111 Landlord's Diary

 

“Notification for player 0000! You have activated Resurrection and sent the wandering soul back to his body. You’ve obtained 1 Malice Point reduction.” When the notification came, Han Fei could finally sigh in relief. He turned to his character profile, his malice point was now negative 1. For now, he had no idea what the purpose of this value was, but based on his understanding of the game, a negative attribute value might not necessarily be a bad thing. After all, this was a hellish world, not every normal rule applied.

“Han Fei, who was that man? His words quite touched me, but what does his story have to do with the bathroom?” Meng Si was confused.

“I have no idea but it felt like he was trying to find a way to leave.” Han Fei scratched his chin, “But it does come as a surprise that he’d take Xu Qin as his mother. Perhaps he was in too much shock to make sense of anything at the moment.” Han Fei felt responsible to find Huang Yin to check on him after he logged out from the game. This was his fault after all.

“Then what are these things he left on the table?” Meng Si picked up the stuff on the table. Before Huang Yin left, he retrieved everything valuable from his inventory and left them for Meng Si to thank her for her porridge. The man was an honest and loving person. Han Fei picked up the item one by one and allowed the system to identify them. As he said, Huang Yin was a casual player so most of the stuff were items of luxury, like handmade cookies, toys, flower seeds… Han Fei searched through everything and only found 2 things that were rather useful, one was a book, entitled Introduction to Physician’s Basic Skills and a set of simple surgical tools.

Unlike other games, one could not pick up a new skill by just a few clicks. For example, if Han Fei wanted to learn medicine, he would have to put in real work to study the literature, complete the application and only then would the skill appear in his skill tab. That sounded tedious but now at least Han Fei had the book necessary to initiate his mastery of medicine skill. Without the necessary skill book, he wouldn’t even be able to start. Then to level up the skill, one needed to apply Skill Points. Of course, one could continue to repeat the exercise and master the skill through experience but the time needed would be astronomical.

‘Currently, I only have 3 main skills, Advanced Acting, Beginner Cooking and Beginner Soul-Depth Touch. I noticed skill books are extremely rare in the cryptic world. In the future, perhaps I can get similar literature through this method.’ Han Fei placed the book and the surgical tools into his inventory. Then he grabbed some toys, and a few flower seeds before he left Meng Si’s home. ‘I wonder if flowers from the surface world will grow here or not.’

Han Fei went to the door opposite to visit Weep. Han Fei dropped off the toys for Weep. The boy no longer hated Han Fei that much.

Han Fei returned to Room 1044. He did not disturb his roommates, instead he sat on the living room couch to study his character profile. ‘Resurrection and Spirit Farer are two incredible skills. I cannot help but wonder if it is because I possess the black box that they are given me…’ While he sat there, Han Fei noticed his mission for the hidden profession had been completed, the system appeared to have credited him with Xu Qin’s kills of the non-locals as well. Han Fei originally did not think the hidden profession would surpass his two talents but when he saw the profession description, he found it difficult to calm down.

“Notification for Player 0000! You have completed the prerequisite mission for the hidden profession, Midnight Butcher! When you’ve reached level 10, you can proceed to Cattle Alley to obtain the profession.

“Midnight Butcher (Hidden Profession): Profession Ability not yet unlocked.

“Profession Property: Resistance to Blade-Type Cursed Objects increase by 30 points!”

Some time ago, Han Fei obtained the Mirror God’s blessing that gave him resistance to mirror-type cursed objects, at the time, he groused that he would have preferred resistance to blade-type cursed objects.

‘Has the system been listening in?!’ Using cursed objects would harm the user but most importantly, they could injure ghosts and monsters!

‘When I tried to pick up Xu Qin’s table knife, the curse immediately took over, but after I became the midnight butcher, they would not cause such a lasting impact on me anymore.’ However, it was not a solution to steal Xu Qin’s weapon, he narrowed his eyes. Han Fei decided to keep his eyes open for his own blade.

Then, Han Fei turned to the inventory to pick out the Introduction to Physician’s Basic Skills. As he did so, he noticed one of his existing items had changed.

When he completed the showering mission, he obtained a landlord’s diary. At the time, he thought it was just an ordinary notebook because it contained no entry. But now he noticed the previously black cover had turned red. ‘The diary has changed after I became the new manager?’

Han Fei took out the diary. Just as he turned the first page, a thick sense of blood overwhelmed him. The diary was seriously damaged, many pages were missing. The few remaining pages didn’t have their dates marked out either. The entries were also incomplete. In any case, the entries were mostly comments on the neighbourhood tenants. To Han Fei’s surprise, it not only contained information on tenants at Apartment 1 but also at Apartment 2 as well.

“Possible Candidate for Apartment 2’s Manager: Qu Yun.

“The half of a loving couple. The husband and wife from Room 2044 are by all means an enviable match, at least in front of others. When the door closes, screams would come out from Room 2044 at night. They say human beings are no different from beasts, I say no, because humans are more cunning than beasts. They know how to disguise themselves before others and put on clothes made from morality and civility. This kind of clothing is called humanity.

“That early morning, the normally well-dressed wife stumbled out from Room 2044 covered in wounds. She cried for help as she ran down the stairs as if running away from someone. She tripped on the stairs and was later dragged home. She was never seen ever since.

“Possible Candidate for Apartment 2’s Manager: Spectral Dog

“This wild canine that can hide in the shadow possesses an intelligence that is not lower than humans. It appears to be the few earliest tenants to settle at Happiness Neighbourhood.

“It carries a curse that I have not seen before, I wonder how it got that curse.”

The entries and the handwriting were hard to read. There were many places where Han Fei had to fill in the blanks.

“There was indeed a wounded woman staying in Room 2044. It was she who dragged the butterfly-tattooed spirit into her room. She is probably Qu Yun. According to the previous manager, she is a possible candidate to manage Apartment 2, looks like there is a need for me to reach out to her.”

As the current building manager, Han Fei believed he should have a good conversation with the tenants from Apartment 2 so that together, they could bring true happiness to this neighbourhood.