The male supporting character was actually myself.

"Damn it!" Lin Yuan couldn't help but swear when he looked up at room 204 where Song Gang was staying.

The address was dim and lifeless, clearly indicating that he had died in the dungeon.

Chapter Forty-Three: The Final Chapter

Jiang Chen gestured for silence, then stepped forward and took out a small metal piece from his spatial storage to start fiddling with the door lock.

"I doubt you can pry it open; I've tried," Duan Chengze whispered a reminder.

However, as soon as he finished speaking, there was a soft "click" sound, and the door to room 204 was opened.

Duan Chengze twitched his lips and whispered, "You definitely have the protagonist's halo!"

"You're the one who relies on the protagonist's halo, my host relies on his strength!" the little white cat said proudly, hugging his short paws.

The room had been restored to its original state, clean and tidy, just like their newly moved-in room. All traces of Song Gang's more than three months of residence had disappeared.

Jiang Chen opened the door wide and reminded them, "The entire apartment is virtual. I currently speculate that each room is a link for our guests to enter the instance."

Do you remember what Song Gang and the others said?

Once a tenant dies, a new tenant will move in within 24 hours.

Our experiment now is to see if any new tenants will move in after we've opened this door, which was supposed to be waiting for new tenants.

"If no one comes within 24 hours, does that mean we've lost access to some kind of connection?" Duan Chengze could follow his train of thought, but still didn't understand how to break the deadlock.

Lin Yuan and Zhi Meng looked at them with expressions of utter bewilderment and awe.

“Right, if the room door corresponds to the connection port, and this door is always open so new players can’t get in.” Jiang Chen grinned mischievously. “Guess what, maybe an ‘employee’ will come to fix it?”

Duan Chengze and the little white cat's eyes lit up at the same time, "We can wait for them to come to us!"

"Host, you're amazing!"

After understanding their analysis, Zhimeng hurriedly went to help move the table. "Linyuan, lend a hand! Let's block this door and make sure it won't be blown away by the wind or closed for any other reason!"

The two of them laboriously moved the standard long table from the living room over to block the door.

"Now, let's just wait and see what happens!"

Within two minutes, Liang Rumeng opened her door. With a serious expression, she looked at the group of people sitting around in room 204 and asked, bewildered, "What are you all doing?"

"Aunt Liang, what dungeon did you enter today?" Jiang Chen asked curiously.

The other person's expression softened slightly, and even a faint smile appeared on their face. "It's so much easier not playing the dungeon with you two! It's a solo dungeon, about finding clues to escape from the room you're trapped in."

It was a small dungeon where time passed quickly, but I was lucky enough to crack it quickly without taking too long.

But the reward was too small; they only gave us three days.

What about you guys? Have you all done dungeons? And the really dangerous ones?

What are they all doing gathered around Song Gang's room door?

The elderly woman, still asking questions, walked from room 201 to the farthest door, 204, when her face suddenly turned pale. "The door number is off... Song Gang, he..."

"They must have died in the dungeon." Lin Yuan shrugged and smiled. "That's great news for me!"

Liang Rumeng glared at him, then asked in a sharp tone, "Then what are you guarding here for? Once you die in the dungeon, you disappear completely... Wait a minute, this door should be locked after Song Gang died, waiting for the new tenant to move in with the key. Why is it open?"

"I don't know, we saw the door was open when we came over." Jiang Chen shrugged and shook his head with a slight smile. "Then we thought, if the door wasn't closed, would no newcomers fall into the trap?"

So I put a long table to block the door so it wouldn't close again.

If we can really stop them, we'll have indirectly saved a life!

The others, who had agreed on the same story, all nodded in agreement.

The little white cat was slightly puzzled. "Host, the old lady is a really nice person. Just because she's a former tenant, you're ganging up on her and isolating her? Is there something suspicious about her?"

