A brief commotion broke out among the people gathered in front of the New Housing Project sales office in District C. The crowd was like a swarm of disturbed bees, rapidly congregating around the half-open door of the sales office.
Xiao Dong, startled by the surging crowd, shrank back inside the doorway and hung an iron chain across it to prevent them from rushing in. She shouted in panic, "Everyone, please maintain order! I'm sure our department will give everyone a solution by tomorrow!"
In reality, she didn't know what the solution was either; she had simply been pushed out by the sales department supervisor, who had an ugly expression, to deal with the problem. Until now, Xiao Dong didn't know specifically what had happened.
Like these people, she had been sleepily staying up late waiting for the real estate certificates to be issued, only to suddenly find the people from the finance department in a frantic mess, shouting that the money had suddenly disappeared. Then, a blood-red countdown suddenly appeared on the buildings outside.
Xiao Dong gazed at the towering New Housing Project in the dark night from the sales office. She just had a faint premonition that the houses belonging to these people might not be handed over.
Someone in the crowd blocked outside the door had their shoe squeezed off, but no one cared. They were so anxious that they jumped on their bare feet, roaring:
"Why do we have to wait until tomorrow for it to be processed?!"
"What happened to the housing project?!"
Intense and tense interrogations merged into one in the dark night. Someone threw paper balls and stones at Xiao Dong in anger:
"What are you closing the door for?! Speak! Why won't you say what happened?!"
"You only know how to hide when things happen! Open the door and let us in!"
Xiao Dong gripped her sales office uniform tightly. She firmly blocked the door to prevent anyone from entering, constantly bowing and apologizing, her eyes reddening bit by bit. Her voice carried a sob as she spoke:
"I represent the entire housing project in saying sorry to everyone."
The director of the sales department had ordered her not to open the door to let people in and simultaneously required her to step forward and apologize on their behalf, insisting that she must pacify the anger of this group of house slaves.
If she couldn't pacify them and something went wrong, she would be fired, and her salary for this month would be deducted at the same time.
She needed this job too much, so she chose to let this group of people vent their anger on her. She lowered her head and endured the pain and tears, bowing more than 90 degrees again and again, apologizing sincerely time after time.
"What's the damn use of saying sorry! Do you know how much I paid for this house!" someone cried out heartbreakingly. "I worked until I was almost dead. I didn't dare eat anything, didn't dare use anything, painstakingly saving money just to have a place in this city to sleep without being kicked out!"
"Get out of the way! Let Chairman C come out! He's the proxy developer!"
Finally, someone said tremblingly and in a small voice the answer that everyone was too afraid to admit: "Chairman C didn't run off with the money and leave this building as an unfinished building project, did he?"
These words were like a drop of water into boiling oil, sparking discussion among everyone:
"No way, right? Chairman C is so rich; he wouldn't run off with our money!"
"District E and District B have both had unfinished building projects, and the proxy developers of those two districts are also very rich…"
"Wasn't it said to be a floor construction problem?"
"But in the end, they pushed those unfinished building projects down and rebuilt them, saying the construction materials had already used up all the money, and they didn't compensate those original house slaves who bought the houses at all…"
"The house slaves who caused trouble were all beaten to death by the patrol team, and their corpses were sent to the hospital to be dismantled, auctioned, and mortgaged for the unfinished building project loans…"
The group of people who were originally prepared to cause trouble fell silent together upon hearing this. With desperate and pleading gazes, they looked at Xiao Dong, who stood inside the sales office door, blocking them with the chain: "…You just told us to come back tomorrow and continue waiting for the certificates. We shouldn't be an unfinished building project, right?"
Xiao Dong slowly straightened her body. She crossed her hands in front of her, bit her lower lip, and, after a long time, forced out a smile: "No, everyone."
"It's just that the number of housing transactions this time is too large and needs to be processed in bulk, so it was delayed."
"If it doesn't come down tomorrow…" Xiao Dong gave everyone a deep bow. She pinched the web between her thumb and forefinger hard to keep her trembling voice steady, lying with a sweet smile. "It should come down this week or next week."
"Please return and wait patiently."
Xiao Dong raised her body to look at everyone. Her mouth was smiling, but tears were sliding down from the corners of her eyes: "Everyone will definitely get their own home!"
The group of people seemed to realize something. They stood quietly for a long, long time in front of Xiao Dong, who was on the verge of tears yet striving to smile at the sales office. Suddenly, one person squeezed out a forced and self-deceiving smile on his face, muttering to himself as he walked toward the New Housing Project:
"Didn't I say buying a house in District C is still more reliable, low risk?"
"If I have to wait, I'll wait. If it's tomorrow, it's tomorrow; if it's a week, it's a week; if it's two weeks, it's two weeks. I've waited so long; it's not like I can't afford to wait…"
"I'll go take a look first. I'll just take one look at my future house, and then I'll go back and wait honestly."
