E-District.
After Tang Erda handed the property deed to the child, Bai Liu heard his system notification sound:
[System Notification: Congratulations to Player Bai Liu for obtaining one building in E-District 0812 Cemetery. Main mission completion progress (1/5).]
After confirming that Bai Liu had obtained this cemetery building, Tang Erda asked, "Are we going to the next one?"
"Wait!" The child holding the property deed pulled on Tang Erda hesitantly. "You drove the ghosts out of the building and got their property deeds, right?"
Tang Erda glanced at Bai Liu, and after receiving a nod of agreement from Bai Liu, he answered the child, "We only took the property deeds; we didn't drive them out."
The child let out a sigh of relief. "It's good that you didn't drive them out."
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. "Are you not afraid of these ghosts?"
"I don't think they are ghosts," he said, looking into Bai Liu's pitch-black eyes. "They are just people living underground."
Bai Liu became a little interested and walked over. "Actually, I have a very curious question. You seem to know that after people die and turn into ghosts, they still have to keep working, so why do you only want to live to be 26?"
"Living is even harder than dying, so isn't it better to keep living?"
The child was silent for a while. He lowered his head to pick at his fingernails and said softly, "Because I don't have a home while I'm alive."
"My dad and mom have both died. After I finish paying off the loan and die, I can live in a cemetery house with them. Even if it's harder, it doesn't matter. As long as our family is together, we can endure anything."
Bai Liu asked calmly, "Even if it means death, you don't care?"
The child raised his head and answered Bai Liu earnestly, "Actually, I don't feel like I'm dead."
"Although I can't eat or sleep like a corpse, and I sleep in a narrow cemetery house every day, I feel that as long as we are together and help and support each other, no matter what environment we are in, no matter how hard it is, we will not perish."
He smiled. "Because I think that one day, we will walk from the cemetery house to the ground and see the sun."
"Even if we die and our bodies rot, as long as we ghosts who are like living people continue to exist and wander underground, there will be such a day."
Bai Liu asked, "Just now, why were you afraid that these ghosts living in the cemetery buildings would be driven away?"
The child paused, hesitating for a moment before opening his mouth. "Don't you know?"
"When people walk outside, living developers collect land management fees. When ghosts walk outside, dead developers collect land management blood."
"Land management blood?" Bai Liu repeated the phrase. "What is that?"
The child cowered, looked carefully to the left and right, then leaned close to Bai Liu, covered his mouth with his hand, and said in a very low voice, "—Developers who die also turn into ghosts. They will suck the blood of low-class and second-class citizens' ghosts."
Bai Liu lowered his eyes. "Ghost blood is non-renewable, right? What happens if it's sucked dry?"
"If the blood is sucked dry, they will suck the bone marrow. If the bone marrow is sucked dry, they will eat the skin and flesh. If the skin and flesh are eaten, then there is nothing left." As the child spoke, his shoulders began to tremble. "If it reaches that point, then you are really dead, and nothing remains."
Bai Liu looked at the trembling child. "Do you know the location where these ghost developers appear?"
The child shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I've only lived here for a year. Some of this information was passed down to me by my deceased parents, and some are conclusions I reached from my own observations."
"But if you want to find the dead developers…" The child looked up at Bai Liu. "You can try the unfinished buildings in each district."
Bai Liu pondered for two seconds, then nodded in thanks and asked, "Is the developer of this cemetery building also dead?"
The child was stunned. "…This cemetery was developed by the owner of the land in this E-District, who was one of the five major developers back then. He has been dead for many years."
Bai Liu's eyes darkened. "Is every district's cemetery developed by a major developer?"
The child nodded. "Cemeteries belong to infrastructure and were all developed by the major developers of each district in the early days. But now they have all long since passed away and left their assets to their descendants. Now, the buildings in Sunny City are all companies and groups derived from the descendants of the five major developers."
Bai Liu asked calmly, "Has there been any subsequent additional development or transfer of ownership for this cemetery?"
The other party thought hard for a while. "It seems there hasn't. It has always been like this…"
"Then the property rights for this cemetery building should still be in the hands of the major developer." Bai Liu paused. He scanned his surroundings and quickly ordered, "Team Leader Tang, take this child. We are leaving here immediately. Something is coming out."
[System Notification: Congratulations to Player Bai Liu for seizing the property rights of E-District 0812 Cemetery from the E-District major developer.]
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has disturbed the (E-District Developer). The other party is furious at your act of seizing their assets and is about to wake up from underground to hunt you down!]
[(E-District Developer) is about to attack!]
The ground shook violently, as if some extremely heavy creature were slamming its footsteps into the ground, moving toward them step by step. A rumbling, roar-like sound echoed from beneath the ground, accompanied by an unbearable, pungent stench of decay.
