Qianli City, also known as River City, is the only municipality in the central western region of Great Xia that stands on equal footing with the major provinces.
The city is surrounded by rivers on three sides. Due to its unique geographical location and historical significance, its development in recent years has been incredibly rapid.
Whether in terms of economy, culture, population, or infrastructure, its level of development is enough to make outsiders describe it as surreal.
Correspondingly, as the floating population has increased and the local tourism industry has flourished, the pressure on the municipal government of Qianli City has also grown.
At ten thirty in the evening, the snack street near Tiansheng Bridge in the center of Qianli City was at its peak of foot traffic.
“Sweet skin duck! Sweet skin duck! It is fantastic! Miss, come in and have a taste!”
“Jasmine bracelets! Yellow orchid bracelets! Two for one! They smell wonderful and keep the mosquitoes away!”
“Ghost Buns! Ghost Buns! Everyone loves them!”
“Wanzhou grilled fish, douhua rice, douhua fish, well water chicken! Come in, come in!”
“Taro chicken, taro chicken, fatty intestine and filefish! It smells delicious!”
Out of town tourists explored this magical city with curiosity, occasionally letting out gasps of wonder.
Local vendors shouted in their thick Qianli dialect, calling out to invite customers into their shops.
In a small plaza nearby, fountains surged as countless children of all sizes played in the water, screaming and laughing with joy.
Aunties and uncles dressed in shorts and short sleeves fanned themselves with palm leaf fans, sitting on benches under the greenery and chatting animatedly.
Finely dressed urban office workers and trendy young men and women in fashionable clothes also wove through the crowd.
Nan Zhi held an old fashioned popsicle and stood in front of a milk tea shop to soak up the air conditioning.
She occasionally glanced at the time on her phone, her expression relaxed.
In front of the milk tea shop, two long, winding lines had formed.
It seemed everyone intended to rely on ice cold milk tea to sustain their lives and resist the heat that refused to dissipate from the air.
“It is so hot, so hot... why is it still this hot even under the moon?”
Zhang Qiuyu hopped over to Nan Zhi’s side and took a satisfying sip of the lemon water in her cup.
“Refreshing! In the middle of summer, only a four yuan cup of lemon water is worth me leaving the house.”
“Then why did you ask me to come out? In this heat, staying home to play games and enjoy the air conditioning would have been much better.”
Nan Zhi bit off a chunk of her popsicle, the ice cubes crunching loudly in her mouth.
“We have been walking all afternoon, and I have barely bought any clothes. I have just been focused on eating.”
Throughout the afternoon, she had eaten fried chicken, fried shrimp, grilled squid, glutinous rice, braised dishes, grilled meat skewers, shao pi, bean curd, and stinky tofu...
She had essentially tried every popular snack in the street.
It was also thanks to her cultivation that her appetite had increased significantly; otherwise, an ordinary person would never have been able to handle a second round after stuffing down so much food.
“I will drive you back later. I just got my license last month, and I have been looking for someone to critique my driving!”
Zhang Qiuyu bit her straw and rolled her eyes hard.
“It is Saturday. Do you really want to stay home and waste your life on games?
“Are the movies not good, the script kill games not fun, the malls not worth visiting, or is the milk tea not tasty?
“You go between home and work every day. If you do not come out to play, how will you meet new people?
“If you do not meet new people, how will you find a boyfriend? What, are you planning to wait for your Prince Charming to break into your house so you can have a meet cute?”
If someone really broke into her house...
They would either be beaten to death by her or scared to death by a flying rat.
Nan Zhi actually seriously visualized that scene in her mind.
Having spent so much time together, Zhang Qiuyu knew with one look that Nan Zhi was definitely not seriously considering the topic of finding a boyfriend.
Sometimes she also wondered.
Logically, Nan Zhi was good looking, had a nice personality, and was reliable, but why did she have zero chemistry with men?!
Zhang Qiuyu had introduced several potential matches to Nan Zhi before, but basically, none of them went anywhere.
According to those handsome guys:
Your friend seems easy to get along with. She can talk to anyone and be friends with anyone.
But after spending time with her, even though she seems to share everything and be very open, you just cannot fall in love with her.
Such a person is cold to the bone, naturally detached, and only suited to be a friend.
Trying to become her lover is harder than climbing to heaven.
“What is it?”
Nan Zhi noticed Zhang Qiuyu’s hesitant expression and looked over while holding the popsicle stick in her mouth.
