Chapter 73: Chapter 73

"In the Doomsday Apartment, 'tenant' and 'resident' are two different things."

"Those big shots on the War God Ranking who have rooms in Apartment 9999—they’re the residents!"

"As for us ordinary players, we're basically just tenants."

"A tenant’s privacy isn’t 100% guaranteed."

"For example, remember when I used your Mutual Aid Group’s registry to go door-to-door looking for people?"

"That’s because we’re all just tenants. All I had to do was bribe the Apartment Administrator a little, and I got a Master Key Card."

"With the Master Key Card, you can open a tenant’s door."

"But a resident’s door? That card won’t work."

"You must’ve purposely registered a fake room number, right? Room 2025 has an NPC resident, so my Master Key Card didn’t work on it."

You can bribe the Apartment Administrator to get a Master Key Card?

This dogsht management, absolutely no principles!

Totally deserved to get killed!

Jiang Ye complained inwardly, feeling a bit puzzled too.

He really did live in 2025, and he really was a tenant.

So why couldn’t Xing Man open his door back then?

So, he asked Xing Man again:

"The Master Key Card opens tenant rooms 100% of the time? Are there any special cases where it won’t work on a tenant’s door?"

Xing Man froze for a second, then added, "The Master Key Card doesn’t have a 100% success rate."

"It works on tenant doors about 80% of the time."

"So basically, open it two or three times and you’re good."

"But there’s one more thing—"

"NPC residents have weird temperaments. Some are super aggressive, and if a player dares use a Master Key Card to open their door, they’ll literally sic their dog on you and kill you instantly!"

"That’s why I only dared use the Master Key Card after confirming a player room from your registry."

"I tried 2025 twice and failed both times. I got nervous thinking I might be dealing with a high-tier NPC I shouldn’t mess with, so I gave up forcing it."

Ah, that explains it.

So Xing Man had already tried twice at 2025 and gave up.

An 80% success rate, but failed twice...

Statistically speaking, Jiang Ye really was pretty lucky!

Wait no, it’s actually Xing Man who got lucky.

If he had managed to open that door, he’d have been dead on the spot, and none of the stuff after would’ve happened.

But, thinking long term, if Xing Man had died back then, Jiang Ye’s blackened Replica, who had been wandering outside, might never have made it back.

So yeah, luck’s a funny thing.

Sometimes, what seems like good luck at the time might actually be the start of a bad streak.

Jiang Ye sighed internally, then looked at Xing Man again and continued asking:

"Besides the resident status, is there anything else special about Apartment 9999?"

"There is!" Xing Man nodded frantically. "Definitely something special!"

"But I don’t know exactly what’s inside the apartment, since I’ve never been there myself."

"I just read the forums and listened to game experts analyze it—"

"Back then... probably around a month ago, the game ‘Doomsday Game’ suddenly dropped an official announcement. Said something about being criticized by higher-ups, forced to shut down for review and rectification, and that they’d come back with a brand-new look."

"The shutdown was super sudden, and some forum experts speculated it was because Apartment 9999’s gameplay resembled gambling, so it had to be adjusted..."

"So my guess is, Apartment 9999 is kind of like a casino? Those whales go there to bet money?"

"And then there’s Apartment 6666—normal players can’t directly travel between apartments."

"It’s said that you have to go through Apartment 9999 to get to 6666."

"So I don’t really know what’s in Apartment 6666 either."

"Even on the game forums, nothing’s been leaked about it."

"So I suspect that 6666 also has some kind of illegal gameplay that led to the shutdown."

Maybe worried that what he said wasn’t enough to satisfy Jiang Ye, Xing Man racked his brain and added:

"Right, there’s one more thing!"

"Usually, Beginner Apartments get destroyed, right?"

"But in the game, 6666 and 9999 supposedly don’t get destroyed."

"Of course, that’s in-game only. Reality and the game are still a bit different."

Hearing that, Jiang Ye chuckled: "So even if you make up some bullsh*t, you can just claim it’s because the game and reality are different?"

Xing Man’s face went pale: "No! That’s not it! I’m not making anything up! I’m telling the truth!"

"Alright, let’s say you’re being honest. But when it comes to the special-numbered apartments, you haven’t really told me anything useful."

Xing Man turned even paler, thinking Jiang Ye was about to kill him after the questioning.

