Longshu Temple.

"Take... it...

"Back... to the human world...

"Go... and do... what was unfinished... What should have been... done... back then..."

The old monk’s corpse was completely rotten. His throat was full of worms, his tongue had decomposed into dust, and his lips were so tattered they couldn’t hold air.

Every sentence he spoke seemed an agony. The mumbled, indistinct words had exhausted the last shred of lingering will the old monk had left behind from his life.

Yu Sheng pressed his palms together, feeling a ball of fire burning between them. The fire brought him pain.

’After Master died, he held on to that tiny sliver of consciousness, just to wait for me here in Longshu Temple... to wait until he could entrust this coffin to me with his own hands...’

’The pain he endured after his death... it was unimaginable.’

’It was as if his physical body remained in the mortal realm, but it was worse than entering Eternal Hell, suffering unending torment.’

Yu Sheng pressed his palms together even more tightly. The mental anguish he had suffered was like a drop in the bucket compared to what his master had gone through all these years.

’And to think I believed Master stayed at Longshu Temple because he still hated me, that he’d become a vengeful ghost to kill me.’

’All these years, I never dared return to Longshu Temple. I was wracked with guilt, and I was terrified of Master’s rotted face.’

’How ignorant and absurd I was for thinking such things.’

Yu Sheng opened his eyes.

Before him, the terrifying corpse of the old monk had vanished.

All that remained was the glass-like Transparent Coffin, sitting motionless. With a slight change in viewing angle, the Transparent Coffin would "disappear." Only from a very specific, awkward angle could one barely make out a corner of it.

Yu Sheng now knew his sole mission for the rest of his life.

He walked to the Transparent Coffin, picked up the iron chain on one corner, and began dragging the coffin away, ready to leave Longshu Temple without a backward glance.

The first step now was to return to the real world, together with this coffin.

Outside the temple, the next No. 444 bus should be arriving soon.

Just as Yu Sheng crossed the main path, a moment before he was about to leave Longshu Temple.

From the distant mountain range came waves of deep roars. It sounded like a bear, but also like the emotional outburst of a crazed giant.

The terrifying roars were so earth-shattering that the endless forest as far as the eye could see began to tremble. Countless blood-red birds were startled into the air, letting out ominous cries as they flew into the distance, toward the green sun of the Inner World.

"A bear’s roar?"

Yu Sheng stopped in his tracks, hesitating for a moment.

’There shouldn’t be any bears here.’

He thought for a moment. He knew he wouldn’t be able to leave the Inner World for the time being.

...

...

Xia Ta slowly opened her eyes. The surrounding scene shifted, and when she looked again, she was back in the familiar first-floor lobby of the Living Persons Apartment. She had escaped from the terrifying fifth floor.

Her right arm dangled and swayed gently like a puppet’s. Xia Ta walked silently toward the first-aid kit on the first floor and began to treat her wounds. Behind her, Jiang Yang and Lan Chu also made it down safely, teleporting through a black hole.

But there was still no sign of Gao Tian and Zhao Zhenjia.

’Five minutes have passed. Why isn’t Gao Tian down yet?’

Seeing this, Xia Ta frowned.

’This isn’t a good sign. When we fled the fifth floor, that terrifying thing making the sound of a hammer was already close behind us in the hallway. Another minute’s delay and we might not have survived. How could Gao Tian have lasted five minutes up there without coming down?’

’But the mission upstairs is over. We can’t possibly run back to the fifth floor to help.’

Just as Xia Ta stood there thinking, a woman’s shocked scream rang out from the direction of the second floor:

"Someone’s been killed!"

"It’s haunted! The second floor isn’t safe anymore!"

The sound of more and more residents opening their doors to check the situation could be heard. Downstairs, Xia Ta and Jiang Yang already had a rough idea of what had happened. They could only force themselves to put aside the matter of Gao Tian and run upstairs to deal with the aftermath.

The room with the problem was 220. Jiang Yang remembered that room belonged to a resident named Li Jin, who had completed two missions. His second mission, at Sapphire Mall, had been with Gao Tian and Jin Daxiang.

A large amount of blood was seeping out from under the door. It looked like the person inside had been dead for a long time; the blood had dried and turned black, soaking into the apartment’s carpet.

’Who would have thought... He and Su Jiu, fellow survivors... one died on the third mission, and the other died in the supposedly safe apartment.’

"It’s the children from the Children’s Home."

"While we were upstairs investigating, those living children took the opportunity to sneak down and kill the residents on the second floor."

Xia Ta sighed.

’Living people are a far bigger headache than vengeful ghosts.’

’The priority now is to block the stairwell to the third floor. These kids, who think they’re ghosts, should still be on the second floor. We can’t let them escape.’

"Once we find these children, what do you plan to do, Landlord?"

"Will you deal with them like ghosts, or will you try to correct their perception, treating them like people?"

Jiang Yang asked.

Xia Ta had already strode to the second floor. She grabbed the doorknob in front of her and, as if twisting open a soda bottle, casually crushed a large part of the door.

"I don’t know. But right now, I’m very angry."

"Let’s beat them up first."

