Chapter 72: American-Style Exorcism

July 11, early morning.

I wanted to ask what they were doing here. Maybe they were some bored streamers from the neighborhood doing a haunted house challenge.

Ever since the Apartment emptied out, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

The two of them wore bizarre expressions, their skin pale as a corpse.

The young man simply smiled at me. Before I could react, the sharp weapon in his hand pierced my throat. I collapsed heavily to the ground. My field of vision filled with their leather shoes and sneakers as they stepped over my head and walked straight into the room.

I wanted to stand up and stop them. But I didn't have an ounce of strength left in my body.

Blood just kept sputtering and bubbling from my throat.

It took me a long time to realize I was already dead.

Soon, the silver-haired young man who had entered the room returned. He hauled my corpse up and set it in a chair, leaving me facing the doorway.

Three more people came in through the door. I assumed they were his accomplices, though I wasn't entirely sure.

A girl wearing a strangely heavy dress, a boy in a white shirt, and finally, a woman with disheveled hair and two scars extending outward from her lips, making her look completely deranged.

They discussed something among themselves, then repositioned my corpse in the Study. They shoved a pen into my hand and placed a logbook on the desk in front of me, arranging my body to look like I was diligently writing in it.

Then, the heavily built man hid inside the bookcase opposite me, the deranged woman crawled under my chair, and the silver-haired boy clung to the ceiling like a spider. As for where the other two hid, I didn't know.

They just kept hiding there—never needing to eat or drink, never resting, never sleeping.

I watched helplessly as they occupied my room and Study, unable to do a single thing about it.

Because I was now just a corpse. Aside from thinking, I couldn't even blink an eye or lift a finger.

...

December 30, rainy.

Still sitting at the desk.

I didn't know how much time had passed since my death. I just filled in the date at random.

Spiders crawled across my neck, and flies laid eggs in my shoes. I felt utterly miserable all over.

But I was just a corpse now, unable to even shift my posture.

The Living Apartment had opened again. I could hear a large number of residents moving in, settling on the Third Floor and second floor beneath my feet.

Now, this fourth floor had become a forbidden paranormal zone for the living, just like the fifth floor before it.

How ridiculous. What a mockery.

Did those new downstairs residents know that a former Apartment administrator was right above their heads, listening to them move in?

Thud. A fresh corpse collapsed at my feet, lying completely motionless. Its dead eyes were still staring wide open, as if it couldn't believe everything it had just encountered.

There were adventurous residents who tried to run up to the fourth floor to explore.

But when they walked into this Study and saw the logbook in front of me, most of them would cautiously approach and read it, marveling that they had discovered the secret of the previous generation of residents—

And this was also the exact moment when their guard was down and their attention was at its weakest.

Like I said, the Team of Five that killed me was still hiding in the corners of this Study.

They had hidden for several years, completely motionless. So quiet that I had almost forgotten about them.

The heavily built man hiding in the cabinet was the most bloodthirsty. He was always the first to rush out, killing the unlucky new resident reading my logbook with a single slash.

Month 14, Day 45. Sunny.

Again, I filled in the date at random.

Having stayed here for so long, having been a corpse for so long, I had gradually lost my perception of time.

Passing one day or passing ten thousand years made little difference to me.

Every single day was exactly the same.

The only slight variation in my existence was seeing if new residents would come exploring on the fourth floor and stumble into this Study.

They would arrogantly think they had uncovered the Apartment's secrets, only to be hacked to death by the hiding Team of Five.

Corpse after corpse piled up in the living room until there was almost no space left for them.

I started to wonder just how many people this Team of Five had to kill before they would finally stop.

Did they really not find it boring?

...

...

...

The Study owner's logbook continued to be faithfully read aloud.

In truth, the moment it mentioned that the "Team of Five killed the room's owner and disguised the corpse to look like it was writing in a logbook," Jiang Yang and Zhao Zhenjia felt something was wrong.

"A silver-haired young man, a boy in a white shirt, a girl in a heavy dress, a heavily built man, and a crazy woman.

"Isn't that me, you, Gao Tian, Xia Ta, and Lan Zhu?

"Why does the lineup of the five ghosts who killed Lin Nan'an look so much like our group?

"Is this really a coincidence, or am I just overthinking things?"

Upon hearing the Study's owner state that the ghosts had been hiding in the Study ever since the murder, waiting for new residents to arrive so they could kill them while they read the logbook—

Jiang Yang's breathing stopped, and Zhao Zhenjia's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

Wasn't this exactly identical to their current situation?

In the cabinet, on the ceiling, under the desk—were ghosts hiding in all these places?

Now that they had read this passage, was the previous tragedy about to repeat itself?

Jiang Yang had no patience to listen to the rest of the logbook's story. He had already made his move.

If he didn't act now, the two of them would likely become the next victims.

