On the balcony were three bloodstained faces wearing eerie smiles.
They were his "father," "mother," and "sister."
Blood dripped incessantly from the balcony above. At first, Gao Tian thought it was falling from their faces. Then he realized cheeks couldn't bleed that heavily or continuously. The true source of the blood was their jagged, severed necks.
All three of their necks had been hacked through; now, only their heads remained. Behind them, three pale arms held those heads out over the balcony. Fresh blood still dripped from the severed stumps, falling drop by drop onto Gao Tian below.
Even reduced to a severed head dangling over the edge from a long, pale arm, Gao Xi actually greeted him cheerfully:
"Hello there, Gao Tian. Are you a human or a ghost? You almost fooled all of us.
"The ability to alter someone's memories... we always thought we were the only ones who had it. This is the first time in our lives we've seen something else with the same power. You twisted my memories with your words earlier, didn't you? We only just woke up from it. Honestly, having your memories tampered with doesn't feel good at all.
"So, you must be a ghost too. That's why you have a ghost's abilities.
"But whatever you are, it's all over now. The Floor Manager is here, and it's very angry that we didn't obediently keep you inside so it could open the door and eat you. Not only that, you actually altered our memories, leaving us in the Study to block the Floor Manager for you. You really are so mean.
"Given our incompetence, it came to handle this personally."Although ghosts are immortal and indestructible, that doesn't mean we don't feel pain. Once the Floor Manager finishes eating you, how will it deal with us?
"Having our heads pulled straight off like this... our necks hurt so much we're breaking out in cold sweats. But we can't die, so we just have to endure it.
"Honestly, sometimes I really envy humans. Once the pain reaches a certain point, you die, and then you don't have to endure it anymore. Compared to the torture the Floor Manager is preparing for us later, what we're suffering right now probably won't even count as anything..."
This Memory Ghost was a chatterbox. Despite being reduced to three heads dangling in midair from pale, monstrous hands, it still babbled on and on.
The owner of those pale arms—the one who had twisted off the Memory Ghost's heads, the "Li Xing" who had knocked incessantly on the door and whom the ghost fearfully called the "Floor Manager"—made its move.
Even though three hands were already gripping the three heads, Gao Tian saw a fourth, equally bloodless arm stretch out from behind the balcony like a slithering, crooked snake. The arm's flexibility was absolutely absurd. It bypassed the underside of the balcony and lunged straight toward Gao Tian, who was hanging in midair.
It stretched over two meters long, far exceeding the reach of a normal human arm. Yet the thing still hadn't reached its limit. Four or five joints twisted together, constantly adjusting its trajectory. The hand opened its five fingers, lunging for Gao Tian's head like a striking snake.
In truth, while "Gao Xi" was talking, Gao Tian hadn't stopped moving. He had continued to carefully climb down the blanket, desperate to reach the foothold of the Third Floor.
But he was already missing two fingers on his left hand and couldn't exert any strength. Meanwhile, the abnormally long, multijointed arm moved far faster than it looked. In the blink of an eye, it was right above his head. At this distance, Gao Tian could even see the countless creases in its palm. And the sweat stains.
It was exactly like the hand of a living person.
This thing could yank off a person's head as easily as popping a cork. If it touched him, would he have any chance of escaping? Gao Tian's heart hammered wildly. He knew he needed to move faster, but haste made waste. The more desperate he was to reach the Third Floor, the slower his descent became.
Seeing the ghostly hand about to grab him, Gao Tian grew so tense that his injured hand suddenly gave out. He lost his grip on the blanket and plummeted from above the Third Floor.
It was all over now. Suspended in midair, Gao Tian knew he was finished. Rather than falling into a ghost's hands to be slowly tortured, it would be much better to just fall to his death.
Just as this thought crossed his mind, he suddenly realized that even though he had let go of the blanket, his body had only dropped for a split second before stopping midair. It felt as if his feet were planted on solid ground.
What exactly was going on?
Shocked and bewildered, Gao Tian looked down. Two slender arms stretched out from the Third Floor window, firmly gripping his legs. It was the girl dressed in Lolita fashion; Gao Tian had briefly seen her in the first-floor lobby.
Except at that time, his memories had already been polluted. His mind had been entirely focused on hurrying "home" to see his parents. He hadn't paid any attention to the three weirdos in the lobby, much less noticed that the sign at the entrance to the residential building read "Living Apartment."
Now, he saw this girl's slender arms catching his feet from below, unmoving as a mountain. With the healthy weight of a grown man, Gao Tian was held up by this delicate girl as easily as if he were a baby chick. How could a normal human woman possess such monstrous strength? Only a ghost could have such astonishing arm power.
Filled with suspicion and alarm, Gao Tian asked:
"Are you a human or a ghost?"
The girl's expression was utterly blank, like a porcelain doll completely devoid of emotion:
"If I were a ghost, I would tear you in half right now to shut your mouth.
