The bell rang.
The manager, dragging his heavy steps, moved along the corridor after finishing the meal preparations.
A minute after his footsteps had disappeared,
the doors of the rooms began to open one after the other, Swollen Man and Split Mouth Woman headed downstairs.
The door of Tentacle Man was tightly closed; he had heeded Su Qi's advice and stayed in his room obediently.
Another minute passed.
The door to room number six opened, and Corpse Man, dressed in a thick black robe, slowly walked out of his room.
As he stepped out, his gaze slightly trembled; he saw Su Qi, who was leaning against the corridor wall, apparently waiting for something.
Waiting for that tentacle guy across the door?
Corpse Man remained calm. These two were weak; it was normal for them to stick together, a smart choice. But in the face of so many dangerous abnormalities, it was hardly useful.
It should be soon now to see the other residents making their move on this new guest.
This had nothing to do with himself.
After all, the tenants in the apartment would constantly change, and he was pleased to watch these people fight, though he was still unaware that one of them, Bandaged Man, was already gone.
Su Qi placed the butcher knife inside his lining and, after checking his fully recovered Physical Strength from resting the whole day, got up and moved.
"I hate beating around the bush; I prefer simplicity and brutality."
"Next, it's time to have a proper chat with these neighbors."
...
Tentacle Man sat nervously on the edge of his own bed, occasionally glancing towards the door, wanting to go check the situation, but recalling Su Qi's advice from yesterday, he sat down worriedly again.
"He said yesterday he wanted to talk to the neighbors."
"But those guys are all crazy terrifying abnormalities; how could he talk calmly with them?"
As someone who had been there for a while.
Tentacle Man didn't lack ideas like Su Qi's; he had indeed gifted some of his valuable possessions to other residents.
Although it hadn't been much use.
But fortunately, these monsters didn't care about someone as insignificant as him.
What was the situation outside now?
Tentacle Man's gaze turned towards the door; because the floor between the second and first floors was very thick and added to the spiral staircase, he couldn't hear a thing.
It had been five minutes now; he wondered what the situation was.
"He might have already been killed."
Tentacle Man actually had some guesses; although he was timid and not strong, he could tell Su Qi was not an ordinary tenant; he had guts.
But guts didn't serve as food.
Ten minutes finally slowly passed.
Tentacle Man stood up, gradually opening the door, the hallway was still engulfed in darkness.
He tiptoed towards the spiral staircase.
His mind already began to panic wildly.
Perhaps... the next scene he would see was Swollen Man, Corpse Man, Bandaged Man, and Split Mouth Woman sitting at the dining table, knives and forks in hand, cutting into Su Qi on the table.
Tentacle Man crouched down, holding his breath as he peeked his head out from beside the mahogany staircase.
What he saw next was beyond belief.
The entire first-floor hall looked as if it had just gone through an explosion; the carpet and surrounding walls were charred, and as for the dining table in the middle, it had long been blasted into pieces, splinters flying everywhere.
And at this moment, on a patch of open ground,
three figures were lying there.
Swollen Man was bloody all over, hanging by his buttocks on the wall lamp, but being an abnormality, he still gasped for breath.
Split Mouth Woman's teeth had all fallen out; with disheveled hair, she looked utterly miserable, one arm blown off like a rag doll far away.
The final Corpse Man had been torn apart, one piece east and one piece west.
And as if that wasn't secure enough, their entire bodies were tightly bound with white bandages, rendering them unable to struggle.
Meanwhile, Tentacle Man stood still as a statue.
What happened, Su Qi?
At that moment, footsteps slowly approached, and Su Qi emerged from the kitchen, wiping the blood off his hands with a rag.
"Stop loitering there, come down."
His tone was oddly normal, as if he was calling me down to dinner!
Tentacle Man didn't know how he got to the first floor; all he felt were those three pairs of crimson eyes piercing his body like knives.
He was trembling and tearless, "What exactly happened here?"
"Nothing much, just some food laced with poison, coupled with a screech that activated all the pollutants in the apartment, and a small thunderball."
Tentacle Man didn't understand but was greatly shocked.
What on earth happened in those ten minutes?
The poison must have been the same one he had handed out yesterday.
Activating all pollutants on the first floor of the apartment... how horrifying. He didn't even dare to think about it, yet Su Qi acted as if nothing were wrong.
As for the final thunderball, it was no longer significant.
"I've already put all the pollutants back where they belong, there won't be any problems now," Su Qi said indifferently.
With a mere twist of a clock, activating all the apartment's pollutants only cost him a minor -1 in spiritual powers.
But for the others, it was lethal.
"What about the bandaged monster..." Tentacle Man suddenly realized someone was missing and muttered.
"Don't you find the bandages on their bodies familiar?"
Tentacle Man suddenly understood, "You made a deal with the bandaged monster!"
Su Qi pointed overhead.
Tentacle Man looked up and saw a body that had been dead for some time, hung upside down from the ceiling by bandages.
"It was originally hidden inside the chandelier on the ceiling, but it fell out due to the explosion being a bit too intense."
Tentacle Man shuddered as he trembled, looking at Su Qi.
He was terribly wrong.
He thought this new resident was just an ordinary person.
Now, it seemed he was the most dangerous entity, kneeling before the boss.
He had already knelt, so no harm done.
After the shock, Tentacle Man remembered there was still an unknown horror in the apartment, and hurriedly said, "So what do we do now... clean up first? Otherwise, when the caretaker comes out tomorrow and sees this, he'll explode."
He looked with a grim expression at the ravaged first floor, "But how do we clean this up."
Su Qi looked at the eager and anxious Tentacle Man, seeming genuinely considerate.
He smiled:
"Don't worry, the caretaker won't be coming out."
"Huh?"
"He has always been here."
Tentacle Man started, shrinking back in fear, "Where? We should hide quickly, the notice clearly prohibits any contact with the caretaker."
Su Qi slowly moved his gaze towards Tentacle Man.
The anxious Tentacle Man, somewhat scared, adjusted his glasses, looked back, saw three shadows behind him, and hurriedly said, "Could it be one of them?"
Su Qi simply smiled, glancing above Tentacle Man's head where a[?]had been hovering since day one.
The message simply read five words:
[Apartment Caretaker]