Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Before the Landlord could react, Qi Jiajia threw a rope at him. The next instant, he found himself unable to move.

Cheng Miao had opened her eyes the moment Qi Jiajia rose. As soon as Liu Xue’s Jump Rope bound the Landlord, she rushed him with the Fishbone Dagger in hand.

Qin Musong’s training had greatly increased her speed and strength. With clean, efficient strikes, she severely wounded the Landlord while he was still tightly restrained.

The Landlord might have been a ghost, but he was not particularly powerful. Cheng Miao estimated that the jump rope could hold him for another two minutes.

The Fishbone Dagger could directly damage ghosts. The Landlord had already learned that the hard way, and now the sight of it made him tremble like a leaf.

“Who is Shen Xin?” Cheng Miao asked without wasting time.

The Landlord stammered. A heartbeat later, a deep gash appeared on his leg, exposing rotting bone.

He screamed in pain. Having experienced a ghost’s shriek before, Cheng Miao immediately pressed the dagger to his throat. “Quiet.”

Cheng Miao usually seemed cold, but her words and actions were generally gentle.

Now, however, she had every intention of killing him. The murderous intent radiating from her felt almost tangible, and the Landlord instantly shut his mouth.

“She was a tenant.”

“Which room?”

“…703.”

“Did you have anything to do with her death?”

“No! I absolutely did not kill her!”

Cheng Miao narrowed her eyes and asked one final question. “Who was the killer?”

Despair crossed the Landlord’s grayish face. “I can’t say. I can’t…”

Cheng Miao did not hesitate again. The Fishbone Dagger swept across his throat, slicing through the ghost’s windpipe. The Landlord gave two soundless howls before dissolving into black smoke, all of which the dagger absorbed.

Qin Musong had refused to let Cheng Miao remain under the Landlord’s surveillance for five days. Since she could not change rooms, he had proposed another solution: kill the already-dead Landlord a second time.

Cheng Miao’s dagger could harm spirits, so she was capable of doing exactly that.

Once the Landlord was gone, Cheng Miao would be safe.

At the time, she had thought the idea was absurdly simple and brutal.

Now that she and Qi Jiajia had worked together to KO the Landlord, Cheng Miao had only one thought: that felt amazing!

Violent clears were the GOAT!

When Cheng Miao and Qi Jiajia emerged, the two men waiting outside relaxed. They had been busy all day and had even missed lunch. It was about time to head to the second floor for dinner.

Without that constant sensation of being watched, Cheng Miao felt lighter all over. Still, she kept thinking about the Landlord’s final words. He could not name the killer…

Her eyes narrowed. Either the rules themselves frightened him, or the true murderer did.

The five Longtime Tenants should have been roughly equal in power, since they were trapped together inside the apartment building. In that case, the rules were probably what prevented him from speaking.

Cheng Miao shrugged. Violence worked in this instance, but they clearly could not beat the answer to the escape conditions out of someone.

Only four people delivered dinner that evening. The players were curious but did not dare ask why. Baili Qianqiu, who had been missing all day, merely curved his lips. Few people noticed.

With the Landlord gone, the remaining four Longtime Tenants all wore thunderous expressions.

Cheng Miao nearly laughed when she saw their faces.

The other players had no idea where the Longtime Tenants’ sudden hostility came from. They could only lower their heads and eat.

Fortunately, there was nothing strange about the food that night, and everyone finally had a filling meal.

As usual, the assessment game for the night was announced after dinner. The Pregnant Woman spoke again, her voice even more ghostly than the night before.

“Tonight’s assessment was supposed to belong to the Landlord. Since he is absent, I will announce it in his place.”
Gu Jian covered his face dramatically. “The Landlord isn’t here anymore? We’ll miss him!”

The Pregnant Woman’s expression instantly darkened. Her smooth face began to dry and wrinkle, while her pupils spread until black filled both eyes. In the candlelight, the sight was especially horrifying.

Everyone knew the Longtime Tenants were not normal, but seeing a ghost reveal itself up close was still a shock. The players shrank backward.

Gu Jian did not. He even craned his neck closer. “I still can’t tell how you died. There aren’t enough clues.”

The others stared at him. Please, for the love of everything, stop talking!

When the Pregnant Woman realized she could not frighten Gu Jian, she resumed her original kindly human appearance, though her face remained expressionless.

The Landlord was dead. She did not know how he had died, and there was no trace left of him. He had vanished completely.

She wanted to kill the man in front of her, suck his brain dry, and watch him beg for mercy in terror.

But he had not broken any rules, so she could do nothing to him. Besides… she might not even be able to defeat him.

“The Landlord… Is the Landlord dead?” an incredulous voice asked from the crowd.

Cheng Miao glanced over. It was Su Yang, whose mental state had improved somewhat.

Old Zhao’s team had temporarily taken him in. Standing among them, Su Yang muttered, “After Miss Cheng and the others searched the Landlord’s apartment, no one saw him again. Could Miss Cheng have…”

He belatedly clapped a hand over his mouth, but the Longtime Tenants had already heard. Their gazes shot toward Cheng Miao at the front.

Cheng Miao neither confirmed nor denied it. She simply frowned. “Why are you looking at me? Aren’t you supposed to announce the assessment game?”

Su Yang’s slip of the tongue had now made every player and ghost present suspect that Cheng Miao was responsible for the Landlord’s disappearance.

The players admired her but also feared being implicated. The Longtime Tenants might as well have stuck a sign reading PRIMARY TARGET to Cheng Miao’s forehead.

Cheng Miao did not care. Rules governed the instance, and the rules were absolute. Even if the Longtime Tenants liked her, breaking a rule would still get her killed.

So why worry whether they targeted her? Players were always targets inside an instance.

Only Qi Jiajia stared at Su Yang with chilling intensity. Even Old Zhao felt cold under that gaze. Just as he was about to defend his temporary teammate, Qi Jiajia abruptly looked away.

The Pregnant Woman pointed at Room 201, where Fan Tiantian had died, and gave them an eerie smile. “Tonight’s assessment is the Four Corners Game.”

Several players went pale. The Four Corners Game was famous enough that most people had heard something about it.

Four people played. At midnight, they entered an empty room with the lights off and stood in separate corners, each facing the wall.

Once the game began, the person in any corner walked clockwise to the next one, gently patted the shoulder of the person standing there, then stopped and took their place.

The person who had been tapped did the same, walking to the next corner and tapping the next player’s shoulder. Whenever someone reached an empty corner, they coughed once before continuing.

The terrifying part was that after the game had gone on for a while, the coughing stopped.

That meant there was no longer an empty corner, yet someone was still walking.

An extra “person” had joined the original players in the game.

The Longtime Tenants brightened at the players’ ashen faces. The Pregnant Woman licked her bright red lips and looked maliciously at Cheng Miao.

“So, which players will participate tonight?”