Free Web NovelChapter 60: Chapter 60: The Black Card Gifted by Yu Sheng
’The seventh mission, huh.’
Everyone present fell silent, the only sound their breathing.
Yu Sheng’s seventh green-text mission was here?
After completing five missions, the interval between subsequent missions would extend indefinitely. The time between them was measured in years.
By rights, his sixth mission was completed over half a year ago. His seventh mission should still be nearly half a year away. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Unless Yu Sheng himself no longer wanted to wait.
Aside from ancient legends like Xu Yuan, among the recent generations of residents, forget reaching the sixth mission—even reaching the fifth was exceedingly rare. For a few weaker generations, completing just four missions was enough to become an apartment administrator.
Seven green-text missions had become a rarity.
If Yu Sheng really survived this mission...
He might actually complete ten missions and become the second legend to leave the Living Persons Apartment after Xu Yuan.
...
...
Little did they know that the very same Yu Sheng they were discussing, the one about to embark on his seventh green-text mission, was now standing before a door, knocking several times. He then placed his palms together and waited quietly for the occupant to open it.
Footsteps echoed from within the room. A moment later, the door opened. The person standing there was Gao Tian.
This was Gao Tian’s room.
Staring at the unexpected visitor outside his door, Gao Tian’s face showed a hint of confusion. He didn’t understand why this incredibly elusive Monk would suddenly seek him out alone.
Still, he concealed his inner confusion.
"Care to come in and sit for a while?"
Gao Tian stepped aside, gesturing for the big shot to enter.
Yu Sheng simply stood in the doorway, his body as stiff as a withered wooden Buddha.
He looked down at Gao Tian with lowered eyelids. For some reason, Gao Tian felt that his gaze was filled with pity.
"My time has come. I’m leaving tomorrow."
This was Yu Sheng’s first sentence, as cryptic as ever.
"An old acquaintance is coming for me."
"This time, I might not make it through. All things are subject to cause and effect. After I’m gone, I’ll have to trouble you newcomers with the apartment’s affairs."
Shock slowly dawned in Gao Tian’s eyes.
He understood that Yu Sheng was implying his seventh mission had arrived. Not only that, but the mysterious Monk also seemed to have a premonition, stating clearly that this time might be his end.
Not giving Gao Tian too much time for his imagination to run wild, Yu Sheng, for once, stopped speaking in riddles and got straight to the point:
"If I die, no matter how many black cards I have, they’ll be meaningless."
"To go to the fourth floor with Xia Ta’s group, you need a black card, right?"
"I’ll keep one black card for myself. The extra one, I can give to you."
"You just have to say the word."
Gao Tian’s heart was shaken once again.
’The vengeful spirit from a seventh green-text mission is so terrifying that even a black card can’t guarantee survival?’
To Yu Sheng, if one black card couldn’t save him, a second one was pointless. He was already preparing for his own demise.
’I wonder what Yu Sheng has foreseen. Is his journey really this perilous?’
Gao Tian looked up at Yu Sheng’s dark, shadowless eyes and asked:
"Isn’t it a rule of the apartment that black cards can’t be transferred and can only be used by the owner?"
Otherwise, a rich man like Jin Daxiang could offer five hundred thousand, a million, to buy a black card. There would always be someone in the apartment fearless enough to go to the fourth floor and use it.
Fortunately, when it came to supernatural events, the rich and the poor were on relatively equal footing.
Yu Sheng explained:
"That restriction applies to the black cards from the fourth floor."
"What I’m giving you is a gray card, earned by surviving the fifth floor."
"Compared to a regular black card, the difficulty of obtaining a gray card increases exponentially, but it also comes with many privileges. For example, black cards cannot be transferred, but gray cards can."
"But none of that is important. What’s important is, do you really want to go upstairs that badly? If you’ve already made up your mind, then I will now formally transfer this gray card to you."
Gao Tian fell silent for a moment before asking in return:
"Is there really no chance you’ll survive this mission?"
"If you do survive, and I don’t end up using the gray card on the fourth floor, then I’ll return it to you."
Yu Sheng lowered his face, seeming to have calmly accepted his fate.
"Life and death in this world are all determined by cause and effect. Everything is preordained."
"What is meant to come, will come; those who are meant to survive, will survive; and those who are meant to die, will surely die."
"But as for you, Gao Tian, do you know why I sought you out specifically?"
Gao Tian:
"Why?"
It was true. He was just a newcomer who had completed three missions. Although he had great potential, it shouldn’t have been enough to warrant special attention from a heavyweight like Yu Sheng, who had completed six.
Yu Sheng:
"You carry the stench of death. Like me, you’re a dead man walking. Your time is almost up."
His tone was pure, without a trace of malice. It wasn’t a curse or an insult. It was merely an objective fact; he was only stating what he saw.
"But what I find strange is that the timing of your death is off."
