.
Fortunately, the person in the apartment only glanced at him before looking away.
After experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions and recovering from the initial panic, the investigator belatedly realized that the person who had suddenly appeared at the door must be the landlord of Liwan Apartments.
And it seems the landlord wasn't looking at him, but rather at what was behind him...
He suddenly dared not think about what was behind him.
Because the apartment was haunted, the instruments that detect paranormal activity kept sounding alarms as soon as the investigator drove to the vicinity of the apartment.
He was getting annoyed by the constant alarms while moving heavy objects, and since the director had said that the Liwan Apartments and the Inspection Bureau were now cooperating and that the people in the Inspection Bureau would not be harmed by the apartments, he temporarily turned off the detection equipment.
...At this moment, the landlord of Liwan Apartments suddenly appeared. Does this mean there is a problem at the apartment entrance?
Realizing this, the investigator dared not move, fearing that his rash action would disrupt the landlord's plans, incurring the landlord's wrath, which would then be directed at the Supervisory Bureau, causing the cooperation between the apartment and the Supervisory Bureau to break down, the apartment's supernatural power to erupt at the Supervisory Bureau, resulting in the loss of a large number of personnel, Linjiang City losing its protection and becoming a ghost paradise, with all citizens dying, ghosts spreading, and ultimately causing a major disaster of apocalyptic scale... My God, he was simply a sinner for all time.
Just as the investigator was falling into deep despair because of his own imagination, he suddenly sensed a chilling aura beside him.
Before he could even react, the chilling aura had already passed him by and continued onward.
After seeing clearly what the figures that walked out from behind him looked like, he suddenly opened his eyes wide.
—Those were actually grotesque and bloodthirsty ghosts!
A full fifteen vengeful ghosts!
The investigator broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of being completely unprepared while surrounded by so many dangerous monsters.
The ghosts were stiff, each one like a puppet being manipulated, walking in unison towards the apartment door, eventually reaching the landlord.
Under the watchful eyes of the landlord of Liwan Apartments, all the vengeful ghosts instantly disintegrated, turning into wisps of black mist that merged into his body.
During this time, the landlord did not speak or make any move, but simply watched quietly.
He simply stood there, and countless demons approached to worship him. Those demons were willing to be annihilated and offer everything they owned as sacrifices to him.
What terrifying power! Is this the landlord of Liwan Apartments?
The investigator had not experienced the Liwan Hospital incident firsthand; he had only heard about the terrifying power of the Liwan apartment landlord from his colleagues.
Only then did he finally understand his colleagues' fears, and why the usually cautious director had been so bold as to choose to stand on the side of Liwan Apartments.
...If you can't beat them, you have no choice but to join them. Under such terrifying power, any resistance is futile.
Zhou Fangdong used [Judgment and Verdict] to devour the fifteen vengeful ghosts.
All these vengeful ghosts combined only have 15,000 ghost coins, and each ghost is worth only 1,000... No wonder they're ghosts from the outside world, they're so poor.
The vengeful spirits that appeared at the door were not from the apartment building, but had come from somewhere else.
Moreover, none of these vengeful ghosts were the one that cursed Li Ou.
Zhou Fangdong sensed something amiss from the chaotic fragments of these vengeful ghosts' memories.
These ghosts didn't come to the apartment area on their own; they were attracted by something.
After noticing this, Zhou Fangdong used the [Heavenly Eye] skill to sort through these memory fragments from beginning to end, and found the root cause based on the cause-and-effect relationship—it was because of a supernatural prop shaped like a crystal ball.
The supernatural prop used by the five cultists who invaded the garden as they crossed the garden fence.
Realizing this, Zhou Fangdong teleported back to the garden and arrived near the flower bed.
Of these cult members, two were chewed up by the scarecrow in the field, one was dissolved by the fountain of the weeping ghost, one was cut in half and eaten by the anglerfish in the flower bed, and one was blown to ash by Xiao Di.
The only body that was relatively well-preserved was the one that had been cut in half at the waist.
Zhou Fangdong arrived at the flower bed, grabbed a clump of dahlias, and lifted an anglerfish out of the soil: "Your way of eating is to swallow the corpse directly, right? Do you have a supernatural object that looks like a crystal ball in your stomach right now?"
Having been forcibly pulled out of the soil, the anglerfish looked unusually depressed, and even the dahlia on its head had wilted considerably.
Its enormous mouth twitched twice, and finally spat out a crystal ball stained with blood.
Zhou Fangdong patted its head with satisfaction, stuffed a stick of incense into its mouth, and then pressed it back into the soil.
