Su Qi's gaze slowly fixed on Tentacle Man.
After what seemed like a few seconds.
Tentacle Man's face stiffened slightly, and he let out a forced chuckle, "Are you saying I'm the one?"
"You're... not kidding me, are you?" He flicked the tentacles off his body, shaking his head innocently, "How could I possibly be the apartment manager?"
Su Qi sniffed, "Why not? There's a damp, sticky smell in the air of the hallway, and I've also found drops of liquid on the floor of the corridor."
Tentacle Man said helplessly, "...people go downstairs every day; of course, there will be traces left behind, and it's too dark in the hallway to see anything clearly."
Su Qi gently lifted his palm, revealing the tightly closed Palm Eye on it, "Then I'm sorry, I specifically went to check during the manager's cooking time, and you forgot, didn't you? My eyes, they can glow."
Upon hearing this, Tentacle Man wasn't swayed but instead his bitter smile deepened, "Then it's even less likely to be me. Yesterday, while the manager was cooking, I was clearly in the same room with you."
Su Qi mused to himself, "That's also something I found puzzling at the start, until I... saw 'it'."
He walked towards Corpse Man, using the butcher's knife to cut open the black robe on the body.
Instantly, a foul stench hit them.
You could also see that all the parts on Corpse Man were stitched together, and the flesh on them was starting to rot, oozing putrid blood.
Tentacle Man, witnessing this scene, didn't speak and slowly adjusted his glasses with a tentacle.
His voice began to change, "What about it?"
As if he hadn't seen it at all, Su Qi spoke softly, "It... it's just a patched-up puppet... just like that little girl in the third-floor room of yours."
No sooner had he finished speaking!
The veins on Tentacle Man's face surged out like pulled-up tree roots, his expression raging to the extreme. Two tentacles, which previously seemed harmless, now violently swelled by several meters, a mass of sticky fluid mixed with poison hurtling towards Su Qi!
The Palm Eye in Su Qi's hand suddenly burst open, a fierce flash incredibly dazzling, stopping the deadly tentacles in their tracks from lunging further.
At this moment.
The originally refined face of Tentacle Man now turned unspeakably fierce and mad, "You went in there!?"
"Of course."
Su Qi sighed, "I saw a lot inside,"
Tentacle Man's face twisted, his eyes full of murderous intent as he stared fixedly at Su Qi, "You deserve to die! Die, die!"
His frenzied demeanor was as if Su Qi had defiled that little hut; the tentacles struck again, now faster and more ferocious!
This guy had been hiding his true strength all along, wanting Su Qi to think he was weak, to foster a sense of shared enmity.
But in fact.
His strength was stronger than all the other abnormalities, otherwise, the previous batches of residents wouldn't have been replaced time and again.
Su Qi's form retreated swiftly.
He knew well that the tentacles were covered in poison; once ensnared, he wouldn't even be able to utter a cry of resistance before being knocked out.
Probably how those people before had disappeared.
Tentacle Man growled, "You... can't run away!"
"Run? Hardly necessary." Su Qi, instead, watched the approaching tentacles with a calm expression, "Actually, there's one more thing I didn't mention, or rather, I lied to you about."
'?"
"That is, I never put the Pollutant back."
Su Qi's eyes shifted to the kitchen behind Tentacle Man, "And I let all the Pollutants in the kitchen out."
Tentacle Man's eyebrows twitched violently.
The air behind seemed to stir in response, as though some ancient fierce beast was lurking there, a horrifying roar erupting in the small first floor!
Despair! Terror! Filth! Unspeakable! Spiritual impact!
In this instant!
The massive impact instantly engulfed the first floor!
Su Qi activated the clock in an instant, yet even so... his spiritual power dropped by 2 points, sufficient to understand the terror of this impact.
Tentacle Man fared even worse as his entire body collapsed to the ground, convulsing non-stop.
He couldn't withstand such a horrifying pollution either; every time he cooked, he would toss the core part of the abnormality into the fridge, which explained the extremely terrifying accumulation of pollutants there over such a long time.
It was truly a case of reaping what one sows.
"What do you say? Can you still stand up?"
Tentacle Man, having suffered a great impact and nearly having his spirit shattered to the point of unconsciousness, clenched his teeth and lifted his head, his eyes full of hatred staring at Su Qi: "Even if I die, I will take you down with me! I will never let you defile my daughter!"
Su Qi, with a dark expression, said, "...How can you slander someone out of thin air? When did I ever say I wanted to defile your daughter, and besides... your words make me sound like the villain."
He walked up to Tentacle Man and said, "Didn't I tell you just yesterday? I wanted to have a proper talk with you."
Tentacle Man shivered slightly, looking at the young man in front of him. The madness in his eyes faded halfway. He had thought Su Qi was overestimating his capabilities by wanting to confront the abnormal residents.
Yet he hadn't expected those words were addressed to him.
It was really quite ironic.
"So, can you calm down?"
Tentacle Man's expression fluctuated, looking at Su Qi strolling leisurely in front of a pile of ruins. He knew he probably couldn't outplay this guy.
In the end, he compromised, his voice hoarse as he said, "What do you want to talk about? Do you want this apartment? Or is it something else?"
Su Qi replied calmly with a smile, "Of course, it's about cooperation. I seem to recall saying at the dinner table yesterday that I hoped to get along well with all the neighbors, rather than fighting and killing. It's just that one after another, you've been provoking me, leading to the current situation."
Tentacle Man stiffened, then gave a faint and miserable smile, as if that indeed was the case.
"It seems.... everything is self-inflicted, just like it was back then."
His tone of voice was slow as he lowered his head, sinking into memories: "Actually, this city was normal up until two years ago.... Back then I was an ordinary doctor, with a perfect and happy family...."
Why had we suddenly entered a storytelling session?
Just as he was about to continue.
Su Qi suddenly waved his hand, interrupting him: "Stop, no need to go on, I've seen it on the third floor. It's nothing more than that your daughter and wife were in a car accident, your wife died on the spot, and your daughter, barely clinging to life, was rushed to the hospital. Unaware, you were called to attend to the victims, and at the operating table, you saw your own daughter covered in blood, and before you could save her, you became twisted. After the descent of pollution, you moved into this kind of apartment, along with your daughter's corpse, trying to resurrect her using the special ability of your tentacles and your medical knowledge."
He added one more sentence: "Such a story, if put in a novel, is really quite cliché."
Tentacle Man: "....."
If he could move, he would have flung out his tentacles once more to slay Su Qi.
"I know it's tragic, and I do sympathize," said Su Qi. "But... what you're doing is pointless."
Tentacle Man's expression became agitated: "How could it be pointless, you've seen it."
He pointed towards Corpse Man: "I've made significant progress. After I created it, it can move, speak, and even cook."
Su Qi ruthlessly interrupted him:
"It's just a rotting shell, you know that better than anyone, so why bother?"
Tentacle Man's face showed alternating expressions of light and shade: "You don't understand... You just don't understand!"
Su Qi looked at him:
"I'm not here to discuss philosophy like the nature of consciousness and existence; I'm here to talk about cooperation."
"To put it simply."
Su Qi calmly said, "I can let you and your daughter talk."
Tentacle Man's head jerked up, his eyes bulging, his expression one of disbelief, his voice trembling: "Really?"
"Of course, it's true. It's more hopeful than messing with these things, but..."
Su Qi then spoke a sentence that made Tentacle Man show a look of fear:
"You have to... help me with the source of the collapse."