“Holy sht!”

“Holy sht!”

“Holy sh*t?!”

Voices like these erupted one after another, nonstop.

At the same time...

That eerie and chilling aura unique to dark-type abilities instantly spread across the entire 99th Floor!

The powerful players currently in the High-End Duel Machines weren’t affected.

But those not inside the machines?

They all felt it!

In an instant, everyone was on high alert!

However, they didn’t see any “enemy.”

Only a few players with extremely sharp senses immediately determined—

This ghostly wind was coming from the ceiling of the 99th Floor!

So they quickly looked up toward the ceiling, which was more than five meters high!

And saw the ceiling suddenly covered in dense black lines, which from afar looked like cracked black fissures.

But...

They soon realized—those weren’t cracks.

After all, cracks shouldn’t be able to move, right?

The black lines they saw seemed to be slithering across the ceiling!

They even faintly made a “sss sss sss” sound!

So, they weren’t black lines, but some kind of living creature?!

While the other powerful players were still shocked and on guard because of this unexpected event—

Wang Chengjin and Wan Xin suddenly snapped their heads toward Jiang Ye.

No—more accurately...

They looked at the test tube in his hand. The hair inside the test tube!

That hair... wasn’t it also a fine black line?

Could this entire situation be caused by this bald guy?!

What the h*ll is he trying to do? Challenge the entire Apartment 9999 on his own?!

And just as they were thinking Jiang Ye was the one stirring up trouble—

A chilling female voice suddenly echoed from the ceiling, cold and condescending:

“Before I truly get angry...”

“Give. Me. Back. My. Hair.”

Those final three words—“give me back”—came out one at a time, packed with pressure!

Hearing that voice, Wang Chengjin and Wan Xin suddenly realized—

This wasn’t Jiang Ye’s doing at all!

The truth seemed to be...

This bald guy stole an NPC item, and now she’s come knocking?!

Because of the oppressive wind and sense of dread from above, Wan Xin didn’t dare speak out loud and instead vented in the group chat:

【No way? This guy’s got balls of steel huh? Not only did he mess with the Duoe Organization, now he’s p*ssed off an NPC too?】

Wang Chengjin couldn’t help himself either:

【So wait, he didn’t come to Apartment 9999 for a Life-or-Death Duel? He just came here to hide??】

Other apartment members, still unaware of what was happening, chimed in:

【Huh? That ceiling-level boss is here because of that new guy, Jiang Ye?】

Wan Xin: 【Exactly! Seems like he stole some NPC item!】

【What the meow?! He stole an NPC item?! That juicy?!】

【So he really did come to our 9999 just to hide out?】

【Does he actually think we’ve got the guts to go toe-to-toe with an NPC?!】

【Even if we had the guts, no way we’d go up against an NPC just for his sake! What’s this dude thinking?!】

【Seriously! Isn’t this insane? He came from another apartment, which means—he pissed off a cross-apartment NPC! Cross-apartment NPC, people! Do I even need to explain how big of a deal that is?!】

【For real, in a Beginner Apartment, that’s probably second only to the Apartment Boss, right?】

【Honestly, might even be stronger than the Apartment Administrator! We’re already pushing it just messing with an Admin, and this guy had the nerve to mess with a boss-level NPC?!】

Wan Xin: 【I swear this guy’s brain is broken! Seriously!】

“...”

Jiang Ye, the one currently being suspected of brain damage, just wanted to calmly sigh and say:

D*mn you, Yang Wenchao! You better believe I’m coming back to kill you!!!

Meanwhile, in Apartment 1008, Yang Wenchao sneezed.

He was debating—

Should he take advantage of the white-robed woman chasing the bald guy and go raid her Room 2064?

...On second thought, better not.

After all, that’s a cross-apartment NPC!

That kind of existence isn’t someone you mess with casually...

Truthfully, when he helped Baldy secure the NPC item, he really wasn’t trying to screw him over.

It’s just—NPCs that can travel across apartments are extremely rare!

Generally speaking, according to his plan—

As long as Baldy ran to another apartment with the NPC item, the NPC wouldn’t be able to do anything unless he returned voluntarily.

After all, normal NPCs can’t cross apartments!

Who would’ve thought Baldy just happened to mess with one that could?!

