Becoming a Fierce Ghost, I Turned into the Shadow Behind the Heroine Chapter 21 : Chapter 21

Chapter 21: The Truth of the Matter

The mont that aged voice sounded, the red filter that had been covering Zhao Mingyue’s vision vanished instantly. She understood that the mont she stepped onto the thirteenth stair, she had already entered another world. The ghosts and spiritual flas she had seen were all the result of the female ghost’s mind and resentnt influencing her.

Under the female ghost’s influence, reality and the world of resentnt had overlapped. Only they could see it. The arrival of the person outside had broken the ghost’s influence, which was why everything had returned to reality.

It was also possible that the female ghost feared that person and deliberately withdrew her power.

But none of that was the key point.

The key question was who the person outside actually was—soone capable of provoking such a strong reaction from the female ghost.

Zhao Mingyue believed that an ordinary person walking directly up to the fifth floor would never create such an effect. That person would likely be in mortal danger, let alone influence the ghost instead.

“It’s the landlord…”

Zhao Mingyue turned around.

She recognized the voice imdiately. It was definitely the landlord from downstairs.

In fact, this result did not surprise her. Only the landlord had the key to the fifth floor, and only he could co upstairs silently. The white putty covering the corridors of the fourth and fifth floors had also been applied by him.

But what she could not understand was why the landlord would do such things.

The female ghost had already been dead for so many years. Not only had her body never been buried, it had even been imprisoned here. If her corpse had been properly laid to rest, even if her spirit remained, her resentnt would at least have been sowhat reduced.

Even in death she had no peace. Her bones had been hung with chains, sealed in rotten mud, and apparently separated from her two children.

Anyone would develop enormous resentnt under such circumstances.

Many people had died in this building. Every face embedded in the walls outside represented a life. Those who had died unjustly here were equally unable to find release.

Their deaths had absolutely been connected to the landlord.

The landlord must have known that the woman’s resentful spirit had not left. He must have known how dangerous the female ghost was. Yet he still rented out the apartnts on the fourth and fifth floors.

Calling him an accomplice would not be an exaggeration.

Holding Miss Rabbit with one arm and gripping the magic staff with the other, Zhao Mingyue pulled the bathroom door open.

She did not even know what she was feeling at this mont. Perhaps fear—because the landlord, who looked like a normal person, might be hiding a darker side. Perhaps anger—because so many people had died unjustly in this building. Or perhaps confusion. She truly could not understand what benefit the landlord gained from doing all of this.

What she wanted most now was to question him directly and uncover the entire truth.

Zhao Mingyue stepped out of the darkness. The beam of a flashlight in the living room landed on her body. The other party seed surprised.

“Little Zhao? Why is it you?”

The landlord was very old, already in his seventies. His hair was gray, one of his legs was crippled, and his body was thin. Yet he seed quite energetic. His back was straight, and there was light in his eyes.

However, there was none of the kindness one might expect from an elderly man. Instead, his face looked fierce.

He wore a gray button-up shirt, leaning on a cane with one hand while holding a flashlight in the other. Under the harsh beam of light, his face could not be clearly seen, which sohow made the scene even more terrifying.

It was a different kind of terror from the female ghost.

It felt like standing at the scene of a murder. You know who the killer is, and the mont you turn around, you see them staring at you from the darkness.

“It’s . Are you surprised?”

“How did you get in here? And who is this person?”

The landlord frowned. The wrinkles on his face seed to twist together, making him look even more frightening.

“I’m already standing in this room, and you still want to keep lying to ?”

Seeing that he was still pretending at a mont like this made Zhao Mingyue inexplicably angry.

As soon as she said that, the atmosphere grew tense.

The landlord leaned on his cane and remained silent for a long ti, staring at Zhao Mingyue.

“So you already know?”

In television dramas, whenever a villain says those words, it usually ans they are preparing to silence soone forever.

Zhao Mingyue tightened her grip on the magic staff and instinctively stepped back half a step.

“Yes. I know everything. You imprisoned that ghost and caused people to die!”

As she spoke, she silently called out Bai Yu’s na in her heart.

Even though the landlord was over seventy years old, Zhao Mingyue still did not feel confident facing him alone. Calling Bai Yu would definitely be safer.

But Bai Yu did not respond.

Instead, the landlord walked forward. He casually switched on the lights in the room. At so point, the electricity had returned, and the room suddenly beca bright. However, the lights were not energy-saving lamps but old-fashioned light bulbs.

The dim yellow light illuminated the room, yet it brought no warmth.

The burnt sll in the air had disappeared, replaced by an even stronger odor of disinfectant. The sll seed to have seeped into the walls themselves. Most of it ca from the landlord.

