The Apartment Meeting

At this point, Gao Tian already knew that the little girl was the one in the photo that had drifted out when the Shattered Face Ghost turned to ash.

They had been a family of three who came to the big city to seek opportunities. Because they'd been tempted by cheap rent, they entered the Living Person Apartment and met a tragic end.

The parents died, and the older brother was killed by the Third Green Text Mission. After his face was peeled off, he became a new ghost: the Shattered Face Ghost. Their only remaining daughter had been taken advantage of by the Vengeful Ghosts on the Fourth Floor and willingly walked upstairs. She must have become one of the Fourth Floor Residents, too.

He had been deeply attached to his family. Even after becoming a ghost, he had kept a photo inside his body. So when he finally turned to ash, Gao Tian saw the photo and, under its hypnotic influence, walked into the Living Person Apartment.

The little girl's voice on the ceiling was nearing its end:

"There are lots of uncles and aunties on the Fourth Floor. The ghosts outside don't dare go up there.

"Actually, in this age overrun by Vengeful Ghosts, the Fourth Floor is the safest and warmest place. That's why I chose to give up on the Second and Third Floors and walk up to the Fourth Floor myself.

"You'll understand soon...

"Soon, you'll walk up to the Fourth Floor of your own accord, too, and become just like me..."

By the end, her voice had faded to a whisper. Then it vanished completely.

The sound of marbles rolling across the floor disappeared at the same time.

Just as Gao Tian thought the child ghost on the Fourth Floor had retreated, urgent knocking sounded from outside the door.

Under normal circumstances, it should have been Shata, hurrying back from outside. But Gao Tian didn't rush to open the door.

The timing didn't add up.

Shata had said over the phone that she'd be back within fifteen minutes. But less than five minutes after Gao Tian had put down his phone, someone had knocked on the door. Could Shata really have returned to the apartment that fast?

Even stranger...

Shata was an adult woman, about 1.6 meters tall. Taking the length of her arms into account, if she knocked from her usual perspective, she'd hit around the upper-middle part of the door.

But judging by the sound and the vibrations in the doorframe, the knocking outside was coming from the lower-middle part of the door.

The person knocking was a child about 1.2 meters tall!

It was possible that whoever stood outside wasn't Shata at all. Maybe the child from the Fourth Floor had come down and was knocking on the Third Floor door!

If the Fourth Floor Residents could come downstairs, then nowhere in the Living Person Apartment was completely safe anymore.

At that moment, the marbles that had stopped rolling began to clatter again.

For the first time, Gao Tian felt trapped in a no-win situation.

His Shattered Face Ghost and Memory Ghost both needed to make direct contact with their target to work. But the Vengeful Ghost still hadn't shown itself. If he accidentally triggered some Killing Rule, he wouldn't be able to do anything at all before he died.

His only hope was to hold out until Shata returned. If even Shata couldn't resolve this incident, the Living Person Apartment might really face a Total Annihilation Ending.

At that critical moment, a loud bang came from the door. A pair of Brown Yellow Boots kicked a huge hole in it. After pulling back, they struck again, then a third time. The already unsteady door shuddered under the force of those blows, until at last it crashed to the floor.

Done. Job finished.

A figure outside dusted off her hands and stepped in. It was Shata. She met Gao Tian's gaze.

"I was knocking on the door for ages. Why didn't you answer?

"I thought something had happened to you in there."

Gao Tian froze.

"How long were you knocking? When you came over, did you see a child standing outside my door?"

Shata said, "I didn't see any children. The whole Third Floor was quiet. There wasn't anyone outside.

"There wasn't anyone coming down the stairwell from the Fourth Floor, either."

That wasn't right.

That wasn't right.

Gao Tian pressed her further. "When you were knocking just now, were you hitting the lower part of the door or the upper part?"

Shata mimed knocking on the air.

"Obviously, the upper part.

"I'm not a child. Why would I deliberately bend down to knock on the lower part?"

Gao Tian noticed the contradiction.

The knocking he'd heard hadn't been Shata's.

But at the same time, Shata had indeed been knocking.

Though they were on opposite sides of the same door, for a brief moment, it was as if they'd been in different parallel worlds.

In any case, after Shata entered the room, the sounds from upstairs, the knocking outside, and the marbles rolling across the floor all disappeared. The room, once dead quiet and icy cold, also seemed to warm by a few degrees.

Shata first looked up at the ceiling. Once she was sure there were no sounds from the Fourth Floor for now, she lowered her head and soon spotted the two marbles in the bedroom. They had stopped rolling and lay perfectly still.

She picked one up between two fingers and held it to the sunlight for a closer look.