Bai Liu and the others retreated rapidly. Mu Ke and Mu Shicheng, covering the rear, retreated while glancing back at the ground-shaking cemetery in the fog, reporting in unison, "The monster's movement speed is low. No one is chasing!"
"No." Bai Liu looked down at the blood rapidly surging inward under the skin of his hand, the slightly bulging veins instantly flattening out. "The monster has already caught up."
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu is being drained of blood. Health is dropping rapidly!…87…73…]
Liu Jiayi immediately handed an antidote to Bai Liu. Bai Liu took it and drank it. A violent coughing sound came from behind Tang Erda; the 17-year-old child Tang Erda was carrying began to struggle and whimper in pain.
Tang Erda quickly flipped him off his back. The child's face was sallow, his lips and abdomen rapidly collapsing and shriveling, and the veins on his body bulging slightly beneath the cracked skin, with the blood inside flowing rapidly as if it were being greedily sucked by someone.
Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke's expressions darkened. They turned around again to confirm the source of the tremor currently pursuing them, and after ensuring that the other party was very far away, they reported to Bai Liu, "The source of the tremor is still very far away from us."
"That is to say, this monster doesn't need to come into contact with us to attack." Bai Liu looked at the others. "Aside from me and this NPC, are there any others experiencing attack symptoms?"
Mu Shicheng, Mu Ke, Liu Jiayi, and Tang Erda replied in unison, "No."
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu is being drained of blood. Health has fallen past 80 again…]
The child in Tang Erda's arms was being sucked until his scalp was shriveling. He was in so much pain that he could hardly make a sound, his body convulsing as his eyes began to roll back. Large, unconscious tears fell as he whispered for his mother.
Tang Erda hugged the NPC tightly, his expression strained as he looked at Bai Liu.
"My antidote doesn't work on NPCs." Liu Jiayi took one look at the NPC, her face turning ugly. She handed another bottle of antidote to Bai Liu and looked up at him. "According to the monster's blood-sucking speed, my inventory of antidotes will be cleared out very quickly."
"We still haven't figured out this monster's attack method!" Mu Shicheng watched Bai Liu, whose face was sallow and whose blood was surging wildly beneath his translucent skin, and cursed. "It starts attacking without even making contact. This is a judgment-based attack; this monster is a very high level."
Mu Ke analyzed, forcing himself to stay calm. "It must be high. The E-District developer must be the top boss in this instance."
"For monsters with judgment-based attacks, as long as the player meets their attack range and criteria, the player will definitely be attacked," Liu Jiayi answered quickly. "Only this NPC and Bai Liu are being attacked. What is the difference between you and us?"
Bai Liu glanced at the child NPC, whose hands were slowly dropping. "Property issues."
Liu Jiayi reacted extremely quickly. She looked up abruptly. "You mean!"
Bai Liu explained concisely, "I possess a cemetery building in E-District, and this NPC is a debt-slave for a cemetery house in E-District. The property in E-District belongs to the land, and the E-District developer possesses the ownership rights to the land in E-District according to the settings, so he can use the houses to suck our blood."
"The house is the pipe and medium he uses to suck our blood."
Bai Liu stopped his retreat, his eyes fixed on the ground. "But this judgment cannot be canceled temporarily. If the house is transferred to you, you will also be sucked. Now we don't know the activity range of this developer boss monster. If the other party's activity range is the entire map, running away has no meaning. The best way to avoid being sucked by this monster is—"
"—Kill this monster."
Bai Liu pulled out his whip and ordered with a cold gaze, "Stop retreating. Mu Shicheng, Mu Ke, advance to engage; Liu Jiayi, guard me and the NPC, the two injured parties, and focus on healing and defense; Team Tang, stay mobile and wait to attack."
Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke drew their skill weapons almost simultaneously. One icy and one snarling, they rushed into the fog. However, after rushing in, both of them stopped in the fog at the same time.
In the roaring fog, there was nothing.
No ghosts, no developers, just bare, undeveloped land all around. They couldn't even see a corpse; there was only a constant vibration and a sticky, roaring sound coming from beneath the ground.
Mu Shicheng dug up the soil with one claw; below it was just more soil. He gritted his teeth, unwilling to give up, and dug further, but below that was still solid earth.
Mu Ke gripped his dagger tightly, his face so dark it could drip water. He stepped forward and grabbed Mu Shicheng's shoulder, stopping him from digging deeper. "Stop digging. With our perception abilities, we can sense that there is nothing below or around this soil."
Mu Shicheng looked up, his eyes bloodshot as he gazed at Mu Ke. "Then why is Bai Liu still being drained?"
