The moment the white light dissipated, Yu Wantang's vision suddenly went dark.

The fluorescent tube overhead flickered with a buzzing sound twice, its ghastly white light shining for a fraction of a second before going out again.

In that exact fraction of a second, Yu Wantang clearly saw where she was.

It was a narrow, winding apartment corridor that seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Large patches of the wall plaster had peeled off, revealing the blackened cement underneath, as if someone had dug it out piece by piece with their fingernails. Dried stains accumulated in the gaps between the floor tiles, varying in shades of color, feeling sticky underfoot.

A row of dark red handprints on the wall crawled all the way up from a waist-high position to the ceiling, as if something had once dragged its own body, inching its way upward bit by bit.

The ground was covered in a thick layer of dust, with several drag marks in the dust extending all the way to the ajar iron door at the end of the hallway. An even heavier fishy stench oozed through the crack of the door, rushing out in waves along with the wind.

A rusty sign hung at the end of the corridor.

"Welcome all residents to Yongye Mansion. Please abide by the rules of this mansion, or bear the consequences at your own risk."

The wind blew in from somewhere unknown, swaying the sign back and forth while the iron chains made a faint, rustling sound.

Yu Wantang looked down.

She was wearing a grey-blue cleaning uniform, with a cleaning employee badge pinned to her chest. In her left hand, she carried a rusty iron bucket, and in her right, she held a mop.

The mop head was soaked, with water droplets dripping down onto the floor tiles, the sound exceptionally clear in the dead silence of the corridor.

Yu Wantang gripped the mop tightly, her brow furrowing.

"System, what is going on this time?"

The familiar electronic voice sounded in her mind, only this time without its usual casualness.

【Host, this mission world is a rule-based strange tales instance with an extremely high danger level. Please exercise extreme caution.】

【World No. 010: Rule-Based Strange Tales, She Is Paranoidly Adored by the Eerie Boss.】

【Plot Summary: After entering the instance, female lead Ye Zhenzhen constantly flirts with the big BOSS Pei Yuan, using his partiality to repeatedly disrupt the instance's order. Other players are implicated in the emotional tug-of-war between her and Pei Yuan, resulting in heavy casualties.】

【The Original Host is the instance's cleaner. Because she refused to clean up the mess for the female lead and tried to warn serious players of the danger, she was judged as an out-of-control NPC by Pei Yuan and ultimately erased.】

Yu Wantang understood.

In a female-oriented world, whether human or ghost, everyone has to make way for the protagonist.

"An NPC's life is still a life, why should they be erased just like that?"

The system hurriedly reminded her, its tone carrying an unusual tension.

"Host, please take this seriously; the rules of this world are extremely strict."

The system paused and added another sentence.

"World Mission: Break Ye Zhenzhen's female lead halo, restore the instance order of Yongye Mansion, protect players clearing the game seriously, and prevent the Original Host from being erased."

Yu Wantang glanced at the dark red stain left by unknown origins at her feet, her brow furrowing even tighter.

"Sigh, no matter where I go, it's always the fate of a beast of burden."

A yellowed slip of paper was pasted on the corridor wall, its edges made brittle by blood immersion, ready to shatter at a touch.

Yu Wantang leaned in closer to look.

Yongye Mansion Resident Code.

【Rule One: After 11:00 PM, do not open the door for anyone.】

【Rule Two: If you hear someone crying in the corridor, please do not look back.】

【Rule Three: If you see a woman in white squatting at the stairwell, please hand her a tissue and say "I sympathize with you."】

【Rule Four: When the elevator stops at the basement floor, please do not enter.】

【Rule Five: The cleaner must complete the cleaning of this floor every day before 12:00 midnight. If blood stains remain on the ground, the cleaner will be judged as derelict in duty.】

Her fingertips tapped on the last line of words, her voice revealing a hint of absurd anger.

"Is this specifically targeted at me? If I can't finish wiping, I die?"

The system's voice sounded somewhat guilty.

"According to the rules… that's right. This rule can only be seen by you."

Yu Wantang smiled.

The system inexplicably panicked a little bit.

Every time the host smiled like this, it basically meant someone was about to have bad luck.

Just then, the wall clock at the end of the corridor suddenly rang once.

Dong.

The sound was muffled and heavy, carrying an echo rolling out from a hollow cavity, spreading to both sides along the corridor.

Immediately following that, the second sound, the third sound—the entire building seemed to be awakened by this chime.

