Chapter 586

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Main Character:

Shen Yao

Ding—

The mechanical sound in her mind rang out again, only this time it wasn't the heavenly music reminding her to return to the Settlement Space, but a reminder that she had arrived at a new Copy World — The Unseen People.

Supernatural Instance, General Difficulty.

Tsk tsk tsk

Shen Yao touched her chin with one hand, looked around in a circle, then examined herself, and finally took out a phone with a cracked corner of the screen, dialing the only phone number stored on it.

A woman's voice came from the other end of the phone, impatiently bringing up Shen Yao's lodging issue, saying if she didn't come over there would be no refund, and then having no place to stay would be her own fault.

Shen Yao: ……

Right, no leads on finding Xu Ningchen for now, better seize the time and head to the lodging place first.

Her mind was muddled with no clues, and the bustling street scene before her eyes made Shen Yao feel even more unfamiliar.

The suitcase in her hand was still somewhat heavy, and what's more she currently had very little money on her (all her jacket and trouser pockets added up to just over a hundred), not even the confidence to hail a taxi.

Why is it that every time I enter an Instance, my identity setting is so impoverished? Is the Infinite World really not deliberately retaliating? Do cannon fodder have no human rights?

She walked for about half an hour, and a dilapidated old community appeared before Shen Yao's eyes.

Gray walls, climbing vines all around, discarded trash and sewage everywhere, and flies and mosquitoes buzzing above them.

Shen Yao walked up the stairs with a calm face, went to the security booth at the entrance and knocked on the door.

"You are"

Inside the security booth sat an old grandpa reading a newspaper, quite advanced in age, wearing a wrinkled security uniform, the wrinkles on his face like orange peel.

"I'm a tenant here."

Shen Yao fished out a slip of paper with a phone number, name, and address written on it from her trouser pocket and handed it to the old grandpa in the security booth.

"Oh, indeed a tenant living here," the old grandpa nodded, then used the phone in his hand to dial, and before long a middle-aged woman with permed hair like wool curls walked out from the small stairwell entrance.

"You're Shen Yao, right? I'm Mei Yi, the landlady, follow me upstairs."

After the middle-aged woman finished speaking, she waved her hand to greet the old grandpa in the security booth, then urged Shen Yao to hurry up and follow, not to fall behind.

Shen Yao: ……

Given that she still couldn't figure out the situation inside, Shen Yao didn't say anything extra, but picked up her suitcase and jogged to catch up.

"Looking at your age, you're not old, renting in our Ping'an Community must mean you have difficulties, but I still have to remind you, you need to move out as soon as possible."

Before even entering the stairwell, Mei Yi turned her head, those cold pupils of hers fixed tightly on Shen Yao; perhaps the words spoken were out of good intentions, this person's attitude wasn't as inhuman as it had been on the phone.

Shen Yao blanked for a moment, gave a bitter smile, nodded and then shook her head, "Many thanks for Mei Yi's reminder, I knew about Ping'an Community's situation when I rented, but really it's"

Not finishing the words was the best cue state, after all some content doesn't need to be spoken too explicitly, people are best at filling in the blanks themselves.

Sure enough, Mei Yi let out a "Hmph," her hand heavily slapping her thigh, "You young people ah, this is all fate, can't blame others.

But for the first three months living in our Ping'an Community there's no problem, you hurry up and make money to leave, otherwise, later you'll want to leave but won't be able to."

The two entered the stairwell and simultaneously shivered, different from outside where there was light, inside the stairwell besides the cement stairs leading upstairs, there was nothing at all.

Shen Yao was quite surprised by this, after all the community's external environment was terrible, trash and filth visible everywhere, she hadn't expected the interior to be so clean and tidy.

"Be careful, don't litter, since you knew about Ping'an Community's situation when you rented, then usually stay in the community less.

Some people can't control their mouths, believe you also don't want to keep living here forever."

Mei Yi turned her head, her tone somewhat sinister, and with her loose clothes billowing as she walked, Shen Yao felt uncomfortable all over.

Shen Yao gave vague agreements to Mei Yi's words; actually, to put it simply, this community has a problem, and her Mission is to successfully live in the community for half a year or solve the source causing the community's Mutation in advance.

The Unseen People — that is the name of this Supernatural Instance.

Tsk tsk tsk

Looks like this time I'll have to make an effort, otherwise the child will have to be born in a Supernatural Instance.

…………

Ping'an Community is an old community, and the entire community has only one building.

Because this building has a strange hollow-square structure, quite a few tenants live inside.