"What is this monster?"
"What is this heretic?"
—————————————————
In reality, Su Yang stared with bloodshot eyes at people continuously being drained of their vitality in the Sunny residential area. He braced his hands on the table of a temporarily erected tent, took a deep breath, and asked himself and the team members around him in a hoarse voice.
The team members looked at each other in silence.
Su Yang closed his eyes, braced his forehead, opened them again, took a deep breath, and began to sort through the test reports submitted by everyone:
"Detection results for Units 1 to 6: heretic value fluctuation range 7340~134212, total objects in the building: 5793. No abnormalities detected for all objects outside the building."
"Detection results for Units 6 to 9: heretic value fluctuation range 7106~12985, total objects in the building: 6903. No abnormalities detected for all objects outside the building."
"Units 9 to…"
Su Yang read to the very last report, then breathed deeply again to adjust his emotions and said, "The fluctuation range and amplitude of heretic values for all residential units are similar, but no heretic values were detected in the building's objects or construction materials."
He stood up slowly and looked at everyone. "That is to say, all objects within the Sunny residential area show no heretic values, yet every location is in a high heretic value range of 7000 to 13000. It is currently expanding outward in a circle at a speed of 13–15 meters per minute, affecting the surrounding residents."
Su Yang clenched his fists. He was silent for a second or two, his expression appearing hollow, before he quickly regained his focus. "Have the surrounding residents been evacuated?"
"Residents within a one-kilometer radius have all been evacuated." A team member replied, but he smiled bitterly. "But Team Leader Su, according to this expansion speed, in at most an hour or two, this heretic in the Sunny residential area will expand beyond one kilometer. By that time…"
Su Yang stared straight at the team member. "So we must contain this heretic within an hour, understand!"
Everyone's expression turned stern, and they stood up straight. "Yes, Team Leader Su!"
A team member raised his hand and asked in a low voice, "Captain, is it possible that this is a heretic without a physical entity, like air?"
Su Yang shook his head slowly. "Not very likely. If it were air, an expansion speed of 13–15 meters per minute would be too slow. For example, rose perfume can spread to the entire city in an hour."
"And the method of this heretic's influence is also very limited; it's not the same as the indiscriminate attack form of air." Su Yang tapped on the report with a clear gaze. "It's the buildings."
"Passersby who walk here and our team members who came to investigate have not experienced any abnormalities; the only ones experiencing abnormalities are the residents who bought houses here."
Su Yang's finger moved down to an electronic report sent by the hospital on his tablet, and he paused.
"Ten minutes ago, the hospital sent me this report, stating that at first, only those moving out of the houses would show shriveling symptoms, but later, as time passed, residents living in the buildings also showed varying degrees of shriveling symptoms."
Su Yang let out a turbid breath. "And what changed along with this is the speed at which we detected the heretic expanding outward, which is getting faster and faster."
"It can be said that the heretic initially affected people with the 'intention to move out,' which is the group of people who wanted to escape here. But as we processed moving-out certificates, this heretic began to suck the bone marrow and flesh of these people while simultaneously expanding outward."
Su Yang paused. "It can be said that our move to have residents in the unfinished buildings move out activated and strengthened this heretic, causing it to stop limiting itself and start wanting to suck more of all the residents who own housing here."
A team member added with an ugly expression, "Doesn't that mean it will become more and more powerful, killing more and more people?"
Su Yang glanced at the team member. "The work of the Heretic Management Bureau is to stop the heretic before it becomes powerful."
A team member knocked on the door and came in holding a report. "Team Leader Su, I got the information you asked me to check about the developer of the Sunny residential area!"
Su Yang reached out to take it, looked down, and scanned it quickly. Then he slowly furrowed his brows.
"…After obtaining the land, this developer named Li did not develop it immediately, but secretly subcontracted parts of the land to four other developers. After the other four developers injected capital, they began to jointly build the Sunny residential area in the name of a lead contractor. Therefore, the Sunny residential area was jointly developed by a total of five developers."
The team member nodded. "This was illegal, and it was discovered later, but by that time the developer named Li had already run away."
Su Yang turned the page of the data, and his brows furrowed even tighter. "This developer named Li was arrested and imprisoned last year. During his imprisonment, he showed various abnormal behaviors, sometimes suddenly disappearing during roll calls."
"…He often went to the library to borrow horror-related books and games to read, taking notes on these things as seriously as if he were studying for an exam. He often mumbled about things like, 'I'm about to get out of jail. I will get that piece of land,' and was a key focus of the prison guards."
