The place Lin Jing rented wasn’t in the commercial district, nor was it anywhere near the surrounding area. Instead, it was located much farther away, in an urban village on the outskirts of the city center.
There were simply too many people in the city, and there were too many strange things lurking around as well. Lin Jing didn’t like either of them.
Of course, those were only the least significant reasons.
The most important reason was that renting a place in the city was simply too expensive, and he couldn’t bring himself to spend that much money.
Poverty truly was a burden that no human life could bear.
By the time Lin Jing finally reached the building where he rented his room, it was almost four in the morning.
The urban village was far less developed than the city center. Whether it was the layout and planning of the buildings or the basic infrastructure of the surrounding environment, everything lagged far behind the prosperous streets downtown.
The old drainage system was in terrible condition. Several centimeters of rainwater flowed along the narrow road beneath the building, a road barely wide enough for a single car to pass through. The water carried all kinds of garbage with it, including leaves, plastic bags, food scraps, and used condoms.
Lin Jing carefully made his way through the rubbish, then glanced to the side. Sure enough, the nearby drain was already clogged, and a faint, foul stench of fermentation was wafting from it.
If human beings took the time to observe things carefully, they would discover that a dirty sewer was actually an extraordinarily prosperous and beautiful place.
Lin Jing had once seen tiny firefly-like insects emerging from the drains. They possessed countless pairs of translucent, glowing wings. There were also fungus-like organisms resembling sea anemones growing around the openings, extending and retracting their soft tentacles as they reached outward.
They fed on human garbage. Whether it was difficult-to-decompose wood, plastic, tiny metal objects, easily rotting food scraps, or animal carcasses, including, but not limited to, human corpses, these creatures could consume almost anything.
Most of the human remains Lin Jing had encountered belonged to infants.
He had once witnessed a horrifying sight: the corpse of an infant, still wrapped in its amniotic sac, emerging from the mouth of a sewer. The tiny body opened its mouth toward him, and a pitiful, adorable sea anemone sprouted from its bright red oral cavity.
The infant had been decomposed and transformed into the richest, most nutritious soil.
At present, however, Lin Jing had no desire to investigate whether the sewer contained any rubbish that absolutely should not have existed there. He took several quick strides across the flooded road and hurried beneath the eaves of the building.
The place he rented was part of a privately built residential building owned by a single household. It had four floors in total. The owners had rented out the upper two floors, while they lived on the second floor themselves. The ground floor had been converted into a small fast-food shop selling cheap fried rice, fried noodles, and stir-fried rice noodles.
Years of cooking fumes had stained the ground floor a yellowish-black color. Even the floor was permanently coated in grease that could never be completely removed. The entire place was filthy, disorganized, and poorly maintained. Every time Lin Jing passed by, he couldn’t help wondering how the shop had managed to remain in business for so long. It was practically a miracle.
He quickly maneuvered around the things scattered throughout the fast-food shop before heading upstairs.
The occupants on the second floor were already fast asleep. Only the faint sound of snoring could be heard from their rooms. On the third floor, however, the sounds of a man and a woman teasing each other drifted through the walls, accompanied by the woman’s giggles and occasional, barely audible moans.
The fourth floor was much quieter.
Lin Jing’s rented room was the one on the far left. He walked over, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
The room was small. It had originally been a single room, but someone had forcibly divided it into two sections, one serving as a kitchen and the other as a bedroom. There was no bathroom inside, only a communal toilet outside.
Still, Lin Jing was accustomed to being active at night and sleeping during the day, so he could tolerate sharing a public bathroom.
The room itself was extremely tidy, or, more accurately, almost excessively so. Most of his belongings had been packed away in storage boxes. Apart from the everyday necessities he needed to use regularly, there wasn’t a single unnecessary item left lying around.
This was a habit Lin Jing had developed after moving so many times.
His experience had taught him to avoid buying things unless they were absolutely necessary. Whenever he needed to move, he could simply tie the storage boxes together and carry them away. It was convenient, efficient, and required almost no additional packing.
“Phew! I’m finally home.”
Lin Jing stuffed all the steamed buns he was carrying into the refrigerator, took off his outer jacket, and collapsed onto the bed. The soft mattress supported his waist, allowing the tension to drain from his body as he finally relaxed.
He lay on the bed with his eyes closed and rested for twenty minutes. Then, as though he had suddenly remembered something, he abruptly sprang upright, pulled open the curtains, and looked outside.
The pile of rubbish around the roadside drain had grown larger and larger. It had accumulated around the entrance where the water flowed in, forming a small mountain of garbage.
However, after Lin Jing watched it for several minutes, something strange happened.