A total of nine layers in height, each of the four directions — southeast, northwest — has a door leading out.

Shen Yao and Mei Yi entered through the south-facing door, and the room she rented is precisely located on the fourth floor, Room 406.

The floor number and room number both make people associate with superstitious things, let alone this world, where certain things unexplainable by science occur frequently.

Ka-cha—

Mei Yi rustled out a length of rope from her trouser pocket, covered densely with keys.

She found the key corresponding to 406 from among them, opened the door, Mei Yi quickly explained a few sentences about water, electricity, and gas charging standards, then flashed away and left.

Shen Yao watched Mei Yi walk far off, turned and closed the half-open door behind her, threw her suitcase at the entrance, and walked on foot to the living room, closed her eyes and sat down.

First receive this body's memories, then find Xu Ningchen who came over with her, finally research how to complete the Instance Mission.

When she opened her eyes again, Shen Yao rubbed her temples, then took out her phone and silently unblocked the blacklisted phone number and dialed it.

Du du du—

Three rings at most, someone picked up on the other end, Shen Yao quickly stated her address, and also mentioned this Instance's clearance Mission, "Most likely still dealing with some strange phenomena and evil spirits, buy some talisman paper and cinnabar."

There's still a bit of talisman paper left in the Space Backpack, but those are all leftovers from the previous Copy World, they still have to live in the new Instance, can't just sit eating the mountain empty.

An "Mm" sound, the phone was hung up promptly, Shen Yao casually tossed it aside and ignored it, then got up and wandered around the rented room.

Two bedrooms, one living room, one bathroom, area larger than imagined, just the walls have a strange smell, like something soaked too long that can't be dispersed.

The suitcase held the duvet covers she had brought; Shen Yao spent a little time swapping them on, then took out her notebook and jotted down the daily necessities she would need to buy when she went out — even though the Space Backpack still held plenty, they had to maintain their cover and probe Ping'an Community's internal information as much as possible.

That said, the name "Ping'an Community" sounds rather ironic when you hear it.

If the rumors in her memory are all true, then this place is hardly somewhere one can be truly safe.

But everyone who manages to move in is in dire straits themselves — whether forced by circumstance or coming voluntarily, they are the type the police wouldn't bother with even if they died; no wonder people keep dying in Ping'an Community yet tenants still stream in one after another — cheap rent is the best pass.

Click.

Closing the room door, Shen Yao planned to go downstairs to buy the living supplies they needed; Xu Ningchen had already driven to the vicinity, just waiting for the two of them to meet up and regroup.

Because this building has no elevator, even tenants living on the ninth floor can only climb up via the cement stairs; as a result, no matter when you go out, you always run into a few fellow residents from the same building.

Shen Yao was no exception; she saw two young women appear one after another at the spot beside her.

Their looks were perfectly ordinary; what caught her attention was that both of their reactions were overly numb and dazed, giving the impression that their souls were not quite in their bodies.

"Ah!!!"

The young woman in front suddenly cried out loudly when her foot reached the second-floor landing.

Her body trembled involuntarily, her whole person showing signs she might topple over at any moment.

Shen Yao instinctively stepped forward two steps to steady her, but the sensation in her hand made her pupils dilate; she turned her head to look at the other young woman running thud-thud-thud up the stairs.

"Don't touch me!"

The supported young woman broke free of Shen Yao's grip, head bowed, and stumbled her way downstairs.

Her originally steady gait became crooked and weaving; with a final stagger, she fell out from the stairwell.

Fortunately it was afternoon when they went out; the sun overhead was blazing hot, and the sunlight falling on one's body felt warm and toasty.

The heat effectively dispelled the chill on the young woman; Shen Yao observed her unobtrusively until she left the community and disappeared into the passing crowds.

Beep-beep-beep—

Shen Yao spotted that familiar car and quickened her pace two steps to yank open the door.

Sitting in the driving cab was none other than Xu Ningchen; his condition looked better than Shen Yao's, but as a debt-ridden foreman about to go bust, he would likely become a Ping'an Community tenant himself in a few days.

"Speaking of which, Ping'an Community was originally a village's resettlement housing.

Later the villagers died off one after another, and the remaining empty rooms were rented out by their descendants.

The rumors started twenty years ago and have escalated to today.

But because the land here is cheap and it sits in the city center, people keep moving in in droves; as for the deaths, they're all desperate people with no way out — choosing extremes isn't impossible."

Anyway, every time the police close a case it's ruled a suicide; that's not the police brushing things off — it's just that no traces left by anyone else can be found on those people's bodies.

