So-Called Rent, Building Materials

The Eerie Father rushed into the hallway, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Ji Yan turned his head and saw only the Eerie Mother's torn body left on the ground. The eerie daughter was also nowhere to be seen…

"What kind of eerie is this daughter? So fierce?"

Ji Yan felt a chill down his spine.

For a moment, he felt like his head had been split open.

Sister Zhong Yi, cradling her unconscious sister, had lost a lot of color from her face. "This… this is your solution?"

Her eyes were filled with disbelief.

This was too crazy.

It was practically courting death!

Ji Yan saw the look in her eyes, stood up, and forced himself to stay calm as he wiped the mucus from his shoulder. "Yes."

"Although there were some deviations, everything is still under control."

Sister Zhong Yi glanced down. "You should pat your legs first; they're shaking so badly."

"My legs just fell asleep from sitting too long."

Ji Yan coughed twice.

He turned and leaped onto the cistern, turned on his flashlight, and peered inside through the stone slab.

After a moment, he put the stone slab back in place.

He jumped down and clapped his hands. "With this, the cistern problem should be solved."

"By morning, the households whose water quality was contaminated should calm down."

"The family in 804…" Sister Zhong Yi started to say, then stopped.

"Their family's problem is their own to solve; why should we outsiders interfere?"

"I'm just being helpful, helping a pair of parents find their long-lost daughter."

Sister Zhong Yi couldn't stand Ji Yan's glib tongue any longer and simply shut her mouth. If the deranged, blackening Eerie Mother had been a second faster, she would have torn him to shreds. The fact that he could still stand there and talk tough like this, Zhong Yi admitted, she was a little impressed.

"The mission is resolved. If there's nothing else, I'll go report to the Landlord."

Ji Yan breathed a sigh of relief.

Tonight had been exhausting.

The only thing he regretted was losing a cleaver.

Footsteps sounded from the doorway. Ji Yan, who had just taken a step, stopped again, his heart skipping a beat.

Could it be the Eerie Father circling back to settle the score?

Then, he saw the white-skirt female eerie from 801 emerge. On her exquisite face was the same incongruous smile. "How was it? My method?"

"Very effective, wasn't it?"

Ji Yan was a little stunned because the crazed eerie girl was now being held in the other woman's arms, either unconscious or asleep.

"Where are her father and that brat?" Ji Yan asked.

The white-skirt female eerie replied, "Torn to shreds by this little girl, what else?"

Ji Yan looked at Xi Xi, who was sleeping. Although the girl's fate had nothing to do with him, he still couldn't help but ask, "What about her?"

"This girl and I get along well."

"She's quite pitiful. I'll take care of her from now on."

"Even though the rent will go up, what can I do? I was born kind and can't stand to see such an unfortunate child."

The white-skirt female eerie gently stroked Xi Xi's soft hair, her smile faint.

But Ji Yan always felt that both her words and her smile carried a hint of pretense.

Without asking further, Ji Yan nodded and, after a brief farewell to the twin sisters, prepared to head downstairs.

"Don't forget, you still owe me a favor."

The white-skirt female eerie said softly, her smile widening.

"My name is Xu Xin, and I live in 801."

"When I've decided, I'll come find you."

Ji Yan felt a headache coming on.

This was truly endless…

Climbing out of one pit only to fall into another.

Thinking about it carefully, it seemed he had been played by this woman.

Although he had proposed the solution and delayed the eerie couple, he was the one who executed it and risked his life.

If he had died, she would have lost nothing.

If I managed to escape, I would owe her a favor.

The problem was, I hadn't even made a choice yet, and couldn't possibly renege on the debt. I couldn't even reason with her.

Watching Ji Yan leave the rooftop with words left unsaid, Xu Xin turned, her beautiful eyes falling upon the twin sisters.

Her red lips curved upwards. "You did well."

The elder sister, Zhong Yi, met her gaze. After a moment, she seemed to understand. "You've set your sights on him."

"You had us participate in the [cistern pollution] just to get close to him."

Xu Xin chuckled. "Quite clever. I'm starting to wonder if your sister got all the brains."

Elder sister Zhong Yi didn't reply. The mission was complete, and that's all she cared about. Her sister was all that mattered.

But she knew very well.

It was very difficult for a "prey" targeted by the master of Room 801 to escape...

She just didn't know what it was about this Ji Yan that caught her attention.

"What an unlucky person," Zhong Yi murmured, hugging her sister.

Meanwhile.

Ji Yan descended to the first floor of the apartment.

In the lobby, the landlord was lying in a rattan chair, gently swaying. A birdcage hung beside him, and the white and yellow parrot inside stared at Ji Yan, mimicking human speech: "Big sucker! Big sucker! The big sucker is here!"

Ji Yan's expression darkened slightly.

He said to the landlord, "Old man, the cistern mission is resolved."

The landlord, with his eyes closed, waved his old palm-leaf fan. "I knew I wasn't mistaken about you. You're diligent and efficient."

"Whether it was the drainage ditch outside the apartment or the cistern on the rooftop, you cleared them faster than I expected."

Ji Yan forced a smile.

He wondered if he was going to be awarded a "Cleanliness Model Worker" medal.

"However, your methods are still as terrible as ever."

The landlord shook his head, offering praise followed by a jab.

Ji Yan's face grew even darker.

He grumbled inwardly, This was a near-death task. Just surviving is good enough. Does he expect me to be satisfied?

"You shouldn't have gotten involved with the woman from 801."

"That woman is nothing but trouble. Once you get entangled with her, it's hard to break free," the landlord said slowly, jiggling his leg.

Ji Yan knew he was referring to the favor. He opened his mouth, but in the end, could only say, "I'll take it one step at a time."

"Do you really think she was kind enough to help you clean up those messes?"

"The ones who truly killed the family of three in 804 wasn't their daughter, but that woman. That family is probably in her Room 801 now, almost entirely consumed."

Ji Yan was stunned.

"Consumed?"

"Room 801 is the most dangerous room in the apartment. Do you think she's the only resident there? Heh, naive little kid."

"That woman often uses other people's knives to kill residents in the apartment, and then reaps the rewards herself, feeding the original residents in her room."

"That's how she collects 'rent'."

Upon hearing this, Ji Yan asked the question that had been on his mind: "What exactly is the rent for the apartment?"

All the eerie residents of the Crimson Apartment tried their best to pay rent to avoid being driven out.

But for Ji Yan, a player, the rent remained a huge question mark.

The landlord was silent for a moment before slowly speaking. "When you were chiseling the walls, didn't you see the blood-seeping walls?"

"I did."

"That's the rent."

Ji Yan became even more confused.

The landlord opened his eyes, his cloudy gaze slanting towards Ji Yan. "Paying rent is what allows this apartment to stand firm in this world."

"And their flesh and blood is the best building material for the walls."

"Residents who want to live here must pay rent. The more residents there are, the stronger the apartment becomes, and so the cycle continues."