At a certain moment, the entire pile of rubbish suddenly transformed into a mass of black, sticky sludge. The flowing water swept it away, carrying it down into the drain.
“The things down there are growing bigger and bigger.”
After observing the strange scene below, Lin Jing muttered those words under his breath. He then drew the curtains shut again and headed into the kitchen.
There were slightly more things in the kitchen. A storage rack stood on the floor, holding a few green vegetables, tomatoes, and potatoes. Several pots sat on the stove beside a stainless-steel rack, on which a complete set of green tableware had been neatly arranged.
Lin Jing stood in front of the stove for a while, staring blankly at it. In the end, he let out a sigh, took the steamed buns out of the refrigerator again, and removed the cutting board hanging nearby.
Without further hesitation, he picked up a knife and sliced several steamed buns into thin pieces. Then he took two eggs and beat them into a bowl of egg mixture.
Next, he placed a frying pan on the stove and turned on the heat. Once the pan was hot, he poured in a little oil, dipped the steamed bun slices into the beaten egg, and laid them in the pan.
After frying them until both sides were golden brown, he transferred the slices onto a plate.
Lin Jing picked up one of the fried bun slices with his chopsticks and held it between his lips. Then he crouched down, opened the cabinet beneath the counter, and pulled out a large, dark brown pickling crock.
After removing the lid, he reached one hand inside.
He felt around for a little while before finally getting hold of something that was wriggling incessantly. He pulled it out.
The creature was long and narrow, with a translucent, silvery-white body. It was slightly longer than Lin Jing’s hand. Its lower half resembled a fish’s tail, complete with an elegant, elongated caudal fin that flowed gracefully behind it. Its upper half, however, looked as though its head had been brutally compressed, leaving it horribly deformed.
Its mouth, lined with sharp teeth, and its bead-like black eyes were all positioned on the same plane.
The creature let out a series of faint, shrill cries in Lin Jing’s hand. However, he quickly took a sharp knife from the rack and chopped its head off.
The severed head slid into the sink. The creature’s vitality was astonishingly strong; even after being separated from its body, its mouth could still open and close. Nevertheless, Lin Jing didn’t spare it another glance.
He began processing the lower half of the bizarre creature with swift, graceful movements.
The tip of his knife glided across its soft belly, making a clean incision. He inserted his fingers into the opening, pinched the outermost layer of skin, and pulled firmly. A complete sheet of skin peeled away, taking the beautiful tail fin with it.
The creature didn’t have many internal organs. Lin Jing merely felt around the wound at its neck before pulling out a single flesh-pink tube. This was its feeding tract.
With that, the creature was ready to be prepared for consumption.
Lin Jing placed the soft, silvery-white flesh on the cutting board. He twirled the knife once in his hand before swiftly slicing the meat into thin pieces.
It didn’t even have any bones.
A subtle, peculiar fragrance began spreading throughout the kitchen.
The creatures lurking inside the sewers and walls started stirring restlessly, seemingly drawn by the aroma. Lin Jing had no choice but to speed up his movements. He didn’t even bother transferring the sliced meat to a plate. Instead, he simply leaned over the cutting board and began eating directly from it.
He sandwiched the translucent meat between two slices of steamed bun, creating a simple sandwich that he could eat immediately.
The fried bun slices were crispy and fragrant, while the meat inside was refreshingly crisp and delightfully chewy. After he swallowed it, a faint warmth spread through his stomach.
In less than two minutes, he had devoured every last fried bun slice and all the strange meat on the cutting board.
Lin Jing let out a small, satisfied burp and leaned against the stove, narrowing his eyes contentedly. The overwhelming feeling of satisfaction spreading through his mind left his entire body pleasantly languid.
The corners of his lips curved upward. Beneath the dim, yellowish kitchen light, his full lips looked almost bewitching.
Only after quite some time had passed did he finally emerge from that peculiar state of bliss and begin cleaning the rubbish in the sink.
The severed head and discarded skin of the strange creature had already dehydrated and shriveled into a dry, withered mass in the short time that had passed. Lin Jing turned on the faucet, and the stream of water struck the remains.
They immediately crumbled apart and dissolved into the water, which carried them down the drain.
A deep, muffled gurgling sound came from somewhere inside the sewer.
It sounded as though the water wasn’t flowing into a long, narrow pipe at all, but into some enormous, hollow bag.
Lin Jing’s hand paused.
After turning off the faucet, he bent down and examined the drain opening in the sink. It was pitch-black inside, and he couldn’t make out anything at all.
After thinking for a moment, he picked up a plastic bag, crumpled it into a loose ball, and stuffed it into the drain to block the opening.
