Chapter 26: Investigating Xu Yuan

[Memory Ghost]:

The task is complete.

After your corpse underwent ghost transformation, it was pierced by the Ghost Transformation Spear and torn to pieces once again.

[Living Apartment]:

Thank you.

Keep that Ghost Transformation Spear for yourself. Consider it your reward for this task.

Although it's useless to the living, it's quite effective for us ghosts.

If a living person catches your eye, just shoot them dead. That way, they'll turn straight into a ghost and come down to keep you company.

Hahaha.

...

Xu Yuan's words sent a chill down Gao Tian's spine.

These guys really didn't take human life seriously at all.

Then again, they had been ghosts for years. Even if they were once human, they were now a completely different species.

It was hard to imagine that the Fierce Ghost currently in the Chat Group was the same little boy who had sworn to eradicate every ghost in the world over twenty years ago.

...

[Memory Ghost]:

There is one more thing.

Your corpse was missing its head. Instead, a young woman's head grew in its place and parasitized your body.

That woman is a recently popular celebrity, too...

[Living Apartment]:

That female celebrity is a ghost. I knew that back when I was still alive.

Now she's appearing on big screens more and more often, and her face is burning itself into the minds of many.

I have no idea what she's planning to do. She looks harmless right now, but she must be fighting hard to suppress her urge to kill.

After all, a ghost is a ghost. It's impossible for a ghost not to kill.

Wearing such a stunning face, this ghost is likely setting up some terrifying grand scheme. When she finally makes her move, who knows how much devastation she'll unleash.

[Memory Ghost]:

How did you lose your head in the Sapphire Mall?

Was it taken by another Fierce Ghost?

...

After typing that line, Gao Tian assumed that given Xu Yuan's personality and status in the Chat Group, he would say something like, "I'll take it back once I recover my strength."

Unexpectedly, a moment later, Living Apartment replied with this:

[Living Apartment]:

Falling into the hands of that kind of entity, I'm afraid I'll never get it back.

With the strength I had back then, there were very few Fierce Ghosts in the world that could kill me. Unfortunately, it happened to be one of them.

That thing... its name cannot even be mentioned. Don't talk about it in the group.

...

...

After ending the chat, Gao Tian lay in his private bedroom in the Living Apartment.

It had been three days since the end of the second Green Text Mission. Boss Jin had been generous, paying him 200,000 yuan to reward his contributions during the task. Both veteran Jiang Yang and newcomer Su Jiu were full of praise for Gao Tian's performance on his first mission and eagerly hoped to partner with him again.

The third Green Text Mission wouldn't arrive for another three weeks. In the meantime, the injuries on his hands were healing quickly, and he had made a few new friends in the Apartment.

Honestly, if this peaceful Apartment didn't require executing missions, it would be an ideal paradise. With no need to work or study, Gao Tian felt he could live here for the rest of his life.

The only strange thing was that Cao Hua hadn't contacted him since their last phone call. Gao Tian tried sending messages on WeChat, but Cao Hua never replied.

Based on Gao Tian's understanding of him, Cao Hua wasn't the type to readily agree to something only to forget it a moment later. Since he had promised to look into the forum post, he would definitely get it done.

The only explanation was that Cao Hua was participating in some competition these past few days and was simply too busy. He must have inadvertently pushed the matter to the back of his mind and probably wouldn't remember it for a while.

Click, clack.

The sound of a rolling marble came from upstairs.

Lying in his bed, Gao Tian stared up toward the ceiling.

He hadn't forgotten one detail: he had voluntarily chosen a room on the Third Floor. And above the Third Floor of the Living Apartment wasn't a place for living residents; everyone staying up there was a ghost.

Gao Tian had once been lured by the little girl in the photograph, his memories altered so he would go upstairs to reunite with his "parents." It was an unpleasant memory. Even though Gao Tian had luckily escaped and obtained the crucial Black Card, he had no intention of going back upstairs anytime soon.

Directly above him, the marble started rolling back and forth across the fourth-floor floorboards, emitting an unbearable scraping sound. There was also the sound of bare feet running around, mixed with bell-like childish laughter and meaningless babbling.

Fortunately, these sounds didn't last very long. They appeared for about three to five minutes every day before quickly vanishing.

Over the past few days, Gao Tian would sometimes be suddenly awakened in his sleep by a woman's ear-piercing scream or a baby's wail from the fourth floor. But the moment he opened his eyes and saw nothing but the empty ceiling above, the shrieking would swiftly fade.

A resident with average psychological endurance would probably be driven completely insane by these chaotic noises, knowing full well that ghosts lived right upstairs.

But since Gao Tian's goal was to uncover the secrets of the Living Apartment and leave alive, tempering his psychological fortitude, gradually adapting to the presence of ghosts, and accepting them as part of his daily life were necessary forms of training.