“Weren’t we going to that new Thai place? If not, I am going back to play my game. I haven’t saved yet.”
What naturally detached? This girl was clearly just a shut in who was afraid a boyfriend would interfere with her gaming!
Zhang Qiuyu shook her head, tossing the stray thoughts out of her mind.
“Let’s go, let’s go. Their place is a viral restaurant; you need a reservation to get in.”
She pulled Nan Zhi along, her face full of excitement.
“I just got a number online. If we head over now, we can eat in half an hour!”
...
The Thai restaurant Zhang Qiuyu booked was on the forty third floor of Green Ti New City near Tiansheng Bridge.
The building was sixty nine stories high with hundreds of units. There were almost no original residents left; the entire building was leased out as commercial spaces.
In the prime real estate of Tiansheng Bridge, this building could be said to have pushed space utilization to the extreme. Below was a bustling commercial street, and inside the building was a vertical shopping district.
Gyms, movie theaters, hair salons, after school interest classes, early education centers, vintage shops, clothing stores, board game cafes, escape rooms, French restaurants, Thai restaurants, Japanese restaurants...
The building contained everything. Tourists often didn’t go window shopping on the streets but rather went floor shopping.
During peak hours, one might have to wait an hour for an elevator just to reach their desired floor.
Fortunately, Nan Zhi and her friend were lucky. They only waited fifteen minutes before boarding an elevator.
The elevator was cramped. In the narrow metal box, people tried their best to maintain a polite social distance.
Accompanied by the crisp elevator chime, the elevator car opened its mouth, spitting out the cargo in its belly one by one.
Slowly, the people in the elevator thinned out.
Nan Zhi was scrolling through a game walkthrough. Standing next to her were two boys and two girls who looked like high schoolers but were dressed very fashionably.
The youthful vitality radiating from them was something that adults who had been long tainted by the weariness of the daily grind could not match.
Seeing that there weren't many people left in the elevator, the leading high school boy suddenly drawled in a mysterious tone.
“Hey, do you guys know this building is haunted?”
“Huh? Really? That sounds intense!”
“Oh! I told you not to talk about that. It is late at night; are you trying to scare us to death?”
The high schooler’s companions had different reactions. The other people in the elevator seemed to be spacing out, but in reality, they were all drawn in by the boy’s words.
Nan Zhi also accurately caught the keywords, and her ears perked up quietly.
This scene felt a bit familiar.
She wondered what happened to the person who told her a ghost story in an elevator last time.
“I heard it from my dad. He used to work on construction sites and heard people talking. They said there is something wrong with this building; accidents happen every year.”
Seeing everyone’s attention focused on him, the boy looked a bit smug, showing off with a touch of mystery.
“Everyone knows a fire happened in this building seven years ago, right?
“The current building was renovated afterward. Even the top three floors were added after the fire. Do you know why?”
Nan Zhi frowned.
Seven years ago, she hadn't moved to this city yet, so she didn't know much about the fire.
However, when she chatted with her colleagues, someone would occasionally mention it.
There were many theories about the cause of the fire, but one widely circulated version was:
A mental patient who couldn't accept their condition ran out while they were lucid to take revenge on society.
That lunatic brought two buckets of cooking oil into the building and set fire to the clutter piled in the stairwell.
Additionally, the building’s fire safety was flawed back then, causing the fire to grow larger until it finally became uncontrollable.
Even now, when locals cursed someone, they would often say things like, “You arsonist idiot,” “Do you have a lump on your head too?” or “Go to hell like that arsonist idiot.”
Of course, after the building was rebuilt, fewer and fewer people mentioned the incident.
“I am telling you, there is a reason for all of this. Actually, after the reconstruction, the building was supposed to reopen, but... the hauntings were too severe.”
The high schooler shook his head and lowered his voice, speaking slowly.
“Look at this building from the outside. Do those newly added floors look like a giant cross?
“If you look from the side, it looks like a horizontal blade.
“My dad said it is because the burned ghosts from back then were too fierce, so they built the new floors to suppress them and keep them from coming out to cause trouble!”
In the middle of the night, the boy’s words seemed to carry a cold wind, eerily brushing against the back of everyone’s necks.
Especially since they were currently inside the building, the sense of immersion was even stronger.
The fire from seven years ago.
The renovated building.
The strange rooftop architecture.
“Ding—”
The elevator chime rang again. The silver white doors slowly opened, and a young couple holding hands hurriedly exited the elevator.
Their manner, however, looked very much like they were fleeing in panic.
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