"Whether there are any suspicious points is another matter, but in the current situation, it's better to avoid trouble." Jiang Chen returned to his room, closed the door, and instructed, "Your task from now on is to keep an eye on that door. If anything unusual happens, remind me. If necessary, you can use the tools directly."

The fluffy little thing perched on his shoulder, placed its right paw near its ear, and stood at attention, saying, "Don't worry, host, I will never let any clue slip by!"

Everything was normal in the apartment for the rest of the day.

Apart from the door to room 204 being open, nothing else was happening.

The door remained completely still, clearly indicating that the virtual apartment's self-repair system had been activated.

Jiang Chen leaned back on the sofa, gently rubbing his temples. He could feel the resistance of this virtual space growing stronger, tearing at his head.

No new residents entered the apartment building until nightfall.

Four young people gathered in room 203 of Lin Yuan to have dinner together. Room 204 was right across the hall, allowing them to check the situation immediately.

"If no new people join by 10:30 tomorrow morning, then we've made the right bet!" Duan Chengze said confidently. "The problem is, how do we catch the 'maintenance workers'? They're most likely not human; it's probably some kind of program or mechanism. Shouldn't we prepare some countermeasures?"

Jiang Chen smiled confidently, "As long as you dare to come, I have a way to deal with whatever it is. What you need to consider is how to deal with the situation of being imprisoned in reality once this virtual apartment disconnects and wakes up."

"Why are we so unlucky?" Dreamweaver said, resting her chin on her hand with a distressed expression.

"Shh!" Lin Yuan, who was guarding the door, made a shushing gesture and beckoned them over.

None of them were wearing shoes; they walked carefully to the door and peeked through the peephole.

There was no sound outside. Liang Rumeng stood in room 204 with a serious expression, looking inside. She even went in and searched the room, but found nothing left. She couldn't help but show her disappointment. Then she picked up the cushions on the sofa and took them away.

"I didn't realize that this old lady had this kind of quirk?" Lin Yuan twitched his lips and whispered, "But considering her background, it's normal for her to like taking advantage of others."

After the minor incident, the entire apartment building fell silent again.

There were no other suspicious circumstances.

As night fell, following Jiang Chen's instructions, the group pretended to go back to their rooms to rest, but then quietly gathered in Lin Yuan's room.

The women slept on the sofa; the men slept on the floor.

But no one was in the mood to sleep on this crucial night.

Worried that making a sound would disturb the "repairman," they could only stare at each other in the dark, not daring to talk. The room was so quiet that only the soft sound of breathing could be heard.

"Host! Hurry, hurry, something's happened!" the little white cat cried out from the doorway. "Come quick, Host!"

Jiang Chen jumped up and ran out barefoot. Duan Chengze and Lin Yuan reacted quickly and followed closely, but Zhi Meng was a step behind.

"Snapped!"

The lights suddenly came on in the dark corridor, and Jiang Chen asked with a smile, "Aunt Liang, why aren't you asleep so late?"

Clearly not expecting to be discovered, Liang Rumeng had a look of fear on her face. Seeing them all gathered at the door of room 203 looking at her suspiciously, she forced a smile and explained, "I'm getting old and can't sleep at night. I was afraid the door would close, so I came to check."

Are you all still awake?

Did my footsteps wake you up?

“You didn’t make any footsteps.” Jiang Chen still smiled, but a gun had appeared in his hand at some point. “Ever since I came to this apartment, I’ve been thinking about where the access point should be.”

Today, by comparing the memories of all the residents, I finally found the key to the problem.

The four of us, including the deceased Song Gang, all fell asleep on the No. 114 bus. Everyone's impression of that bus was vague, yet we described it in detail.

Aunt Liang, you were the only one who gave vague answers and didn't give me any details when I pressed you for answers.

It's probably because you've never experienced it yourself, so you only know the process but can't come up with the details, and you're worried that the more you say, the more mistakes you'll make.