“I say that I never intended to harm you. Do you believe ? I did bury Xiaolian’s body here, but I never intended for her to kill anyone.”

“I investigated this place. The people who committed suicide in Sunshine Apartnts over the past few years—are you daring to say they have nothing to do with you?”

More than ten people had committed suicide in this building. Zhao Mingyue did not believe it was rely coincidence that they had all co here to die. Ninety-nine percent of it was related to that female ghost. Just this morning, the ghost had even trapped her in a ghost loop.

“They… do have sothing to do with Xiaolian.”

The landlord sighed.

“I won’t deny that. I did everything I could to help them. But from the mont they stepped into this building, the ending was no longer sothing I could control.”

“Little Zhao, what you saw may not be what you think. Listen to finish, and you will understand.”

“Since you have already investigated, I’ll explain it to you in detail.”

“Xiaolian—the ghost you ntioned—is actually my daughter.”

“When she was young, sothing happened that damaged her mind. She was always in a daze and had no sense of security about anything around her. She would often hurt others.”

“She was like that even at school. Because she frequently injured her classmates, no school was willing to accept her. From the ti she entered middle school, she stayed at ho.”

“Her mother died early, so I was the only one taking care of her.”

“Ti passed quickly, and Xiaolian gradually grew up. But although her condition improved slightly, I kept thinking that one day I would grow old. When I no longer had the strength, who would take care of her?”

“So when she turned twenty-five, I brought in a live-in son-in-law nad Lin Gui. He had once been a tenant here. I thought he was kind and honest, so I created opportunities for him to interact with Xiaolian.”

“The two young people got along fairly well.”

“A few months later, I spoke to Lin Gui about the matter. His parents had died early too, so he agreed.”

“In the third year, their child was born—a pair of twins, one boy and one girl.”

“And it was that sa year that Xiaolian’s condition began to worsen again after giving birth.”

“At the ti I could not understand it. Her condition had already been under control. Why would it suddenly beco worse again?”

“I went to many hospitals, but none of them helped.”

“Later on, when her illness worsened, she would smash furniture. At tis she would lock herself inside a wardrobe, saying ‘they’ had co for her and she needed to hide.”

“Once, Xiaolian even locked the two children inside the wardrobe and sealed the door.”

“Lin Gui and I had to break the door open to rescue them. The children had not eaten or drunk anything for an entire day.”

“Things like that happened often. During that ti we didn’t even dare place large furniture in the house. All the mirrors were removed.”

“That year, the twins were already five years old. For most of that year Xiaolian did not have many episodes.”

“But one day she suddenly tied the two children up and set a fire, trying to burn them alive.”

“She said those things had already hidden inside the children’s bodies, and only by doing that could she drive them out.”

Zhao Mingyue could not help asking, “Then why didn’t you separate the children from their mother?”

“We tried that as well. But whenever Xiaolian was separated from the children, her condition beca much worse.”

“To continue… after that incident, Lin Gui could no longer endure it. He discussed it with , and we decided to send Xiaolian to a psychiatric hospital.”

“I was afraid she might hurt the children, so I agreed.”

“After Xiaolian was taken away, I left this place too and moved outside the city. Staying here was too painful for . After all, Xiaolian was my own daughter.”

“A few years later, Lin Gui suddenly told he had brought Xiaolian back. He did not explain why—only that she would not hurt the children anymore.”

“After she returned, he locked her on the fifth floor together with the two children.”

“At the ti I thought her condition had improved. I told Lin Gui that the children were growing up and should be sent to school. Children cannot grow up without education.”

“The problem only began after the children started school.”

“At first Xiaolian agreed with the idea. But when she heard that the children would attend No. 13 Middle School in East City, she suddenly went mad and insisted on bringing them back.”

“One night she sohow escaped and went to the school—perhaps to pick up the children.”

“And that very day, a fire broke out at No. 13 Middle School. One entire class of students failed to escape and were burned alive.”

Zhao Mingyue’s eyes widened.

“The children…”

“Yes. They were in that class.”

The landlord let out a deep sigh.

“When Xiaolian returned that night, she set a fire on the fifth floor and burned herself alive.”

“After her death, her ghost wandered on the fifth floor. At first she killed several people.”

“I had no choice but to invite a master.”

“The master told to retrieve Xiaolian’s corpse, hang her head and limbs with chains, bury the body with soil mixed with locust tree roots, and periodically scrape soil from the corpse and sar it onto the walls.”

“That way her spirit could be suppressed and trapped between the fourth and fifth floors, forever unable to escape.”