Chapter 267: Chapter 228: The Male and Female Villains
As a group of people arrived at the sixth floor and turned the corner of the hallway, they could see from a distance several large black plastic bags piled up in front of someone’s apartment door.
An inauspicious premonition fermented in everyone’s hearts, and as they drew closer, they realized it was indeed room 6037. The door was shut tight, the edges of the metal door were rusted as if it hadn’t been opened in a long time, and more crucially, there was a faint smell of blood in the air.
They looked at each other but no one made a move, though by now everyone was quite clear on what the black bags contained.
In the end, it was Fu Changxue who stepped forward, slowly opened a black bag, and as it was opened, a pungent smell of blood burst forth, revealing a heap of minced meat and chopped bones.
Enduring the stinging smell, Fu Changxue rummaged through the mess and eventually pulled out a piece of fabric. Though soaked in fresh blood, it was recognizable as originally pink, and among them all, only Xu Xinyi had a light pink piece of clothing.
It was no surprise that Xu Xinyi was dead, but the gruesomeness of her death was beyond everyone’s expectations. Old Lady Wu from room 6037 was that terrifying.
No one was interested in turning over the rotting flesh, and in silence, they left, heading down the right-hand emergency stairway to the first floor of the apartment, where a new task awaited them outside the security room, alongside a letter marked with a bloody handprint.
After opening the bloody envelope, it contained, as before, two letters, but their contents were quite shocking.
The first letter was written as if by Old Lady Wu of room 6037, filled with resentment, furiously accusing Xu Xinyi of being a quack who swindled money by carelessly treating her son, and after being exposed, still showed no remorse or willingness to compensate, thus she had been punished according to the rules of the apartment.
However, Old Lady Wu also expressed in her letter a hope for forgiveness towards Xu Xinyi, for after all, she was young, and hopefully, this lesson would ensure she would never swindle anyone again.
Having read this letter, everyone was silent; it had bloodstains all over it, presumably written by Old Lady Wu after she hacked Xu Xinyi to pieces.
"The refusal to compensate must mean money too, just as long as Xu Xinyi had paid enough compensation, she wouldn’t have had to die," Yang Xiao said, sharing his analysis, which wasn’t hard to understand.
"You’re right," Tong Han replied, picking up Cheng Ya’s jacket. "I’ve checked Cheng Ya and all her money was gone."
Cheng Ya’s deposit alone was a full 17 yuan, making her one of the wealthiest together with Yang Xiao, likely her money had bought her life back, as judging from the bounty, the elevator task was so far the most dangerous of them all.
The information that money could buy life was critically important, in other words, as long as one had enough money, even if some mistakes were made during the task, at least their life could be spared.
Upon hearing this, Li Qingxuan was overcome with excitement; after all, the next letter was for him, and he had survived the task successfully. He was eager to see the bounty he would receive.
But when the second letter was opened, everyone was stunned; it contained only a single banknote, an old one yuan bill.
"What’s this about?!" Li Qingxuan was dumbfounded, snatching the envelope from Fu Changxue, shaking it ferociously, but no matter how much he shook, there was nothing else.
"Easy now, Li bro, calm down, read the letter first," Fu Changxue quickly tried to console him.
Upon unfolding the letter, the message inside was extremely simple, just five big characters written with confident strokes: Useless Piece of Crap.
"Use... Useless piece of crap?"
In an instant, everyone’s gaze focused on Li Qingxuan’s face, with confusion, uncertainty, but mostly, sympathy... A mix of complex emotions swirled in their eyes, their bewilderment surprisingly uniform, wondering just how useless one had to be to compel the ghost to write these five words.
Feeling the discrimination from the others, Li Qingxuan nervously tried to defend himself, "Don’t jump to conclusions, it’s not what you think!"
Yang Xiao took the wrinkled one yuan bill and stuffed it into Li Qingxuan’s hands, patting his shoulder and sighing, "Don’t bother explaining, bro, this one yuan says it all."
Fu Changxue also stepped in to mediate, urging everyone not to discriminate, "Alright, let’s leave it at that, those who know, know."
Li Qingxuan: "..."
The commotion temporarily subsided. Though Li Qingxuan tried to explain and recounted last night’s events in detail, it was clear no one believed him.
With Xu Xinyi gone, only eight people remained. The tasks had to go on, and today it was Yang Xiao and the others’ turn to choose.
The patrol task seemed relatively secure, but the uncertainty was too great. To be honest, Yang Xiao was very resistant to dealing with the ghost couple, so he still chose to take on a tenant’s task.
This time he picked the task commissioned by Mr. Chen from room 8009, which was to accompany his youngest son. A few sentences in the commission caught Yang Xiao’s attention.
Mr. Chen emphasized that his younger son was a kindhearted and helpful child, just occasionally mischievous, and it was for these minor things that he faced collective targeting by his teachers and classmates, even being forced to leave school. Mr. Chen hoped to find someone who could come over and keep company with his son, guiding him in his studies while providing encouragement and care.