If I'm not mistaken, each virtual apartment will have an administrator like you.

Liang Rumeng is just your disguise. When the time is right, this identity will 'die' in the instance, and then you will move in again with a different appearance and name.

If I'm not mistaken, why did you appear here so quietly in the middle of the night and try to close the door to room 204?

No matter how you look at it, real players have no reason to stop my plan.

"You went in this afternoon to sneak in and take the sofa cushions, probably because you were checking behind the door to make sure there were no other obstacles, so you planned to move the long table away and close the door tonight, right?"

At this moment, the long table that Zhimeng and the others had moved to block the door had been pushed into the room, seemingly confirming Jiang Chen's guess.

"What nonsense are you spouting? You're being paranoid and talking gibberish, I don't understand a word you say." Liang Rumeng's face was grim as she dodged his gun and changed the subject, saying, "Those two beginner dungeons have given you a lot of time, enough to exchange for guns, but don't point your gun at your friends like that..."

"Click!" The pistol was chambered, and Jiang Chen pointed at her and laughed, "You know, I watched a science fiction movie a long time ago, it was about virtual worlds."

Once someone realizes that this world is virtual, their brain can be trained to remain unharmed and even immortal.

Now we have a great way to tell if you're an 'administrator'.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

Before he finished speaking, he fired four shots at Liang Rumeng.

The other three people, who were not prepared at all, were so frightened that they almost screamed.

Liang Rumeng dodged the first three shots with incredible speed, and the last shot hit her shoulder—leaving her completely unharmed.

"Stop your wild imagination! I have a device that makes me immune to harm!" Liang Rumeng roared angrily, "Have you all had enough? What virtual mode? What administrator? I think you've gone mad!"

Lin Yuan gasped, "This thing can't be killed by a gun, what should we do?"

"Whoa!" The little white cat jumped in fright, its fur standing on end, and shrieked, "Is this how the virtual world works? Amazing!"

Confirmed, Jiang Chen smiled even more broadly. "You are a trained administrator, so you are safe in the virtual world. But you cannot leave, otherwise this virtual apartment, which uses your thoughts as its access point, will disappear, and we will wake up."

Judging from your reaction to my attack just now, you are under a lot of restrictions.

It should only exist in human form and cannot freely change its shape. Like the Dream Builder, you are the center of this virtual little world, unable to escape or hide from it, just like us. That's going to be quite a game.

"I think I get it!" Duan Chengze used the half-hour countdown timer in his backpack to exchange for a bundle of rope, then tugged at it. "Since we can't kill her and she can't escape, let's tie her up first!"

Liang Rumeng stared at Jiang Chen with a gloomy expression and unfriendly eyes, but she chuckled and said, "So what if you know the truth? You yourself said that as long as I am in this apartment building, I am an immortal being."

As for you, you will naturally be eliminated when the countdown ends.

If you don't redeem your vacation days, you'll eventually have to enter the dungeon and go through the cycle of reincarnation. You can't guarantee you'll never die. As long as someone dies in the dungeon and a new person joins, I can send in a new identity to take over at any time.

Children, from the moment you entered this apartment, your lives have been a dead end, with no way out!

As she spoke, a smug smile spread across her face. "So what if you can catch me?"

"Let's grab you first..." Duan Chengze stepped forward with the rope, but before he could finish speaking, Liang Rumeng suddenly pulled out a gun from her backpack and pulled the trigger without even aiming!

Jiang Chen reacted quickly and pulled him aside to avoid the bullets, while Liang Rumeng stopped firing and ran away!

"You clearly had the chance to headshot him but didn't, most likely because the rules don't allow administrators to kill players, right?" He followed slowly behind, leisurely as if strolling in his own garden. "If I'm not mistaken, the storage room next to me is actually your safe house, isn't it?"

When I first started searching for this apartment building, I was puzzled. Why would such a spacious place have a communal storage room if there was no one responsible for cleaning the common areas?