It rang all the way until the eleventh strike before the sound stopped.

Yu Wantang glanced at the clock on the wall: exactly 11:00.

At this moment, the lights went out completely.

In the silence, a rustling sound came from the depths of the corridor.

It sounded like someone stepping barefoot on the damp ground, step by step, dragging and sticky, mixed with the harsh sound of fingernails scraping against the wall plaster.

She glanced at the door next to her hanging with a sign reading "Cleaning Room", picked up the bucket, and pushed the door open to go in.

The room was very narrow, containing an old table with missing corners, a chair with a broken leg, a few brooms and dirty rags piled in the corner, and several detergent bottles with yellowed bodies where even the text was illegible.

She had just pulled the door shut behind her.

A muffled sound came from outside the door.

Bang!

The entire door shook along with it.

The thing outside started pounding on the door, heavier each time, with increasing force.

Several slender protrusions gradually appeared on the door panel, as if sharp fingernails were forcibly digging in from the outside.

The scratching sound against the door was sharp and dense, making one's scalp tingle and the hairs on the back of the neck stand up on end.

Outside the door, a hoarse voice rang out.

"Open the door…"

"I'm so cold…"

"Let me in…"

Yu Wantang stood behind the door, her gaze falling upon the bottom of the door crack.

A drop of dark red blood was slowly seeping in along the door crack.

The blood flowed drop by drop into the cleaning room, crawling inward along the gaps of the floor tiles.

The floor she had just finished cleaning was dirty again.

Yu Wantang's expression instantly turned rather unsightly.

A fine crack split across the door panel, and the dust on the wall fell in rustles. The thing outside seemed to have taken a fancy to it, its fingernails scraping louder and louder, intentionally squeezing blood toward the door gap, squeeze by squeeze, as if deliberately angering her.

Yu Wantang lowered her eyes, staring at the newly added stains on the ground.

One second.

Two seconds.

She bent down to pick up the bucket, pressed the mop into the bucket, and wrung it dry.

Then she yanked the door open.

The fierce ghost maintained a half-hunched posture, its pale face almost pressing against the edge of the door frame. Its eyeballs were a dead, pitch-black color, and the arc of its split mouth was bizarrely outrageous, stretching all the way to the base of its ears.

Its ten fingernails were long and sharp, with debris of wall plaster and dark red blood threads hanging in the gaps, dripping down drop by drop.

Yu Wantang raised her hand.

The soaked mop head accurately and unerringly thrust into its wide-open mouth.

"Mmph!"

The fierce ghost widened those hollow eyes of its, its entire body freezing for a moment.

Yu Wantang pressed firmly on the mop pole with one hand, using the momentum to push it back half a step.

"Knock, knock, knock, knock your grandpa!"

Her voice was not loud, yet it reeked of the irritability of someone who had just woken up only to be disturbed.

"It's eleven o'clock at night, don't you know it's quiet time? Look at what you've pounded this door into; you smashed two voice-activated lights and dug off patches of wall plaster all over the floor."

She lowered her eyes, her gaze pinned on that pool of blood under the door gap, and her temper flared up another notch.

"And this blood, on the floor I just finished mopping."

With the mop stuffed in its mouth, the fierce ghost let out a series of muffled, strange cries.

Yu Wantang yanked the mop out of its mouth, and with a backhand motion, slammed it fiercely across its pale face.

Slap!

Splashes of water flew everywhere, streaming down its sunken cheeks.

The fierce ghost's head jerked violently to one side from this strike, and the air in the entire corridor froze for half a beat.

In the distance, several pairs of eyes that had originally been hiding in the darkness—eyes that had been staring fixedly at their prey—simultaneously shrank back, not even daring to breathe heavily.

The fierce ghost was completely dumbfounded.

For as many years as it had been a ghost, this was the first time it had its face plastered with a mop by a cleaner.

Yu Wantang pointed at the blood on the ground.

"The floor I just finished cleaning was dirtied by you."

The fierce ghost: "…"

A low roar issued from its throat, and the resentment on its body surged violently.

The bloody handprints on the walls began to wriggle, and viscous liquid dripped from the ceiling.

From the depths of the corridor, from an unknown direction, came a wave of extremely suppressed laughter.

The ajar door at the end of the iron gate suddenly gave a creak and cracked open by itself.

Inside was pitch black, yet faint chewing sounds faintly emanated from within.

What was being chewed even carried cartilage.