Chapter 401: 401: The Resentment Downstairs

Words : 1406 Updated : Oct 7th, 2025

Chapter 401: Chapter 401: The Resentment Downstairs “”” “Was it really such a big deal that it was a bit noisy when he lived here before? I mean, he’s dead now, but he’s still not letting our family go! Everyone living in apartment buildings has some noise between upstairs and downstairs; if you have kids who love to run and jump, who’s able to control them?” The speaker was the female head of the household. They had two kids, both around three or four years old—the prime age for running around. As she brought this up, she still felt wronged. “He came to our house several times before, even complained to the property management about us, but I didn’t hold it against him! I even told him that if he couldn’t tolerate the noise, he could move to a villa. There would be no noise there, right?” When the woman said this, her voice was lower as if she was afraid something might overhear. Admittedly, when she’d said it to the man earlier, her tone had been much more unapologetic. Although she still didn’t think her kids were doing anything wrong, the fact that someone had died inevitably made her feel a bit guilty. Scarlett Jennings, listening to her speak, glanced around the living room. In a corner sat a pile of toys strewn across the floor: a checkers board, mahjong tiles, toy cars, and... a small basketball. Her gaze settled briefly on the unusually clean-looking basketball before she suddenly asked, “Do your kids play basketball at home?” The woman sounded slightly baffled, “If they don’t play at home, where else would they play? The basketball courts are crowded with big kids; little ones can’t get in and could easily get knocked over.” Ashton Todd couldn’t help but chime in, “There’s always some other empty spot in the community to play.” The woman shot back confidently, “Those places are dirty with people coming and going; if the kids play there for too long, they’d get covered in bacteria, bring it home, and see what happens. It’s better to play at home—clean and safe.” Ashton Todd: ... He thought he might have figured out why the ghost harbored resentment toward this family. Playing basketball indoors, combined with all the running and jumping, must’ve been deafening. Perhaps Ashton’s expression was too revealing, and the woman started to get defensive. “My kids don’t play ball at home every day! Just a couple of hours at most, and I’ve already talked to the downstairs neighbors! Those late-night noises? They’re not caused by us. It’s the upstairs family—there’s that young girl who loves dancing, jumping around at all hours. She even skips rope at half-past ten at night!” Scarlett glanced again at the task details. Truth be told, she had been curious earlier. The notes mentioned noises coming from two different floors, which raised the question: why weren’t they just adjacent floors instead of above and below? They were currently in apartment 1903, the deceased tenant had lived in 1803 below, and the other reportedly disturbed neighbors lived in 2003 above. “Can the sound really travel through multiple floors like that?” Scarlett’s question made Ashton Todd shake his head and immediately launch into an explanation, “Modern apartment complexes have thin floors. Noise travels not only from upstairs but even between floors and units on the same level—it’s all crystal clear.” As he spoke, he couldn’t resist adding, “Clearly, you’ve never lived in an apartment building or dealt with the kind of nerve-wracking clamor from upstairs noise.” The woman glared at him upon hearing his contempt for upstairs disturbances. Such a drama queen—getting “nerve-wracked” by mere noise. Scarlett gave him a sly glance as well. She might’ve grown up in villas, whether with the Garrison Family or the Jennings Family, but she had lived in apartments before, thank you very much. Granted, she had never experienced the agony of being worn down by upstairs noise. She had a Silence Talisman. It not only insulated her from noise coming from above but also ensured her household’s sounds wouldn’t bother others—a perfect two-way solution. However, none of that was the focus of today’s issue. They decided to visit the upstairs unit. That unit belonged to a couple who, at the time of their visit, were in the middle of packing up—clearly preparing to move out. The girl teared up nearly instantly upon learning they were here to handle the matter. “This has been such a nightmare. We live on the 20th floor, and the trouble is all the way from the 18th! Even if I were doing workouts, it’s impossible for the sound to bother them downstairs. But the family below keeps insisting it’s coming from us, and now we’re haunted too. We haven’t slept well all week. It’s killing us...” At this, her boyfriend, who had been packing his suitcase quietly, couldn’t help but interject sharply, “I’ve told you to work out at a reasonable time! Every time you insist on doing it at midnight, do you think we’d be rushing to move out if someone hadn’t started holding a grudge against us?” Now that their lease wasn’t up yet, they couldn’t get their deposit back, and the new rental was more expensive—they even had to pay for agency fees and an additional deposit. The losses were piling up. Unexpectedly scolded, the girl snapped back, unable to hold it in. “Now you’re blaming me?! When that guy showed up at our door, didn’t you shove him? It’s likely your pushing him made him so furious!” “I did it for you, didn’t I?!” The couple’s shouting escalated, but sensing the brewing tension, Nathan White shrank nervously into himself, while Scarlett and Ashton remained unruffled. Scarlett primarily wanted to let them finish fighting before discussing the main issue. Ashton, on the other hand, wouldn’t usually bother meddling in a situation unless there were money to be made. Their argument went back and forth for a bit before they noticed Scarlett, Ashton, and Nathan sitting calmly on the couch, watching the drama unfold without any plans to intervene. Awkwardly enough, their shouting fizzled out, leaving them momentarily at a loss. The girl wiped her tears and sat aside silently. The guy then offered detailed accounts of their recent hauntings. He knew Scarlett Jennings and had heard of her abilities. Once he realized it was a ghost haunting them, he had sent an SOS to the program’s team, but predictably got no response. He had pretty much abandoned hope. He hadn’t expected Scarlett to personally show up. Consequently, neither he nor the downstairs neighbors doubted the trio’s identities. “At first, we didn’t even realize it was a haunting. Late at night, things would suddenly drop to the floor in the apartment—not only waking us up but also disturbing the downstairs neighbors. They complained that it was scaring their kids. We didn’t take it seriously at the time, but then it escalated—noise started coming from upstairs too. It was like someone skipping rope or doing aerobics, and it was crystal clear in the dead of night. Once we went to check upstairs, but guess what? No one lives there! After that, we started dreaming about being trapped in a small room, with the ceiling above—not stopping for a second—rumbling with constant pounding vibrations, as if it were alive, for almost an entire week.” The reason they were certain it was the downstairs man who’d died was because of what happened the night before. After being woken from another loud dream, he and his girlfriend saw a shadow standing by the foot of their bed. That shadow spoke—and its voice was unmistakably the dead man’s. It asked them, “Why aren’t you asleep? Didn’t you say the noise doesn’t bother you? You’re hearing exactly what I used to hear every day—wasn’t it normal then? Wasn’t I just making things up? Didn’t you claim I couldn’t hear it through the floors? Didn’t you accuse me of stirring things up unnecessarily? Now that you’re hearing your own noises, why won’t you go back to sleep?!” The man recalled it vividly. At the last sentence, the shadow’s voice suddenly sharpened to an ear-splitting pitch. The ghost shifted from a vague silhouette into an enraged, distorted face—a full manifestation of malevolent fury—then lunged at them without warning... “””

Chapter 401: 401: The Resentment Downstairs

Comments (0)