The appearance of his superior made Zhou Qi’an exude a hostility he usually did not have. Even as he neared the rice shop, his face remained as cold as snow.
He pushed up his glasses. “Forget it. Let’s collect the debt first.”
Every mission was a gamble with his life. The only consolation was that all missions were paid immediately upon completion.
Yet this time was an exception. Beneath the blood-red special mission prompt, there was only a single, dry word: Completed.
Zhou Qi’an hated being owed wages the most.
When he stepped into the rice shop again, where the furnace crackled and sizzled, he did not see the sterilized suit. He did not know if the person only appeared at night.
He had arrived full of vigor, but the eerie aura inside washed over him. Keeping his face cold, Zhou Qi’an said,
“Are you there?”
“The task you assigned has been completed. However, eliminating the building’s owner entirely is still quite difficult… You see, could you give me something for protection?”
His tone carried a faint sorrow, but in truth, he was boasting about his own achievements. “I destroyed the building owner’s protective charm. He won’t let me go.”
The building was old, and the female ghost had died long ago. If she were still alive, it would not be excessive to use honorifics when addressing her.
A full minute passed. The temperature, which had briefly dropped when Zhou Qi’an entered, finally began to rise again.
The female ghost did not appear.
Did she run away?
“…”
Zhou Qi’an silently cursed the debtor ghost’s ancestors for eighteen generations, but his expression showed no dissatisfaction. In fact, as he stepped out, he solemnly declared:
“Rest assured, a heartless capitalist like the building’s owner—I will eliminate him.”
Just wait. I’ll bring my superior back to find you!
Zhou Qi’an, his face ashen, was about to regroup with the College student when the panel in his mind suddenly changed. Then, the long-lost mechanical voice rang out:
[Special Side Mission Completed.]
[Reward Issued. Please check your personal attribute panel promptly.]
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes lit up, and he immediately checked.
Aside from his limbs and hair, a new category had been added to his attribute panel:
[Bones (Special Advanced Evolution)]
Seeing the word “Advanced” filled him with the thrill of receiving an unexpected windfall. But in the next second, his pupils slightly dilated.
[Bone Poison. A blessing from Jin Taotao’s Rice Shop—your bones are naturally poisonous. Any monster that comes into direct contact or even extremely close contact with your bones will suffer a certain degree of contamination.]
Direct contact.
Extremely close contact?
What kind of blessing was this—one that could pierce through guts and organs?
Zhou Qi’an fell silent for a moment, forcing himself to focus on the word Advanced.
If the game classified it as advanced, at least the bone poison had to be truly powerful.
Take those invisible hands on the eighteenth floor, for example. If their flesh had decayed to the point of needing the bones scraped clean, they wouldn’t have fared well either.
“The evolutionary stages listed on the train ticket didn’t include bones.”
It belonged to a different category.
“I don’t know if this was a huge win or a massive loss.”
Zhou Qi’an shook his head, then suddenly heard a familiar voice calling him.
“Brother Zhou.”
The College student descended from the emergency exit. His oval face, somewhat resembling the female ghost’s, had not changed, but he had shed that chilling white dress.
Under the high-pressure environment of the instance, his attachment to Zhou Qi’an had grown by the day. The student said, “So that black-haired girl wasn’t trying to repay me. She wanted me to…”
“Be her scapegoat, right?”
The College student’s eyes were full of admiration. He had guessed that too?
Zhou Qi’an: “…”
For the first time, being admired made him feel insulted.
Mu Tianbai suddenly spoke. “Are you keeping him by your side as a mascot?”
His slightly furrowed brows revealed that his time spent working with the College student had already planted a murderous intent.
Zhou Qi’an said nothing.
Whether it was genuine kindness or false goodwill, at the very least, besides the College student, very few players could touch a sacred artifact and remain unharmed. That meant there was something special about him.
Suddenly, Zhou Qi’an felt an itch on his back—the sensation of a wound regenerating new flesh.
At the same time, the College student, who had been full of life just moments ago, suddenly weakened and slowly knelt on the ground.
His wounds were healing at an unnatural speed.
