FEG | Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Wasteland Apartments

After the middle-aged ghost was dealt with by Sun Fangchi, the next few hours passed peacefully, and a sliver of light appeared over the mountaintop, daybreak came.

The four of them stood side by side watching the sunrise. Ning Xiaomeng stared blankly at the orange-red sun that had just poked its head out in the distance, tears spilling uncontrollably. “I survived……”

Pangye Zuiheng also wiped away his touched-up nose, “My heavens, this is the first time I’ve felt that watching a sunrise could be so moving.”

Sun Fangchi had slept rather uncomfortably in a chair, and at this moment he came out, rubbing his neck. The four of them all turned back to look at him. Sun Fangchi looked at the four of them standing shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand watching the sunrise, “What are you doing, a swearing-brotherhood ceremony? Let me say this first, I’m not participating.”

The four of them: “……”

“We should hurry and head down the mountain,” the one with heterochromia said.

“Mm, the rest of us aren’t a problem, the problem is that Bald Guy still hasn’t woken up. Are we supposed to carry him?” Sun Fangchi pointed into the house.

Spirit Young Master said, “That’s not realistic. None of us has the ability to carry weight down a mountain path. I think we should leave him here, and after we get down the mountain, we’ll find someone to come pick him up.”

Their expressions were all different. In the current situation, it really wasn’t suitable to bring Bald Guy along, but leaving him here was equivalent to putting him in danger, which made people feel uncomfortable.

“Let’s do that,” Sun Fangchi nodded.

They moved Bald Guy to a spot where the sun could reach him, left a message on his phone, and the few of them set off down the mountain.

By the time they reached the mountainside, they ran into the search and rescue team. The team members were fully equipped, each linked by ropes, and their presence was immense.

“Someone’s come out!”

The one with heterochromia told the search and rescue team that there were still two people up there. The search and rescue team split into two groups, one went up to bring people down, while the other surrounded the few of them and escorted them down the mountain.

After finally reaching Shijing New Village at the foot of the mountain, Sun Fangchi was held down by several people in white coats for a full examination. Only after confirming that there was no problem did he get a quiet room to rest. Not long after, He Baichang rushed in.

“Gui Chi, are you all right?”

These past few days, the words Sun Fangchi heard the most were those four, “Are you all right.” It had practically become a curse. He raised his hand to interrupt He Baichang. “I’m very well, not injured, and my mental state is normal. But if you ask again, I’m not sure anymore……”

He Baichang looked at his threatening gaze and swallowed the rest of his words.

“Don’t! I won’t ask. As long as you’re fine, that’s all that matters. You don’t know, the internet went crazy last night. If something had happened to you, wouldn’t the rest of us have to commit seppuku to apologize to the world……” He Baichang said, still shaken.

Sun Fangchi opened his phone and went online to look. Sure enough, seven of the top ten trending topics were related to them.

#Paranormal livestream suddenly blacked out

#Shijing Village lost contact

#Streamer lost contact

#Suicide-seeking show

#** lost contact

#Values-based ghost exorcism

#Livestream show strange phenomenon

There were a lot of people on Weibo discussing the issue of them going missing. Some questioned the program organizers for harboring sinister motives and exchanging lives for ratings. Some believed the production team was hyping things up and that the paranormal phenomena were all fake. There were all kinds of opinions. No matter what the netizens said, the show’s popularity had truly reached its peak.

“What does that have to do with me? Hurry and send me home, I still have things to do.” Sun Fangchi stopped looking. These things were not important to him. Regarding the strange bead he had obtained, and everything that happened in Shijing Village, he had to go ask a friend about it. Besides, the game that came once every ten days was almost here, and he had to go back.

“That won’t do!” He Baichang refused flatly. “The search and rescue team has sealed the place off, we can’t leave. Also, aren’t you waiting for the production team to give you mental compensation?”

Sun Fangchi frowned tightly. “Sealed off? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. After the organizer called the police, the search and rescue team came directly to seal it off. They didn’t say what the reason was.” He Baichang said.

