Ashes And DustCh23 - Neighbours

Residential instance world

Wei Cai hesitated for a moment before opening the door wide with a ‘fuck it’ attitude. After all, nothing they confronted could be worse than what they chose to ignore. Kb5d6x

There was an old woman standing outside, her hand still in a fist as she got ready to pound on the door even more fiercely. There were a few small spots where the wood had scraped the skin off of her knuckles, but it didn’t seem like she noticed the pain at all. Her expression became blank as Wei Cai and her stared at each other.

Wei Cai shut his eyes for a moment as he arched his brows before speaking up, ‘Uh, hello. We’re the new tenants here..’

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The woman didn’t react to his voice, but kept staring inside the flat instead. Wei Cai laughed awkwardly and asked her, ‘Would you like to come in?’

The woman retracted her gaze and stared at him instead. J ndjP

Her gaze appeared steady, but there was a dead stillness hidden in the calm. Wei Cai felt hundreds of numbing pricks travel up his scalp as he looked into those eyes, and he wisely chose to take a step backwards.

The woman finally moved as the way was cleared in front of her. She walked into the apartment with small steps.

She walked towards the couch, where Yang Meili sprung up instantly and went to stand in front of the window.

Yu Qinyan on the other hand merely just shifted a couple of centimetres towards the side of the couch to make space. He didn’t seem too bothered as he rested his chin on his palm and watched the old lady sit down next to him.

Sp5JI6

Wei Cai coughed lightly, and walked to the group after closing the door. The woman had already sat down on the couch, so he didn’t have any other choice but to sit back on the floor.

The room was quiet for a couple of minutes, and everyone was waiting for someone else to initiate conversation. In the end it was Yu Qinyan who spoke.

‘Auntie, do you have something you want to tell us?’ He smiled at the old lady as he leant back in his seat.

The woman’s expression grew strange. She casted her eyes down before looking up at the group again. Strangely, her gaze wasn’t pointed at any of the people present but rather an empty space in the middle of the room. 0aJNIF

Dark emotions filled her eyes, and the indifference from just before was nowhere to be seen.

At this moment, she seemed like an entirely different person. The wrinkle of her brows contained endless sorrow and her hand shook lightly as she raised it slowly to her neck.

She swallowed dryly and stared at the middle of the room as if her dearest thing was there instead of empty air, hidden from all gazes other than hers.

Her eyes were covered by a layer of misty water and her lips parted slightly as she reached towards the nothingness. ia4ps

Yu Qinyan just happened to be sitting where her hand landed. He leaned even further back swiftly to avoid it. Although the woman only grasped empty air, she didn’t seem dispirited.

She spoke to the air quietly and gently, a startling softness in her words, ‘Ah Cheng, you..’

Wei Cai frowned as he watched her performance. Even though this was clearly something arranged by the instance, he couldn’t help but hear the unmistakable pain in her voice and wish to ease her burdens. The woman was truly too good.

While he was thinking, the woman had already withdrawn her hand. She looked down at her empty palm then back at the empty air as if she had only changed her mind in the last moment before her fingers touched the hem of that imaginary person’s clothes. 0X1qGx

It appeared as if she was afraid of touching it, as if she had already known that a living person’s touch could only muddle the water in which the images of the past were reflected.

She placed her still shaking hand back to her lap as her other was still grabbing at the air in front of her delicate neck.

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In truth, she didn’t seem threatening at all at this moment. She appeared somewhat pitiful even as she watched the air in front of her, as if she was afraid that whatever she saw would disappear the moment she blinked.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

The rims of her eyes reddened and she touched her nose lightly before mustering up the courage to speak again. ‘Ah Cheng, you’ve come.’ xaGSjC

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Her voice got quieter and quieter as she spoke, nothing but a whisper as she casted her gaze down during the last few words again. The emotions dissipated from her expression slowly, and the eerie blankness from before appeared on her features.

Shortly after, she stood up suddenly. Her steps looked more like the imitation of human behaviour rather than the way a real person would move. db0xLe

She walked to the door, but didn’t reach out to open it. The indifferent and dazed expression on her face seemed even more off putting than before.

Yu Qinyan’s gaze met Wei Cai’s, and the latter stood up to open the door for the woman.

After the old lady left the apartment, silence fell yet again. Yu Qinyan massaged his brows before deciding to speak up.

‘All that.. What just happened?’ uepNQl

Yang Meili thought about it before replying, ‘I think that was our compensation. Didn’t it say that an NPC would visit us? That just now didn’t seem the least bit natural, nor like something we would have provoked.’

Wei Cai agreed. ‘That is probably the case. Since it was her who came to us, she should be an important character.’

‘This ah Cheng, who is he supposed to be?’ Zhai Xiaoyi was already thinking about what the woman had told them.

‘He’s most likely dead.’ Wei Cai scratched his chin as he thought, ‘It is somewhat of a cliche, no?’ i6 fgB

Yu Qinyan nodded, ‘Yeah, it’s a popular trope. Is he the victim then?’

