[Memory Ghost]: The mission has been completed. After your corpse underwent Corpse Transformation, the Ghost Transformation Spear was inserted into it, and it fell apart again. [Living Person Apartment]: Thank you.
That Ghost Transformation Spear is yours to keep. Consider it your reward for this mission.
It doesn't do much for living people, but it's quite useful to us ghosts.
If you see a living person you like, just kill them with one thrust. Then they'll turn 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 care about human life at all.
Then again, they'd been ghosts for many years. They were an entirely different species from humans, even if they'd once been human themselves.
It was hard to imagine that the Vengeful Ghost in the chat group now had been the Little Boy who swore to drive every ghost from the world more than twenty years ago.
[Memory Ghost]: There's one more thing. Your corpse had no head, but it grew the head of a young woman, who parasitized your body. That woman is a celebrity who's been really popular lately... [Living Person Apartment]: I knew that Female Star was a ghost when I was alive. Now she's appearing on more and more giant screens, and countless people have committed her face to memory. I don't know what she's up to. She seems harmless for now, but she's probably struggling to suppress her urge to kill. After all, a ghost is a ghost. Ghosts can't go without killing people. That ghost is wearing a beautiful, captivating face while setting some terrifying plan in motion. Who knows how devastating it'll be when she makes her move? [Memory Ghost]: How did you lose your head at Sapphire Mall? Did another Vengeful Ghost take it?
After Gao Tian typed that, he'd expected Xu Yuan to say something like, "Once I recover my strength, I'll go get it back."
But a moment later, Living Person Apartment replied with this instead.
[Living Person Apartment]: If it fell into the hands of something like that, I'm afraid I'll never get it back. With the strength I had back then, there were few Vengeful Ghosts in this world that could kill me. Unfortunately, that thing was one of them. You can't even mention its name. Don't talk about it in the group.
After ending the chat, Gao Tian lay in the private bedroom of Living Person Apartment.
It had been three days since the Second Green Text Mission ended. Boss Jin had paid him a generous 200,000 yuan as a reward for his contribution to the mission. Both Jiangyang, an experienced hand, and Su Jiu, a newcomer, had praised Gao Tian's performance on his first mission. They were eager to team up with him again next time.
The Third Green Text Mission wouldn't come for about three weeks. In the meantime, the wound on his hand was healing quickly, and he'd made some new friends in the apartment.
Honestly, if there were no missions to carry out, this peaceful apartment would be an ideal paradise. No work, no studying. Gao Tian felt he could live here for the rest of his life.
The only thing that puzzled him was that Cao Hua still hadn't contacted him since their phone call. Gao Tian had tried messaging him on WeChat, but Cao Hua hadn't replied.
Knowing Cao Hua, he wasn't the type to readily agree to something and then forget all about it. If he'd promised to look into the post for Gao Tian, he'd do it.
The only explanation was that Cao Hua had entered some competition these past few days and was too busy. He'd probably let Gao Tian's matter slip his mind and might remember it after a while.
Tap, tap.
The sound of marbles rolling came from upstairs.
Gao Tian lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
He hadn't forgotten that he'd chosen a room on the Third Floor. And above the Third Floor of Living Person Apartment was a place where no living residents stayed. Ghosts lived up there.
Gao Tian had once been lured upstairs by the Little Girl in the photograph. She'd altered his memories, and he'd gone up to reunite with his "parents." It hadn't been a pleasant memory. Although Gao Tian had managed to escape by sheer luck and obtained the key item, the Black Card, he had no plans to go upstairs again anytime soon.
In the same spot, marbles began rolling back and forth across the Fourth Floor, making an unbearable scraping sound. There was also the sound of bare feet running about, mixed with children's bell-like laughter and unintelligible muttering.
Fortunately, these sounds didn't last long. They appeared for about three to five minutes each day, then quickly disappeared.
These past few days, Gao Tian had sometimes fallen asleep to the sounds, only to wake suddenly to a woman's ear-piercing screams or a baby crying from the Fourth Floor. But when he opened his eyes and saw only the empty ceiling above him, the shrieks from upstairs soon faded away.
With ordinary mental fortitude, knowing that only ghosts lived upstairs, a resident would probably be driven insane by all those strange noises.
But Gao Tian's goal was to uncover the secret of Living Person Apartment and escape alive. So training his mental resilience, gradually getting used to the existence of ghosts, and accepting them as part of his everyday life were necessary too.