But then, Jiang Ye casually said, "So, your third answer failed. I’ll just ask a different question instead—"

"After the Beginner Period ends, what exactly is the Doomsday Apartment like?"

Xing Man let out a slight sigh of relief and quickly explained:

"Not all players can clear the Beginner Apartment."

"Around Day 8, veteran players and NPC residents usually start sweeping the apartment."

"Most players just go through the Beginner Apartment on repeat."

"The ones who manage to leave it and enter the Doomsday Apartment—those are the veterans."

"I’ve never made it out of the Beginner Apartment myself, but I spend a lot of time on the forums, reading veterans’ descriptions of the Doomsday Apartment."

"It’s supposed to be massive, with very tall floors."

"All the residents inside are players. Only special buildings are managed by NPCs."

"Yeah, and players in there have to buy a place—they’re all residents. There’s no such thing as being a tenant anymore."

"But I heard you can buy a place with a down payment and pay the rest through a mortgage."

"I saw a forum post once where a player intentionally defaulted on their mortgage and got kicked out of the Doomsday Apartment."

"That guy shared his experience—outside the apartment was all mist. He wandered around and just randomly died."

"Couldn’t even use Survival Points to resurrect."

"When he restarted, he had to begin again from a Beginner Apartment…"

Xing Man rambled on about various things he’d seen veterans post on the forums about the Doomsday Apartment.

Jiang Ye got the gist, but honestly couldn’t tell whether it was all true or not.

Besides, the actual situation might not match the in-game version.

After Xing Man finished his spiel, Jiang Ye suddenly asked:

"You’ve always played in the Beginner Apartment and never entered the real Doomsday Apartment. What about Yang Wenchao? Do you know if he cleared the Beginner Apartment?"

Xing Man’s expression shifted, and his tone turned sour: "He... he just got lucky, that’s all."

"And me, I actually think the Beginner Apartment is kinda fun too."

Jiang Ye couldn’t be bothered to watch him keep being stubborn and directly asked, "Do you remember the black tactical jacket Yang Wenchao was wearing?"

Xing Man was stunned for a moment and blurted out, "Why would I remember anything? We already fell out, and we weren’t even in the same class in our second and third year of high school..."

Clearly, he misunderstood what Jiang Ye meant.

But mid-sentence, he suddenly realized something.

His eyes lit up and he quickly corrected himself, "Oh sh*t! I do remember! I do!"

"Not from real life! From the game!"

"I remember seeing it in the forums—some old player shared a picture of someone wearing a jacket like that in-game!"

As he spoke, Xing Man suddenly understood something himself—

In this place, game players weren’t getting any special treatment...

Maybe it was just that he, as a game player, had never cleared the Beginner Apartment and never made it into the real Doomsday Apartment!

Realizing this, Xing Man’s face turned pale and his expression even more bitter!

D*mn it! Yang Wenchao outdid him again!

As rage boiled in his heart, a heavenly voice rang in his ears.

"Alright, you’ve answered sincerely enough."

"And I’m not the type to go back on my word."

Xing Man looked at Jiang Ye. Even though he could hear the sarcasm in that "go back on my word" line, knowing that he really was going to be spared, he was overwhelmed with joy!

He saw Jiang Ye turn to the red mist version of himself that looked exactly like him.

Same eyes, staring at each other for a moment.

Then he said to the red mist guy, "Let him go."

Hearing that one word from the red mist guy, Xing Man was so overwhelmed he was nearly moved to tears!

Unbelievable! Jiang Ye was actually that good of a person!

No wonder his luck was so good! He deserved that luck!

But the very next second—

The red mist dispersed.

Xing Man had just gotten to his feet.

And then he felt a chill press against his forehead.

It was the red mist guy...

The tip of his right index finger pressed against Xing Man’s forehead.

Pitch-black eyes like bottomless black holes stared straight into him.

In that instant, an overwhelming sense of terror swept over him like a venomous snake!

Xing Man’s eyes went wide!

At the same time, both hands clutched his own neck tightly.

Like he was afraid something would come out of his throat.

His pupils widened further and further, and dark red-black goo started oozing from the corners of his eyes.

Moments later, he collapsed with a loud thud.

It looked like he’d choked himself to death.

But in Jiang Ye’s mind, a system notification rang out:

【Ding! Killed Level 6 player. Congratulations, you gained +1 Survival Point!】

The blackened Replica killed Xing Man, but the point got credited to him directly?

