Chapter 384: How to own five buildings

The auction of the murder house soon began.

A man in a black suit and red tie with a shiny old Little Mu hammer arrogantly stepped onto the auction stage, glanced around at the eager crowd below and said in a long, drawn-out tone, "The auction begins."

"As you all know, there are five districts in Sunny City, ABCDE, the real estate resources in district A are the best, you are lucky to have two houses in district A for auction today."

"I'm sure you've all seen all the houses up for auction today, and I won't go into too much detail, the first one, Zone A, 18 sq ft, hardcover, turnkey, is a pleasant home for a family of four, but unfortunately this family of four just jumped out of this house the day before yesterday."

"Let's start the filming with the customary gratitude to these departing homeowners for paying for a portion of your homes so you can pick up a bargain A-zone home here, and please bow your heads and pray that they may ascend to heaven when they die."

The auctioneer falsely led the crowd in a moment of silence with folded hands.

"The starting price for this house -" the auctioneer slammed the hammer down after a prayer, lifting his eyes: "- is three million. "

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian in the crowd were both confused for a moment: "18 ping, what's the starting price?

But before they knew it, the price was quickly going up, and the people next to them were scrambling, red-faced, to raise their cards and shout.

"3.1 million!"

"3.18 million!"

In just three minutes, a dozen bids were shouted and the price shot up to four million, a scene so lively it didn't look like a robbery.

Yuan Guang stopped in his tracks, ready to raise his hand, the amount on the card was one million, and he looked in a trance at the people next to him who were almost fighting over the 18 square foot house where a family of four had just died.

"Good." The auctioneer indifferently dropped the hammer and raised his hand to a man with a haggard, withered face who felt like he was going to die of thinness in the next second, "Congratulations to this Mr. Li on the sale of this home for $4,760,000."

The man threw up his hands in ecstasy and cheered, almost mad with joy: "I've got a room! I have a house! I've got a house!"

"I would like to invite Mr. Li to come up and collect his proof of property and give his testimonial of being awarded a home to inspire all Sunshine City residents who have not yet been offered a home." The auctioneer said.

The skeletal Mr. Li climbed onto the auction block with one breathless step, took the title almost with the slightly disgusted assistance of the auctioneer and smiled at the residents below who were waiting for their next house to be auctioned off as if they had won the world.

"My goal from the day I started working at the age of 16 was to own a house of my own in Sunnyside."

"Full payment!" Mr. Li had an eerie and wild light in his eyes, "I'm determined not to be a house slave! I want to be a first class citizen of Sunnyside straight away!"

"To achieve this goal, I ate only one piece of instant noodle pastry every day, rewarded myself with a cup of soup made from a condiment packet every two days, worked six to ten odd jobs a day, slept in the company toilets to save on land use fees, and thus saved money for thirty years before I finally saved enough for $4.76 million."

Mr. Li cried tears of joy as he raised the property certificate in his hand like a trophy: "Finally, on this day, I bought an 18 sq ft house with full payment!"

The stage was filled with an off-kilter, pattering applause and a few scattered jeers.

"Gee, I don't know what you're so proud of, only working ten jobs, I've worked twelve before, okay? What's there to brag about?"

"Thirty years to save 4.76 million? It's just luck to grab this suite, where else would someone like him get a turn to live in District A ......"

"It's so annoying, can we get down and wait for the second suite to be shot, please? Talking as if anyone isn't saving up for a house like this."

Mr. Li seemed to be aware of the insignificance of what he had done and came down with the property deeds in a slightly shameful manner.

Yuan Guang looked numbly at Mr. Li's departing back: "...... I feel like my mental values have taken a serious hit."

Shi Qian gave a slow nod, "Me too."

Another group of outsiders who are going through the process are also being hit hard.

Mu Sicheng is already dumbfounded: "This Mr. Li, who looks like a skeleton, really won't die suddenly the day he moves in ......"

"And then the murder house will be repossessed and put up for auction again." Bai Liu smiled as he looked at the auctioneer with amusement, "Feels like a brand new way to add to the fairy tale."

Mu Sicheng swallowed nervously as he took two steps away from Bai Liu, " Bai Liu, why do I get the feeling that you are so aggressive in this copy?"

"Normal." Liu Jiayi, who had been silent and had not spoken, glanced at Bai Liu and said calmly, "He was also very aggressive towards the foremen in Roseburn and he ended up killing almost all of them, Bai Liu hated this upper level who exploited him and he did not like Muke back then."

Muke took a deep breath.

Bai Liu spreads his hands naturally, "It's only natural that people hate the class that takes away their interests, right? No one likes being a leek."