The task was still set for nighttime, 11 o’clock.
The choice was made because Yang Xiao enjoyed dealing with children, and second, and most importantly, Mo Daidai lived on the eighth floor.
This person had made a strong impression on Yang Xiao. Quick-witted and cold-hearted, he could be considered the most difficult to deal with among them.
Yang Xiao had been looking for an opportunity to probe the man’s background, and once it was confirmed that he was an Evil Cultivator, he would kill him immediately, as any delay could lead to trouble.
The second task was snatched by Wang Longhui, who had to visit and cook for a lonely old person living alone. The location was in Room 9032 on the 9th floor, at 11:15 p.m.
As for the night shift duty, it fell to Fu Changxue and Tong Han, which was a rule set early in the morning, and no one raised any objections.
After resolving the duties, everyone left the security room. Day had broken, and the apartment was silent as death. They followed the path they had walked the day before, skirted the wall, and walked out of the Dongzhou Apartment area. Just as they squeezed through the gap in the collapsed cement wall, they bumped into a vendor pushing a bicycle and selling candied haws on the street.
The vendor was elderly, with graying temples, and wore an old-fashioned deep green cotton military cap. Upon closer inspection, it was none other than the man they had met the day before.
The old man was startled to see them and immediately became anxious, "Oh my, you... you youngsters have a death wish? How did I tell you yesterday?"
Yang Xiao immediately understood—the timeline inside and outside the apartment was different. The ghosts of the deceased tenants were trapped on the day of their deaths, while time outside was progressing normally.
The fact that they had run into this old man twice, encountering him just as they left the apartment area, was obviously not normal. It was possible this old man knew something.
"Old man, we want to ask you about something," Tong Han said with a smile, her demeanor completely changed, very cordial.
But the old man did not give her any face, waving his hands dismissively, "Don’t ask, my mouth is the tightest, I won’t tell you anything."
After the old man mounted his bicycle and was about to leave, just when everyone thought they would get nowhere, the old man suddenly stopped and looked behind them with a strange expression.
Following the old man’s gaze, the group noticed Yang Xiao standing there, fanning himself with a crisp new 5 yuan note.
"Old man, are you selling these candied haws?" Yang Xiao asked casually.
"Selling!" The old man immediately got off his bike, parked it properly, and his attitude did a 180-degree turn, his face breaking into a smile, "If I don’t sell them, what’s the use of walking the streets, young man, what would you like?"
"How much are they?"
"50 cents a string, how many do you want?"
"Get me one, one for each person," Yang Xiao said, waving the 5 yuan note, perfectly embodying the spirit of a nouveau riche.
"Alright!"
When the old man had picked 8 candied haws and was about to hand them to Yang Xiao with one hand while the other was ready to take the money, Yang Xiao didn’t hand over the cash directly but instead changed the subject, "Old man, how many years has this Dongzhou Apartment been deserted?"
The old man was taken aback but glanced at the 5 yuan note that was almost in his hand and replied, "Close to... close to 10 years now."
"To your knowledge, have there been any strange incidents around here over these 10 years?" Yang Xiao probed further.
The old man’s face showed displeasure, but when Yang Xiao pulled out a second 5 yuan note, all his reluctance evaporated instantly, "Oh, there’s been plenty of strange incidents, some of them sound pretty scary. Not to mention, just a few years ago, there was a murderer who, pursued by the police, escaped into this... this place and then vanished from the face of the earth, never to be seen again."
At this point, the old man lowered his voice and looked scared, "I’m telling you, everyone outside was saying... saying it was eaten by this apartment."
"What kind of murderer?"
"I don’t know the specifics, only that it was a man and a woman, very vicious, killed a lot of people in another province, heavy with blood debts. Oh right, they were called...something like the ’Malevolent Duo’," the old man recalled, stroking his chin.
The group was startled and immediately thought of the ghost couple wandering the apartment late at night, surmising that they were the so-called dangerous outsiders. Their task here was indeed to deal with this duo who had killed countless people.
After answering Yang Xiao’s questions, the old man stretched out his hand with a smile, eager to receive the 10 yuan—a big deal for him.
"Old man, are your candied haws sweet?" Yang Xiao asked again.
"Sweet, of course, they’re sweet, what else would candied haws be if not sweet."
The next second, the old man was stunned to see Yang Xiao carefully fold the two 5 yuan notes and then tuck them back into his pocket.
"That’s too bad, I don’t eat sweets," Yang Xiao sighed, showing a hint of regret as he opened his hands.
The old man was flabbergasted, looking at the others with disbelief, and they all cooperatively said they no longer wanted the haws either, as none of them ate sweets.
As they watched the old man pedal away, the sound of his loud cursing lingered in the air, but Yang Xiao didn’t care—he was an orphan.
