Chapter 11 Role-Playing Task: The Child in Room 102
Zhou Fangdong looked around blankly.
One second he was lying on the soft bed, and the next he was in this unfamiliar room.
He hadn't paid attention to what the system was saying, but he vaguely heard something about a role-playing function...
Whom does the system want him to play?
Zhou Fangdong began to call out to the system in his mind, but this time no matter how much he bothered it, the system did not respond, as if it was no longer in his body.
Zhou Fangdong started to panic and began to carefully recall what the system had just said.
The system seems to be asking him to play the role of a tenant? It also mentioned that successfully playing the role would grant experience points, which could unlock skills or something...
Does "tenant" refer to people who previously rented apartments at Liwan Apartments?
Zhou Fangdong looked down at his short arms and legs. So, the tenant he was playing this time was a child? And how do you know if you've successfully played the role?
The room he was in was very small, only about five or six square meters. It looked like a converted storage room, with a small single bed and a small table taking up the whole space.
There were no mirrors in the room. Assuming the table was about 70 centimeters high, he was now a head taller than the table... Based on his height, his current body should be that of a five or six-year-old child.
Just as Zhou Fangdong walked to the door and tried to open it, he suddenly heard arguing outside.
Two sets of footsteps sounded, one after the other, as if someone had entered, followed by a shrill woman's voice:
"The news has it all over the place. The building behind us is full of dead people! Not ashes, but corpses lying in refrigerated coffins!! Are we supposed to stay here with those dead people forever if we don't move now?"
“Move? Tell me, where can we move to?” a deep male voice said irritably. “Tell me, where in the whole of Linjiang City is the rent cheaper than here? Even the rent in the dilapidated shacks in the urban villages is more expensive than here! Where can we move to?”
"Living here isn't sustainable! So many people have died here already, and we might be next!" The woman's voice began to tremble with tears. "Are you even a man?! Can't you think about me and the children for once..."
A crisp slap rang out, and the woman suddenly fell silent, only letting out low sobs.
"You bitch! Don't mention that good-for-nothing son of yours to me!" The man's voice grew increasingly irritable. "You idiot who believes everything you hear! I've already said those murders have nothing to do with the corpses. They're just unlucky to be dead! Those corpses aren't even in the same building as us. It's not like you're sleeping with corpses. Why can't you stay here?"
"But……"
"No buts, either we stay here or we get a divorce! I've had enough of you, you barren hen! You can't even give birth to a son, what else can you do? All you do is cry and cry, you've cried away all my wealth!"
After he finished speaking, there was a loud slam of the door shut, and the man's voice disappeared, leaving only the woman's sobbing outside.
Zhou Fangdong, who was eavesdropping at the door, suddenly felt a pang of sadness.
This wasn't his own emotion, but rather something generated by the child's body... fear, resentment, guilt, and the barely perceptible resentment hidden deep within.
Just then, Zhou Fangdong suddenly noticed that the woman's crying outside the door had subsided, followed by the sound of high heels approaching him.
He was a little nervous, took a step back, and pressed his body tightly against the table.
The door opened, and a woman wearing a floral dress and looking haggard appeared before Zhou Fangdong.
Seeing him standing on the ground, the woman raised an eyebrow and slapped Zhou Fangdong across the face.
"Didn't I tell you to go to sleep?! Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with your father again? You're so young, and you're already doing these petty and despicable things!"
The woman vented all the grievances she suffered from the man on the child.
Zhou Fangdong was stunned by the slap.
His face burned with pain, his mouth tasted of blood, and his ears were ringing. He couldn't hear anything, and could only see the woman's scarlet mouth opening and closing, like a monster that was eating people.
Just then, another thought that wasn't his own popped into his head: he should lie on the bed before his mother opened the door, otherwise she would think he was eavesdropping and would beat him.
Zhou Fangdong was speechless.
What kind of beastly parents are these? A father who favors sons over daughters and commits domestic violence, and a cowardly mother who only dares to beat the child to vent her anger?
Seeing Zhou Fangdong staring at her silently, the woman became even angrier. She grabbed him by the neck, lifted him up, and slapped him twice more.
His frail, childlike body had no chance to resist in the hands of this adult, and he could only endure it.
After being slapped a few more times, Zhou Fangdong was thrown to the ground by the woman, feeling dizzy. His swollen face pressed against the ground, and the coldness from the floor tiles brought him back to his senses slightly.
He now reasonably suspects that the system is annoyed by him and is deliberately using this role to beat him up.
Seeing Zhou Fangdong lying motionless on the ground, the woman kicked him again in disgust, muttering something like, "It's all your fault for not being a boy," before turning and leaving without looking back.
This time she didn't close the door, probably because she thought Zhou Fangdong was too weak to move under these circumstances.
