Chapter 135: Memories of the Sixth Floor

Back when Gao Tian first encountered the Shattered Face Ghost and contained it with the Urn, a photograph of a chubby-faced little girl had dropped out.

The photograph was actually a Supernatural Item. The little girl in the picture had blinked at Gao Tian, altering his memories. In a daze, he had unconsciously walked up to the fourth floor of the Living Apartment.

Later, because the Children's Home possessed the ability to summon children upstairs, Gao Tian and the others naturally assumed after the incident that the girl had been lured away by it.

Thinking back on it now, that theory simply didn't hold up.

If the little girl had gone to the Children's Home, why would she possess abilities similar to a Memory Ghost?

Now, Xia Ta had confirmed this with a headcount. Among the children housed in the Children's Home, there was absolutely no trace of her.

This meant the "family voice" that originally brought her upstairs didn't come from the Children's Home at all, but from an entirely different room.

For now, the matter was an unsolved mystery.

Perhaps they would go upstairs again when they had the time.

"The second matter concerns the clues Wang Wenbo left behind," Xia Ta said.

She slowly turned Wang Wenbo's laptop screen to face Gao Tian and the other two. "Although it isn't very polite to snoop through someone else's laptop, this is the Living Apartment. If a resident leaves their computer in the first-floor lobby before a task, it's implicitly understood that anyone can check it."

Wang Wenbo hadn't set any passwords or encryption on it either.

In truth, he had already resigned himself to dying on this Green Text Mission. Even if he did, the translated content left on his laptop would still be there for whoever came after him.

It was that forum post.

Back when Xu Yuan was still a living human, he had published a post discussing the Living Apartment. He used extremely complex encryption, which Wang Wenbo immediately began trying to crack the moment he arrived. However, a Green Text Mission followed right on its heels. The group was forced to set out, leaving the laptop here to continue working through an AI system.

Later, when Xia Ta returned to the Apartment and found the laptop, the decryption was already more than halfway complete.

Now, she had likely seen the complete contents of Xu Yuan's post.

However, judging from Xia Ta's expression—

She was deeply confused.

It was as if she couldn't comprehend what the post was trying to say at all.

Jiang Yang patiently asked, "What did the post say?"

Xia Ta replied, "It starts off like a journal. The details are rather tedious, so I won't read most of it. I'll just pick out the key points.

"The author of the journal is an Apartment resident calling himself Xu Yuan. While it isn't absolutely certain that he's the same Xu Yuan who survived ten Green Text Missions thirteen years ago, there's a ninety percent chance it's him.

"At the time he wrote this post, he had already completed eight or nine Green Text Missions. His tone is quite arrogant; going up to the ghost-infested corridors was like taking a stroll in the park for him. Xu Yuan estimated that Green Text Missions no longer posed much of a challenge, and he would be able to clear ten of them within another half a year.

"He was actually quite looking forward to seeing what reward the Apartment would finally grant him after that last mission."

Gao Tian already knew this.

Back when Xu Yuan was still among the living, he had survived ten Green Text Missions—even with his Ghost Eye gouged out. The man was a true supernatural genius, terrifyingly powerful.

And even after becoming a ghost—immortal, indestructible, and capable of manifesting a ghost domain—he was still terrified of Old Man Sun. That alone showed what level of existence Old Man Sun was, to be able to intimidate a horde of such entities.

There was always a higher mountain.

Xia Ta continued, "But before those final two missions arrived, the Living Apartment still held many unsolved mysteries. Xu Yuan was unwilling to leave this place in ignorance.

"He made an extremely arrogant decision. He was going to willingly enter the sixth floor of the Apartment. That's the absolute forbidden zone of the entire Living Apartment. A warning sign up there explicitly states that unless backed by national-level administrative authority, individuals must not venture forward on their own.

"Naturally, the Xu Yuan of that time didn't take those warnings to heart. He didn't believe there was a Fierce Ghost in this world capable of killing him.

"At this point, the journal should have detailed Xu Yuan's adventures on the sixth floor, but the record abruptly breaks off.

"Xu Yuan himself wasn't certain what happened on the sixth floor, so he couldn't record it. He only wrote that by the time he regained his senses, he had already appeared in the first-floor lobby. His skin was festering and turning purple in multiple places, and his body was convulsing uncontrollably. His mental state was utterly exhausted and his heart was pounding furiously, as if he had just barely escaped with his life.

"On the coffee table in front of him, a hastily torn strip of paper bore a line of crooked text: 'Do not remember the things on the sixth floor.'"

Xia Ta took a sip of tea, pausing for a moment. "Even though the handwriting was extremely chaotic and sloppy, Xu Yuan recognized at a glance that it was his own. It was written in a state of extreme panic.

"He made a deduction.

"He possessed a single-use Supernatural Item that could erase a segment of a target's memory. This Supernatural Item required extremely close range and had very obvious activation movements, making it practically impossible to use offensively against humans or ghosts under normal circumstances.

"But it could be used on himself.

"After stumbling down from the sixth floor, Xu Yuan sat on the sofa and wrote that line of text with trembling hands. Then, he used the erasure on his own memories, intentionally forgetting everything that had occurred up on the sixth floor."