Even Zhou Qi’an, slow as he was, realized this had something to do with the student. He hesitated for a moment before asking,
“What’s your skill?”
Apart from advanced evolved species, most ordinary players had similar skills, all requiring growth over time. Seeing as the student had attempted to uphold labor laws, Zhou Qi’an decided to give him some help along the way, though he wasn’t exactly concerned.
“Healing.”
Mu Tianbai, who had just dismissed the student as useless: “…”
Zhou Qi’an recalled that not long ago, there had been a hot topic on the forum, second in popularity only to the sacred artifacts. It was about a newcomer who had acquired a healing skill.
In instances, the scarcest resource was healing items. One could imagine how valuable a healing skill was.
Two newcomers with healing talents appearing in such a short time—no matter how you looked at it, something felt off. Especially considering that before they emerged, this field had been completely empty.
The College student nodded firmly. He had also browsed the trending post on the Deep Sea Forum and said, “I think the other person is a Yang Beast.”
“?”
“It’s like this—after my initial species evolution, my panel had a note: Ice Sea Angel (Yin Beast).“
The air fell silent for a brief second.
Zhou Qi’an seemed to think of something and said solemnly, “The workings of fate are marvelous.”
Mu Tianbai calmly followed up, “Where Yin and Yang divide, dawn and dusk are born.”
The College student: “…”
“We’re complimenting you for being exceptional.”
In the instance, anything associated with the word “Yin” was rarely simple. But Zhou Qi’an didn’t say more. He dry-swallowed two anti-inflammatory pills. Since he and Bai Chanyi had used a contract item, he wasn’t worried about her tampering with the medicine.
“What about that book?” His throat was slightly bitter as he stretched out his hand. He had nearly lost his life in the top-floor office just to get that thing.
The College student handed it over. Since he had already read it, he began summarizing the important parts.
[Qimen Journal].
It was named that way because, at its core, it was the diary of the Jinxiang Building’s owner, mixed with some occult elements. The cover featured koi fish swimming in patterns resembling a Yin-Yang Bagua diagram—an auspicious symbol.
But the contents were anything but lucky. Among the pages were several formations and ancient texts related to ghost-raising.
As Zhou Qi’an flipped through, he shook his head. “What kind of normal person even keeps a diary?”
He thought of Xun Er.
It was understandable if good people wrote diaries—they had a clear conscience. But what kind of mindset did it take for someone to meticulously document all the evil deeds they had done?
Mu Tianbai: “I write one.”
A silent voice from the shadows added: So do I.
“…”
Zhou Qi’an skimmed through at lightning speed. Even when he came across particularly deranged passages, his expression didn’t change. The College student kept staring at him, unable to figure out what he was thinking.
The first half of the journal was largely similar to newspaper reports, detailing the rise and fall of Jin Furen, the owner of the Jinxiang Tower, and how he later tricked his fellow villagers out of their money—and even their labor.
Zhou Qi’an summed it up: “The ending of ‘a fellow townsman meets an old acquaintance’ is often ‘one villager scams another, and both end up in tears.’”
Jin Furen had wanted to turn Jinxiang Tower into a top-tier commercial complex, but the result was a mishmash that reeked of cheapness.
The building’s performance was abysmal. The villagers’ relocation compensation had gone up in smoke. They wanted nothing more than to beat him to death.
Losing both wealth and people—when furious villagers reached that point, they were truly capable of taking action.
Jin Furen knew that if things continued, even his life wouldn’t be safe. As a businessman, he was highly superstitious. To appease the villagers and give them an outlet for their rage, he sought out a feng shui master. The master gave him an extremely sinister suggestion: a human suppression ritual.
Using a human life to suppress the feng shui.
In the past, wealthy individuals in China often built special coffins on their rooftops, symbolizing rising in status and accumulating wealth.
To enhance the ritual’s effect, Jin Furen specifically remodeled the Jinxiang Tower to ensure its exterior appeared perfectly square.
But whose life should be sacrificed?
After some deliberation, the villagers held a vote and set their sights on a girl named Jin Zhi.
There were three reasons:
- Jin Zhi’s parents had died early, leaving her an orphan raised by the entire village. The villagers felt she was obligated to repay them.