With no evidence of anyone else appearing, the entire victim environment contains only the deceased themself; then it's undoubtedly suicide.

Shen Yao:...

Shen Yao unlocked her phone and, using the not-so-smooth network, searched for stories that had happened in Ping'an Community.

The first thing to pop up was the falling death just now — the victim leapt from the eighth floor; although the images were heavily mosaicked, Shen Yao could still make out the bloody atmosphere inside.

"Just now I made contact with a young woman; her body was cold, not like a normal person's."

At that moment Shen Yao even wanted to slap a talisman paper on her to see if it would explode.

Fortunately rationality overrode impulse; otherwise she might have had to report to the police bureau right now.

The car started slowly and moved forward along the street; the two of them first went to a nearby supermarket to buy goods, then returned to Xu Ningchen's residence, and only when night fell did they bring the packed items back to Ping'an Community.

After all, they'd already rented the place; compared to renting and not living there, Shen Yao figured they still needed to make deeper contact to ferret out the secrets hidden inside the community.

They are Taskers with a clearance requirement; even though the Infinite World screwed them over, they can't just lie flat and do nothing.

Speaking of the last instance, the points they settled actually carried over!

Shen Yao's character interface can open it; although they can't spend points to buy various things in the System Mall, just seeing a four-digit-plus point total shows that in the last instance mission, the two of them, through all sorts of blind luck, still managed to discover a way to earn extra points.

Just don't know whether eliminating evil spirits gives more, or saving people gives more.

This instance mission sounds xuanhuan, but the strange phenomena involved in horror instances are never physical entities; they currently possess the Talisman Drawing skill — if they earnestly learn and master it, then combine it with the strange items in the Space Backpack, surviving this instance won't be difficult.

"These are blank talisman paper and cinnabar; the instance requires surviving half a year or finding the source causing the community's mutation — either counts as clearance.

To be safe, we'll tackle the second condition first; if that really won't work, we'll fall back on the first."

A survival playstyle is definitely the break-even strategy; to earn more points you have to actively break the deadlock.

Shen Yao raised a hand and felt her belly — perfectly flat, but the "Pregnant (Seven Months)" on the character interface isn't lying; the only explanation is that the Infinite World is too powerful, making a late-stage pregnant woman the same as an ordinary person.

That very night, Xu Ningchen stayed over too; anyway Ping'an Community's tenants are a mixed bag, and the uncles and aunties handling the rentals don't care what people tenants bring back — they just earn that rent money.

She thought something bad might happen while sleeping at night, but unexpectedly Shen Yao slept straight through to broad daylight, the whole person refreshed and full of energy.

Shen Yao:... Eh?

Shen Yao shot up from the bed with a whoosh, slipped on her slippers, and came to the living room.

Xu Ningchen had already cleared a large space on the living room coffee table; he held a hairbrush, aimed at the talisman paper, and was drawing a talisman.

Earlier they had only learned five types of talismans; among the remaining five, two are very suited to the current environment, so the two of them planned to take advantage of the remaining time to draw those two.

Right now Xu Ningchen is drawing one of them, a talisman paper called the Spirit-Expelling Talisman.

When the fresh cinnabar appeared on the blank talisman paper, the final stroke finished — red light flickered, brush lifted, talisman complete.

He looked up and beckoned to Shen Yao: "The spiritual energy here is abundant; drawing talismans yields twice the result for half the effort."

A finished Spirit-Expelling Talisman faintly showed flowing light emerging; this is the most commonly used type of talisman.

Compared to the strongly offensive Spirit Fire Talisman and Spirit Thunder Talisman, the Spirit-Expelling Talisman is gentle and harms no one, extremely suitable for those unlucky souls marked by strange phenomena.

If one has already been entangled and eroded by a strange phenomenon, a Spirit-Suppressing Talisman is needed — that is the other of the two talismans they must learn; its difficulty is naturally above the Spirit-Expelling Talisman.

Shen Yao studied the Spirit-Expelling Talisman Xu Ningchen had drawn, then tried moving the brush herself — ending in failure.

But "Indeed the spiritual energy is abundant; no wonder strange phenomena and evil spirits haunt this place."

Horror instances are basically all suitable for cultivation; it's just that cultivation methods are hard to come by, which creates the situation where strange phenomena and evil spirits run rampant.

Usually when they enter horror instances, clearance is mainly about maintaining stability — including the Infinite World's Senior Taskers, only a minority possess skills, and most people's points are barely enough for daily eating and drinking; buying a few strange items hurts the wallet, so where would they get the confidence to fight monsters that basically can't be killed.