Something was off!

Sun Fangchi was certain there had to be some reason in there that ordinary people didn’t know. It was a pity he couldn’t get out, otherwise he could ask that guy Old Gu what exactly was going on.

“Speaking of which, it was really creepy. Last night when the search and rescue team went up the mountain, it was just like running into a ghost wall, they simply couldn’t get up. By the time they reached the mountainside, they got lost……” He Baichang muttered. “Luckily the road was passable in the daytime, otherwise no one would know what to do……”

In the afternoon, the search and rescue team successfully brought Bald Guy and Tianshi Li down.

Bald Guy was still unconscious, and Tianshi Li had already gone mad.

The search and rescue team found Tianshi Li in the woods halfway up the mountain. By the time they found him, he had already gone mad.

“Let go of me! Let go of me! There’s a ghost! Evil ghost! Wuwu…… don’t kill me……” Tianshi Li desperately broke free of the support of the two search and rescue team members, crawled and rolled under a car, exposed half his face, and looked out nervously. Whenever anyone approached, he immediately shrank back under the chassis.

Sun Fangchi watched from afar, his mood heavy.

After Tianshi Li escaped from the house last night, who knew what terrifying thing he had encountered. It seemed that there was more than one ghost in Shijing Village.

The search and rescue team member and the doctor attacked from both sides. Taking advantage of Tianshi Li’s momentary lapse, they gave him an injection. Several seconds later, Tianshi Li fell over.

“Everything happened too suddenly. When he ran, we were already unable to protect ourselves. Don’t blame yourself too much.” The one with heterochromia walked up to Sun Fangchi and stiffly comforted him.

“Mm……” Sun Fangchi nodded instinctively, then felt something was off. “Mm? I blame myself?”

The one with heterochromia turned his face away. “Stop pretending, I know you’re a good person.”

Huh. Sun Fangchi got goosebumps all over, “Cut it out! I don’t want a good person card from a grown man. Do you have some misunderstanding about me?”

“If you want to keep pretending, then keep pretending.” The one with heterochromia walked away.

“Xi-ge, I need to smoke a cigarette to calm down……” Sun Fangchi requested.

“Try it!” Bu Xiling gave a single cold word.

“Oh.”

In order to investigate the situation on the mountain, the search and rescue team sealed it off for a full three days, and also gathered the few of them together to ask about many details. In the end, they still could not reach any reasonable conclusion, so they had no choice but to withdraw. After the search and rescue team left, the production team immediately sent the streamers back home one by one.

The only thing that comforted Sun Fangchi was that, at any rate, he had gotten the fifty thousand yuan.

Before leaving, the one with heterochromia awkwardly found Sun Fangchi, and they added each other on WeChat. “I think you’re actually pretty pleasing to the eye, and I figure your朋友圈 probably doesn’t have someone as famous as me. I’ll allow you to ride my popularity.”

“Sure, sure.”

Then Ning Xiaomeng also asked to add WeChat. “Little brother, let’s livestream together again sometime.”

“Okay, okay.”

Pangye Zuiheng came over. “Brother, should you scan me or should I scan you? Take good care of this older brother in the future……”

“Okay, okay.”

Spirit Young Master came over and asked, “Which family are you from?”

“Okay, okay…… huh?” Sun Fangchi froze. Why aren’t you following the usual routine?

“With your ability, you’d be more than enough to take part in the assessment.”

“There’s an assessment for being a streamer too?” Sun Fangchi was baffled.

Spirit Young Master sighed. “If you’re not interested, then forget it. But I’ll give you a warning, the mystic realm isn’t something you can escape just because you want to.”

“Uh……” Sun Fangchi watched her unfathomable back and always felt that it was like a cross-server conversation.

He Baichang came over with a fawning smile and said, “Gui Chi, you’ve got pretty good connections. How about you try poaching them to our company……”

“Save your daydreaming. Hurry and send me home.”

The game’s deadline had arrived. Sun Fangchi had no time to do anything else. As for asking Old Gu about it, that would probably have to wait until he had a chance after clearing this game alive.