"The kind of beating where you don’t hold back."

As the remains of door 220 swung open, the stench of blood intensified.

The scene inside was indescribable. Some of the more timid residents gathered in the hallway fainted on the spot without a word.

Two children were sitting on the floor, observing Li Jin. Hearing someone enter, they looked up and gave Xia Ta an eerie, faint smile.

"Who are you?"

Xia Ta smiled and slowly walked in.

"The person who’s come to collect you."

"This will hurt a little. Try to bear it."

"This beating I’m about to give you will probably make you regret being born."

"Don’t worry, I promise I won’t kill you—that’d be getting off too easy."

...

...

Gao Tian and Zhao Zhenjia found the mirror on the third floor. Pressing against it, they summoned a Wind Attendant Buddha on the outside and pulled it into the mirror, successfully returning to reality. When they came downstairs, Jiang Yang was so nervous he could barely stand. Lan Chu slapped Gao Tian hard on the shoulder, asking him to take him to the Mirror World to play again. Only Xia Ta just smiled faintly and said, "Welcome back."

One of her hands was bleeding, as if she had just beaten someone up.

Her fist was even a little deformed, which showed just how satisfyingly thorough the beating had been.

「A few days later.」

Xia Ta handled the aftermath.

The Children’s Home housed twenty children. One of them was kicked to death on the fourth floor by a single soccer ball kick from Zhao Zhenjia. The other nineteen were all dragged out and subdued, one by one, before they could launch their sneak attack on the second-floor residents.

Some had been in the Children’s Home for seven or eight years, others for more than a decade.

「In the days that followed.」

The children would be sent to Xia Ta’s hometown. There, a teacher surnamed Yang, who also worked as a part-time electrician, had some radical methods for correcting children, but they were perfectly suited for those from the Children’s Home.

The rooms that had become murder scenes were automatically cleaned up by the Living Persons Apartment.

Although the Children’s Home incident was over, many residents insisted that this was no longer a safe place and moved out of the apartment building one after another.

During Xia Ta’s absence, Jiang Yang would temporarily serve as the new Landlord.

Faced with this situation, he did not try to persuade them to stay. Only time could prove everything.

While the apartment’s future wasn’t guaranteed to be completely safe, it was considerably safer compared to the increasingly chaotic outside world.

...

...

The mission rewards for the upstairs team:

Xia Ta: one entry to a fourth-floor room (413), one entry to a fifth-floor room (525).

Reward: one black card, one gray card.

Zhao Zhenjia, Jiang Yang, Lan Chu, Gao Tian: two entries each to fourth-floor rooms (413, Mirror Alley or the study).

Reward: two black cards each.

These rewards appeared automatically in their rooms.

The reward Xia Ta received from the fifth floor was also a gray card. Gao Tian had, of course, already told her how much of a trap this card was.

At first, he had even suspected that Yu Sheng had deliberately set him up.

Now it seemed that the reward for the fifth floor was just the damn gray card. It was also Yu Sheng’s first time getting one, so he hadn’t known its effect was so absurd.

Every rule in the Living Persons Apartment had been discovered by its residents through trials of blood and life.

...

...

「The sixth day after returning from the fifth floor.」

According to Yu Sheng’s prophecy, Gao Tian wouldn’t die upstairs, nor would he die during the fourth green-text mission, but he would die in the interval between the two events.

But the gray card said Gao Tian would die in three months, which was much later than Yu Sheng’s prophecy. It would automatically teleport him away just before his death.

The death flags above his head were starting to pile up.

But when you have too many lice, you stop feeling the itch. With so many flags raised, he actually felt a strange sense of ease.

’I’m actually quite curious how I’ll end up dying.’

The news was filled with more and more strange incidents. All sectors of society were urging ordinary people not to go out unless necessary, and to avoid crowded places if they did. If you encounter any strange phenomena at home, please call the emergency hotline immediately.

During this time, Gao Tian decided to just stay inside the Living Persons Apartment, not taking a single step outside.

He became a turtle hiding in its shell.

’The Children’s Home incident is over. For now, no ghosts from the fourth or fifth floor are coming down to kill anyone. No matter how crazy the supernatural stuff gets out there, I’m staying in my room and not going out the front door.’

’Hiding from the disaster in the apartment isn’t absolutely safe, but it’s the most stable choice, relatively speaking.’

During his time holed up in the apartment, he often used the fitness equipment on the first floor to exercise.

In supernatural incidents, physical fitness and stamina were also quite important. To put it bluntly, being fast enough didn’t mean you could outrun a ghost, but as long as you could run faster than the person next to you, you might just save your own skin.

Before he knew it, two weeks had passed.

During this time, everything was calm and peaceful in the apartment; nothing at all happened.

Xia Ta hadn’t returned.

Yu Sheng also hadn’t come back.

There was still some time before the fourth green-text mission.

Everything was fine, and very quiet.

Like the little bit of calm before the storm.

[End of Volume 1: Walker in the Mirror]

(A note on the Jialan Society Arc: The first three Chapters have a slow start. Readers who prefer to skip ahead can begin with Chapter 4.)