Han Fei’s mind suddenly echoed with the system’s voice, as Xu Qin’s friendliness score surged by twenty points.
"Attention player 0000! Xu Qin’s friendliness level has met the standard! Congratulations, you have earned Xu Qin’s friendship! Now you have learned how to live in harmony with your neighbors!"
Scrolling to the end of the attribute panel, Han Fei found Xu Qin’s name in the neighbor section of the life chart, her name was listed above Meng Shi’s.
"Xu Qin (Curse Aggregation): The original personality has collapsed, cognition is in disorder, in a dangerous state, constantly pursuing the ultimate in cuisine."
After completing the Manager’s task, Han Fei received a lot of rewards, which he still hadn’t had time to examine closely.
"High risks really do come with high rewards; not to mention, this Talent with the one in ten thousand chance of being acquired and capable of growth was a real bargain."
"Soul-summoning, the name itself fits so well with this game, summoning souls for healing and purification of the spirit, also very much befitting of my role as the Building Chief."
Han Fei now possessed two Talents, one was the newly acquired Manager Talent, Soul-summoning, and the other the unknown-level Talent he came with—Soul-returning.
There was no introduction to the Soul-returning Talent in the attribute panel, but now, through the system’s introduction of the Soul-summoning Talent, Han Fei had roughly inferred some things.
"Both my Talents may be related to the players."
The F-level Talent Soul-summoning had a certain chance to call upon players with the Ghost Encountering Physique. To Han Fei, this Talent was equivalent to dragging players from the real world into the Deep World.
Currently, Soul-summoning was only an F-level Talent, with a very low success rate, and it could only be used once each night.
However, this Talent had the potential for growth; as Han Fei’s level increased, the Talent might undergo some sort of mutation.
"If only I could drag that family of three who abused Ying Yue into the Deep World," Han Fei sincerely hoped the family of three could survive well in reality until his Soul-summoning Talent leveled up, then invite them to play in the "Underworld," "They like to take over other people’s houses, right? My building is full of empty ’homes’."
After studying his Talents, Han Fei allocated the Free Attribute Points he gained from leveling up to Physical Strength and added the two new Free Skill Points to Acting; his Medium-level Acting was officially upgraded to High-level Acting at this moment.
How powerful certified High-level Acting was, Han Fei wasn’t sure yet, but he only knew that he could easily produce any emotion or expression, and that he could impersonate anyone he had ever seen.
The ability of Acting seemed to lack combat power, but whether in the perilous Deep World or the real world, it could provide significant assistance to Han Fei.
Moving his body a little, Han Fei surveyed room 1091 and noticed Xu Qin watching him, her crimson eyes seeming to flow with blood.
Avoiding her gaze, Han Fei casually introduced a topic, "I vaguely remember there was another ’person’ in the room before? It seemed like a puppet?"
"That puppet escaped from a nearby Paradise over a decade ago. It was taken in by the Building Chief and later went missing. I didn’t expect to encounter it on the ninth floor," said Xu Qin as she systematically put away the dinner knives and wiped the blood from her hands. "It was badly injured and is now hiding in room 1094."
"Shall we go see it now?" Han Fei’s interest was piqued upon hearing the other party had been seriously injured.
"Are you thinking of killing it now?" Xu Qin was very straightforward, "No one has ever left the ninth floor before; that the three of us can now leave freely means the former Building Chief’s soul has scattered, and the new chief must be among us."
Her bright red lips slowly opened, Xu Qin bit her little finger, and her expression gradually became morbid, "If you want to kill it, I can help you."
Xu Qin seemed to have guessed that the new Building Chief was Han Fei, she just didn’t point it out.
"Not necessarily, not necessarily, I just want to see it, and I’m quite interested in the Paradise it used to be in." Han Fei had heard from Huang Ying that one of the intersections between the Deep World and the Shallow World was at the deepest part of a maze in a certain Paradise. He wanted to find that connection point, but first he needed to figure out the location of the Paradise.
"Its own consciousness is severely damaged; if you want to communicate with it, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait some time."
"Its own consciousness is severely damaged?"
"The Puppet’s essence is the mask on its face; its consciousness hides inside the mask. The previous Building Chief occupied its mask, often forcing its consciousness to patrol the floors."
"Was that bouncing and hopping sound we heard earlier made by it?"
"Yes, you’d better not have too high hopes for this Puppet; it’s not very intelligent."
Han Fei remembered the mask the Puppet wore on its face, and he felt that since the previous Building Chief could use the mask to drive the Puppet’s consciousness, he should be able to as well.
After communicating with Xu Qin, the two of them went to Room 1094 together.
The Puppet stood in the corner of Room 1094, unresponsive to anything Han Fei and Xu Qin did to it, just like a scarecrow in the field.
"The mask can’t be taken off, and there’s no way to take it with us. Forget it, we’ll come back for it after it has had some time to recover."
The Puppet was considered one of the original residents of the building, and Han Fei didn’t want to harm it.
Walking out of Room 1094, Han Fei didn’t hurry to leave the ninth floor. He had found the last two pieces of the Human-body Puzzle he needed here. Now, he just needed to bring all the puzzles back to the Haunted House in Room 1044, then another F-level quest could be completed.
"Should we take a look at the tenth floor?" Xu Qin looked at the staircase leading to the tenth floor. Except for the Building Chief, no residents had ever been to the tenth floor, and she was also very curious about it.
"Yes." Han Fei followed Xu Qin, and the two of them went up to the tenth floor, one after the other.
The top floor of the Ghost Building was unexpectedly ordinary, restored by the Building Chief to how he remembered it; the tenth floor was once his home, only now without his relatives.
Pushing the door of Room 1101 open, there was no musty or bloody smell as imagined, and everything was neatly arranged.
The most eye-catching thing in the whole room was a hand-drawn map on the wall. As soon as Han Fei touched the wall, the system’s voice rang directly in his brain sea.
"Attention, player number 0000! Game map feature has been unlocked. Everywhere you have explored will be illuminated!"
Opening the Attribute Panel, Han Fei found the so-called game map beneath his Lifemap.
In the nearly boundless darkness there was a faint, almost negligible glow.
It was only when Han Fei magnified the map to the largest scale that he could see the words marked on that glow — Explored Area: Happiness Residential Community Apartment No. 1.