"Not only that." The team member pointed to the data. "This person had great courage; he often provoked prison guards, saying he could change the world. He also took the initiative to confess that the secret contracts he sub-contracted to the other four developers had a land usage period of up to 9999 years."
Su Yang frowned. "Normally, it can only be contracted for 45–75 years; his private sub-contract was fundamentally invalid."
The team member nodded. "The prison guards said the same to him, but this person was extremely arrogant, saying he had a way to make these contracts valid, a way to make every piece of land in the world his own, and a way to make the residents who sued him work for him for a lifetime just for buying a house from him."
"This person said that as long as he had this desire, he would certainly be able to do it. He is a typical idealist."
Su Yang did not comment on this person's actions. He flipped to another page, and his brows furrowed again. "Did this person have contact with Li Gou, a rapist who was stabbed to death by a fellow prisoner in prison last year?"
"Yes." The team member nodded, a subtle expression also appearing on his face. "The incident where Li Gou's evidence vanished into thin air during the trial phase was investigated by the Heretic Management Bureau, but nothing unusual was found. Finally, the evidence appeared inexplicably, and it entered normal trial procedures."
"But before the judgment, this Li Gou was mysteriously stabbed to death in prison."
The team member pointed to the information and said, "This developer named Li had brief contact with Li Gou when he was imprisoned. Later, Li Gou also showed the same psychological symptoms as the developer named Li—muttering to himself, avoiding and disappearing during roll calls, provoking prison guards, and arrogantly stating that he would one day be able to kill the people who sued him."
Su Yang looked up, his expression solemn as he asked, "Where is this developer named Li now?"
The team member said, "He is already dead. In August of this year, he disappeared for an hour while in prison, and then his corpse suddenly appeared on the playground."
"Dead?" Su Yang frowned. "How did he die?"
The team member said, "An autopsy revealed that his stomach and mouth were full of soil, and his stomach was burst open by the clods of dirt. He was literally stuffed to death."
—————————————————
In the game.
Mu Ke and Mu Shicheng walked back with ugly expressions. Mu Ke shook his head honestly at Bai Liu. "We didn't find the monster."
Tang Erda and Bai Liu exchanged a glance, and Bai Liu ordered, "Switch to defense. You two come and guard the injured and Liu Jiayi; Tang Erda and I will go scout."
Liu Jiayi glanced at Bai Liu, took two deep breaths, and handed over a few bottles of antidote. "I don't have enough skills. If something happens, you can tune my panel yourself and use my skills to heal. Pay attention to your health bar."
Tang Erda nodded at the returning Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke. "I will guard Bai Liu well. You two pay attention to the situation in the rear."
Bai Liu nodded and walked into the fog of the cemetery, one in front and one behind Tang Erda.
They also didn't see anything.
Tang Erda held his gun against his pant leg, his expression solemn as he turned to look at Bai Liu. "Is your health still dropping?"
Bai Liu's face was sallow to the point of being almost transparent, and he nodded. "65, above the safety line."
"What do you think this monster could be?" Tang Erda's expression grew more depressed. "I've encountered colorless, odorless, formless judgment-type monsters, and they are all very hard to deal with unless you find the target's existence object."
"As long as you find the storage object and can harm the target, then this kind of monster is nothing to be afraid of."
"I think the same." Bai Liu squatted down as if he were thinking of something; he looked at the ground and narrowed his eyes. "…Captain Tang, what kind of monster, using what medium, could simply use houses to suck blood and bone marrow from the target whenever and wherever it wants, without needing to make contact with the tenant, regardless of whether the target is a person or a ghost?"
"What is the thing a real estate developer who pursues maximum profit want to store most?" Bai Liu lowered his eyes to look at the dirt that Mu Shicheng had dug twice and was now trembling strangely.
Tang Erda paused; he followed Bai Liu's gaze downward.
Bai Liu smiled at Tang Erda. "I think it's land."
As he spoke, he suddenly swung his whip downward without hesitation, beating the thick soil until it was "bloody and torn," splitting it to a depth of about four or five meters.
The ground let out a dull, sharp shriek from this whip lash and began to shake from side to side.
From the fissure, black-red, mud-colored plasma seeped out, and on the cross-section, one could clearly see pipe openings that had been broken and were now writhing. Blood clots were rapidly forming on the blue-green-gray soft pipe openings, and a rich, bloody stench wafted from the "plasma" flowing out of the pipes.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu used a skill weapon to attack (E-District Developer)]
Bai Liu looked at that blood-red "plasma" and those dense, web-like soft-walled pipes that swung side to side like capillaries trying to reconnect. "Wow, this is my first time seeing blood vessels growing in the soil."
Tang Erda let out a breath. "The entity storage object for the five major developers here is the land itself beneath the ground."