After the sound of the rolling marble upstairs ceased, Gao Tian closed his eyes and fell back into a deep sleep.

...

In the afternoon, Gao Tian put on his running shoes and sweatpants, preparing to leave the Living Apartment for a five-kilometer endurance run.

After all, abundant physical stamina was a crucial factor in supernatural events. Some Apartment residents managed to survive certain-death missions simply because they had better stamina than other participants.

Screech—

It was the harsh sound of a car braking hard.

A Porsche Cayenne suddenly rushed out from the corner of the intersection. The window rolled down, and a blond-haired young man in sunglasses stuck his head out, swearing loudly in Gao Tian's direction:

"Are you in a fucking rush to reincarnate or something?

"If you don't need your eyes, donate them to someone who does, fuck your mother."

Gao Tian, who had nearly been knocked over, glanced at the traffic light. It was green. Furthermore, a turning vehicle at an intersection was supposed to yield to pedestrians going straight. No matter how you looked at it, the Cayenne driver was in the wrong.

Any normal person wouldn't be able to swallow this anger. Gao Tian raised his head, about to activate the power of the Memory Ghost to punish the driver, but when he saw the blond youth's face inside the Cayenne, both of them froze:

"Zhao Qiang?"

Zhao Qiang was a student in the same grade as Gao Tian, a second-generation rich kid, and a petty thug.

Logically, given that Zhao Qiang's combined score across six subjects didn't even break three digits, he had no qualifications to attend the same high school as Gao Tian. However, his family wasn't just wealthy; they had shocking connections. Through a series of maneuvers like enrolling him as a visiting student, they forcibly shoved this petty thug into a key municipal high school. Over the past three years, he had skipped classes, gotten into fights, and dated around without ever being expelled, which was enough to show just how deep his family's connections ran.

Of course, when it came to the national gaokao, no matter how powerful Zhao Qiang's father was, he couldn't use the back door. It was said this punk couldn't even test into a vocational college. Naturally, this didn't stop him from continuing his life of carefree debauchery after graduating high school.

Upon seeing that it was his classmate Gao Tian, Zhao Qiang waved his hand magnanimously, signaling that he wouldn't hold the incident against him:

"So it's you. Forget it, forget it. For the sake of us being classmates, I can't be bothered to argue with you. Hurry up and get out of the way.

"Grow some eyes next time you're walking. You won't be this lucky every time."

He was about to roll up the window and leave. Looking at Zhao Qiang's side profile, Gao Tian couldn't help but laugh:

"Oh? Going by what you said, I really ought to thank you for your magnanimity."

The moment he heard this, Zhao Qiang's fiery temper flared up again. He rolled the window back down, took off his sunglasses, and stuck his head out, revealing a pair of sinister, triangular eyes:

"What?

"You motherfucker, I let you off the hook since we sat in the same classroom for three years, and now you want to push your luck?"

In the passenger seat, a pretty girl in revealing clothes said impatiently, "Brother Qiang, why waste time here? Next time you run into this kind of person, just treat them as a speed bump and run them over."

Faced with these two scoundrels, Gao Tian wasn't angry. Quite the opposite, he actually felt a bit fortunate; he happened to have a use for Zhao Qiang right now.

Gao Tian fished a small transparent bag out of his pocket. It contained half of a yellowed fingernail. He held it directly up to Zhao Qiang's nose:

"Alright, I can't be bothered to waste words with human trash like you anyway. Even a pile of shit or a pot of piss can prove its worth if put in the right place.

"This is a fingernail left by a corpse. I want you to use your connections to trace this dead person's DNA and dig up all his records from when he was alive. Get it to me within a week if possible. The deceased's life trajectory, teachers, family members—I need all of it."

The fingernail Gao Tian held out was, naturally, plucked from Xu Yuan's body.

There were quite a few rich people in the Living Apartment, such as Boss Jin. However, for this kind of investigation, it was best to find an outsider completely unrelated to the Apartment.

Hearing Gao Tian's commanding tone, Zhao Qiang almost thought he'd misheard. The veins on his neck bulged:

"I say, are you fucking choosing to do this the hard way? Believe it or not, I'll find someone to bury you alive tonight..."

Gao Tian naturally knew this petty thug's temper and didn't expect him to listen obediently. Immediately, he activated the power of the Memory Ghost on the two people in the car:

"Hey, Zhao Qiang. It seems you've forgotten about the leverage I had over you back in high school.

"Do you remember that night? How you accidentally beat your ex-girlfriend to death, and how you bitterly begged me to help you dig a hole in the back mountain?

"You made such a nice promise back then: as long as I took this secret to my grave, we would be brothers for life. Now, I'm just asking you to lift a finger, and you're already turning your back on me?"