Chapter 59: Chapter 59: An Even Weirder Future
The prophecy in the jar stopped abruptly there. Countless streams of turbulent mist swirled, churning the projected images of Mirror Alley, the "Gao Tian" within it, and the skin-peeling old man into nothing but phantoms.
"Same as before, no beginning and no end..."
A fragment of the future, ending just as inexplicably as it began.
The jar itself, of course, offered no explanation.
That was its nature: it only showed, it never explained.
Every event from the future that the jar displayed might have its minor details change, but the major event itself would almost certainly not deviate.
Just as Gao Tian, outside the jar, was pondering its mysteries, the gray mist inside began to surge and roil, and a new vision slowly materialized.
The prophecy, surprisingly, wasn’t over. Another fragment of the future was unfolding before him.
This time, the scene switched to a dark, windowless room. The perspective began outside the door as it was pushed open, then slowly panned into the room’s interior.
On the door, a golden plaque read the three digits: 525.
Judging by the layout of the hallway outside the room, this had to be the fifth floor of the Living Human Apartment.
This scene was slightly more normal. It was most likely a situation the administrator team encountered after going upstairs.
Gao Tian watched in silence. He was very curious about what this team would encounter on the upper floors.
But after seeing the situation inside Room 525, Gao Tian could no longer remain calm.
He had originally thought that the "Gao Tian" in Mirror Alley suddenly going berserk and wrestling with a skin-peeling old man was absurd enough. But compared to the absurdity of the scene in this room, the first one paled in comparison.
The room itself was quite large, and with no large furniture, it seemed even more spacious. The floor was covered with colorful soft mats to prevent a child from getting hurt if they fell while running. This must have been a home with children.
All sorts of toys were scattered across the floor. Foam building blocks for a preschooler, race cars and Transformers for a boy, a pink doll. It looked as if no adult had tidied up in a long time; they were just piled messily everywhere.
’Looks like this family’s children... were quite numerous?’
Judging by the variety of toys, there were at least seven or eight children in this household.
’That’s a huge number of kids for one family.’
As the gray mist in the jar continued to dissipate, more of the scene in Room 525 was revealed to Gao Tian watching from the outside.
A girl in a Lolita dress, her expression placid and her features as exquisite as a doll’s, was sitting amidst the scattered toys, playing house.
She held a Barbie doll in one hand and a green T-Rex in the other, mimicking a conversation between the two. In front of her was a toy dining table, set with a plastic cake and cookie toys.
If a child were doing this, it would all seem perfectly normal.
But the one performing these actions was an adult woman—and an acquaintance of Gao Tian’s at that.
It was Xia Ta.
In some fragment of the future, in the playroom of Room 525 on the fifth floor, Xia Ta was imitating a kindergartener, earnestly playing house amidst a floor full of toys.
She seemed completely relaxed, utterly unaware that she was on the fifth floor of the Living Human Apartment, or how dangerous her current situation was.
The fourth floor was already terrifying enough. The fifth floor was certain to be far more dangerous. At this moment, Xia Ta was all alone, trapped in this room. Her teammates, Jiang Yang and Zhao Zhenjia, were nowhere to be seen. Her situation could only be described as precarious.
She could trigger a death rule at any moment.
’What on earth is Xia Ta doing? Has her mind been corrupted? Has her mental state regressed to that of a child?’
Gao Tian watched from outside the jar, his heart pounding in horror. If he could interfere with the future inside the jar, he would have plunged his hand right in to pull the miniature Xia Ta out of that terrifying room.
As the mist in the jar rose once more, Room 525, the floor of toys, and the earnestly playing Xia Ta all melted into the gray haze, disappearing like a phantom.
The Future Jar’s second prophecy had also ended, just as inexplicably and incompletely as the first.
The fragment was so bizarre, he wouldn’t even know how to begin to warn Xia Ta.
’Hey, you’re going to go crazy in the future, so don’t go playing house by yourself in a toy room?’
Inside the jar, only the eternally meditating Skeleton Adept remained.
There was no explanation. Whatever had happened was left entirely up to the observer to guess.
Gao Tian shook the jar a few more times, confirming that a third prophecy wouldn’t appear. Only then did he put the mysterious jar away.
...
...
"Well, as for me, I came back from the United States this time and picked up three new titles.
"I’m the 15th-generation heir of the Daoist Dragon Tiger Mountain, a Class-A Exorcist certified by the Vatican, a Great Shamaness of Africa, a disciple of the Chief Buddhist Zen Master, Guest of Honor for the Supernatural Research Association, Kaidan Investigator No. 107, an Honorary Member of the Scottish Masons, a Haitian Mambo Priestess, a Druid, Master of the Secret Mantras of Japan’s Vajra Sect...
"You dragged me all the way back to the country from thousands of miles away just to investigate the fourth floor of some tiny apartment building?
