Chapter 75, Room 206: The ghost is very good at hiding.
The garbage dump spat out fewer ghost coins today than yesterday, only 150.
Zhou Fangdong decided to let the garbage station accumulate the money for a while before coming back to collect it.
After all, he can't teleport directly to the garden in the middle of the apartment building yet, and it would be quite troublesome to walk back and forth through that long tunnel every day just for a few ghost coins.
After collecting the ghost coins, Zhou Fangdong returned to the second floor of the apartment.
Then, to his surprise, he discovered that something strange had happened in the second-floor corridor—a lot of bandages had inexplicably hung down from the ceiling.
Dark red blood dripped down the bandages onto the corridor floor, the blood-stained bandages resembling eerie, living vines, swaying back and forth.
When the bandages took over the corridor, all the ghosts on the second-floor corridor huddled pitifully in the corners, as if afraid of being touched by the bandages.
Bloodstained bandages hanging from the ceiling intertwined and completely blocked the way forward.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was wondering whether he should go back to his room to get the giant blade he used to clean the meat Ganoderma lucidum and clean the bandages, the bandages seemed to notice his presence.
The tangled bandages quickly parted like an automatic door, making way for him.
...and they even give way, so it doesn't seem like it's some kind of ghost or strange occurrence.
Out of curiosity about what the bandages were for, Zhou Fangdong stood in the hallway for a while.
Then he saw the bandages pause for a moment, then pierce through the ground and hang down to the first floor.
When they retreated back into the second-floor corridor, each strip of cloth had food wrapped around its end... mostly instant noodles, sausages, potato chips, mineral water, and other fast food products.
After receiving the food, the bandage began to retreat towards the hallway where the tenant's room was located.
Zhou Fangdong seemed to understand something, and followed the bandages all the way to the door of room 202.
Then he watched as these bandages completely disregarded the laws of physics, dragging food much larger than the crack in the door into room 202.
Sure enough, the bandages in the second-floor corridor were extensions of the bandage ghost in room 202.
Since He Yansheng moved into the apartment, Zhou Fangdong had never seen him leave his room. He had assumed that He would at least leave his room to eat, but it turned out that his wife had been bringing him food from the convenience store downstairs for the past few days.
This is so decadent. He doesn't even go out. If he continues like this, he'll become a giant baby who's completely dependent on his wife for support.
Zhou Fangdong planned to find some work for He Yansheng in a couple of days. Although He Yansheng couldn't leave the apartment at will, he could at least do something to distract him... Staying cooped up in his room all the time would make even a non-depressive person become depressing.
After moving the food, all the bandages were tucked back into room 202.
Zhou Fangdong didn't linger in front of room 202 for long, and went to the door of room 206.
Before opening the door, he thought of something and looked at the purification device at the end of the corridor: "System, has the core of that half-contaminated evil god clone from yesterday been purified?"
[Purification complete; the host may retrieve it at any time.]
After receiving a positive reply, Zhou Fangdong walked straight to the end of the corridor and placed his hand on the metal cabinet.
[Ding—Congratulations, host, you have obtained the core of the Evil God's clone. The system is working hard to digest it...]
One more core is needed to unlock another function in the Evil God Disguise interface.
After retrieving the core, Zhou Fangdong returned to the door of Room 206 and pushed it open.
The room in room 206 smelled strange, like a mixture of perfumes and spilled cosmetics.
The room was fairly clean, with no obvious stains or trash on the floor. The living room's decor didn't reveal the previous tenants' identities; it was just an ordinary room.
As Zhou Fangdong entered the room, the system task panel popped up:
Side Quest 12: Clean and rent out Room 206
① Clean the room and tidy up the house.
② Discard the damaged furniture and buy new furniture.
③ Find the ghost hidden in the room and figure out the ghost's killing pattern.
④ Draft a rental agreement and find tenants to move in.
Side Quest Rewards: 500 Ghost Coins, 2000 Experience Points, 1 Random Skill Point
Zhou Fangdong casually closed the system pop-up window that was obstructing his view and began searching for ghosts in the room.
Room 206 was simply decorated with little to no soft furnishings. The walls were just painted white, and a dilapidated folding table and chairs stood alone in the center of the living room. Apart from that, there was no other furniture, making it look empty. It felt like your voice would echo if you stood in the room and spoke.
However, having less furniture made it easier for him to search for ghosts... Zhou Fangdong activated [Ghost Eye] and surveyed the living room. After finding no clues, he headed towards the bedroom.
Unlike the other rooms on the second floor, room 206 is a three-bedroom room, much larger in size. In addition to the shared bathroom outside, the master bedroom also has its own bathroom.
Zhou Fangdong first walked into the master bedroom... The master bedroom was also without any furniture, only a folding bed that had fallen apart, and cardboard was spread on the floor, with some toiletries and mineral water bottles placed crookedly on it.
The master bathroom was just as basic as the public bathroom outside, with no mirror or sink, only a toilet. The floors and walls were not tiled, and there was no false ceiling; it was just rough cement walls with water pipes and sewage pipes exposed.