Seriously, Yang Wenchao couldn’t be blamed for this.

If Baldy wants to blame someone, blame Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye just had insanely bad luck.

Took a random Cleaning gig and ran into an NPC boss of that level...

But sometimes, extreme bad luck and extreme good luck are just a hair’s breadth apart.

It all depends on whether Baldy can turn things around.

...But probably not.

The guy isn’t even a real game player.

Jiang Ye himself wasn’t exactly optimistic either.

But he was thinking—

According to what Yang Wenchao said earlier, Apartment NPC residents don’t actively kill players.

So if he just returned the test tube with the hair to the white-robed woman now, everything should be fine, right?

At worst, he’d just be out the two items he bought to steal the hair—300,000 Survival Points.

Sure, that’s still a fortune to him right now, but compared to the life of his replica, it’s nothing.

But...

Just as Jiang Ye was thinking returning the hair would end this whole thing—

He suddenly remembered—

Both he and Yang Wenchao had been ambushed by “monsters.”

Yang Wenchao got jumped by a giant cockroach in a Duel Room.

He himself was attacked by a venomous snake in the hallway on the 20th floor.

And according to Yang Wenchao, the reason for the ambushes was—they’d stolen packages...

NPC packages.

But the ones who ambushed them were monsters.

Thinking from that angle...

Maybe NPCs really can’t attack players directly.

But what if—they can send the monsters they’ve trained to ambush players?!

What if the second he returns the hair, a powerful monster shows up and one-shots him?

Then again—

With how strong the white-robed woman is, she could probably just snatch her hair back by force, right?

But she didn’t. She gave Jiang Ye a chance to hand it over voluntarily...

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Jiang Ye’s head. He remembered something from when he was doing the cleaning job.

At the time, the white-robed woman’s Personal Assistant robot said...

Every single strand of hair was incredibly precious.

If even a little was damaged, the consequences would be the player’s responsibility...

That line flashed through Jiang Ye’s mind again.

And then it hit him—

Maybe the reason she didn’t take it by force...

Was because she was afraid of damaging the hair?

Which meant—

What Jiang Ye held in his hand was basically like a hostage!

If he handed it over too easily, that’s when things would go south!

Holding onto it... was actually leverage!

Thinking this, Jiang Ye immediately tightened his grip on the test tube.

So tight, it seemed like he could crush it at any moment.

At the same time, the expression on his face calmed down. He looked up at the ceiling and said,

“Sister Bai, calm down. I have absolutely zero interest in your hair.”

“But if you scare me too much and I accidentally damage this strand, wouldn’t that be a loss for both of us?”

His tone sounded friendly enough.

But there was definitely a hint of threat behind it.

Instantly, the chilling aura on the 99th Floor intensified!

Many players couldn’t help but shiver, as if a venomous snake had slithered up their spines, bringing a wave of cold with it…

At the same time, they saw that the bald guy, bold enough to talk tough to a cross-apartment NPC, was somehow still calm and even sending messages in the chat group!

Jiang Ye: 【By the way, do you guys know what happens to these NPCs when a Beginner Apartment gets destroyed?】

The chat went quiet for a moment.

Then Wan Xin was the first to reply:

【In the game, NPCs are just pure data. So if the Beginner Apartment gets destroyed, their data should get wiped too.】

【But in this real-life version of the Beginner Apartment, none of us really know what’ll happen.】

You Ya: 【They’ll probably be destroyed too, just like data, right? Wiped out along with the Beginner Apartment?】

Jiang Ye asked again: 【What about the Apartment Boss?】

This one Wan Xin answered clearly:

【The Apartment Boss will be fine. After all, when we clear the Beginner Apartment and move on to Doomsday Apartment City, we’ll still have chances to interact with the Boss.】

【So the Apartment Boss should be a high-level NPC that transcends the boundaries of the Beginner Apartment map.】

Wang Chengjin: 【Exactly. For the Boss, the Beginner Apartment is probably just a trivial little property.】

【Even if we players stir up chaos here, the Boss usually doesn’t care. Everything’s left in the hands of the Apartment Administrator.】

【During this time, the Boss is likely outside the Beginner Apartment, in the bigger Doomsday Apartment City.】

As they chatted briefly in the group—

The cold female voice from the ceiling spoke again.