"Just kidding. Below the Third Floor is the Living Apartment. Ghosts cannot go downstairs. Climb through the window first before we talk."
She slowly lowered Gao Tian, who was still suspended between the Third and fourth floors. A delicate girl lowering Gao Tian—a man two heads taller than her—as easily as holding up an action figure... the scene was incredibly bizarre.
As if to confirm the girl's words about the "Living Apartment," the three heads on the fourth floor shrieked in unison, "Don't let him escape!" The snakelike white arm refused to give up, continuing to stretch downward in pursuit.
But right as it reached the height of the Third Floor window, the arm suddenly spasmed violently. Fine green vegetation sprouted from its rotting, decaying skin, as if trying to bind it to the wall. Realizing it had crossed the line, the ghost's arm recoiled rapidly as if electrocuted, retreating back inside the fourth-floor balcony along with the three heads hanging outside.
The ghost had backed down—a rare occurrence. After suffering such a huge setback, it gave up its pursuit of Gao Tian just like that.
It was exactly as the delicate girl had said—
Below the Third Floor, only living people could enter and exit. This was a restricted zone for ghosts.
Still shaken to his core, Gao Tian practically tumbled and crawled his way through the Third Floor window and into the girl's room.
The room had an old European style. Dimly lit, rows of bookshelves were crammed with parchment-bound books. A fireplace crackled in the distance, and a large, dark red carpet covered the floor. This carpet color was the most ominous kind—even if someone died, lying on the floor and spraying blood everywhere, the carpet's hue wouldn't change in the slightest.
The three people standing in the room were the very same three Gao Tian had seen in the first-floor lobby: the silver-haired teenager in a black jacket whose eyes were narrowed into slits; the delicate, monstrously strong girl in an elaborate Lolita dress, now dusting off her hands; and the thin monk in a gray robe, whose scalp was shiny and cleaner than the bottom of an empty wallet.
"Here comes another one, tricked into the Living Apartment. It seems the number of new residents in the Living Apartment has gone up this month.
"But the first thing this guy did upon arriving at the apartment was voluntarily go up to the fourth floor, and he actually came back alive. Such bold courage supported by real skill."
The silver-haired teenager toyed with a lighter in his hand while observing Gao Tian, the newly arrived rookie.
Back in the lobby, he had seen Gao Tian calmly walk over to the elevator and press the "up" button.
He had absolutely no idea that Gao Tian's memories had already been tampered with at the time. Gao Tian hadn't known this was the Living Apartment, nor did he know about the Fierce Ghost Prohibition below the Third Floor, or that above the Third Floor was a playground for demons and monsters.
From the teenager's perspective, Gao Tian's decision to willingly head to the fourth floor and retreat in one piece on his very first day in the Living Apartment showed that he was both arrogant and somewhat capable.
The young monk performed a Buddhist salutation:
"Amitabha."
The Lolita girl, her eyes like emeralds, quietly watched Gao Tian:
"Next time, don't rashly go upstairs without a full investigation.
"The ghosts on every floor and in every room are entirely different. Some Fierce Ghosts are absolutely unsolvable existences; as soon as you enter, you will definitely die.
"I know you're very skilled. Now that you've come to this apartment, there will be plenty of opportunities to court death in the future. There's no need to rush into dying right now."
Gao Tian knew she also thought he was just acting tough. This was a misunderstanding that couldn't be cleared up right away.
"Since you're here, you'll also become a new resident of the Living Apartment. You will either complete ten tasks and leave this place, or you will die.
"Let me introduce us. I am Xia Ta, this bald head is Yusheng, and the guy who dyed his hair like an old man and can never open his eyes is named Jiang Yang."
The Lolita girl narrowed her eyes, introducing them to him one by one:
"We are the administrators of this apartment—for now. People die here every month. Those who luckily survive, who manage to live a bit longer, are considered administrators. Perhaps we will also die in the future, maybe even tomorrow. And who knows, one day, when all the residents with more seniority than you are dead, you'll be the one standing in my place, responsible for guiding the newcomers entering the apartment."
Her words were concise, and many things were left ambiguous, but Gao Tian frequently read web novels and knew some of the most basic tropes. Moreover, after being hunted by a Fierce Ghost released by the Galan Society, he had already accepted that supernatural phenomena existed in this world.
It was just that being dragged into two different supernatural incidents within the span of two days was truly terrible luck.
Gao Tian let out a long sigh and made a final confirmation:
"In this apartment, as long as you enter, you become a resident here, forcibly bound to the place.
"Then, every so often, it will issue dangerous supernatural tasks to its residents. Managing to survive counts as completing a task.
"Once you complete ten tasks, you can unbind from it and leave this place.
"And if you don't follow the apartment's demands, you will be obliterated in various ways.
"Am I understanding this correctly?"