This person muttered to himself, his expression dazed as he staggered into the new housing project currently under construction, climbing up floor by floor. Behind him, at some point, he was followed by a group of silent residents who had also purchased houses in this project.
They climbed up from the bottom floor in silence, without a word. In some places in the building, there were no concrete stairs at all, and some higher floors only had concrete and steel frames. They brought their children and wives, following these dangerous architectural supports, moving their whole families upward. Then, from a pile of concrete bases that hadn't been labeled with room numbers, they searched in order, even conversing naturally with each other:
"I'm 1305. It should be this one, right?"
"I've seen the layout. Yours should be this one. I'm 1304."
They stood in narrow concrete rooms of only ten or twenty square meters that were just rough shells, reaching out to cautiously touch the four walls of the house. A very weak, tiny light lit up in their eyes:
"As long as the unfinished building project isn't taken back by them, it's not unlivable, right?"
Someone stood at the edge of a room that was open to the wind on all sides, looking down at the pitch-black ground of District C. The only things lit up were that sales office and the top floors of the surrounding buildings. Looking further into the distance, one could only faintly see the silhouette of a very hidden moon and the brightly lit work areas in the city center that stayed awake all night.
The bright light of the moon reflected in his eyes was a point of white light so dazzling it seemed like tears.
"So beautiful." This person looked at the night sky, leaning against the empty wall and murmuring to himself, "I lived in a cemetery house for so long; turns out you can see the moon from the ground at night?"
"I almost forgot what the moon looks like."
"It's so good, living in such a high house. You can see the sun when you look up during the day, and you can see the moon at night."
The light in his eyes quickly extinguished, and his tone of voice was as light as smoke, scattered as soon as the night wind blew: "A pity I can't afford such a high house."
"Such a beautiful moon. A low-level citizen like me is probably only worthy of seeing it once in a lifetime."
The tips of his toes moved a step outward toward the unsealed edge of the building. Then, slowly and tremblingly in the cold night wind, he slightly spread his hands and closed his eyes, his body leaning forward as he fell into the pitch-black night.
District E, in the cemetery.
On the 18th floor underground, Mu Shicheng wiped the sweat from his forehead, let out a long breath, and turned to look at Bai Liu with some pride, waving the cemetery property certificate in his hand: "My efficiency is decent, right?"
"Quite good." After Bai Liu took it with a smile, the system prompt sounded immediately.
[System Notification: Congratulations to player Bai Liu for being about to obtain ownership of building 0812 in the District E cemetery.]
[Currently, ownership of the entrance and the cemetery rooms on the floor where the tombstone is located is still required. Player Bai Liu, please keep up the good work!]
Bai Liu raised his eyes to glance around at everyone: "Let's go out. We're only missing the ownership of the cemetery room at the entrance."
Tang Erda couldn't help but ask: "Are you going to rob that 17-year-old child's cemetery room?"
"No, exchange." Bai Liu looked at Tang Erda with a smile. "Doesn't Captain Tang have property certificates for haunted houses that are much better than this cemetery room? After processing them tonight, let that child live there."
"We will use the haunted house property certificates to exchange for the cemetery room property certificate with him."
Bai Liu smiled: "Captain Tang, you go and exchange with him."
Tang Erda paused: "Thank you."
Bai Liu smiled: "You're welcome."
While the group was walking out, Tang Erda hesitated repeatedly. He retreated to the side of Bai Liu, who was walking last to cover the rear, lowered his head to Bai Liu's ear, and asked in a low voice with a frown: "Bai Liu, the path you mentioned earlier that the people from Russell Cemetery took has horror elements that haven't been discovered. What do you think they will be?"
"First, the corpse of the dead developer. According to the settings of this city, the higher the citizen's level, the higher the attack power of the monster they alienate into after death. The monster the developer turns into shouldn't be that easy to deal with."
Bai Liu continued to speak while moving upward without looking aside: "There's one more point. I'm not sure, but if I were the designer of this game, I would design it like this to increase the sense of horror and path difficulty."
Tang Erda's frown deepened. "Design it how?"
Bai Liu spoke without any hesitation: "If it's the same as your guess, and the Sunshine Housing Project is a projection of this dungeon landing in reality, then according to what happened at the Sunshine Housing Project in reality, there's a high probability that the money the developer here collected isn't in their own hands, but has been transferred out for the next investment. Arresting or killing the developer will only lead to one thing—"
"—And that is an unfinished building project."
Bai Liu turned his head and raised his eyes to look at Tang Erda: "And you and I both know what an unfinished building project led to in reality."
Tang Erda was silent for two seconds. He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word: "You're saying these residents of the unfinished building project will commit suicide."