This time, directly aimed at Jiang Ye, cold as ice:

“You’re threatening me?”

That tone…

The white-robed woman seemed completely pissed off and about to strike any second!

But Jiang Ye still looked as calm as ever, his voice steady and composed:

“Of course not.”

“I just want to talk to you about something before I return the hair.”

The white-robed woman remained silent, didn’t respond, but also didn’t make a move.

Jiang Ye didn’t drag it out. Holding the test tube, he directly asked:

“Did you know the apartment will be destroyed in ten days?”

Hearing that, even the big shots of Apartment 9999 looked shocked and puzzled.

What’s this guy doing telling that to an NPC??

Tired of living or what?

Normally, when a Beginner Apartment is close to destruction…

Usually around Day 8 to Day 10, when veteran players start dropping in…

All the NPCs in the apartment go berserk due to sensing the end coming.

Same thing happens when an apartment starts fusing—NPCs go berserk.

And when they go berserk, NPCs become extremely dangerous.

Under the threat of death, they ignore “the rules” and can attack players directly!

So now Jiang Ye says the apartment’s going to be destroyed—

Is he trying to provoke an NPC rampage?!

But what surprised the big shots was—

The cross-apartment NPC up on the ceiling didn’t seem emotionally affected by what Jiang Ye said.

Almost like… she already knew the apartment was doomed.

Still, she didn’t respond to Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye, staying calm, continued:

“Whether it’s apartment fusion or apartment destruction, it must cause you some trouble, right?”

“What if I said… I’m willing to help solve your problem?”

Hearing that, the top players of Apartment 9999 were stunned again!

【No way, does this guy even know what he’s saying? Solve the NPC’s problem? Is he seriously claiming he can keep the NPC alive after the apartment gets destroyed?!】

【Does he seriously think just handing over a few Survival Stones is enough to save these NPCs?!】

【This dude’s wild! He sounds like he’s actively trying to get a quest from an NPC!】

【And the quest he’s going for isn’t even one that’s possible to complete!】

And it wasn’t just the players—

Even the white-robed woman herself was clearly shocked.

After a long silence, her voice finally echoed down from the ceiling again, full of scorn:

“Solve my problem…”

“Hah! Do you even know who you’d have to solve?”

Huh??

Jiang Ye’s eyes flickered, and he felt a flash of joy in his heart.

If she had asked, “Do you know how to solve my problem?”—

He might’ve had no idea how to respond.

But instead, she asked—

Who.

Which made the question more specific!

That “who”—as in, “who would you have to solve”—usually means a person.

So, he could turn it into a multiple choice question—

A. Apartment Players

B. Apartment Administrator

C. Shadow in the Hallway

D. Apartment Boss

E. Other

Multiple choice? Easy mode!

He could guess and still get it right!

And based on what the Apartment 9999 veterans were discussing earlier,

Plus the white-robed woman’s disdainful reaction to his proposal…

It had to be the hardest option—

Jiang Ye confidently gave the answer he’d guessed: “Isn’t it the Apartment Boss?”

The moment he said that—

Jiang Ye felt the air on the 99th Floor suddenly go stiff.

Even the cold aura descending from the ceiling seemed unable to spread through the frozen atmosphere.

So, that previously eerie and chilling vibe…

Suddenly turned into just stiffness and awkwardness.

Eh?

What’s so awkward?

Did he guess right or wrong?

Or maybe…

The Apartment Boss is just really hard to deal with?

Come to think of it, yeah, probably super hard to deal with.

After all, from everything he’s learned so far—

The Apartment Boss is way more powerful than the Apartment Administrator.

Even the elite veteran players trying to clear the Beginner Apartment using the pay-to-win method—

They only dared take on the Administrator.

No one ever even thought about going after the Boss...

And Yang Wenchao had said before—

Apartment Administrators have the power to erase players.

And to counter that kind of power, you need a special item...

Which means even killing an Administrator is ridiculously hard for players!

As for the Boss?

Not even on the radar.

So… did he just blow his bluff way too far?

While Jiang Ye was stuck in this awkward realization, wondering if he needed to backpedal with some excuse—

A voice from the not-so-cold ceiling finally came again.

The white-robed woman’s tone was no longer icy, but strangely curious:

“You’re sure… you really want to deal with the Apartment Boss?”