Ghost Upstairs

The strange sound of marbles came again, rolling back and forth across the ceiling of Tian Tian's room on the third floor and the floor of the fourth.

It seemed that a family of three lived right above Gao Tian. The parents were away at work most of the time, leaving only a preschool girl at home. She liked to roll marbles back and forth across the floor.

How nice. If only Gao Tian didn't know the people upstairs were ghosts.

Though he'd grown completely used to the sounds made by the "residents" on the fourth floor, they still made his skin crawl whenever he heard them.

Just as Gao Tian closed his eyes, ready to doze off again, he heard a girl's voice from above, low and slightly muffled:

"Sorry, big brother. My marble rolled into your room by accident. Could you help me pick it up?

"It might be no trouble at all for you, but it really matters to me. If Mom comes home and finds one of my marbles missing, she'll beat me to death.

"Waaah, please..."

It took Gao Tian a long time to realize that the "little girl" upstairs was talking to him.

This was a highly unusual sign. It was the first time since he'd moved into the Living Person Apartment that his "neighbor" upstairs had tried to communicate with him.

What should he do? Reply to the little girl and talk to her, trying to learn as much as he could about the Fourth Floor Resident?

Or ignore her completely?

Gao Tian had always remembered that as long as he stayed on the third floor of the Living Person Apartment and didn't give in to any temptations to go up to the fourth floor, he'd be absolutely safe.

But it was also possible that the Girl Upstairs had some special ability. Simply talking to her might give him a chance of being led up to the fourth floor.

Until he knew what she could do, Gao Tian decided to play it safe and say nothing.

Deep down, he still hoped the Girl Upstairs would keep talking. He wanted to know where the Fourth Floor Residents came from and what they were scheming now.

The crying upstairs continued for a little while, then the girl's voice abruptly vanished, as if it had never been there.

Gao Tian waited for a while, but the girl above him didn't say anything else. She had probably really left.

He lay on the bed and let out a breath, unsure whether he felt relieved or disappointed.

Thump, thump.

Just then—

A terrifying thing happened, one that made Gao Tian's blood run cold and his hair stand on end.

The sound of a marble rolling across the floor rang out beside him.

If the sound had come from upstairs, Gao Tian wouldn't have been nearly so alarmed. He'd known all along that the fourth floor was the Ghost's Residence. He'd chosen a room on the third floor and understood that living there meant hearing the sounds from upstairs. From the very beginning, he'd intended to listen in on what was happening on the fourth floor.

But why was the marble rolling across the third-floor floor—why was the sound coming from his own room?

It was impossible. The rules of the Living Person Apartment were absolute. The dead on the fourth floor couldn't affect the third floor; its residents were completely safe.

Gao Tian was certain there couldn't have been any marbles in his room before. After the Fourth Floor Ghost had spoken, the marble that should have kept rolling around on the fourth floor had somehow been moved down to his.

That meant the third floor was no longer completely safe. The Ghost Upstairs had transported two marbles down.

If this was real and not an illusion, and the Fourth Floor Ghost could affect people on the third floor, then the last safe place for the apartment's residents had been breached. The psychological blow to all the residents—including apartment administrators like Shata and Jiangyang—would be unimaginable.

Gao Tian slowly sat up and looked toward the marbles from his bed.

Two glass marbles, the kind children played with, really were rolling out from under the TV stand and slowly moving toward him.

One was pink, the other blue. The sound they made as they rolled across the floor should have been barely audible, but to Gao Tian, it now sounded like mountains collapsing and seas roaring.

He didn't know how far the Fourth Floor Ghost's influence could reach. He grabbed the Ghost Transformation Spear from beside his bed for protection, keeping the marbles in the corner of his eye. With his other hand, he took out his phone and called Shata, who was outside the apartment.

The line rang for a little while, then someone picked up. A cool female voice came through:

"Gao Tian, what's wrong?"

She couldn't imagine what could happen to him while he was inside the Living Person Apartment.

Gao Tian said:

"Shata, has this ever happened before? Have the Fourth Floor Residents ever managed to throw a marble—or something similar—down to the third floor?"

Shata said:

"How could that be possible?

"If the Fourth Floor Residents could physically pass things down to the third floor, they could just send down a Supernatural Item. The third-floor residents would have been wiped out long ago. How could the Living Person Apartment still be called a Safe Zone?"

Shata wasn't stupid. After thinking about his question for a moment, she asked:

"You're in your room on the third floor right now?"

Gao Tian gave a bitter smile.

