He created the monster, and he accompanied the monster until the very last moment arrived.
He only hoped that when that last moment truly arrived, he would have a chance to say goodbye to her.
I’m sorry, Suxia.
Goodbye, Suxia.
…
Shao Lan opened his eyes.
The halo of light before his eyes vanished, and along with it, everything in the room disappeared.
The mourning hall, the grandfather clock, the fish tank, the man and the woman, the wail of sirens, and the sound of rain—all of it felt like a dream they had just woken from.
The three of them stood at the entrance of an empty room.
Jiang Mingran looked around and suddenly exclaimed, “This isn’t the hallway from before!”
Shao Lan narrowed his eyes.
Indeed, the layout of the hallway had completely changed. The stairs and the rooms had all vanished, and the only remaining path led to an elevator.
With a “ding,” the elevator doors opened and sat there empty, as if waiting for the three of them to step inside.
Jiang Mingran eyed the eerie elevator, his face turning pale: “Bro, what should we do now? Should we go up?”
Shao Lan walked toward the elevator: “There’s only this one path left, so let’s go up.”
The three of them stepped inside the elevator and were all slightly taken aback.
There were no buttons, no display screen, and nothing at all inside this elevator—it was just like a plain iron box.
“This doesn’t seem right, does it?” Jiang Mingran’s eyes flickered as he hesitated, wanting to step out, but the elevator doors had already closed.
The cold white light beat down on their faces, making all of them look as pale as paper.
The elevator let out a deep rumbling sound, as if it had started moving.
After who knows how long, the rumbling stopped, and the elevator reached its destination.
Two grey-iron doors slid open to the left and right, and standing before them was a young woman dressed in professional business attire.
“Congratulations to the three of you for passing the review and becoming homeowners of [Xingfu Building No. 7].”
The woman wore a dark blue work uniform, with a name tag pinned to her chest that read “Property Management.”
“Mr. Shao Lan, Mr. Jiang Mingran, Mr. Zheng Bingfeng,” the property manager smiled sweetly, “your room numbers are 802, 803, and 804 respectively.”
“The three homeowners have successfully survived the [Review Instance: Night of the Man-Eater]. On behalf of property management, I would like to award each of you a bonus of 500 yuan.”
Shao Lan asked, “How do you know our names?”
The property manager looked at Shao Lan with a smile.
Jiang Mingran grew a bit anxious: “My Brother Lan is asking you a question. Who are you, why do you know our names, and what on earth is this place?”
The property manager smiled and spoke again: “Congratulations to the three of you for passing the review. Mr. Shao Lan, Mr. Jiang Mingran, Mr. Zheng Bingfeng. Your room numbers are…”
She did not answer Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran’s questions; she simply repeated her previous welcoming speech word for word.
“Can’t you understand human speech?” Jiang Mingran was thoroughly pissed. If the person in front of him had been a man, he probably would have thrown a punch. “Stop playing dumb. I’m going to ask you one more time…”
Faced with the aggressively approaching Jiang Mingran, the property manager’s smile remained unchanged, down to the exact curvature of the corners of her mouth.
“It’s no use,” Shao Lan pulled Jiang Mingran back. “She won’t answer you.”
Shao Lan sized up the property manager in front of them. She looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six, completely indistinguishable from a real person, yet upon closer inspection, an eerie sensation could be felt.
She was just like an NPC programmed with a script, capable of doing nothing but repeating herself.
Uncle Bing anxiously said, “I don’t live in your community! I want to go home, my granddaughter will panic if she wakes up and doesn’t see me!”
He turned around, wanting to take the elevator back down, only to remember that the elevator didn’t have any buttons at all to control going down to the first floor. In his panic, Uncle Bing dragged his bad leg as he looked around the hallway, muttering, “Where on earth can you go downstairs…”
Uncle Bing’s question seemed to have triggered a certain mechanism in the property manager, as she immediately walked over to his side.
“Hello, homeowner Zheng Bingfeng. Are you looking to go to a different floor?”
The property manager pointed out a direction: “Ten meters ahead of you is this building’s [Safety Exit].
“The [Safety Exit] is equipped with stairs connecting every building, and homeowners may walk to the floor they wish to visit.
“A special reminder for you: under these circumstances, do not use the [Elevator], otherwise we will not assume any responsibility for the consequences.”
In short, to go to other floors, they could only take the stairs and couldn’t ride the elevator.
Taking the stairs was fine as long as they could get out quickly. Without waiting for the property manager to say anything else, Uncle Bing had already dragged his stiff legs and feet toward the stairwell.