‘The ghost I saw yesterday could be his.’ Zhai Xiaoyi fiddled with his fingers as he spoke. ‘Since we don’t know the age of her grandchild, we can only assume that he is the one we need to avenge.’

‘In that case, the scenario is quite simple. The man was murdered, his ghost haunts the building and the tenants, which is what the landlord is afraid of. We just need to find out who killed the man from last night.’

Wei Cai stood up, ‘Then let’s not waste any time. It’s best if we separate to save time. Two people will go and look for the landlord to question him, while the other two should start checking the upper floors for any additional clues. How about it?’ 1CV9Ji

Yu Qinyan agreed at once. ‘Alright, I’ll go to the landlord then. Who wants to come with me?’

Yang Meili was about to say that she would go with him, but Wei Cai was quicker than her. ‘I’ll go. It is advantageous to use newbie-veteran pairings. That way we can ensure a certain degree of safety for all of us.’

Chrysanthemum Garden.

He looked at Zhai Xiaoyi who was watching the scene with an uninterested gaze and told him, ‘You two should check the upper floors then. There is no need to do anything excessive, just knock or check if you can open the doors and leave if you can’t. If you can, it’s good to question the other tenants.’

Zhai Xiaoyi nodded, and the two groups separated soon. Yang Meili emptied her bag and only kept the chocolate bars inside. She explained to Zhai Xiaoyi as they left the apartment, ‘We might need to take evidence with us. It wouldn’t be good to look too suspicious.’ XYkOlm

Zhai Xiaoyi hummed, and asked for one of the chocolate bars. Yang Meili showed him the bag, and he chose one with strawberry filling. He unwrapped the bar, but before he could take a bite something dark flashed in front of his eyes.

‘Hey!’ He looked upwards in the stairway only to see a teenage boy staring back at him.

The boy stood two floors above them, and what had almost hit him was a flower pot that fell out of his hands. The young boy’s expression was completely indifferent as he said, ‘Sorry.’

Yang Meili’s eyes were as wide as a pair of saucers. She was the one who pulled Zhai Xiaoyi back just a moment ago, and although it was only a reflex, she had most likely saved his life with it. j3G1W

She watched as the boy dragged a bike down the stairs, only being able to let out a sound when he had almost passed them. ‘You.. He could have suffered serious brain damage from that..’

The boy nodded and said, ‘That would have been really unfortunate.’ He waved at them before grabbing his bike again and walking down to the first floor.

Yang Meili looked at Zhai Xiaoyi who still had a dazed expression, and pulled him towards the third floor worriedly. She knocked on the doors along the corridor as they walked, but none of them opened. She tried to open them herself, but they all seemed to be locked.

After some consideration, she walked to the window at the end of the corridor and looked around. There were a couple of potted plants on the windowsill with one missing from the centre; this must have been the one that almost hit them. okFlLd

The plants here were supported with small branches they were fixed onto with small clips. She took off one of the plastic clips and broke it with a snap. A small piece of wire fell onto her palm, which she straightened as much as she could before repeating her actions once more.

It wasn’t hard to open the lock of the last door with the two small wires, and soon the two walked inside the flat.

Zhai Xiaoyi hadn’t said anything on their way over, but he didn’t seem any different than before. He observed the living room that was combined with the kitchen the same way it was in their own apartment. The structure of the flat wasn’t much different from their own, and it could be deduced that all the apartments were all built in the same way.

The room was covered in a thin layer of dust evenly, the product of about a couple of weeks’ time. Yang Meili wanted to pour some water for the two of them, but the faucet was unexpectedly completely dry. It seemed that water was blocked in this flat. Wv2H5t

She found a couple of bottles of water under the kitchen counter, and ended up sitting down to the dining table after dusting off a chair. She filled two glasses with water and looked at Zhai Xiaoyi before asking him, ‘You didn’t get hit, did you? Have you become dumb?’

‘No.‘ He used his palm to wipe the dust off of another chair and sat down next to her, only talking after he had a sip of water. ‘But this kid, it seems like a hint, don’t you think?’

Yang Meili’s attitude has completely changed since that morning. She was able to contribute a lot more to the group’s search and it turned out that she even had some practical skills.

She thought for a moment before replying, ‘Wouldn’t it be too obvious then? Maybe the boy is just weird and has nothing to do with the murder. Maybe his character isn’t even more than a distraction for us.. I keep feeling that it can’t be this simple.’ E6yWhT

Zhai Xiaoyi nodded slowly, ‘That’s right, it would be too obvious. But what if that’s the point? To make us think that he can’t be the killer because he’s too suspicious?’

‘I don’t know. Ah, thinking like this only makes me feel confused.’ Yang Meili pursed her lips before drinking. ‘This apartment on the other hand, is quite strange. It looks like someone is living here, but at the same time hasn’t been here for some time now. Is it that these apartments are pre-furnished?’

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‘Probably not.’ Zhai Xiaoyi gestured towards a couple of everyday items around the room. ‘Those look like they’ve been used before. It is most likely that someone moved away but still wanted to keep the apartment, or something like that.’