That kick, the sharp heel of the high heel, struck Zhou Fangdong's lumbar spine directly. The excruciating pain spread from his lower back to his entire body, causing him to curl up uncontrollably like a shrimp.
I don't know if it was the pain that caused the hallucination, or if children's eyes are pure and they can see ghosts naturally.
Lying on the ground, Zhou Fangdong saw several charred babies crawling out from under the single bed.
The babies surrounded Zhou Fangdong, pressing their cold, soft little hands against the spot where he had just been hit.
A refreshing coolness emanated from the ghost baby's hand, and Zhou Fangdong felt the pain in his body ease somewhat.
There were four ghost infants in total. After they touched him, they didn't leave. Instead, they all wrapped themselves around Zhou Fangdong like octopuses.
Zhou Fangdong discovered that as the contact area between his body and the ghost baby increased, it seemed that all the pain in his body was being absorbed by the ghost baby.
Before long, he was able to stand up on his own.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was about to go out to take a look, he heard another noise outside, which startled him so much that he quickly crawled back inside.
The man returned, acting as if nothing had happened, and said in a sweet tone, "Wife, come here, come with me to an interview. That rich businessman said that if we say in the interview that we stayed at the Liwan Apartment voluntarily, he will give us a large sum of money."
"Oh my god! Really?" The woman's voice was full of surprise. "Honey, you're so amazing!"
Zhou Fangdong, who was lying face down on the ground, curled his lip in disdain.
What's so impressive about that? Your dear husband was just relaying a message; he didn't earn the money.
The couple, now reconciled, walked hand in hand sweetly outside.
However, before the two could even step out of the room, they suddenly let out a painful scream.
Realizing something was wrong, Zhou Fangdong quickly got up from the ground, pushed open the door, and looked in the direction from which the sound came.
On the living room ceiling, a twisted ghost was found, its deformed limbs with inverted joints making it cling to the chandelier like a giant gecko.
Its entire body was devoid of skin, with bright red flesh exposed. The blood-soaked head had its temporal jaw agape at an illogical angle, its mouth occupying almost half of its face. A slender, purplish-red tongue, as smooth as a python, extended from the gaping mouth and coiled around the necks of the man and woman.
The couple who were just walking out hand in hand are now like two teru teru bozu dolls with their necks tied together, dangling from the chandelier by the ghost's tongue, and they are already lifeless.
Zhou Fangdong was startled by the scene before him, then suddenly realized that the ghost on the chandelier was the same one that had attacked Zhao Dawei in the corridor.
Moreover, the way these two were hanging from the chandelier... reminded him of the three mummified corpses he had seen hanging from the ceiling in room 104 when he was inspecting the rooms on the first floor.
So he's in room 104 now? Is he now playing the role of the tenant who used to live in room 104?
Does "playing the part successfully" mean surviving the monster's attacks?
The twisted, ghostly creature seemed to have noticed Zhou Fangdong's presence. After hanging the two people on the chandelier, it crawled up the ceiling toward him.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Fangdong hurriedly ran towards the open door.
Seemingly sensing his eagerness to escape the room, the ghost infants on Zhou Fangdong's body jumped off one after another, rushing towards the pursuing ghost like moths to a flame, trying to stop it from getting closer.
As the ghost baby left, the injuries I had just sustained started to hurt again.
Despite the pain, Zhou Fangdong managed to escape the room.
Just as he stepped out the door, he glanced back.
On the open door, the number [102] was swaying gently, shimmering with a faint light.
After seeing the house number, Zhou Fangdong frowned in confusion.
How could it be room 102? Is he actually playing the tenant of room 102? But when he was inspecting the rooms on the first floor, he clearly remembered that room 104 had three mummified corpses hanging there...
Before Zhou Fangdong could figure out what was going on, in the blink of an eye, the scene before him changed again, and he was back in his room.
The system's electronic sound went off:
[Acting failed. Please try again next time.]
Zhou Fangdong sat blankly on the bed.
How could he have failed? Although he didn't know why a hanging corpse appeared in room 102 as well, he had survived the ghost's clutches.
"System, isn't the condition for success simply surviving?"
[Acting failed. Please try again next time.]
"Try it again, I refuse to believe it—"
[It is now daytime, and the tenants are starting to move around. To ensure the tenants' safety, please monitor their actions closely and avoid becoming engrossed in the game.]
[Note: Dynamic quest, Night Raid by One Hundred Demons, 29 days remaining]
Looking at the remaining time, the initial excitement instantly cooled down. Zhou Fangdong gritted his teeth and reluctantly opened the mobile forum.
Now you can buy honesty flyers. Quickly distribute the flyers to lure in the second tenant, complete the side quest, and then figure out how to complete this role-playing mission.
From the apartment number we just saw, we know this role-playing task is related to room 102. Let's search room 102 carefully after the second tenant moves in and see if we can find any useful clues.
A note from the author:
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