It's amazing that such a renovation could still be rented out; the previous tenants of Liwan Apartments really weren't picky.
Because the room was so spacious, everything inside was clearly visible, leaving no place to hide, yet Zhou Fangdong still couldn't find the ghost in the room.
He then went to the study and the second bedroom to take a look around.
The same simple decor, the same lack of furniture... Zhou Fangdong even looked inside the overturned paint buckets and plastic bottles on the ground, but still couldn't find the ghost.
Where's the ghost?
The other rooms on the second floor have hiding spaces like gaps between furniture, but room 206 is just a bare, unfinished room with almost no furniture. Even so, there is no trace of ghosts or monsters, making the irony even stronger.
Zhou Fangdong stopped fussing and left the room. He took out the substitute doll he hadn't finished using in room 204 last time and made it circle around the room.
The substitute doll roamed the room for over an hour, leaping and bounding about, touching every corner of the room, but still failed to trigger the ghost's murder condition. Finally, when its time was up, it turned into an abstract rag doll lying on the ground.
Zhou Fangdong sighed and pushed open the door to go inside.
If all the ghosts on the second floor were as open and honest as the old ghost, he wouldn't have to go through all this trouble.
Just as he was about to thoroughly search the room again, his phone suddenly received a message notification.
It must have been Hong Zhong who sent over the information on the missing persons...
Zhou Fangdong casually took out his phone, and the moment he saw the screen, he froze.
The moment the phone screen lit up, a strand of black hair shrank back at lightning speed, like a cockroach scurrying back into the darkness after a light has been turned on.
—Is the ghost in room 206 in his phone?
Zhou Fangdong didn't even bother to check the message Hong Zhong had sent. He put his phone away again and repeated the action, turning the screen on once more.
Sure enough, a few more strands of hair retracted at an extremely fast speed.
Zhou Fangdong immediately used [Soul Absorption] on the hair, but because the hair was not the ghost's true form, the skill did not work.
He took out his phone again and checked it. This time, even the hair was gone; no one knew where it had gone.
Zhou Fangdong was so angry that he shook his phone forcefully.
The fact that this ghost is reflected on his phone screen suggests it's similar to a phantom, right? It should only appear in reflections from mediums like mirrors, phone screens, or water reflections...
If you were to film it, would you be able to capture the ghost on camera?
Thinking of this, Zhou Fangdong turned on his phone again.
Then, looking at the glowing brick in his hand, he belatedly realized that the phone the system had given him didn't have any photo or video recording functions.
Zhou Fangdong thought for a moment, then went into the bathroom to observe the reflection on the water.
However, he underestimated how dirty the cement floor of the bathroom was. After the water pipe was turned on, the water flowed on the floor mixed with all kinds of dust and stains, and there was no reflection at all.
Zhou Fangdong sighed heavily again.
We need to find a mirror so we can observe a larger area...
Oh, right.
Zhou Fangdong thought of something and opened the favorability interface.
Hou San's 80 favorability points [Cursed Item - Ghost Mirror] have been sitting on this screen, unclaimed.
This cursed item is used to play with the Mirror Fairy for precognition. Seeing the future can also bring bad luck. This mirror also seems to be the entrance to some kind of ghost gathering place, and ghosts may appear from time to time.
However, these features are not important to Zhou Fangdong at the moment; what he values is the mirror's most basic reflective function.
After receiving the Ghost Mirror, Zhou Fangdong was somewhat surprised by its size.
He initially thought it was a small makeup mirror, but to his surprise, it turned out to be a full-length mirror as tall as a person. Fortunately, he had recently added three attribute points to his stamina, which enhanced his reaction time, allowing him to catch the mirror in time.
Just after Zhou Fangdong placed the mirror against the wall, he discovered that it not only reflected his own image but also a dark figure.
In this huge dressing mirror, a pitch-black ghostly figure lay upside down on the surface of the mirror.
Its hair, hanging down from its head, resembled a huge black cloak, covering it from head to toe, making it impossible to see its shape at all.
Although it was upside down, the ghost's long hair still covered its face, as if it were grown on its face.
Those jet-black strands of hair were not still; they were slowly writhing and twisting, like countless horsehair worms gathered together. Occasionally, a tiny gap would briefly appear between the strands, revealing the ghostly face's single, needle-like, scarlet eye.
The eyes of the malevolent ghost, which should have been filled with malice, revealed an unconcealable terror the moment they met Zhou Fangdong's gaze.
The identities of the human and the ghost seem to have been switched. The evil ghost, which was covered by hair, almost reflexively tried to run away again the moment it realized that Zhou Fangdong had seen it.
...Finally caught you.
Without hesitation, Zhou Fangdong used [Soul Absorption] on the ghost before it disappeared.
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Author's Note: There will be an extra chapter at 9 PM tonight, and it will be longer. I spent some time organizing the outline this morning, which took up some of my writing time.
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