After the marbles stopped rolling upstairs, Gao Tian closed his eyes and sank back into a deep sleep.
In the afternoon, Gao Tian put on his running shoes and track pants, ready to leave Living Person Apartment for a five-kilometer endurance run.
After all, stamina was important during Supernatural Events. Some apartment residents survived missions they were sure to die in simply because they were in better shape than the other participants.
Screeech—
The sharp sound of a car braking.
A Porsche Cayenne suddenly shot around the corner. Its window rolled down, and a Blond Youth wearing sunglasses leaned out and yelled at Gao Tian:
"Are you in such a hurry to get yourself killed?
"Why don't you donate your eyes to someone who needs them? Fuck your mother."
Gao Tian had nearly been hit. He glanced at the traffic light. It was green, and cars turning at an intersection were supposed to yield to pedestrians going straight. No matter how you looked at it, the Cayenne driver was the one in the wrong.
A normal person would never let that slide. Gao Tian lifted his head, ready to use the Memory Ghost's ability to teach him a lesson. But when he saw the Blond Youth in the Cayenne, both of them froze.
"Zhao Qiang?"
Zhao Qiang was a student in Gao Tian's year, a rich kid and a delinquent.
By rights, with a combined score of less than a hundred across all six subjects, Zhao Qiang had no business attending the same high school as Gao Tian. But his family was not only rich, they also had incredible connections. Through a series of backdoor maneuvers, including getting him enrolled as a visiting student, they'd managed to send a delinquent to a top city school. He'd spent those three years skipping class, fighting, and dating, yet had never been expelled. That showed just how powerful his family's connections were.
Of course, even with all his father's influence, Zhao Qiang couldn't pull strings for the national college entrance exam. It was said that the guy hadn't even managed to get into a junior college. That didn't stop him from living it up after graduating high school, though.
When Zhao Qiang saw that it was his classmate Gao Tian, he waved magnanimously, indicating that he wouldn't hold a grudge.
"Oh, it's you. Forget it, forget it. We're classmates, so I'll let it go. Get out of my way.
"Watch where you're going next time. You won't always be this lucky."
He was about to roll up the window and leave. Looking at Zhao Qiang's profile, Gao Tian couldn't help laughing.
"Oh, so I should really be thanking you for your magnanimity?"
Hearing that set off Zhao Qiang's temper again. He rolled down the window, took off his sunglasses, and leaned out, revealing a pair of sinister, triangular eyes.
"What?
"You little bastard, I let you off because we spent three years in the same classroom, and now you're getting cheeky?"
A scantily dressed pretty girl in the passenger seat said impatiently:
"Brother Qiang, why are you wasting time here? Next time we run into someone like this, just use them as a speed bump."
Gao Tian wasn't angry at the two troublemakers. On the contrary, he was rather pleased. As it happened, he had a use for Zhao Qiang.
Gao Tian took a small transparent bag from his pocket. Inside was half of a yellowed fingernail. He held it right up to Zhao Qiang's nose.
"Enough. I can't be bothered to waste words on scum like you. Even a pile of shit or a bucket of piss can be useful if it's in the right place.
"This is a fingernail left behind by a corpse. I want you to use your connections to find the deceased's DNA and all the information about his life. Get it to me within a week if possible. I need his life story, teachers, family—everything."
The fingernail Gao Tian handed over had, of course, been pulled off Xu Yuan.
There were plenty of wealthy people in Living Person Apartment, like Boss Jin. But for an investigation like this, it was best to find someone from outside who had nothing to do with the apartment.
Hearing the tone Gao Tian used to order him around, Zhao Qiang could hardly believe his ears. The veins in his neck bulged.
"Listen, you little bastard. Are you asking for a beating? Believe me, I can have someone bury you alive tonight..."
Gao Tian knew what kind of temper this delinquent had and hadn't expected him to obey. He immediately used the Memory Ghost's ability on the two people in the car.
"Hey, Zhao Qiang, you seem to have forgotten that I had dirt on you back in high school.
"Do you remember how you accidentally beat your ex-girlfriend to death that night, then begged me to help you dig a hole in the hills behind the school?
"You promised so earnestly that if I kept it to myself, we'd be brothers for life. Now I'm asking you to do one simple favor, and you're already turning your back on me?"
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