Ghostly winds howled as Qiu Jianguo huddled in a crevice in a small hill.
Outside, his loyal servant shielded him from the wind.
Even so.
The occasional wisp of cold wind that slipped through still chilled him to the bone.
Fortunately, he still had a servant by his side, giving Qiu Jianguo a little hope amid his despair.
He glanced regretfully at a crack in the servant's body.
Then he took a pitch-black fruit from inside his clothes.
He had sent his servant to pick it from a strange tree. The crack had come from that trip, when a crazed ghost bird attacked.
The fruit had no name.
But as a ghost, Qiu Jianguo could sense the cold spiritual essence within it. This was different from the bone-eroding chill of the ghostly wind; it was a cold spiritual essence that could replenish his sanity and soul.
Braving the occasional gust that slipped through.
He stopped hesitating and gobbled it down in a few big bites.
A feeling of fullness welled up inside him.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but Qiu Jianguo felt that his body had grown a little more substantial and his strength had increased. For a moment, even the ghostly wind seemed less bitterly cold.
He knew, though, that this was probably an illusion caused by how weak he was.
He was only a feeble, ordinary ghost. He had no idea when he would become strong enough to roam through the ghostly winds like those Vengeful Ghosts.
He felt inside his clothes. One more remained.
"Why is being a ghost even harder than being alive? It makes no sense. At least the living have some kind of order, some system. You can farm or work on an assembly line. But as a ghost, at least right now, I'm completely in the dark... I don't even have a place to stay."
He patted his servant.
"Thank goodness I still have you. Otherwise, I might turn into a vicious, crazed Vengeful Ghost, or get swallowed by another ghost..."
He felt his chest.
"Only one fruit left. Who knows when I'll get another? Ah, if only the kids would burn more offerings. If only more people at home would make offerings to me. If only countless people would sincerely burn incense in my memory."
"Who the hell would've thought there really was an Underworld after death!"
"Outside my family, how many people would burn incense and make offerings out of a genuine, deeply rooted connection? People's hearts are hard to fathom. Even my family will probably start losing that sincere desire to honor me once the third-week and seventh-week memorial rites are over!"
"Unless... I reach them through a medium or visit their dreams. Hard, hard, hard. With this body of mine, it's just too hard!"
"Bang!!"
A deafening crash suddenly rang out nearby.
It startled Qiu Jianguo's ghostly body out of his musings.
He poked his head through a gap between his servant's arms.
And froze in utter astonishment.
He couldn't help blurting out his grandson's favorite phrase.
"What the fuck? What's going on? First a mythical evil dragon showed up in the Underworld, and now there's... there's... an... an-apartment building?"
Yes.
An apartment building had appeared out of thin air.
He could even see the dust thrown up from the barren ground by its sudden arrival, then swept away in swirling ghostly winds.
This... should be an apartment building, right?
Although it was shabby and seemed a little crooked.
It stood firm upon the land of the Underworld.
The howling ghostly winds couldn't budge it in the slightest. Somehow, it stirred a ghost's longing.
It reminded the wandering ghosts upon this land of the warm rooms they had known in life, of thick, solid walls.
Qiu Jianguo could also see.
The apartment's uneven but sturdy walls had been covered with layer upon layer of paint, leaving them clean and white. There were peculiar carved patterns beside some windows, though they didn't seem to match very well.
Still, he could see the care its owner had put into it.
The top of the apartment building even seemed to be wrapped in strings of colored lights.
They were blinking away over the dim land of the dead.
Seriously? Are you for real?
Where did the electricity come from?
Or were colored lights in the Underworld only an outward imitation?
Qiu Jianguo couldn't figure it out.
Logically, he should have stayed as far away as possible from something this uncanny.
Even if he was already a ghost, he was still a newly dead rookie. His frail little body couldn't weather much trouble. He didn't even dare trust some of his fellow ghosts, let alone a building that had appeared out of nowhere.
But...