After receiving a stick of incense as an offering, the dahlia petals became much brighter, and several new clusters of small flowers even sprouted from the side. The eyes of those small flowers were still growing, so they were still in the bud stage.
Zhou Fangdong didn't mind the dirt and picked up the crystal ball from the ground, then used the [Heavenly Eye] appraisal skill to examine it.
It turns out that the power of this supernatural item is not limited to the ability to pass through barriers, which is known only to cultists.
These crystal balls are a complete set of supernatural items. After consuming the user's lifespan, they will all be activated and have the effect of attracting vengeful ghosts and trapping spirits.
These props were originally used by the higher-ups of the Bone Inheritance Society to summon and refine ghosts, but after taking root in the Liwan Apartments, a feng shui treasure land capable of automatically attracting ghosts, the Bone Inheritance Society sealed away these supernatural props. Therefore, even though the young man with hair had lived around the priests since childhood, he had never seen this prop.
This item's ghost-trapping effect requires a fixed rune array, so in the hands of these cannon fodder cultists, it's only used for passing through walls and attracting ghosts.
The Bone Inheritors would allow these people to invade the apartment, but their main purpose was not, as they thought, to scout the apartment and capture tenants.
They were merely a catalyst, a catalyst that used their own lifespan to activate the power of supernatural artifacts—the Bone Inheritance Society sent them here with no intention of letting them leave alive.
This was something that even the five cult members themselves were unaware of, so even if the [Weeping Lady Statue] shared their memories with Zhou Fangdong, Zhou Fangdong would not be able to learn about it through their memory fragments.
Even after learning the true purpose of the evil god's arrival, Zhou Fangdong remained confused.
What was the evil god thinking when it brought ghosts to Liwan Apartments? Did it think that summoning a few vengeful spirits would kill the tenants in the apartment?
Just as I was thinking this, the system's voice suddenly rang out:
[The evil god probably wants to disrupt the balance inside the apartment again, attracting a large number of ghosts and monsters to throw the apartment out of balance, repeating the same scenario that has played out before...]
Zhou Fangdong could actually hear a deep-seated anger in that cold electronic voice.
Judging from the system's attitude, it can be confirmed that the current state of Liwan Apartments is inextricably linked to the Sigu Society.
To take a more conspiratorial approach, perhaps the idea of the wealthy businessman who initially decided to build the Liwan Apartments, allowing the living to live alongside the dead, was inspired by members of the Bone Society.
[Host, don't worry about the ghost-attracting effect. That guy has an information gap with us. Liwan Apartments is no longer the wild, unmanaged apartment complex it used to be. You are the landlord now. With you here, even if all the tenants die, that guy won't succeed.]
“Thank you for your recognition, Master, but I will never allow the evil god to harm my tenants.” Zhou Fangdong sighed. “This game doesn’t have a save/load function. I’ve worked so hard to build up so many tenants over such a long time. Killing them is no different from taking my life.”
Zhou Fangdong looked at the crystal ball in his hand.
I wonder how long this ghost-attracting effect of the paranormal item will last...
Because each crystal ball consumes a different amount of a user's lifespan, he cannot predict the duration.
Moreover, once this thing is activated, it will still maintain its ghost-attracting effect even if it is smashed or chewed up, which is very troublesome.
Zhou Fangdong threw the crystal ball into his inventory and teleported to Room 103.
Mu Yuechan was quite free, so he planned to have her work as an apartment security guard for a while to clear out the evil spirits that had gathered around the apartment.
He needed to use this time to deal with the curse on Li Ou.
That vengeful ghost that cursed Li Ou must have escaped the seal, but it's unknown whether it escaped on its own or was released by the Bone Inheritance Society.
However, the fact that it could arrive at the apartment entrance so quickly after the ghost-attracting effect of that supernatural prop was activated suggests that its sealing location should be near the Liwan Apartment.
Zhou Fangdong opened the [Ghost Track Map] and found that there were not many sealing points near Liwan Apartment.
Although I don't know where the ghost that cursed Li Ou went, I imagine it couldn't have gone too far.
Let Hou San lead the shadow puppet around these sealing points to see which ghost has escaped. Once we know which ghost it is, finding it through the causal threads will be very simple.
Zhou Fangdong and Mu Yuechan came out of room 103 together. He originally wanted Mu Yuechan to recognize the person so that he wouldn't accidentally kill the investigator from the Supervision Bureau while killing the ghost.
However, upon seeing the investigator still standing at the door, Zhou Fangdong frowned and suddenly thought of something.
When Li Ou was cursed, both the investigator and Li Ou were at the apartment entrance—how come only Li Ou was cursed, while the investigator was unharmed?
-----------------------
Author's Note: Bonus chapter at 9 PM tonight.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com