"It’s not after you go to the fourth floor—you’ll live for a while longer."
"And it’s not during your fourth green-text mission—you won’t live that long."
"On this trip upstairs, if nothing unexpected happens, you should be lucky enough to survive."
"But soon after, your death day will arrive. You won’t make it to your next green-text mission."
"Your life will end somewhere between the fourth-floor expedition and your fourth mission."
"It’s truly strange. I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is that kills you."
"A man cannot fight against Heaven, but I’m different. I’m already a dying man. I want to try and change your fate. If you can survive your certain death, you will become a ’non-existent person’ within the threads of causality, and you can become a chess piece I leave behind after I depart from the apartment."
A solid gray, hard card had already appeared in his hand. Its appearance was no different from a fourth-floor black card, aside from its color.
"If I don’t return one week after I leave, my room, and everything inside it, is all yours."
"The key is under the rug, and the electronic lock code is four fours."
The things Yu Sheng said were profoundly mysterious, dealing with fate and causality, all ephemeral and vague.
He knew many things, but he disdained to change them, or even to offer a single word of explanation.
His origins, his personality... he was a freak in this apartment, completely out of place with the other two apartment administrators.
Faced with this incredibly tight-lipped Monk, Gao Tian knew that repeated questions would just be a waste of time. Since Yu Sheng was offering him this gray card, he naturally accepted it without hesitation.
"In that case, I’ll gladly accept."
"Thank you."
"I also wish you success in your seventh mission. Big shot."
Yu Sheng said nothing. His gray Monk’s robe swayed in the wind as he turned and left.
Watching the bald man’s retreating back.
Gao Tian felt this might be the last time in his life he would see the mysterious Monk.
The seventh green-text mission. The probability of survival was extremely slim. Even a monster like Yu Sheng had a premonition that he wouldn’t be coming back this time.
And likewise, he, Gao Tian, was about to head to the apartment’s fourth floor.
Although Yu Sheng had said he wouldn’t die on the fourth floor, there were no certainties in this world. If he did die there, that would be his fate, and there’d be no one to blame.
’Who knows what will happen tomorrow?’ ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
’Xia Ta’s team is leaving tomorrow morning, right?’
’I have to tell Xia Ta quickly that I got the gray card and have regained my spot on the fourth-floor team. Otherwise, if they decide to go up early, I’ll be left looking like a complete idiot.’
He opened his phone and quickly found Xia Ta on WeChat.
[Gao Tian]:
The four-person team going upstairs is now a five-person team.
I have a black card again.
[Rabbit King]:
?
??
???
...
...
"So you’re saying, that bald guy knocked on your door, told you he was leaving, and that his black card was useless to him. Since you were in such a hurry to go upstairs and get yourself killed, he gave you the card to send you on your way."
"Is that about right?"
"Umm... pretty much."
It took Zhao Zhenjia and the others a long time to accept this new development.
After meeting with Gao Tian, Yu Sheng had already left.
The strange thing was, Yu Sheng had first gone to the third floor to find Gao Tian. But to leave the Living Persons Apartment, didn’t he have to pass through the first-floor lobby to get out?
But Xia Ta and Jiang Yang, who were on the first floor, never saw Yu Sheng come down. And just like that, Yu Sheng left the apartment, not even giving the administrators a chance to say goodbye.
He left silently, without a word of farewell. Before his departure, he met only with Gao Tian, treating Xia Ta and Jiang Yang as if they were thin air.
"What’s Yu Sheng’s seventh mission called?"
"It’s called Longshu Temple."
"The mission objective is just one sentence. ’Come to Longshu Temple, meet an old acquaintance, and settle a worldly connection.’"
"That’s it? No hints, no survival requirements, nothing?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
’As expected of a big shot who’s done seven missions. His green-text missions have evolved to a completely different level than everyone else’s.’
At the same time, among the original four-person team, Gao Tian also saw Lan Chu, the oddball "big sister" with the split lip and ferocious appearance.
As well as the ’rules-of-horror’-style survival guide for the fourth floor that Yu Sheng had left them.
"Hey, you little brat who’s only done three missions, get over here."
"Once we get to the fourth floor, just stick obediently behind your big sister. Don’t do anything extra."
"Big sis will show you what absolute power looks like, a true powerhouse of the Supernatural Realm."
"Just lie back and wait for me to carry you, you little rookie."
Lan Chu was overly familiar, aggressively slinging an arm around Gao Tian’s shoulder and ruffling his hair as if they were old friends. The reek of alcohol on her breath almost made him pass out when she spoke.
"Big sis, this is our first time meeting, right? Who are you?"
Goosebumps erupted all over Gao Tian’s body. He struggled to break free from under the strange woman’s armpit, and one can imagine how awful his expression was.
’On my third mission, I just ran into two psychos, Zhou Yan and Ling Feifei.’
’And on this mission, it seems this big sister... isn’t exactly a normal person either?’