Wandering across this barren, deathly silent land, he was a lonely ghost with no one to depend on, uncertain what tomorrow would bring.
This apartment stirred his longing for civilization, for company.
For some reason, a song came to mind.
"In a little, little room, we live, live, live; little, little ghosts inside cultivate, cultivate, cultivate..."
A certain hope took root in his heart.
Every day, the ghostly winds ate away at his form and mind.
Every day, he endured desolation and fear upon this dim land.
So... now that he had finally seen something familiar.
He didn't keep a respectful distance.
Instead, supported by his servant, he made his way toward the "apartment's" main entrance.
He would see just what this was.
Just what mysteries it held.
He was already a ghost, anyway. He wasn't all that scared.
He wasn't the only one.
Some of the ghosts wandering within a few miles hurried over as well.
Even certain Vengeful Ghosts and crazed ghosts, as long as they retained a shred of memory from their lives, couldn't resist heading toward this building that should never have existed in the land of the dead.
When he reached the front of the building.
He found that some ghosts had already gathered.
There were even two Vengeful Ghosts among them. Their crazed, prey-seeking gazes sent a shiver through the ordinary ghosts.
But.
No one made a move.
Because several tall, thin figures stood before the apartment entrance, and any ghost could tell at a glance that they were trouble.
Viewed from the front, those figures resembled humans or ghosts. Well, roughly.
They seemed to have noses, eyes, and ears, but their features looked somewhat stiff and flat.
Qiu Jianguo couldn't help glancing at his own servant. They all had the same expressionless look.
But from the side, those figures were incredibly thin, as though they had no internal organs and the fronts and backs of their bodies were pressed together.
Overall, they looked somewhat insubstantial.
Yet no ghost underestimated them.
Because their thin, insubstantial appearance wasn't the faintness of ghosts on the verge of dispersing.
It was the eerie look of shriveled bodies pressed flat.
Especially since they actually held sabers and swords.
That made the wandering ghosts of this land of the dead even warier.
After examining them, he carefully looked over the front of the building.
It really was an apartment building.
There was no need to guess.
Because a vertical sign two stories tall on its facade bore several words.
[Nine Springs Apartment]
Beside them were some smaller words-[Gu Group Apartment No. 1]
Gu Group?
Most of the dead ghosts who appeared in this region had come from Yuzhou.
It seemed that this land of the dead had some mysterious correspondence with the world of the living.
Some ghosts found the name strangely familiar.
They couldn't help whispering among themselves.
"Gu Group? Isn't that the company owned by Yuzhou's richest man?"
"Heh, probably just the same name. That one's in the living world, and we're in the Netherworld now. They're worlds apart!"
"Oh, looks like you're an old-timer. Still calling him Yuzhou's richest man? You're out of touch. Don't you know Yuzhou's richest man went bankrupt? The Gu Family has nothing left now!"
"What? Even a business that big could go bankrupt? Back then, my family bought my burial plot from them, and I was burned at their crematorium too. Uh, even the home I lived in was built by their property company. This won't affect my burial plot, will it?"
"You're certainly thinking far ahead, old fellow. What damn good is a burial plot? Folk legends even say graves become houses in the Underworld. But in reality? It's nowhere near that simple!"
"I feel like this is how the Underworld is supposed to work. The stories all say there are towns and things here too. Now we've finally found an apartment building, but I don't have any money!"
"Same here. My family burned heaps of it, but what damn good did it do? Makes sense that it's useless, though. Otherwise, the currency would lose value even faster than in Mali!"
With those eerie, blade-wielding figures keeping them in check.
The ghosts, who had originally been wary of one another, actually began talking.
As long as they hadn't gone down the Vengeful Ghost path, most ghosts still retained their own independent minds.
After all, even the oldest ghosts had only been dead for five years. Of course, none of the clearheaded ghosts here were that old.
Those who could survive five years without becoming Vengeful Ghosts probably had opportunities of their own.
As they talked:
"Creak!"
The apartment doors opened!