He was burning with anxiety, almost tripping himself up several times.
As an enthusiastic college student, Jiang Mingran quickly followed after him: “Uncle Bing, let me help you.”
According to the property manager, they were currently on the 8th floor, so walking down wouldn’t take too long.
Since Uncle Bing was short and walked slowly, Jiang Mingran simply hoisted him onto his back.
“Bro, aren’t you coming with us?”
Turning his head, Jiang Mingran noticed that Shao Lan was still standing in place.
Shao Lan thought for a moment, then turned to the property manager: “Can I check in later?”
This question seemed to fall within the property manager’s scope of response, as she immediately nodded politely: “Of course, I will be waiting here at your service anytime.”
Hearing this, Shao Lan turned around and followed Jiang Mingran.
Jiang Mingran was puzzled: “Bro, why did you ask her that? Do you actually want to live in this baffling place?”
Shao Lan shook his head: “No, I just habitually leave myself an escape route.”
The three of them entered the stairwell of the safety exit together. It felt like an old-fashioned apartment building, carrying a faint scent of mold. Whether the lightbulb was running out of power or not, it only emitted a pitiful dim yellow glow, barely illuminating the steps beneath their feet.
With Jiang Mingran carrying Uncle Bing, the two of them, along with Shao Lan, quickly made their way down to the first floor.
When they saw the scene before them, all three of them froze in shock.
The first floor was very large and empty, with some trash scattered across the floor.
There were no doors. No windows. Just walls on all four sides.
The base color of the walls was white, but they were covered in dark brown stains, looking terribly filthy.
At regular intervals on the wall, there were black squares about the size of a toddler’s palm.
“There’s no door…” Uncle Bing muttered with a pale face. “How can the first floor not have a door…”
Any normal building should have an entrance door on the first floor, right?
Yet this building completely lacked one.
No door meant there was simply no way for them to leave.
“Could it be that we went down the wrong way?” Uncle Bing muttered. “Is this really the first floor?”
The group retreated back into the safety exit. The red sign above clearly showed a large Arabic numeral “1.”
“Maybe this is the basement level…” Uncle Bing muttered, refusing to give up hope.
Yet he knew that was impossible; they had counted the floors on their way down, and this was definitely the first floor.
“Maybe the exit is on the second floor?” Jiang Mingran tried to give himself a glimmer of hope. “No matter what, let’s go back up and check.”
Jiang Mingran hoisted Uncle Bing onto his back and prepared to head back up, only to find Shao Lan crouching down next to those black squares side, observing something.
His expression looked very grim.
“What is it, Bro…”
“These are windows,” Shao Lan said in a low voice. “These squares are very small windows.”
Jiang Mingran and Uncle Bing were startled and quickly leaned in to look.
The lighting was so dim that they had both initially assumed these squares were just patterns built into the wall.
Only by getting close could they tell that they were indeed individual holes leading outside.
However, looking outside through the holes revealed a pure, absolute blackness without a single trace of other color.
It was like the dead of night without any light source whatsoever.
Jiang Mingran reached out his hand, but since the “window” was only about the size of a toddler’s palm, his arm obviously couldn’t fit inside.
“If we smash these windows open, can we get out?”
Jiang Mingran knew he was indulging in wishful thinking, but between a sleepless night and being tormented by the monster, he was starting to feel a bit unhinged.
Searching through the trash on the ground, he actually managed to find a screwdriver.
Although using a screwdriver to break open a wall this thick was completely unrealistic, Jiang Mingran still stuck the screwdriver into the small window and thrust it forcefully against the surrounding edges.
The wall didn’t budge an inch, but Jiang Mingran’s expression suddenly changed.
He felt that the screwdriver in his hand… had suddenly gotten a little lighter.
Jiang Mingran abruptly pulled the screwdriver back, and in an instant, the expressions of all three turned completely pale white.
Every part of the screwdriver that had extended out the window had vanished, leaving only the handle in Jiang Mingran’s hand.
“How, how could this be…” Jiang Mingran muttered.
With a cold face, Shao Lan picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it outside through the window.
All three of them held their breath; the surrounding silence was terrifying.
They didn’t hear the sound of it hitting the ground at all.
Shao Lan’s expression grew increasingly grim.
He had expected this place to be bizarre, but the level of weirdness right before his eyes still far exceeded his expectations.
“Even if we found a door, we probably wouldn’t be able to leave…” Shao Lan said in a deep voice. “Anything that leaves this building ceases to exist.”