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Looking at the inexplicable smile beneath the woman’s umbrella, Gao Tian suddenly felt that something was wrong.

Had his Ghost Luck even triggered? He didn’t feel any of the good fortune it was supposed to bring.

How had he only drawn a 10? The probability of being suppressed by her was far too high.

Or did the Killing Rule of the Woman in the Rain, as an S-Level Meme ghost story, completely supersede his Ghost Luck?

The instant the Woman in the Rain drew her card, Gao Tian braced for the worst.

If she revealed a Jack or a Queen, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to stand at the door waiting to be imprisoned by the Urn.

He would either immediately run into the Apartment to see if it could offset the Urn’s effects, or dive straight into the Mirror, betting on whether the Urn’s rule power could chase him into the Mirror World.

In short, he was absolutely going to cheat. Keeping promises with a ghost was the most idiotic thing anyone could do.

However, the situation unfolded completely beyond his expectations, rendering all his contingencies useless—

After she drew her card, the lips beneath the woman’s umbrella still carried a hint of a smile.She didn’t look at the number she drew, nor did she show it to Gao Tian. In fact, she had never intended to play this game in the first place—

The woman opened her small, cherry-like mouth. Beneath her plump lips lay concentric rings of razor-sharp teeth like a demon’s, leading down into a bottomless throat. Without hesitation, she crumpled the entire playing card into a ball, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed. With a crunching sound, she swallowed the card whole.

From start to finish, she hadn’t even glanced at the card she had drawn.

Gao Tian’s mind buzzed. It took him a long time to process what had just happened.

The Woman in the Rain had eaten the playing card provided by the Urn?

Such blatant contempt for the game’s rules caused the ashes inside the box to boil. An uncanny force violently threw the Urn open; no amount of pressure could hold the lid down. A massive amount of ash flew out like a tornado, completely engulfing the Woman in the Rain. In the blink of an eye, she was swallowed up and sucked straight into the Urn.

In an instant, the Urn slammed shut with a heavy thud. The spot where the woman had just stood was completely empty.

What on earth was going on?

Just like that—he had easily imprisoned an S-Level Fierce Ghost?

Feeling the heavy weight of the Urn in his hands, Gao Tian felt a sense of unreality, as if he were dreaming.

No wonder he only drew a 10 despite the blessing of his Ghost Luck. In that situation, even if he had drawn the smallest card, an Ace, he would have still won for sure.

Did an S-Level Fierce Ghost really offer absolutely no resistance against the Urn? His heroic readiness to face death when he pushed open the Apartment door had been completely wasted.

That was until the Killing Rule of the Woman in the Rain, transmitted from the Urn, entered Gao Tian’s mind:

Can conjure rain out of thin air in any climate, even indoors.

This rain is a supernatural phenomenon.

That was it. Just those short sentences.

The Killing Rule of an S-Level Fierce Ghost was just this?

Gripping the Urn in his hand, Gao Tian increasingly felt that something was wrong.

This didn’t match the rumors on the internet about the Woman in the Rain’s Killing Rule at all.

Rather, Gao Tian suspected that the Urn had only contained a portion of her rule.

—

The Woman in the Rain’s ability to conjure rain out of nowhere was indeed her power. But her abilities went far beyond that; the latter part was the real key.

Could it be—

This kind of Meme ghost story had the tendency and effect to continuously replicate itself. In other words, there might already be thousands of Women in the Rain across Shanghai City right now. The one Gao Tian imprisoned was merely one of those thousands, so he only acquired a thousandth of her Killing Rule.

This also explained why the Woman in the Rain cared so little about the game. Sacrificing a fraction of herself to consume one of Gao Tian’s vital Supernatural Items was a massively profitable trade for the Fierce Ghost.

Of course, all of the above were merely Gao Tian’s speculations. No one currently knew the actual truth.

With the disappearance of the Woman in the Rain, the bloody rain outside the Apartment gradually lost its color, turning into normal, transparent rainwater.

The downpour hadn’t eased up in the slightest. The climate didn’t return to normal just because the Woman in the Rain was gone.

Regardless, the crisis outside the Apartment had been temporarily resolved.

Gao Tian shoved the Urn into the Mirror and retreated back inside the Apartment for now.

Inside the Apartment, Jiang Yang saw that the Woman in the Rain outside had vanished, but Gao Tian’s expression remained heavy, showing no signs of joy.

He asked, ”What’s wrong? Did you have to pay a heavy price?”

Gao Tian briefly explained his speculations. Jiang Yang rested a hand on his chin in thought and said, ”That is a possibility.”

”But it’s also possible that Meme ghost stories are just this weak before they fully mature.”

”They might still be at a level where a single Supernatural Item can imprison them.”

After all, Apartment residents had encountered very few Meme Fierce Ghosts. They currently lacked information and could only rely on guesswork.

Regardless, the incident with the Woman in the Rain had ended as a false alarm, concluding this matter for now.

If she came looking for the two of them again in the future, they would deal with it then.

The call to the Supernatural Disaster Bureau still hadn’t gone through, so Jiang Yang simply hung up. Just now, while he was confronting the woman outside the glass doors, a new line of the Green Text Mission had surfaced on the back wall of the Apartment.

He wondered which unlucky bastard from which floor had to go out and execute a mission again.

Still carrying his sense of relief from the Woman in the Rain’s disappearance, Jiang Yang walked toward the back wall to check.

