Chapter 59: An Even More Bizarre Future

The prophecy in the Future Urn came to an abrupt end here. Countless turbulent currents of mist churned the projected Mirror Alley, the "Gao Tian" inside it, and the skin-peeling Old Man Red all into fleeting phantoms.

"Still the same... no beginning and no end..."

This fragment of the future ended just like that, inexplicably abrupt.

The urn itself, of course, offered no explanation.

That was simply how it worked. It only showed; it never explained.

Everything the urn displayed would happen in the future. Minor details might shift, but the overarching events rarely deviated.

As Gao Tian pondered its mysteries from the outside, the gray currents inside the urn surged again. A new illusion slowly materialized.

The prophecy wasn't over after all. Another fragment of the future unfolded before his eyes.

This time, the scene shifted to a dark, windowless room. The perspective started from the outside, pushing the door open, before slowly drifting in.

On the door, a golden plaque bore three numbers: 525.

Judging by the layout of the corridor outside, this had to be the fifth floor of the Living Apartment.

This scene looked a bit more normal. It was most likely a situation the administrator team encountered after heading upstairs.

Gao Tian watched in silence. He was deeply curious about what this team would run into on the upper floors.

But once he saw what was inside Room 525, his calm shattered completely.

He had thought the "Gao Tian" in Mirror Alley suddenly going mad and brawling with the skin-peeling Old Man Red was absurd enough. But compared to the sheer absurdity of this room, that was like a great wizard seeing a minor wizard.

The room itself was quite large, and the lack of any large furniture made it appear even more cavernous. Colorful soft mats covered the floor to keep children from getting hurt while running. This was likely the home of a family with kids.

All kinds of toys were scattered across the floor—foam blocks for preschoolers, toy race cars for boys, Transformers, and pink dolls. It looked as though no adult had cleaned up in a very long time, leaving a massive, messy pile.

It seemed this family had... quite a few children?

Judging by the sheer variety of toys, there had to be at least seven or eight kids in this household.

That was an unusually large number of children for one family.

As the gray mist in the urn gradually dispersed, more of Room 525 was revealed to Gao Tian watching from the outside.

A girl in a gothic Lolita dress, her expression placid and her features as delicate as a porcelain doll's, was sitting amidst the scattered toys, earnestly playing house.

She held a Barbie doll in one hand and a green T-Rex in the other, mimicking a conversation between them. In front of her sat a miniature toy dining table set with plastic cakes and toy cookies.

If a child were doing this, it would look perfectly normal.

But the one doing this was a grown woman, and an acquaintance Gao Tian knew well at that.

It was Xia Ta.

In this fragment of the future, Xia Ta was inside the toy room behind door 525 on the fifth floor, mimicking a kindergartener as she earnestly played house amidst a sea of toys.

She looked completely relaxed, completely oblivious to the fact that she was on the fifth floor of the Living Apartment and just how dangerous her situation was.

The fourth floor was terrifying enough. The danger level of the fifth floor had to be far worse. Right now, Xia Ta was locked in this room entirely alone, her teammates like Jiang Yang and Zhao Zhenjia nowhere to be seen. Her situation was incredibly precarious.

She could trigger a Killing Rule at any moment.

What on earth was Xia Ta doing? Had her perception been corrupted? Had her mind regressed to the level of a child?

Watching from outside the urn, Gao Tian felt a chill run down his spine. If he weren't powerless to interfere with the future inside, he would have reached right in and plucked the miniature Xia Ta out of that horrifying room.

As the mist rose inside the urn once more, Room 525, the scattered toys, and Xia Ta earnestly playing her game all quickly melted into the gray fog, vanishing like a phantom.

The Future Urn's second prophecy ended just as inexplicably, with no beginning and no end.

All that remained inside the urn was the Skeleton Master, quietly meditating in eternal stillness.

There was no explanation. Whatever had happened, the observer could only guess.

Gao Tian shook the urn a few more times to make sure a third prophecy wasn't coming before finally putting the mysterious item away.

...

...

"Well, coming back from America this time, I gained three new titles.

"The fifteenth-generation successor of Daoist Longhu Mountain, a Vatican-certified A-Level exorcist, an African grand shaman, the chief disciple of a Buddhist Zen master, a specially invited guest of the Supernatural Research Association, Paranormal Investigator No. 107, an honorary member of the Scottish Freemasons, a Haitian Mambo high priestess, a Druid, the secret mantra inheritor of the Japanese Diamond Sect...

"And you called me all the way back to China just to investigate the fourth floor of some tiny Apartment?

"Stop joking. You could just find a couple of renovation workers for something like this. You don't need me to step in for this kind of thing at all."

Looking at the bizarre woman in front of him in the first-floor lobby of the Apartment, Jiang Yang grimaced.