The day after he got home, Sun Fangchi took the fifty thousand yuan and bought himself personal accident insurance. At night, he as usual watched horror movies together with Bu Xiling.

“You’re not worried?” Bu Xiling pointed at the game right in front of him.

Sun Fangchi shook the beer can in his hand. “What’s the use of worrying? I don’t like doing useless work…… crap!”

The surrounding environment changed in the blink of an eye. Sun Fangchi stood among a group of people holding a beer can. Fortunately, this time he wasn’t wearing slippers.

【Welcome to the Soul Growth Game!】

【Mission Name: Wasteland Apartments】

【Mission Overview: The occupancy rate of the newly developed apartments on the city outskirts is less than 30%. Strange sounds often appear in the apartments, residents go missing, the night shift security guard died in a bizarre way. As one of the apartment’s residents, can you escape the shadow of death?】

【Clearance Condition: Survive in the apartment for three days】

This was really fixated on three days, wasn’t it?

The crowd gathered in a desolate place. Aside from a five-story slab building twenty storefronts wide, there was nothing else. In front of the building was a simple road wide enough for two cars to drive side by side. The road stretched far into the distance, and no one knew where it led.

The sky was gray and hazy, and all around was exposed earth. The yellow-brown ground stretched as far as the eye could see, and the entire building looked as if it had been built in the wilderness.

“Liars! Come out and give us an explanation!”

“You think you can hide? If you don’t give us an explanation, we’re not leaving!”

“Come out! Come out!”

The crowd around Sun Fangchi was furious, some people almost shouting curses outright. People were surrounding the fourth storefront from the left in this building. Hanging on the door were the words “Sales Department.” The glass door was tightly shut, and inside, several young men and women in black work uniforms were hiding in the inner room, secretly peering outside.

“……What did you promise us back then? After moving in, the supporting facilities would be complete, within half a year the roads would be connected, and within a year the subway would be here. What about now? Nothing, nothing at all!” In the center of the crowd, a very shrewd-looking man slapped his palm against the back of his other hand with loud cracks, conveying his anger to the people around him.

Sun Fangchi took advantage of no one noticing and secretly threw away the beer can in his hand. The situation was still unclear, so it was best not to draw attention.

In the previous game, there were no living people present. But this mission actually had so many living people appear, so the difficulty of the game probably increased exponentially.

Sun Fangchi guessed while carefully sizing up the people around him.

The crowd could roughly be divided into several groups, several elderly people, a small number of housewives, some of them even with children, nearly a third were men between thirty and fifty, and there were also some young people. Altogether, there had to be over a hundred people.

Among them, there were a few who were as absent-minded as Sun Fangchi.

At this moment, the door of the sales department opened, and a young man came out from inside, holding a simple loudspeaker. As soon as he stepped out, he shouted, “Everyone calm down, listen to me……”

“Listen to him, let’s see what he can come up with!”

The crowd gradually quieted down. All eyes focused on him. The young man swallowed and said, “I know everyone’s dissatisfaction. Please believe us, our company did not deliberately deceive everyone. You all know that the plan for the complex still has six more residential buildings, they just haven’t been built yet……”

“We’re sick of hearing these lines! Just say how you plan to handle this!”

“Please everyone must be patient and wait. Just yesterday, the night shift security guard at our building suddenly died of a heart attack. The dead deserve respect, so please give us some time to prioritize handling the deceased’s affairs. Three days from now, our company will definitely give everyone a way to resolve this issue!”

Three days!

Could this be the turning point?

Mentioning the dead security guard made the crowd’s momentum drop slightly. The shrewd man from before represented everyone and said, “Since that’s the case, we’ll believe you once more. Three days from now, if you still don’t give us an answer, we’ll file a lawsuit. We’ll see each other in court!”

“No, no, everyone please rest assured!” The young man bent low to appease the residents, and the crowd slowly dispersed.

In the end, ten people remained, observing one another, including Sun Fangchi.

Looks like the players in this round were all here.