【1. The Apartment Chat Group and Apartment Ranking Board will undergo standard fusion.】

【2. Apartment Administrators will be subject to optimization and selective fusion.】

【Within 10 minutes, an Administrator PK battle will occur.】

【If a victor emerges within 10 minutes, that person will become the Administrator of the fused apartment.】

【If no winner is determined, the Administrator will be selected based on the number of players on the Apartment Ranking Board, with total player count as a secondary factor.】

【3. After optimization, the fused apartment will be named according to the original apartment number of the selected Administrator.】

【4. When apartment rooms are fused, if two players have rented the same room number, an optimization battle will occur.】

【Both tenants must duel within 10 minutes. If no winner is decided in time, the one with higher Combat Power will be the victor.】

【The winner retains the room; the loser loses their right to the room.】

【Rent already paid by the loser will not be refunded. If rent hasn’t been paid, the loser must cover the penalty fee for canceling the lease.】

【5. For more information, consult the optimized Apartment Administrator after fusion is complete.】

As soon as the announcement dropped,

the students were completely dumbfounded.

The chat group exploded!

【What the hell is this?? What’s a VIP Player?! Why are they suddenly merging our apartment with another?!】

【That room rule is insane! Why the hell does the loser not get their rent refunded, and even has to pay a cancelation fee?】

【Exactly! Any player loss from this kind of fusion should be covered by the apartment, right?】

【Right?! Back when I played games, if there was a server error, the game usually compensated players. But now we’re getting a fusion out of nowhere, no compensation, and we even have to pay extra if we lose a room number match? That’s bullsh*t!!】

【If this were a regular game, I’d be spamming one-star reviews and filing a complaint right now!】

【But hey, an apartment has tons of floors and rooms, the chances of a room number collision should be low, right?】

【Even if the odds are low, I still think this fusion isn’t a good thing!】

【Think about it—Yang Wenchao was one of us, just a classmate, and he’s already out here killing people!】

【Now this fusion’s bringing in complete strangers—probably some street-smart, ruthless types! That kind of setup is just begging for conflicts and casualties!】

【Yeah, this fusion is definitely sketchy! What’s this VIP Player up to? And why do they even have the ability to initiate a fusion?】

【Just because they’re a VIP, they get more permissions?】

【Do we even stand a chance of becoming VIP Players in the future?】

【Stop dreaming! We’d be lucky to survive the Beginner Apartment, let alone become a VIP.】

【I bet someone like Yang Wenchao might stand a chance of becoming VIP. Even Wang Lingling doesn’t quite cut it.】

【By the way... you think this apartment fusion might have something to do with Yang Wenchao?】

Since the chat group was public,

and everyone now recognized how powerful Yang Wenchao was,

his name was being mentioned with extra caution.

Sure enough, after that round of chatter, the group quieted down again.

After a long silence, someone finally replied:

【Didn’t the announcement say it was triggered by a VIP Player? Why are y’all so eager to pin everything on Brother Chao?】

Well, it’s only natural. Yang Wenchao had made such a dominant impression,

and his background was such a mystery to most students,

they had no choice but to fill in the blanks with wild guesses.

Many now suspected he was a reborn player.

Or maybe had awakened an SSS-tier ability.

Some even believed he was the protagonist of destiny with unlimited potential!

A bunch of classmates were dreaming of riding his coattails.

As for Jiang Ye—he’d interacted with the so-called mysterious Yang Wenchao himself,

which is why he’d already seen through the illusion.

He skimmed the chat briefly, found nothing useful, and was just about to take the opportunity to ask Yang Wenchao about VIP Players and apartment fusion—

However...

While he was calmly browsing the High-End Mall,

his No.1 Replica, lounging on the top floor, soaking up the sun, suddenly ran into a problem after the fusion announcement!

More precisely—it was the white-clothed woman who was the problem.

She seemed to love sunlight.

When Jiang Ye had been up on the rooftop dealing with hair,

she had set up a lounge chair, thrown on some sunglasses, and started sunbathing too.

Honestly, with her whole vibe...

Anyone who knew what was going on could tell she was just on the rooftop.

But if you didn’t know better,

you might think she was chilling on a sunny beach.

Jiang Ye was half expecting her to suddenly blurt out—

“Come here, little bro~ Sis’ll pay extra if you add a special service...”

Of course, nothing NSFW actually happened under the sunshine.

But right after the apartment fusion announcement was made,

the woman’s expression suddenly changed.

Her calm, leisurely sunbathing turned to pure rage and fear in an instant.

After hesitating for a moment, she seemed to suppress her emotions and stood up sharply.

Jiang Ye was just beside her, still applying hair oil strand by strand,

and naturally tensed up.

His hand, mid-routine, even trembled slightly.

That tiny tremor was all it took for the woman to blow up:

“What are you shaking for?! You just wasted a precious drop of my hair oil!!”

This random outburst was clearly just her venting.

Jiang Ye said nothing, though inwardly he was thinking—

So apartment fusion affects even NPC-like apartment residents?

Wait, what happens if a player’s room number collides with an apartment NPC’s room?

He didn’t get the chance to think it through.

Because in the next moment, the furious woman suddenly went berserk!

She raised both arms—and the strands of hair Jiang Ye hadn’t finished treating suddenly came to life, surging toward her arms!

What’s more, the strands looked noticeably thicker than before!

They slithered toward her like black water snakes!

Eventually, the strands climbed up from her arms to her head,

pushing away the towel wrapped around her hair...

And beneath that towel—

Her long, straight black hair was all alive, writhing like a nest of black serpents,

twisting and hissing with a terrifying “ssssss” sound...

Even under the bright sun,

that eerie image and sound sent chills down the spine!

Jiang Ye was instantly frozen on the spot!

In that moment, he was already preparing—

to either fuse the Replica or abandon this C-tier ability replica entirely!