Suddenly, he missed Gao Tian immensely.

That guy was at least a normal human being who understood the situation and could follow orders and communicate. Setting aside how strong his abilities were, at the very least, he wouldn't be a burden to the team.

This four-time mission completer that Xia Ta had called back from America was completely unhinged, hardly any different from a psychiatric patient. In normal life, Jiang Yang would stay as far away from someone like this as possible, let alone head up to the fourth floor with her.

Lan Zhu. Female, roughly twenty-five. A messy mop of hair cascaded over her shoulders. The most hair-raising thing about her was the scars pulling back from the corners of her mouth. Though long healed, they were still deep, as if someone had once tried to rip her mouth wide open.

She had stumbled into the Living Apartment by mistake two years ago. But compared to Lan Zhu's hellish childhood, this place was practically a warm and cozy home. After blasting through four missions at lightning speed, the interval until her next mission was measured in half-years, so she hadn't returned to the Living Apartment in a very long time.

There was something wrong with her head. Due to an accident in her childhood, she had lived with a ghost, and the part of her brain responsible for fear had been completely ruined. Because of this, she constantly pulled off bold, insane stunts during missions. If Xia Ta hadn't insisted, no one would ever want to team up with Lan Zhu.

She knew a little about the terrifying encounters on the Apartment's fourth floor from her cross-border chats with Xia Ta, but she didn't think much of it.

She had run into far more terrifying supernatural incidents abroad. In South Africa, she had provoked a local deity that chased her halfway across the African continent. In the Middle East, she had botched a local folk ritual, turning an entire village into ghosts who were still waiting for her to return so they could give her a warm, enthusiastic "reception." And in America, she had drawn the ire of five curses, two haunted houses, and four Satanic churches; the moment her plane landed in the US, countless passionate "fans" were already waiting for her at the airport.

Having too many lice makes one immune to itching. To her, the Living Apartment's missions were just one more curse among the countless many she already carried. Its priority simply wasn't that high.

Over in North America, she had also moved into a haunted house called "Whispers End"—translated into Chinese as the Silent Terminus Corridor—which was quite similar in nature to the Living Apartment. Every so often, Lan Zhu had to take a letter from there and deliver it to the recipient's address. Any resident who refused to deliver their mail would be forcibly hanged inside the haunted house.

Xia Ta ignored Lan Zhu's incessant chattering. She needed Lan Zhu's abilities, and she knew she had to endure her abnormal thought process to get them.

She unrolled an ancient manuscript. This was the Rule-Based Horror that Yusheng had left for the Upstairs Team.

Above the Third Floor lay a world where demons danced in chaos. It was filled with utterly illogical Killing Rules, where a single misstep meant you might not even know how you died.

These were the laws of survival that monster, Yusheng, had scouted out with his own life on the line.

Or rather, Xia Ta preferred to call it a Rule-Based Horror:

1. Residents above the fourth floor rarely leave their rooms. Anything seen in the corridors is not a native inhabitant of the Apartment.

2. There should be exactly 13 steps between each floor. Please check carefully. If 14 steps appear, it means the stairs are temporarily unusable. Leave immediately.

3. There are exactly 24 rooms on each floor, and the maximum door number is 24 (e.g., 424, 524). If a 25th room appears at the end of the corridor, get away from it immediately.

4. When the tips of the shoes at a door face one inward and one outward, it indicates that the master of the room does not welcome guests. Do not force your way inside.

5. It is impossible for the sound of a hammer striking a wall to occur on any floor. If you hear such a sound, leave that floor immediately at all costs.

(Note: This rule has the highest priority. In the event of a conflict with any other rule, follow this one.)

6. The sixth-floor area has been sealed off. Unless backed by national-level executive authority, individuals are strictly forbidden from proceeding there privately.

Otherwise, turning into a ghost upstairs will only bring unnecessary trouble to other explorers.

...

No one knew how Yusheng had deduced these Rule-Based Horrors.

He never explained anything.

"We have a total of four participants this time, right? That mystical little monk from before isn't joining our team.

"So when exactly are we heading out to explore the fourth floor?"

Lan Zhu had lost her patience long ago. To her, the Living Apartment was just another haunted house for her to explore.

"Where did this Yusheng who wrote all this run off to?

"I haven't seen him at all this morning," Zhao Zhenjia added belatedly.

Logically, why did they have to follow these rules? What punishments awaited if they were broken, and were there any remedial measures?

Yusheng should at least give them some hints.

Xia Ta spoke calmly:

"An hour ago, a new Green Text Mission appeared on the wall in the first-floor lobby.

"I originally thought it was one of those under-three-times missions for the second-floor residents.

"But when I got closer to look, I saw it was a seventh Green Text Mission."

In the entire Apartment, there was only one person qualified to take on a seventh mission.