Jiang Ye was confused for a second, but after a bit of testing, he realized—

His main body’s skills, whether it was 【Replica Fusion】, 【Replica Swap】, or even 【Replica Possession】...

All of them seemed to work on this blackened Replica!

It felt like that previously lost Mirror Replica had come back.

Still, a Mirror Replica is a Mirror Replica—he could clearly sense the difference between it and the Replicas he’d created himself.

The ones he created shared consciousness with him.

To the point where, if he didn’t have enough attributes or Energy, he couldn’t even control more Replicas at once.

But a Mirror Replica created by the Replica Reflection Mirror couldn’t be controlled directly by his consciousness.

That Mirror Replica had always acted dumb, like it had no soul.

Jiang Ye had never thought much of it, just used it as a tool for Infinite Fusion.

But this blackened version of the Mirror Replica… was clearly something else…

As his main body pondered all this, Replica No. 1 looked at the blackened Replica after Xing Man died, stunned, and said,

"Oh-ho? He told you to let him go—why didn’t you listen?"

The blackened Replica blinked, and in his pitch-black eyes, a flash of confusion actually showed: "I did listen."

Jiang Ye thought to himself: sure, you did listen—but you didn’t understand what the boss was saying.

You poor thing, no future for you!

He ignored the idiot and looked sadly at Xing Man’s corpse.

"Looks like the Blood Mist guy you were clinging to hated your guts too much..."

"Ahh, the death of a fellow struggler hits hard…"

"You went down this miserably trying to ride someone’s coattails… doesn’t bode well for my own ending either… sigh…"

So tragic! Too tragic!

Jiang Ye lamented with a sorrowful face while picking up all the loot Xing Man dropped—including the Master Key Card he’d been eyeing for a while.

The blackened Replica still looked confused but crouched down to help loot the body too.

Jiang Ye caught a close-up glance at him out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but feel like that guy’s smile was seriously creepy.

So he couldn’t help but complain, "Hey, Big Leg Bro, can we talk for a sec?"

Leg Bro replied seriously, "Okay."

Jiang Ye said, "Can you not smile?"

Leg Bro thought it over very seriously and gave him a legit explanation: "Ghosts who smile have good luck."

After the whole Lucky Bracelet charging incident, Jiang Ye had become super sensitive to the word "luck."

And hearing that now… it suddenly made so much sense!

No wonder this blackened Replica insisted on keeping that creepy smile, even though he was clearly kind of dumb.

Turns out there was a reason!

So Jiang Ye didn’t insist on making him drop the smile.

He suggested, "Fine, smile if you want—but can you smile a different way? Yours is just too creepy."

"Sure!" the blackened Replica agreed without hesitation.

He even pulled out a mirror and started adjusting his smile while looking into it.

Jiang Ye leaned over to check—

Holy sh*t! The mirror didn’t reflect the blackened Replica at all!

But somehow, the guy still seemed able to see his own expression in it.

He was actually adjusting it patiently.

Jiang Ye couldn’t see what was in the mirror, but he could see the Replica himself.

So he started pointing things out directly. The most update n0vels are published on novel(ꜰ)ire.net

Eventually, he taught him how to smile with his teeth showing.

Jiang Ye looked in the mirror himself and found it odd.

When he smiled like that, he looked especially naive and honest.

But when this blackened Replica smiled the same way, it still came off creepy as hell.

So he stared at the blackened Replica for a while and finally concluded, "It’s those freaky eyes of yours."

"Why don’t you try the ‘covering-your-face’ smile? You know, the one where you hide your eyes with your hand. (/ω＼)"

Keeping your eyes covered all the time probably isn’t very practical.

The blackened Replica actually did it.

A severed hand, cut off at the wrist, covered his eyes.

He flashed a big toothy smile at the mirror.

No clue how he was seeing the mirror with his eyes covered.

But the blackened Replica actually said, "It really does look better!"

Jiang Ye glanced at the two hands on the blackened Replica.

Then looked at the third severed hand covering his eyes...

Swallowed hard: "Where’d you get a third hand?"

Blackened Replica: "I have a fourth one too. Want it?"

As he spoke, another severed hand floated right in front of Jiang Ye.

In his ear, Big Leg Bro’s serious tone sounded: "It looks better this way."