Doctor and Patient, The Culprit

In the arena, the Thief Eerie was subjected to a barrage of attacks from the players, its many twisted and horrifying faces screaming and contorting.

A large number of eerie worms detached from the Thief Eerie, but they showed no intention of escaping. Instead, they accelerated their destruction of the walls, devouring the flesh and blood of the natives embedded within...

Boom!!

With an explosion, something struck the Thief Eerie, its head bursting open and countless eerie worms falling like raindrops.

The players were startled.

Turning their heads, they saw Long Yuan appear on the second-floor railing, holding a hunting rifle with smoke still rising from the barrel.

"It's that Long guy again!"

"I knew this guy wouldn't show up! Turns out he was just hiding!"

Upon seeing Long Yuan, Huang Ran's expression immediately turned grim.

As the second-ranked player in terms of progression, he had always been suppressed by Long Yuan and viewed him as his greatest rival.

"The main quest boss's head is gone, it should be dead..."

Before a player could finish speaking, they saw the Thief Eerie's head slowly repair itself, the wails of the eerie faces on its body growing even more piercing...

"It looks like to kill this eerie creature, we have to smash all the eerie faces on its body!"

Perhaps its objective had been achieved, or perhaps it sensed danger, the Thief Eerie stopped its destruction and turned to leave the scene.

"It's trying to escape!"

"Can it escape? As long as it's in the apartment, it has nowhere to hide!"

The repeated attacks had clearly been effective, the Thief Eerie's aura rapidly diminishing, indicating that it could be injured, could die!

The remaining players excitedly pursued it.

Watching the pursuing players, and then the walls on all sides, which were cracking and bleeding, Long Yuan narrowed his eyes, a faint smile appearing on his lips.

But then, his smile vanished abruptly.

He saw a player in the lobby who had not followed the crowd in pursuing the Thief Eerie.

Stepping through the bloodstains on the floor, Ji Yan entered the post-battle scene.

In his sight were only the smashed, dying eerie faces scattered around.

He crouched down and reached out to touch them one by one.

As his talents were frequently triggered, Ji Yan obtained information that other players had missed.

[My children have been contaminated... I want to protect my children and let them grow up healthy.]

[What pathetic outsiders, foolish and mocking, they only believe what they see.]

[They dig a deep pit with all their might, enjoying themselves, thinking it's a sanctuary to escape disaster, but little do they know, it is a tomb to bury them!]

[Who will save us? Save our families, we've done our best, and are gradually weakening, only able to watch powerlessly as everything ceases to exist.]

[... ]

Clutching the eerie faces in his hand, Ji Yan's expression grew increasingly solemn.

He looked at the scattered, dead eerie worms and suddenly guessed something...

"Ji Yan, aren't we going to chase it?" Liu Yitong asked.

After all the eerie faces withered and died, Ji Yan stood up.

He looked at the dense cracks in the first-floor lobby, the walls smeared with viscous blood.

He walked over and reached out to touch the flesh and blood oozing from the walls.

Then, his eyes sharpened.

He said to Liu Yitong, "I'm going to the 8th floor!"

"If you trust me, go back to 404 and stop participating in the main quest."

Liu Yitong was stunned and asked, "Did you discover something?"

Ji Yan didn't answer and turned to run upstairs. He didn't have time to explain, and whether Liu Yitong listened was her business. As a player under the same roof, he had already provided enough care.

Following the corridor upwards, Ji Yan paused on each floor to observe something before continuing his ascent.

Soon, he reached the 8th floor.

The door to 801 was knocked.

The door opened, and Xi Xi answered.

She was still in her simple white clothes, her face still wearing that deeply depressed expression.

"Sister said you would come."

"And you've come earlier than she predicted."

Entering the room, Miss Xu Xin was still in her usual languid and comfortable posture on the recliner, reading a book.

"Shouldn't you be busy catching the thief right now?"

"What, you're still in the mood to visit me?"

Miss Xu flipped through the pages of her book, asking casually.

Ji Yan walked over, not rushing to explain. Instead, he asked, "Miss Xu, last night you clearly hated that native thief who dug into you with all your might."

"Why now, you've adopted such a detached attitude?"

Miss Xu didn't look at Ji Yan, smiling faintly as she spoke, "What's the use of being anxious?"

"It's better to be more open-minded. Anyway, if the culprit who's destroying the apartment isn't stopped, all the residents will perish together in the end."

"Thinking about it another way, having so many residents to keep me company, I'm not really at a loss, am I?"

Ji Yan shook his head and said, "Actually, you knew from the beginning that the thief would break into your Room 801."

"But you wouldn't stop it."

Miss Xu closed her book, raising her beautiful eyes, "Why?"

"Because when the 'Multi-faced Eerie' broke into the room, it wasn't digging into you, the native. On the contrary, it was doing everything it could to save this building."

"Or rather, the entire apartment!"

"From the very beginning, our objective was misled."

"The real thief isn't that Multi-faced Eerie at all, but someone else entirely."

"The apartment has suffered severe damage. Eerie entities are constantly gnawing at the apartment's 'lifeline' and continuously polluting the natives within the walls. The appearance of the Multi-faced Eerie was actually playing the role of a 'doctor'."

"It tirelessly roamed every corner of the apartment, tearing open walls, ripping apart the flesh and blood of the natives, and taking away the 'rent'. In reality, those were 'polluted' pathogens. If they weren't removed, they would deepen the cracks in the walls and accelerate the apartment's collapse."

"And the players and most of the eerie residents are unaware of this."

"They've all pinned the blame for the wall cracks and the apartment's damage squarely on the Multi-faced Eerie!"

Ji Yan's expression turned grim.

In fact, through the hidden information, he had already formed suspicions along these lines.

But they were still just suspicions.

After the commotion in the first-floor lobby, he could be certain.

It was more of a sixth sense; everything had proceeded too smoothly.

After listening to Ji Yan's words, Miss Xu tossed the book aside, a smile appearing on her exquisite face, "Your analysis is quite thorough."

"You're just like a great detective."

"So, if your deductions are all correct."

"Then where is the real culprit who gnawed at the apartment's lifeline and pushed it towards the abyss of destruction?"

Ji Yan pondered for a moment.

He asked in return, "I'm guessing the apartment has a basement, right?"