"Yeah."

Shata asked:

"What came down from upstairs? How did it get there?"

Gao Tian watched the marbles still circling around his bedroom.

"At first, I just heard a marble rolling across the fourth-floor floor.

"Then today, I suddenly heard a little girl upstairs asking me to help her pick up a marble. She said her mom would beat her to death if one was missing.

"Then, out of nowhere, two marbles appeared in my room. They're still rolling around on the floor."

Shata's voice immediately grew serious. Anything involving the safety of the Living Person Apartment was no small matter.

If ghosts had invaded the first three floors, they had no idea where else in the world could still be safe.

Shata asked:

"Did you answer the Girl Upstairs when she spoke to you?"

Gao Tian said:

"Not at all."

Shata asked:

"Could the marbles have already been in your room?"

Gao Tian said:

"I didn't bring any marbles with me in my luggage. I've been living in the Living Person Apartment for a week, and I've never found any in my closet or anywhere else. They're not mine."

Shata made one final check:

"Gao Tian, are you absolutely sure this is real and not a hallucination caused by too much mental stress?"

This had happened to new residents of the Living Person Apartment before.

Some residents had encountered the supernatural for the first time in their lives. After going through two Green Text Missions, they became mentally unstable. Even back at the apartment, they kept shouting that there was a ghost in their room. They were eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and could no longer carry out missions normally.

Gao Tian gave a bitter smile.

"I don't think so.

"My mental state is very good right now. I'm sure that what I'm seeing isn't an illusion."

If the Fourth Floor Ghost really could transport a marble down to the third floor somehow, that news would be no different from the end of the world for everyone in the apartment.

Could the ghosts upstairs really be invading the Apartment Building floor by floor, just as the Former Apartment Administrator had said?

This was too serious. No matter where Shata was right now, she had to come back.

Shata said:

"Listen to me, Gao Tian.

"Stay inside your room, no matter what happens. Don't go out.

"If the Ghost Upstairs could attack you, she would have done it already. She only transported a marble down. Maybe she's trying to lure you out of your room.

"I'm getting a taxi back to the apartment right now. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes. Hold on until then."

Gao Tian said:

"You're right. I understand."

Shata asked:

"Are there any other residents in the rooms on the third floor?"

Gao Tian only knew that Jiangyang wasn't there.

When that guy didn't have a mission, he was either at a bar or on a basketball court. As he put it, apartment residents could die at any moment, so he might as well enjoy life while he could.

The other one, Yusheng, the Gray Monk, was the most mysterious of all. The door to his room was always locked, and there was never a sound from inside.

Gao Tian said:

"I'm not sure. But when I was in the hallway, I didn't hear anything from the other rooms."

There weren't many residents on the third floor to begin with, and the ones who chose to live there were all a little unusual.

Shata abruptly ended the call. She must have been frantic too, hurrying back to the apartment as fast as she could.

Gao Tian had only just hung up. With Shata's reassuring voice gone from the deathly silent room, all that remained was the sound of the marbles rolling, making everything seem even more eerie.

For the time being, the two marbles did nothing but roll aimlessly around the floor. They posed no threat to Gao Tian.

But as the seconds dragged by, the little girl's voice sounded from the ceiling again:

"Big brother, weren't you interested in me? On your first day at the Living Person Apartment, you asked about me and wanted to find me.

"Why are you so scared now that I'm really here?

"My family thought this was just a cheap apartment at first. They thought they'd finally found a place to stay in the big city. They didn't realize it was the beginning of a nightmare until after we moved in.

"The apartment administrators forced us to do all sorts of missions. Even without the administrators, the apartment would have killed any resident who failed to complete a mission within a certain amount of time.

"My parents were just ordinary people. They died in the first and second missions. My older brother was a little more capable. He completed two missions, and he would've survived the Third Mission too, but the other participants betrayed him. He was chased all the way to the apartment entrance by a Vengeful Ghost, and it ripped the skin off his face while I watched.

"My whole family died. I was the only one left. I couldn't complete any Green Text Missions; I would only hold the others back. And the Ghost that ripped my brother's face off is still lurking by the apartment entrance. It wants to break into the apartment, drag me out, and rip my face off too."

At some point, the little girl's crying had turned into laughter.

"Everyone in the apartment is so cold. Nobody cares about me.

"Fortunately, there are lots of uncles and aunties on the fourth floor. They care about me so much. Other than my family, who are all dead, they're the only people in the world who have ever been kind to me."