‘Aren’t all of these flats rented? I think they’re all the property of the landlord..’ Yang Meili remembered what the script wrote about the building. KYrsPM

‘Maybe some of the apartments aren’t his. It isn’t unusual for people to buy several flats in the building they live in and rent it out for others, I think that might even make things more convenient. So some of these flats are probably still other people’s property.’

Yang Meili let out an ‘ah’. ‘You’re right. So there is nothing strange about this.. Should we leave then?’

‘What do you mean?’ Zhai Xiaoyi drank the last couple of mouthfuls of water from his cup as he looked back at her.

‘To check the other floors. This is only the third floor and there are at least three more, we might be able to find something useful if we go a bit further.’ E1fboK

Zhai Xiaoyi agreed. It was most likely that important clues would be well hidden but not inaccessible, so they couldn’t give up their search just yet.

Some time after the two left the flat, Wei Cai and Yu Qinyan arrived at the landlord’s apartment.

The middle aged man opened the door without much delay after hearing their knock, and didn’t seem too surprised after seeing the two. He waved them inside and closed the door behind them before sitting down to the dining table.

He looked at them expectantly, but what Yu Qinyan asked him completely stupefied him. x59H d

‘So.. How many disappearances were there last month?’ Wei Cai glared at the youth and secretly swore at himself for not realising that this kid would be trouble earlier.

‘Disappearances? I don’t think I understand..’ The landlord shook his head.

‘Then I’ll ask in a different way. How about sudden deaths?’ Yu Qinyan didn’t seem to plan to let go of the matter.

The man was still shaking his head, and Wei Cai couldn’t help but interrupt. ‘This.. Excuse my friend, we’re just sort of scared. We met a woman earlier and she told us that someone had disappeared recently..’ o1JtbD

Of course all of this was bullshit, but he didn’t feel the least bit guilty after pushing the blame on the old woman.

The landlord’s expression darkened. He spoke reluctantly, ‘It is true that there have been some people missing, but it’s no big deal, ah.. It’s just normal that things like that happen in a big city like ours. That woman, she was elderly, no? With shoulder-length hair and crescent glasses?’

Wei Cai hummed. ‘Yeah, she did look like that..’

The landlord nodded with a gloomy expression. ‘That’s Qi Zhengli. Her husband disappeared about half a month ago. She’s still spreading rumours like this..’ 86iF7y

‘There really aren’t many missing, it’s merely a misconception. It’s because the building is too big and there aren’t a lot of people living in it at all. As for the actual disappearances.. Truth be told, and please don’t be frightened by this, but these incidents have to do with the residential building being shut down.’

‘There aren’t many people left, but the disappearances wouldn’t be strange at all if not for their frequency.. There is nothing the police can do. There are no clues left behind and they can’t find any of the missing people either, so the investigations of most cases have been suspended after a couple of weeks.’

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Yu Qinyan frowned, ‘She mentioned someone she called ‘ah Cheng’. Do you know who this could refer to?’

The landlord looked outside through the window and pointed towards the end of the street outside. ‘Her grandson works at a nearby convenience store. His name is Qi Cheng.’ q8 wIH

‘He’s fine?’

‘Uh.. I mean, yeah? Why wouldn’t he be fine?’ The landlord was confused.

Yu Qinyan only waved. ‘It’s nothing. She mistook me for him and I was just curious.’

Wei Cai asked, ‘Who else has disappeared recently other than the old man? Can you give us a list or something?’ Ee3g87

The landlord’s expression changed. ‘You guys.. It can’t be that you’re undercover, ah? Are you two officers? I already said that it is quite natural for people to vanish in big places like the city, it has absolutely nothing to..’

Wei Cai cut him off. ‘We’re not police officers. We.. The four of us, we’re private detectives. We were hired to find out more about a person, but evidence shows that that person vanished in this place. We want the money though, so we need to find as much information as we can, if you understand what I mean.’

The landlord seemed somewhat reluctant to believe him, but still nodded slowly in the end. ‘I see. It shouldn’t be that you want to talk to the police afterwards though, right? It really wouldn’t be good for business if they came again, even if the place is shutting down, there is still quite some time..’

Yu Qinyan smiled at him, ‘It seems that we are like minded people. Let’s regard the situation like this; if you can give us adequate information, we will consider not sharing the details with the police. It should be a simple deal, no? How about it?’ g6AhXU

The landlord was speechless. After a moment of silence he decided to suck it up and agreed. ‘Alright. What do you want to know?’

It seemed that dealing with this world’s NPC’s would be quite an easy task. Yu Qinyan’s smile grew wider.

Unbeknownst to the group of players who were all in different corners of the residential building, the screen of the computer in their flat flashed suddenly at this moment. The document from before was still open, and the empty pages flashed with hundreds of new words as the computer buzzed.

After a couple minutes of what appeared as if an invisible person was sitting in front of the desk and typing with lightning speed, silence fell in the room again. The screen stayed bright even after minutes had passed. PKUqWZ


The author has something to say:

Hey everyone! I’ll have to take a two-week break from posting after this chapter goes up because of family matters. I will also announce this on discord. Four updates will be missed, and chapter 24 will be uploaded on the 27th. Thank you for the understanding!

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