Hearing this, Gao Tian couldn't help but interrupt. "Let me confirm this.

"So after Xu Yuan made it down from the sixth floor alive, he willingly erased his memories of what happened up there so he wouldn't remember it, right?"

Xia Ta gave an affirming nod. "Yes. Xu Yuan verified this in his journal."

Gao Tian furrowed his brows.

This was strange. Wasn't Xu Yuan's original goal to understand the Apartment's inner workings and discover what secrets were hidden on the sixth floor?

He had barely escaped the sixth floor with his life. Logically speaking, even if he hadn't unearthed the Apartment's ultimate secrets, he must have seen many things up there.

Why would he turn around and erase his own memory, preventing himself from recalling what happened?

What sort of unspeakable horror lurked on the sixth floor that even exceeded Xu Yuan's capacity to endure, forcing him to destroy his own memories just to survive?

Or perhaps, there was some Meme-type Fierce Ghost up there, and Xu Yuan had already fallen victim to it.

Xia Ta continued, "Although the vast majority of Xu Yuan's memories concerning the sixth floor vanished, through strenuous effort, he managed to recall a few minor details about what was upstairs.

"First, there were many corpses resting on the sixth floor. There were ancients and modern people alike. Some had completely rotted away into white bone; some were so decayed they were just piles of blackened flesh, their original features unrecognizable; and others looked as though they had been frozen in ice, their faces so lifelike they merely appeared to be sleeping.

"The identities of those corpses were exceptionally unusual. Just recalling a tiny bit of information made Xu Yuan's temples throb violently, his chest tighten, and his brain split with agonizing pain.

"At the end of the sixth-floor corridor, there was a very small room. The room was lit, and inside stood a silhouette making noises, summoning Xu Yuan to come closer.

"Many other bizarre and monstrous things happened in between, but those memories were completely erased. The only thing Xu Yuan could remember was turning around, preparing to flee the sixth floor. As he passed a corpse, he conveniently snatched a large urn from its embrace and then activated his Black Card.

"After that, he returned to the first-floor lobby, used the last ounce of his strength to write the note to remind himself, and erased his memories of the sixth floor.

"Upon putting down the note, Xu Yuan turned his head and actually saw a massive, blood-red urn resting at his feet. Inside that urn lay something unimaginably bizarre."

After Xia Ta finished reading, Jiang Yang interjected, "What bizarre thing was actually inside that blood-red urn he brought back from the sixth floor?"

Xia Ta shrugged her shoulders, indicating that Xu Yuan's journal hadn't mentioned it.

Among everyone present, only Gao Tian knew exactly what that blood-red urn referred to.

It was the Future Urn, which contained the skeleton of Master Yunshan. It was the very same urn found in Xu Yuan's hometown that possessed the ability to prophesy the future.

So after running in such a massive circle, it turned out Xu Yuan had actually brought the Future Urn down from the sixth floor.

Did that mean the corpse he saw at the time was the original body of Master Yunshan?

Gao Tian didn't know.

Xu Yuan's journal was drawing to a close here, but it hadn't completely finished.

Xia Ta continued speaking.

"Over the following days, Xu Yuan moved to the first-floor lobby to sleep just in case, staying as far away as possible from the eerie sixth floor directly above his head.

"However, bizarre things continued to happen to him.

"Xu Yuan would frequently sleepwalk, and while in this state, he would constantly write the same words on pieces of paper: 'I have never been up to the sixth floor. I don't know anything.

"'I have never been up to the sixth floor. I don't know anything.

"'I have never been up there. I don't know anything.'

"The handwriting was neat and tidy. It wasn't his own handwriting, but looked as though it had been printed out.

"At the same time, the more Xu Yuan thought about it, the more unwilling he was to accept it. Over the next few months, he made ample preparations, intending to go upstairs and explore the sixth floor a second time. He managed to acquire several extremely unique Supernatural Items specifically meant to combat mental corruption. He firmly believed that the erasure of his memories was because he had encountered a Meme supernatural incident.

"Unfortunately, a sudden incident disrupted his plans."

Outside the Apartment, a fierce wind began to howl. The early morning sky grew dark and gloomy once again.

"What incident?"

Xia Ta said, "After coming down from the sixth floor, Xu Yuan constantly felt unwell. Large swaths of rotting flesh began peeling off his body. Furthermore, this decay was irreversible. Even when he used healing or resurrection-type Supernatural Items, he couldn't stop the mutation.

"Left with absolutely no other choice, Xu Yuan did something rather embarrassing.

"He went to a hospital and saw a doctor.

"Of course, that was his own description of events.

"Judging from the actual situation, after entering the hospital, Xu Yuan forcibly seized an X-ray machine, took some scans of himself, and brought the film home to study."

Under normal circumstances, people from the supernatural circle rarely went to hospitals for medical treatment.

From a common cold to amputations or terminal illnesses, certain Supernatural Items could treat them all.

A big shot like Xu Yuan surely had resurrection-type items as well.

If it truly couldn't be cured, they could just die, instantly respawn, and get a brand-new body.

The fact that he was forced to run to a hospital for a physical examination just proved that the curse of the sixth floor was far too bizarre, driving the then-living Xu Yuan into an absolute corner with nowhere else to turn.