For the first time since arriving on the fourth floor, he activated his Supernatural Item.

Jiang Yang's Supernatural Item was the most unique out of everyone's, jokingly referred to as "American-Style Exorcism."

He drew a large-caliber Revolver from his belt and aimed it at the wardrobe opposite them where the ghost was hiding. The cylinder began to turn. The chamber held a total of six bullets. The most common were silver bullets; although they couldn't kill a ghost, they could maximize the delay in a ghost's resurrection and make it experience physical agony.

Aside from those, the Revolver's chamber also housed different types of bullets, each possessing a unique effect to flexibly deal with various paranormal scenarios.

This time, he repeatedly pulled the Revolver's trigger, firing bullets named "Nails."

Three Nails slammed into the wardrobe. The effect of these bullets was to completely seal the entire wardrobe; no matter what was hiding inside, it temporarily wouldn't be able to get out.

"What is that..."

This was Zhao Zhenjia's first time working with Jiang Yang. Seeing his so-called "Supernatural Item" nearly made his eyes pop out of his head.

Why was this guy's style so wildly out of place compared to other ghost hunters?

This was actually allowed?

While attacking the cabinet, Jiang Yang simultaneously pointed his other hand toward the ceiling, drawing a second Revolver from behind his back. Six silver bullets poured out. No matter what was clinging to the ceiling, it was going to be riddled with holes by his American-Style Exorcism.

Only after doing all this did he lower the guns in both hands and look up at the ceiling.

Amidst the scorch marks, a human-shaped blank spot remained. Clearly, a human-like entity had indeed been stuck up there earlier.

For some reason, Jiang Yang and the others hadn't noticed it at all when they first entered. The thing must have been invisible; if not for the barrage of silver bullets, it would still be clinging up there right now.

Having simultaneously dealt with the two major threats mentioned in the logbook, Jiang Yang breathed a slight sigh of relief:

"Old Zhao, use the Wind Attendant Buddha to check if there's a ghost hiding under the desk."

The Wind Attendant Buddha lowered its head and inspected the area in front of the corpse's legs. Zhao Zhenjia shook his head:

"There's no one there, but I can see a clear pair of footprints.

"It must have escaped."

Just what had the five "people" hiding in this room transformed from?

After killing Lin Nan'an, they had actually stayed hidden in this room for seven or eight years. Whenever new residents and explorers came in, they would rely on ambushes to take them out.

This obviously fell outside the realm of humanity. Only ghosts could lie in wait for seven years without eating or drinking.

If Lin Nan'an's logbook hadn't spoken up to warn them, Jiang Yang and Zhao Zhenjia would likely have been ambushed by now.

Zhao Zhenjia was filled with alarm and uncertainty. He still hadn't figured out how exactly this Study had been formed, what the background of these five people was, or why they looked so much like their Upstairs Team.

All in all, it was a complete mess right now.

"There's something very wrong with this place. Two members of the Team of Five that killed Lin Nan'an back then are still hiding in the room and haven't shown themselves. They hid so deeply that even the dead Lin Nan'an didn't know where they were.

"Let's leave this damned place first and go out to find Xia Ta and the others.

"This logbook is very important, so bring it along. But don't take Lin Nan'an's corpse out."

Under Jiang Yang's arrangements, Zhao Zhenjia didn't hesitate. He directly controlled the Wind Attendant Buddha to snatch up Lin Nan'an's thick notebook, while he himself strode toward the Study door and reached out to twist the doorknob.

The door lock wouldn't budge an inch, as if it had been welded shut.

The Study's windows were fitted with iron bars. Not to mention, the windows led out to the dark and bizarre Mirror Alley, which clearly wasn't a good place either.

"Open!"

Zhao Zhenjia slammed a heavy punch into the door. Blood dripped from between his knuckles. The door warped slightly, but it was still far from being broken down.

He was only flesh and blood after all; he was still a far cry from Xia Ta.

"Old Zhao, get out of the way!"

Jiang Yang reloaded the Revolver's cylinder and took aim at the doorway once more.

A single bullet shot right through the door lock, shattering it. The door creaked half-open.

Outside the Study was a dust-covered living room. From the sofa to the coffee table, everything was coated in a layer of gray. Spiderwebs hung down from the corners of the ceiling, showing no signs of human habitation for a long time.

After the door was opened, "Zhao Zhenjia" didn't linger in the Study for a single moment, grasping the logbook from Lin Nan'an's lifetime and striding right out.

The next moment, a pair of pale hands waiting outside the door raised a rusty axe high into the air. It swung straight down, instantly chopping "Zhao Zhenjia's" neck in two, before delivering a kick to its severed head.

Of the Team of Five that had killed Lin Nan'an back then, someone was still guarding the area outside the Study, waiting to finish off any survivors who managed to break out.