“I need to move out as soon as possible.”
Now that he was full and no longer felt sleepy, Lin Jing decided to get started on packing his belongings.
His ordinary possessions were easy enough to deal with. The real problem was another part of his food supply, which wasn’t particularly easy to transport.
Several years ago, Lin Jing had worked as a security guard in a factory warehouse. The environment there had been so comfortable that he had stayed for a considerable length of time, attracting all kinds of strange creatures in the process.
Then, on one particular occasion, a soft, squishy creature had somehow ended up in his bowl. He hadn’t dared to examine it closely because of its appearance, and he had accidentally taken a bite out of it without realizing what it was.
To his astonishment, he discovered that those strange creatures were actually edible. Not only could he eat them, but they could also fill his stomach.
As a result, he had deliberately begun raising some of the creatures that were easy to keep, easy to prepare, and reasonably delicious.
The creature he had just eaten was one of them. He had even given it a name: the Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish.
Lin Jing had only discovered this particular species after arriving in that place. The creatures liked to swim through the woods at night. Their long tail fins made a group of them look like an enormous piece of white gauze drifting through the darkness. When the morning dew grew heavy, they would disappear again.
When raising them, Lin Jing usually kept them in a pickling crock. Although they looked somewhat like fish, they were actually extremely afraid of water. The layer of water surrounding the outermost rim of the pickling crock served as an effective barrier, preventing them from escaping.
Unfortunately, the pickling crock wasn’t easy to transport. If it broke along the way…
Wanting to keep his little livestock safe, Lin Jing rummaged through his room for quite some time, searching for suitable tools. Eventually, his eyes fell on a large water jug that had come free with something he had purchased earlier.
Suddenly, inspiration struck.
He used a red plastic bag to collect all the remaining live Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish from the pickling crock. After tying a tight knot in the bag, he stuffed it into the large water jug and filled the jug with water.
Just like that, he had successfully put together a simple transportation container.
Lin Jing lifted the jug and gave it a few shakes. After confirming that it was securely sealed and wouldn’t leak, he placed it inside one of his storage boxes.
By the time he had finished all this, the sky outside had already begun to brighten with the pale, whitish light of dawn.
He quickly washed up and lay down on the bed.
Perhaps the sudden windfall had stimulated his mind. His thoughts remained unusually active, and even after staying awake all night, he still didn’t feel particularly sleepy.
He had a persistent feeling that there was something about the will he had overlooked. However, he couldn’t identify what it was, and he didn’t have any particularly bad premonitions either.
He didn’t know how much time passed before his thoughts finally began to drift away, carrying him into a hazy, half-conscious state.
Yet, just a second before he was about to fall asleep, several white points of light suddenly appeared against the darkness behind his closed eyelids.
The lights flickered and shifted continuously, changing their positions in rapid succession.
Lin Jing’s eyes snapped open.
The points of light were still there.
They seemed to exist independently on his retina, appearing as though they were being projected directly into his vision from somewhere beyond the ordinary world.
After flickering for several seconds, the lights drifted toward the storage box where he had just placed the Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish. They gathered together, forming an arrow and several lines of text.
“Hmm?”
Lin Jing sat up in bed and stared at them in confusion. However, the moment he finally managed to read the information displayed before him, he fell completely silent.
…
Name: Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish
Other Names: Nightmare White Gauze, Dancer in the Sky
Deliciousness Rating: 42 (Barely edible)
Method of Consumption: Please remove the nutritionally insignificant head and skin before slicing the flesh into thin pieces and eating it raw. Pair it with jam made from Screaming Fruit to raise its deliciousness rating to 63 (Not to Be Missed)!
Additionally, the tail fins of the Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish contain hallucinogenic toxins, which makes them extremely popular among &@％穴￥ beings. If you enjoy an exciting eating experience, don’t miss out!
Remarks: The Flat-Headed Silver-Tailed Fish is a carnivorous, gregarious species. Thanks to its indiscriminate eating habits, it makes an excellent cleaner for the “dining table”!
These hardworking little creatures have large heads and skin that cannot be eaten, leaving only a small amount of meat… Surely nobody would eat them, right?
Eh? Someone actually ate one?!
Ah, what a terrifying thing! Someone actually ate the little cleaning workers responsible for tidying up the garbage!
Lin Jing: “…”
Terrifying?!
What exactly was that supposed to mean?!
That was an insult, wasn’t it?
It absolutely had to be an insult!
Author’s Note:
If you think about it from another perspective, Xiao Jing is also someone who picks up garbage to eat… Wipes away tears.