Tang Erda couldn't resist taking a look at Bai Liu.

Bai Liu smiled momentarily, " Captain Tang, I'm just venting in the game, I won't bring it into reality."

With that, Bai Liu put the completed property certificates into Tang Erda's hands: "Captain Tang, as the most disciplined and strongest member of our team, I have decided to put all the property certificates we have obtained in your name for the time being, is that okay?"

Tang Erda took the property deed: "Yes."

"So our current strategy is to kill and take the room?" At this point, Tang Erda frowned a little uncomfortably, not quite used to this approach.

"Of course not." Bai Liu raised his eyes to the hot auction block over there, "It's too inefficient to kill and take the room."

Tang Erda was stunned: "Too inefficient?"

Kill one person and get a suite, what more efficient way to take a house?

"Well, I only killed the recruiter to test two theories, that the game should be cleared through unconventional channels and that people in Sunshine City turn into ghosts when they die, not to complete the goal by killing people for their houses." Bai Liu narrates unhurriedly, "It's unlikely that Murder for Houses will get five buildings in seven days."

Tang Erda frowned and asked hesitantly in return, "Why not, if ...... can get through by killing the house owners of five buildings?"

Liu Jiayi replied coldly, "Because we can't tell who the owner is, so how can we kill?"

"Yes." Bai Liu nodded, "There are ten million people in this city, homeowners who own their homes outright are a minority, most are house slaves and temporary residents, killing them we can't get full proof of the property and all these people seem to be ordinary people, it's too inefficient to sift through who is a homeowner or house slave one by one."

"We could just go to the building and kill it." Mu Sicheng rubbed his chin and suggested, "The odds are that most people who live in the building are homeowners, right?"

"And house slaves." Muke countered calmly, "And with a building here that has thirty or forty floors, five to six homes per floor, and good quality door valves and windows, rounding up we'd have to force a break-in and kill over a hundred and fifty homes in one night."

Mu Sicheng pondered, "A hundred and fifty households a night is not impossible, is it?"

"Of course killing can be done -" Bai Liu lifted his eyes, "but people here turn into ghosts when they die, have you forgotten?"

Liu Jiayi pondered for a moment and questioned, "But Bai Liu, there is one thing I find strange about this."

"When you killed that recruiter earlier, the system prompted that he would turn into a ghost to stay inside the house after he died and attack all the people who entered the house, so according to this pattern, if people have died in these murderous houses, then these dead people should also turn into ghosts to stay inside the house and attack the occupants who entered it."

"There's no way the system could lie to us about the game's rules." Liu Jiayi's brow furrowed as well, "Then why are these people living in a murder house and still alive?"

"It's not like they're alive and well." Muke recalls what the previous job seekers had said, "Some of the people who bought the murder house lived in it for a while and then something happened to them."

Liu Jiayi glances at the bustling auction market behind her: "But there's no denying that there are a lot of people who live in murderous houses who are alive and well, otherwise the market wouldn't be so hot."

Bai Liu looked down at her, "I thought of that too, but have you noticed that there is a clear difference between these murderous houses and the ones we kill and take over?"

Mak Si pondered, "Aren't they both murder houses after people have died in vain? What's the difference?"

Liu Jiayi paused and reacted quickly by looking at the property deed in Tang Erda's hand: "It's a question of ownership."

"The recruiter we killed was rich, he had full ownership of a house and was a homeowner, and these murder houses that were auctioned off were repossessed by the real estate company, which would mean that the people who died in them were basically house slaves who were still paying their mortgages."

Bai Liu smiles: "Exactly, and it means that the householder doesn't fully own the house."

"So my guess is that ghosts who own a house can only stay in their house, and ghosts who don't fully own their house can't stay in their house all the time; they can only stay in their house occasionally and have to wander around most of the time."

Liu Jiayi thought extremely fast to follow: "That's why our murder houses have to deal with the changed ghosts of the owners inside immediately, while here these murder houses that are being auctioned off some of these people live with problems and some live with nothing."

Bai Liu's smile deepened, "Not only that, but remember what the auctioneer said? The dead man paid off part of the loan for you, so I guess not only the people but also the ghosts own part of the house."

Muke gave a start when he heard this, and he slowly looked up.

"Bai Liu, are you saying that not only do the living here have to abide by the rules set by the real estate developers in Sunshine City, but even when people die and become ghosts, these ghosts also have to abide by the rules of the real estate developers here, so the ghosts here also have to pay the house payment before they can live in the house, and even the ghosts' house ownership can be regulated, so doesn't that mean... ..."

Bai Liu lowered his eyes, "That's right, I suspect that the top five real estate agents here may not be living people."