Autophagy

An idea flashed inside Song Lei's mind.

"I might be able to actually find you a new place to stay..." He muttered. Song Ming's gloomy expression lightened up a little bit. Although he still looked like he had just come out of a funeral, his expression was a tad bit better.

"Really? That would be great. I don't have a place to stay after all..." He said. Song Lei got up.

"Well, I will go now. I'll be back shortly after," Song Lei said. After leaving the room, he put the door back in its place. He was actually regretting now that he had broken the door.

After leaving room 1410, Song Lei went up to floor 16. This floor didn't have that many available rooms as most of them were covered with lava. Song Lei broke the door of room 1601 just like he had done back in room 1410.

Entering the room, he confirmed the idea that was in his mind.

"Urgh..."

Right in front of him was an abomination of flesh and oil that was making gurgling sounds. It didn't have any human features. It looked more like an oversized snail that was made out of teeth, flesh, and hair.

This sight was too disgusting, enough to make Song Lei disturbed. Not wanting to come into too much contact with this monster, Song Lei activated the adrenal rush and charged in. Although the monster was resilient, it didn't have that much agility. Song Lei could easily kite it out. Finishing the monster off with another attack, Song Lei took a step back.

[Congratulations! You've managed to kill a "Fleshly Abomination". You've gained Exp!]

Song Lei used a broom he had found to pull the monster. After taking it out of the room, Song Lei raised it and threw it into lava. As soon as he did so, a horrible stench spread out into the hallway. Fortunately, the stench spread up and dissipated, not leaving any noticeable smell behind.

Song Lei started breathing again as he had stopped doing so a short time ago. Entering back the room, he nodded to himself.

'The Hell floor residents are different from the Heaven ones. The only noticeable difference from the heaven floors other than the terrain change is the fact that its residents are in such a state...' Song Lei thought. He looked inside the room that was in a relatively messy state. The walls were covered in a yellow-colored viscous substance that looked like saliva mixed with blood.

This was probably made by the monster.

'How should I clean this place..?' Song Lei thought. He was planning to give this room to Song Ming.

There were two reasons behind him doing this. The first one was to empty floor 14 without hurting anyone. If he could make new space for the relatively sane residents of the apartment, he could freely move them to the upper floors.

The other reason was that he was wondering how his system would react if he got himself his own tenants. There was a hunch in him that told him this would be profitable.

Thinking for a second, Song Lei tapped his chin and brought up the system shop. Willing up a way to clean the room, he looked at the choices that were given to him.

[The Book "How To Clean Fleshly Abomination Residues 101". 5BC.]

[A tube of Multi-purpose Cleaning Bacteria. 20BC.]

Finding the second item the most useful, Song Lei inserted 20 blood beads into the system. Not a second passed and he felt the blood beads disappear from his hand, being replaced with a tube. He quickly pulled his hand out of the system and looked at the tube in his hand. It contained 200 ml of transparent liquid.

While looking at the tube, a disturbing thought appeared in Song Lei's mind. 'Is this safe? What if these bacteria are harmful to humans?'

Bringing up the system shop again, Song Lei specifically asked for a non-harmful version of the same bacteria. Seeing that the price didn't change, he sighed a breath of relief.

He popped the tube open and started pouring a few drops of bacteria here and there on the residue. Although he didn't know much, he knew that the bacteria would multiply every half an hour or so. He was hoping that the room would be clean after one or two days.

'Now that I'm done...' Song Lei held his chin while thinking. He had a hundred milliliters of bacteria left. He could use these to clean another room. 'Let's do that...'

Deciding that he could clean another, he went to room 1602. The resident of this room was another fleshly abomination just like the other. Finishing it off, Song Lei poured the leftover bacteria on the residue and left the room.

He bought some necessary tools and materials that he would need to repair the door he had just broken. Fortunately, all those took less than two blood beads.

Song Lei returned to room 1410 and told Song Ming about the situation. Song Ming was mostly nonchalant about the situation. He seemed like he would be fine no matter where he resided.

Song Lei finished talking with Song Ming and repaired his door.

'Is it just me or are the ghosts that are relatively sane really numerous..?' Song Lei thought. He went back to his room and sat on his bed. After watching the quake demon laze around for a little bit, he, too, felt tired and went to sleep.

...

After sleeping for a few hours, Song Lei got back to his job of beating the tenants of the floor. He cleaned up two more rooms, which were respectively rooms 1409 and 1406. Unlike Song Ming, the tenant ghosts of these two rooms weren't in a sane state. As soon as Song Lei went near their door, they opened the door and tried to pull Song Lei in.

Unfortunately for them, Song Lei wasn't a normal human. With his sword The Banisher, he could easily deal with a few measly low-level spirits.

After he was done clearing and restoring the state of those two rooms, Song Lei decided to visit Old Wolf. He wondered how the communication system was working. If he had the chance to, he would've liked to take a look at it.

Getting to floor seven, Song Lei looked around. Nobody seemed to be around. It was expected, after all, there were four branch members left now. One of them was Damien who would leave in less than a week. The other was the shy He Lingxin who wouldn't go out of his room unless it was totally necessary.

Realizing that the branch felt quite empty now, Song Lei started looking for Old Wolf. Just like he thought, Old Wolf was in his room.

"What happened Song Lei?" Old Wolf asked while raising one of his brows. "Didn't I tell you guys to rest?"

"Yeah... It's just that... I wanted to check the communication if it is possible for me..."

"Oh? Come in then. Tea?"

"Sure. Thank you," Song Lei said while pulling a chair and sitting on it. The laptop was on the table. Its fans were humming loudly. The laptop seemed relatively old with low specs. It was understandable. In the end, its only purpose was communication.

"You can do whatever you want with that..." Old Wolf said weirdly. He put a cup of tea in front of Song Lei and sat next to him. Song Lei was weirded out by Old Wolf's words. For some reason, they felt out of place. "You may get a bit disappointed though..."

Turning back to the laptop, Song Lei opened the browser. Instantly, he was logged onto a site. Scrolling down, Song Lei's brows were furrowed.

'It's a damn forum...' Song Lei facepalmed. He was expecting something that was more classy because of the way the Wei siblings represented the Heaven Alliance. However, the so-called communication platform looked like a forum from the 2000s filled with countless threads like "How do I deal with this particular kind of ghost?" or "Is it safe to eat an abomination-type monster?"

"It does the job pretty well..." Old Wolf said. He must've realized that Song Lei was a bit disappointed in the Heaven Alliance. In the end, however, the site was incredibly useful for information gathering and communication.

"I think so too..." Song Lei muttered while he was browsing through the forum. He raised the cup of the and took a sip from it. There were actually lots of interesting and useful threads on the site. While Song Lei was looking through all kinds of threads, he realized that a red dot was flickering on the top right corner of the screen.

Slowly clicking the red dot, Song Lei was met with a notification. They looked at each other with Old Wolf for a second and then turned their heads back to the computer. They started reading the message that they had just received.

[Congratulations on becoming a verified member of the Heaven Alliance Forum....!]