"Give me a break. For a situation like this, you could just find a couple of construction workers. This kind of thing doesn’t require someone of my caliber, does it?"
Staring at the strange woman before him in the apartment’s first-floor lobby, Jiang Yang’s face twisted into a pained expression.
He suddenly found himself desperately missing Gao Tian.
At least he was a normal human being who could understand the situation, follow commands, and communicate. It didn’t matter how strong he was; at least he wouldn’t be a burden on the team.
This four-time mission completer that Xia Ta had summoned back from the United States was completely unhinged, practically indistinguishable from a psychiatric patient. He would normally keep his distance from someone like this in his daily life, let alone go to the fourth floor with them.
Lan Chu was a woman in her mid-twenties. A messy mop of hair was draped over her shoulders. But the most chilling feature was the scars at the corners of her mouth, which stretched backward. Though long healed, they left deep marks, as if someone had once tried to rip her mouth open.
She had stumbled into the Living Human Apartment two years ago. Compared to Lan Chu’s hellish childhood, however, this place felt more like a cozy home. After completing four missions with lightning speed, the interval before her next mission was set at half a year, so Lan Chu hadn’t been back to the Living Human Apartment in a long time.
There was something wrong with her mind. Due to an accident in her childhood where she lived with a ghost, the part of her brain responsible for fear was completely fried. As a result, she often performed bold and insane acts during missions. If Xia Ta hadn’t insisted, no one would have wanted to team up with Lan Chu.
She knew a little about the terrifying encounters on the apartment’s fourth floor from her international chats with Xia Ta, but she was completely unfazed.
She had encountered far more terrifying supernatural events abroad. In South Africa, she pissed off a local deity who chased her across half the continent. In the Middle East, she botched a local ritual, turning an entire village’s population into ghosts who are still waiting for her to come back so they can give her a "warm" welcome. And in the United States, she had five curses, two Haunted Houses, and four Satanic Churches after her; the moment her plane landed, countless enthusiastic "fans" were there to greet her at the airport.
When you have that many lice, you stop itching. To her, the Living Human Apartment’s mission was just one of countless curses she carried. It wasn’t a high priority.
Over in North America, she had also checked into a Haunted House called "Whisper’s End"—which translates to "Corridor of Final Silence" in Chinese—that was similar in nature to the Living Human Apartment. Periodically, Lan Chu had to have dinner at a designated location. Residents who refused to arrive on time for the meal would be forcibly hanged by supernatural forces.
Xia Ta paid no mind to the chattering Lan Chu. She needed Lan Chu’s abilities, and she knew she had to endure her bizarre way of thinking.
She unfolded an old manuscript. This was the Rules of Horror that Yu Sheng had left for the upstairs team.
Above the third floor was a world where pandemonium reigned. Illogical rules of death were everywhere. One misstep and you could die without ever knowing how.
These were the laws of survival that the monster, Yu Sheng, had scouted out with his own life.
Or, as Xia Ta preferred to call it: the Rules of Horror.
1. Residents of the fourth floor and above rarely leave their rooms. Anyone you see in the hallways is not an original resident of the apartment.
2. There should be 13 steps between each floor. Please check carefully. If there are 14 steps, it means the stairs are temporarily unusable. Leave immediately.
3. There are a total of 24 rooms on each floor; the highest door number is 24 (e.g., 424, 524). If a 25th room appears at the end of the hallway, get away from it immediately.
4. If the shoes outside a door are arranged with one toe pointing in and one pointing out, it means the owner of that room does not welcome guests. Do not force your way into that room.
5. The sound of a hammer hitting a wall should never be heard on any floor. If you hear such a sound, leave that floor immediately, at any cost.
(Note: This rule has the highest priority. If it conflicts with any other rule, follow this one.)
6. The sixth-floor area has been sealed. Without the support of a national-level administrative force, private individuals are forbidden from entering.
Otherwise, turning into a ghost upstairs will cause unnecessary trouble for other explorers.
...
No one knew how Yu Sheng had deduced these Rules of Horror.
He never explained.
"So, there are four of us this time, right? That weird little monk from before isn’t joining our team.
"So when are we finally leaving to explore the fourth floor?"
Lan Chu was already getting impatient. To her, the Living Human Apartment was just another Haunted House to explore.
"Where did the Yu Sheng who wrote all this run off to?
"I don’t think I’ve seen him all morning."
Zhao Zhenjia asked, a little slow on the uptake.
Logically, there should be some explanation for why they had to follow these rules, what the penalty was for breaking them, and what remedies were available.
Yu Sheng should have at least given them some hints.
Xia Ta said calmly:
"An hour ago, a new green-character mission appeared on the wall of the first-floor lobby.
"At first, I thought it was one of those missions for second-floor residents, the ones below three completions.
"But when I got closer, I saw it: the seventh green-character mission."
There was only one person in the apartment qualified to take on the seventh mission.