Bai Liu nodded calmly: "Mhm. After committing suicide, these residents will likely become ghosts. If I'm not guessing wrong, the aggro (hatred value) of these ghosts will be drawn to the player who killed the developer, which is the new developer."
"If those two people from Russell Cemetery really killed the developer." Bai Liu looked at Tang Erda indifferently. "If they can't successfully stop the residents of the unfinished building project from committing suicide, then they should be pursued to death afterward by the ghosts jumping down from the unfinished building project."
District C.
Two disheveled figures moved quickly in the dark night. Their faces were covered in various wounds, and they ran like crazy against the night wind with gritted teeth, carrying a bag of ID cards.
He and Shi Qian had just gone out to rob, but they had been robbing for an hour and were still far from gathering sixty billion. Now that time was almost up, they could only run toward the New Housing Project.
Yuan Guang didn't understand why he was running there either. Clearly, everything was already settled; the system had already notified him that the unfinished building project had become an unfinished building. Even if he ran over and stared fixedly at that building, he couldn't conjure sixty billion out of thin air to save the people living inside.
—Just like in reality.
But…
But…
He knew what would happen when an unfinished building project was created.
Even if nothing could be changed, even if the people here were just a pile of data, a pile of meaningless NPCs.
He still couldn't bring himself to watch them desperately jump down one by one from above!
He had seen enough!!
Yuan Guang ran until he was almost unable to catch his breath, his lips a dark purple. In the face of his extreme running speed, his hands shook in the wind like two powerless noodles.
Why do people have to have a house to survive?
He had asked himself this question countless times. He asked while sleeping, asked when he couldn't sleep, asked while working, asked while working overtime—
—And when his foot was on the edge of his own unfinished building project house, and he almost jumped down before being pulled back by Uncle Wang, who gave him two slaps, he was also asking.
Uncle Wang scolded him: "Didn't you say after your father left, your mother never lived in a good house her whole life, and you definitely had to earn one for her? What, are you in such a hurry to go down and see your father, to live in a small suite with him?"
"If we have to pay the mortgage, we pay the mortgage. I'm in my thirties; by the time I pay the mortgage for thirty years, I'll be in my sixties, and I don't feel like I need to jump down from here." Uncle Wang cursed loudly and gave him two slaps. "How old are you?! So what if you have twenty years of loans! Can't you pay them back?!"
"Twenty years later, you'll be a hero again. You can start over again and buy a house for your mother!"
Uncle Wang gripped his shoulders tightly: "Yuan Guang, don't die. If you die, everything will be gone."
"Yuan Guang, I can't hold on anymore." Wang Shuqi looked haggard, as if he had aged thirty years overnight. His head was full of gray hair, and he knelt in front of Yuan Guang with his head lowered and back arched, tears flowing. "Let Uncle Wang go on stage. Let Uncle Wang die."
This game was like a giant funeral. Every person who had once hugged Yuan Guang and told him not to die eventually said to him in various ways—
[Xiao Yuan, I really can't hold on anymore. Let me die.]
But the beginning of these dense funerals was just an ordinary homeowners' meeting.
The developer sent a team of lawyers to post a bunch of documents in the homeowners' group chat, filled with complex professional terminology and mixed Chinese and English. Not many people could understand them. Wang Shuqi kept asking in the group if anyone could understand.
Yuan Guang carefully posted a sentence: [I think I can understand a bit…]
So he received a warm welcome from all the homeowners and became the [Sunshine Housing Project Homeowners' Group Leader], haggling with all the representatives sent by the developer in the period that followed.
Whenever the developer asked the homeowners if they only had this one representative, the homeowners would all answer in unison:
[We believe in Xiao Yuan!]
It seemed that from that time on, this became a kind of simple, baseless, groundless yet deeply rooted perception everyone had of him.
We believe in Xiao Yuan, so Xiao Yuan is our hope. We believe in Xiao Yuan, so Xiao Yuan cannot give up.
We believe in Xiao Yuan, so Xiao Yuan must live well.
The ice-cold wind pierced through his lungs during the intense running, producing a burning sensation as if the air was combusting in his body. Tears uncontrollably flew from both sides of Yuan Guang's eyes. He gasped for air in large gulps, running toward the pitch-black unfinished building, running until he felt like vomiting.
In those residential buildings without sealed windows stood people who were like the walking dead, constantly moving toward the edges. They looked at the night outside with dull, dazed gazes, as if they had merged with the night, without a single trace of life left in them.
Just like Uncle Wang, who was about to jump back then.
They took a step forward and, in the night, like crushed soil and stones, they were dumped silently from the edges of the buildings.
Yuan Guang let out a heart-wrenching scream: "Don't die!!!"
"If you die—!! Everything will be gone!!!"