- Jin Zhi had been accepted into College. She was talented, and the villagers superstitiously believed that after her death, her scholarly luck would bless other children in the village.
- …
Jin Furen’s journal noted that some villagers harbored a dark mentality. They believed that once a girl left the village, she would never return and would eventually be deceived by outsiders.
Besides, the name “Jin Zhi” sounded auspicious—perfect for use in a suppression ritual.
At the time, Jin Zhi had already been preparing to report to her College. Jin Furen instructed Jin Zhi’s closest friend to lure her to the building.
“There’s a part in here that mentions Jin Zhi’s best friend was born blind. That should be the female ghost on the fourth floor—the one who wanted me to be her scapegoat,” the College student muttered, curling his lips.
The long-haired girl with a meek personality hadn’t been directly informed of the plan by her parents, but she had vaguely sensed that something was wrong. Yet in the end, she allowed the villagers to manipulate her and chose to deceive Jin Zhi into returning.
After Jin Zhi was killed, the building did experience a brief period of prosperity. But soon after, all sorts of paranormal incidents began to occur.
Jin Furen had no choice but to seek out the feng shui master again.
- “Damn it, the feng shui master actually said our method of killing was too cruel. Well, even if you slaughter a pig, it’s going to struggle—how could the process not be cruel?”
- “…Ended up spending another sum to hire the feng shui master to deal with the ghost.”
- “The feng shui master actually died!! No idea if that consecrated prayer bead bracelet I bought for a fortune at the temple will be of any use. Luckily, I found some incomplete ancient texts in his clothing.”
- “Buddha bless me, let me survive this ordeal safely. If I make it through, I swear I will build temples, do good deeds, and make offerings every day!”
The College student seethed with righteous fury beside him. Zhou Qi’an didn’t comment much on Jin Zhi’s fate but instead asked what had happened after they went to the fourth floor to find the long-haired girl.
“We did a puzzle-solving quest to delay the scapegoat effect.”
Mu Tianbai had led the entire decryption process.
The College student had actually triggered the death mechanism on the first night. Completely undoing it was impossible—it was just a matter of whether he would be assimilated faster or escape the instance first.
Zhou Qi’an closed the Qimen Journal and said, “Something big is about to happen.”
The sudden recruitment at Jinxiang Tower and the long-haired girl’s desperate search for a scapegoat all seemed like silent omens that the building was on the verge of a major upheaval.
The College student, feeling uneasy, asked, “What do we do next?”
Zhou Qi’an coldly spat out one word: “Wait.”
Jin Furen’s prayer beads had been destroyed, and the female ghost, who had been accumulating resentment for so long, would surely go after him for revenge. But Jin Furen wouldn’t be easy to deal with either—according to the journal, he had been using formations to slowly siphon the resentment of the building’s dead souls to raise ghosts, meaning he had the power to fight back.
Once they had worn each other down, that would be the players’ chance.
The College student sympathized with the female ghost’s tragic fate, but he also knew that once someone became a ghost, killing became an instinct. In the end, all he could do was let out a long sigh.
Catching a glimpse of Zhou Qi’an’s ever-unwavering expression, he suddenly felt that things wouldn’t be so simple.
“Brother Zhou, do you…”
Did you have another plan?
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to ask. Zhou Qi’an’s attention was focused on Mu Tianbai.
He had long noticed that Mu Tianbai had a peculiar habit—his blinking frequency was much slower than normal. Every time he closed his eyes, he would pause for a few seconds before reopening them.
It gave off a surreal sense of daydreaming.
Sensing his gaze, Mu Tianbai didn’t bother explaining his condition. Instead, he said, “Think about what I told you before.”
The matter of the sacred artifact wouldn’t stay hidden for long. Time was running out. The best way to survive was to find a backer before fully developing one’s strength.
“Newbie protection fees—quite a bargain.”
Zhou Qi’an wasn’t angry. He had never been one to get worked up over blunt conversations.
“Do you know how little I make each month?”
