Chapter 35 The Landlord's Estate

"Pupil template, leg template, hand template, lip template... Did this perverse murderer take the most beautiful parts from the victims and then assembled them into the eighth body, and that's what the murderer meant by 'turning from a chrysalis to a butterfly'?"

In the Human-body Puzzle case, there was also an eighth victim, whose face and critical body parts belonged to other victims. The police extracted and tested various things, only to find that there was no information on the eighth victim in the citizen's database.

With no name, no past, and no trace left in this highly advanced technological world, being murdered was baffling and unsettling.

"Information on the other seven victims can be found online, but there's nothing on the eighth. The police have not released any information related to the eighth victim..." What Han Fei found even more incomprehensible was that while he was watching TV for a task, a monster appeared behind him, and this monster had only the faces of seven victims in its body.

"Could the eighth victim be the monster itself?"

Han Fei wanted to uncover the truth. He lived in the Haunted House, keeping company with the victims and clearly feeling their pain and despair.

Whether it was to avenge the dead or to better survive in the game, he was determined to catch the murderer.

The situation in the Haunted House was very eerie now. As the only living person, Han Fei huddled inside his bedroom blanket while several figures with their backs to him were watching a TV with no images in the living room, all of them seemingly waiting for something to appear.

The cold light emitted from the TV illuminated ghastly pale faces as the hands of the clock moved step by step, slowly cooling down the entire room's temperature.

"What are they waiting for?"

The night had reached its darkest, and the entire apartment building, together with the outside world, seemed to grow even more abnormal.

Sounds of nails scratching came from the walls, the motion-sensor lights in the hallway suddenly lit up, and the wooden boards on the windows slowly cracked as if insects were crawling on the deteriorating exterior of the building.

Regardless of the changes outside, those figures remained with their backs to Han Fei until three in the morning.

The image on the TV gradually became clear. In the pitch-black living room, five dead people were sitting on the couch, facing the television as if trying to find something through the TV set.

What were they looking for?

Han Fei peeked out from the gap in his blanket. The pattern on the TV became clearer, and the five figures were the five victims of the Human-body Puzzle case, appearing just as they did at death.

Each was mutilated, their faces devoid of any blood, their pale pupils throbbing within their eye sockets.

"What are they really looking for?" Han Fei became exceedingly uneasy, his gaze also turning towards the TV.

Upon closer inspection, he saw the half-open door of the bedroom and his own eyes faintly visible through the gap in the blanket on the screen's edge.

"Am I also in the TV?"

The ghosts in the TV screen revealed their ghastly dead appearances, and the footage being played seemed to be the true look of the Haunted House.

Staring at those dreadful faces, watching those chilling eyeballs, Han Fei lost all courage to look outside.

"Could they be looking for me?"

It was just after Han Fei saw himself in the TV that the child sitting at the end of the couch stood up. He sauntered towards the television as if he had noticed something unusual.

"Am I fated to be haunted by a child?"

It was already three in the morning, and in five more minutes Han Fei's task would be completed; he was determined to endure this period no matter what.

To prevent being discovered, he even decided not to look outside anymore, shrinking his entire body under the blanket, waiting for the system's prompt.

"I must hold on for five more minutes, come on! Even if all of you are standing outside now, even if you want to kill me, I must delay enough for five minutes!"

The temperature in the Haunted House kept dropping, and Han Fei's heart thumped wildly. He didn't know whether the ghosts had entered the room; he had even prepared himself for the possibility that the bedsides were crowded with ghosts.

Using the phrase 'each day felt like a year' on Han Fei now seemed somewhat inappropriate; he felt every second was infinitely stretched out.

Opening the Attribute Panel, Han Fei focused intently on the exit button in the corner of the panel, but just then, he heard the sound of a door opening again. This time, it seemed like the person had directly entered his room.

"Once I leave alive, I will definitely help you find the murderer! Living under the same roof, I'll come chat with you at night to alleviate boredom, and during the day I'll burn paper for you. Give me a chance, family."

Han Fei was so nervous that he began to babble, as he had no prior experience with such situations.

"Player number 0000, please note! The novice task of sleeping has been completed! Add one Free Skill Point, and receive task reward—a landlord's key."

"Player number 0000, please note! Due to a slight increase in the difficulty of the novice task, an additional task reward is granted—a landlord's three cigarettes."

"Landlord's Key (Grade G Bloody Item): After the landlord's death, the spare keys in the building disappeared, unclear whether they were stolen or borrowed by ghosts."

"Landlord's Three Cigarettes (Grade G Bloody Item): After the landlord's death, his three children paid respect with three cigarettes in front of his Spiritual Altar."

Hearing the voice in his mind, Han Fei breathed a long sigh of relief. When he noticed that the exit button had lit up, he instantly felt he could manage again.

"Life really has its ups and downs. My nerves must be as tough as steel now; nothing in reality can knock me down anymore."

Han Fei subconsciously looked at his Item Bar, where all task rewards were prioritized for storage.

"All novice task rewards are related to the landlord, seeming like the landlord's legacy. Is this game preparing me to become the new landlord?"

"It seems that persisting in completing all novice tasks was meaningful. Just the string of landlord's keys alone could prove to be very useful in the future. The system's initial prompt was indeed correct; completing all novice tasks helps me understand this world more clearly."

Han Fei was glad that he did not give up on the novice tasks, and the generous rewards of the sleeping task also made him determined to complete the bathing task.

"The three novice tasks should correspond to three rewards related to the landlord. The ring can sense ghosts, the keys are used to open other rooms' doors. I wonder what the reward for the bathing task will be?"

People are greedy by nature. Once Han Fei confirmed that he could exit the game at any time, he decided to gamble big one more time: "The bathing task can be done before four in the morning. I aim to claim all novice task rewards!"

Slowly lifting a corner of the blanket, Han Fei saw Wei Youfu standing at the bedroom doorway, using his body to block the view of other ghosts.

"When did he appear?" Recalling Wei Youfu's time of death, Han Fei was not too surprised.

He looked at Wei Youfu's back and suddenly felt that Youfu was somewhat different from the other ghosts in the house.

While the bodies of those ghosts were mutilated, Wei Youfu's body was intact, at least outwardly so.

"Youfu seemed to have no malice towards me from the start, which is different from the other ghosts. Could he still retain some memories and humanity?"