Every Apartment resident had an obligation to inform the other members about Green Text Missions.

When he read the text on the wall, the relief on Jiang Yang’s face vanished without a trace.

It was replaced by an expression of utter disbelief.

After reading the Green Text Mission three times, Jiang Yang still couldn’t quite believe the words on the wall. He muttered to himself, ”How is this possible—”

”This is too strange. My time hasn’t come yet.

”A mission of this type has never appeared before. It’s too abnormal.”

Seeing him lose his composure piqued Gao Tian’s curiosity. Temporarily putting aside the matter of the Woman in the Rain, he walked over and asked, ”What happened?”

Judging by Jiang Yang’s tone, this mission involved him.

It was indeed abnormal. For a veteran resident like Jiang Yang, who had survived five missions, the interval between tasks was relatively long. Based on his calculations, his next mission shouldn’t have arrived for another few months, yet the green text had appeared early.

However, all the ”rules” and ”intervals” in the Apartment were figured out by generations of residents through trial and error. The Apartment had never had an administrator or an avatar to personally confirm the definitive execution of every rule to them.

A certain degree of advancement or delay in Green Text Missions was considered normal. It wasn’t the first time it had happened.

So why was Jiang Yang this shocked? In fact, Gao Tian felt that Jiang Yang’s reaction was a bit abnormal.

The former slowly turned his head, his face looking somewhat grim. ”Your name is also on the Green Text Mission.”

For a moment, Gao Tian didn’t understand what Jiang Yang meant.

His name was in the green text?

What kind of joke was this? Jiang Yang must have misread it.

Jiang Yang was going from his fifth to his sixth mission, while he was going from his third to his fourth. The two of them weren’t on the same level; how could they be executing the same mission?

It seemed he had to go to the wall himself and see exactly what the hell this Green Text Mission was up to.

”Listen, Gao Tian, although this is hard to accept.

”I’ve only heard about this format of mission in rumors.

”It’s called a Joint Mission.

”Residents of different levels in the Apartment complete the same mission together. The objectives each resident needs to achieve within the mission are all different—”

Jiang Yang’s voice still echoed in his ears.

Gao Tian had already walked up to the wall covered in green text.

[Joint Mission]

Mission Requirements:

Mission participants will depart tonight, enter Longshu Temple in the Inner World, and survive there for 7 days.

Based on the participants’ previous mission completion records, each participant must complete specific corresponding events at Longshu Temple. The conditions for clearing the mission are entirely different.

Game Participants:

Jiang Yang (5 missions): Ensure Yusheng’s survival and investigate the events that previously occurred at Longshu Temple.

Gao Tian (3 missions): Take away a special coffin and return it to reality, ensuring it remains completely intact.

Wang Wenbo (2 missions): Under the premise that Jiang Yang completes his mission, help the monks in the temple alleviate their suffering and end their endless torment.

The mission description ended there.

This mission was indeed bizarre. Its participants spanned completely different levels of residents.

From the highest at their fifth mission to the lowest at their second, all were included.

Everyone’s completion requirements were completely distinct. A mission this ”creative” had never appeared before.

Longshu Temple. Gao Tian naturally wouldn’t forget this place name.

—

Yusheng’s seventh mission.

Speaking of which, the day Yusheng departed was the exact same day as the fourth-floor expedition. Since then, Gao Tian had experienced many things—the haunted house, Jinhai Building, and the Divine Tree—yet even now, Yusheng still hadn’t returned to the Apartment.

If it were anyone else trapped in the Inner World for so long, there was a 99% chance they would already be dead.

But Yusheng wasn’t an ordinary person. For missions beyond the fifth one, the duration would stretch out extremely long; they weren’t things that could be finished in a day or two.

Moreover, Jiang Yang’s mission requirement explicitly stated: ”Ensure Yusheng’s survival.”

This inversely proved that, at the very least, Yusheng was still alive at this moment. If Yusheng had died long ago, then Jiang Yang’s mission would have failed before it even started.

Looking at the Green Text Mission before him, Gao Tian felt a mix of complex emotions.

His own mission schedule, which originally had at least two months left, had also been moved up. He had just returned to the Apartment and couldn’t even catch a break before he had to go out and put his life on the line again.

Even though Yusheng had completely screwed him over regarding the Gray Card, knowing that he was still alive right now... was truly a relief.

”I’ll go contact Wang Wenbo; you get ready. The Gray Ticket Stub should have already appeared in your room. We’re about to set off,” Jiang Yang said.

Even if the mission hadn’t required them to depart tonight, they wouldn’t have dared to delay their departure for a few days anyway.

Yusheng had been inside Longshu Temple for over three weeks without any news. Arriving a day earlier meant a bit more hope of rescuing Yusheng; otherwise, it would directly result in Jiang Yang’s mission failing.

An old man draped in a military greatcoat and smoking a long Smoking Pipe, looking somewhat rustic, limped up to the glass doors on the first floor of an apartment building. ”It’s been a long time since I showed off in front of the younger generation. Several consecutive flashes in a row, and I accidentally threw out my old back.”

”I should hold back next time. I’m not young anymore, and time forgives no one.”

He took a deep drag and slowly raised his head, looking at the signboard above the apartment hidden by ivy creepers. He could barely make out the four words: ”Living Apartment.”

—

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