It was an ordinary children's toy, the sort you could buy in bulk for ten yuan on Taobao or Pinduoduo. There didn't seem to be anything special about it.

Shata checked again. "Are you sure these marbles rolled down from upstairs, and weren't already in your room?"

There was still some doubt in her voice, as though she wondered if Gao Tian had imagined it. That annoyed him.

"I'm sure.

"I'm not hallucinating out of fear. If I were that afraid of the ghosts on the Fourth Floor, I wouldn't have moved into the Third Floor on purpose to listen in on what was happening upstairs.

"The Fourth Floor has started to affect the Third Floor. The effect is tiny for now, but who knows if it's a sign that they can break through the Apartment Restriction? If we leave it alone, next time they might not just Teleport two marbles down here."

Shata nodded, showing that she believed him completely.

"Gao Tian, don't get so worked up.

"I believe you. Given your mental fortitude, this alone wouldn't be enough to make you break down.

"But this is serious. Once we confirm that the ghosts on the Fourth Floor can reach the Third Floor, all the residents on the Third Floor will need to hold an emergency meeting to decide what to do next.

"Some of the few remaining residents on the Third Floor may move to the Second Floor. We'll also have to change how we understand the rules of the Living Person Apartment.

"After all, if even the Living Person Apartment is no longer safe, many residents may lose the last thing they believe in. That would be the most terrifying outcome for us."

Gao Tian understood why Shata wanted to confirm it. He didn't dwell on the issue.

"When should we hold a meeting on the Third Floor?"

Shata glanced at the time on her phone.

"Jiangyang and Yusheng aren't here. The other Third Floor residents may still be at work.

"Probably around seven tonight. The residents who live on the Third Floor will all be back at the Living Person Apartment by then. A few longtime residents from the Second Floor who've done a lot of Green Text Missions will come up to join us, too.

"After all, the spread of supernatural power from the Fourth Floor will affect the entire Living Person Apartment."

At 7:15 p.m., everyone attending the meeting gathered in Shata's room, by the Third Floor stairwell.

Shata had lived there for three years, and nothing strange had ever happened. Once in a while, she heard muttering and calls from the Fourth Floor, but most were incomprehensible whispers. They had never had any real effect on the residents downstairs.

Besides Gao Tian and the three apartment managers, seven households from the Third Floor and three from the Second Floor attended.

What surprised Gao Tian most was that Boss Jin, who had always kept his distance from the Living Person Apartment, had found time in his busy schedule to come. Perhaps he wanted to thank Gao Tian for his performance in the Second Green Text Mission.

The Third Floor resident who left the strongest impression on Gao Tian was a giant of a man, two meters tall. His name was Zhao Zhenjia. He was in his fifties, and his stubble was speckled with white hairs. He took up the space of three people on his own. Gao Tian heard that he'd once been a professional-level athlete. Just the circumference of his arm was a full ring larger than Shata's thigh.

Many of the residents knew one another. After a brief exchange of greetings, the meeting began.

Before arriving, everyone had gotten a general idea of what had happened in Gao Tian's room. Zhao Zhenjia, the first to speak, remained skeptical of Gao Tian's account.

"Kid, it's not that I don't believe you.

"A lot of people have gone crazy or started having hallucinations since coming to this apartment. You're neither the first nor the last.

"I'd rather believe the problem was with you than with the apartment itself. If there'd been any problems below the Fourth Floor, we old residents would've all died long ago. With so many chances to come downstairs, the ghosts could've killed every last one of us, instead of leaving us alive until now."

Shata spoke up in Gao Tian's defense.

"I was the first to arrive at Room 212. Gao Tian was very tense then, but his mental state was normal. He showed no signs of going crazy or becoming delirious.

"Besides, I found two marbles of unknown origin in his bedroom. An adult couldn't have brought them in. Gao Tian had already told me that there was a little girl on the Fourth Floor who kept playing with marbles. It all adds up.

"The ghosts on the Fourth Floor have successfully sent an object downstairs for the first time. Even if it was only two little marbles."

She took the marbles she'd found in Gao Tian's room out of her pocket and placed them where everyone could see them, for inspection.

Everyone present passed the two marbles around. After confirming they were as described, they returned them to Shata.

Zhao Zhenjia, the last to examine them, said coldly, "This still doesn't prove anything.

"They're just two ordinary marbles. Apart from Mr. Gao, no one can prove they came down from the Fourth Floor.

"Unless you can produce more evidence, it'll be hard to convince me, Old Zhao."

Just then, Yusheng, a monk who had been sitting quietly in the corner without drawing attention to himself, chanted an invocation and spoke up.

"Amitabha.

"If you want evidence, this humble monk has something to offer as well. May I share it?"