Zhou Qi’an counted on his fingers. “Nine-to-five, overtime on weekends, midnight calls from the boss are the norm… After deducting insurance, I take home less than twenty thousand. Yet the strategies I’ve come up with have brought the company millions in revenue. From any angle, I’ve already paid my protection fees to my company.”
Mu Tianbai stared at him, completely unable to make sense of the words.
He didn’t even understand why the topic had suddenly shifted.
What was the point of paying protection fees to a company?
Was the company going to throw punches for him in a fight?
“Brother Zhou.” The College student suddenly opened his mouth wide in shock, staring ahead.
Had he seen a ghost?
It almost looked like he had spotted a company executive.
Their boss was walking straight toward them.
He was dressed in a business suit, but in the breast pocket where a handkerchief should be, a small piece of monster flesh had somehow gotten lodged.
Mu Tianbai frowned slightly at the approaching figure. What kind of half-human, half-ghost abomination was this?
“Didn’t you say you were going somewhere to work overtime?” Ignoring the other two, the boss walked straight up to Zhou Qi’an, his fingers stained with fresh blood that even a handkerchief couldn’t fully wipe away. “But you were just chatting?”
Zhou Qi’an remained silent.
The College student shivered. Even if he were blind, he could tell something was off about the boss. A few seconds later, however, he suddenly calmed down.
He had fallen into the scapegoat curse. Although the white dress had disappeared, he still had long hair and now bore a vaguely feminine face. Even if his own parents stood in front of him, they wouldn’t recognize him.
Realizing this, the College student deliberately curled his fingers in a delicate gesture and ran them through his hair.
“And you,” the boss’s menacing gaze landed on him, every syllable chilling to the bone. “Did you two plan to run into this haunted place together?”
The College student, who had been trying to play the long-haired girl: “…”
Zhou Qi’an said in despair, “Drop the act.”
Two years ago, when he first realized something was off about his boss, he had tried faking his death to escape the company.
The next day, his coworkers had called him back urgently, saying the boss had privately gone to “open the box” and found that the ashes in the urn weren’t his.
The memory was still fresh—
His colleague had anxiously made a covert call:
“I told you, sometimes cremation ashes get mixed up, but that vampire insisted that since there weren’t any bone fragments, it had to be you. Now he’s heading to your house to confirm.”
“…Stop him! He can’t meet my mom.”
“Good point. Your mother doesn’t even know you faked your death to quit. That’d blow your cover.”
“Stop him, for god’s sake! No matter what, we can’t let them meet. I have a bad feeling—if they see each other, something terrible will happen… Block him now!!”
How was the situation resolved in the end?
Zhou Qi’an, utterly resigned, had no choice but to rush back to the company. He made up an excuse about taking on a project from a psychology firm and wanting to conduct an experiment at work.
Then, he offered to voluntarily cut his salary by 20% to celebrate the company’s tenth anniversary. Only then did his boss forgive his “resurrection.”
Pushing the College student forward, Zhou Qi’an split his focus—part of his mind revisited the contents of the Qimen Journal, and he seemed to have caught onto something. Gradually, he made a firm decision.
The College student desperately wanted to run, but he had a strong hunch that if he fled, Brother Zhou would just drag him back and offer him up as a tribute to their boss.
With a mournful expression, he whimpered, “Brother…”
Zhou Qi’an snapped back to reality. After finalizing his decision on the next steps for the mission, he prepared to face his predicament head-on.
First, he had to divert his boss’s attention. Gesturing toward Mu Tianbai, who had been trying to collect his “protection fee,” Zhou Qi’an introduced them:
“Oh, by the way, this is my boss. And this guy is the newest hire at our company.”
Now, the three of them—one boss and two employees—were reunited in this instance, making it a true company gathering.
___
Author’s Note:
Why didn’t Zhou Qi’an run when he knew his boss was a monster?
Simple.
He had run before.
But his boss soon realized that Zhou Qi’an wasn’t an easy target either.
Zhou Qi’an: “I’ll try my best to avoid putting on a show—no killing monsters, no arson, no feeding the fish.”
College student: “…A double negative means a positive.”
Zhou Qi’an (raising an eyebrow, unimpressed): “Oh? Is that so?”
College student: “…”
