His balance was only five hundred yuan.
Why was it five hundred yuan again?
Oh, the female property manager had mentioned it earlier; this seemed to be the reward money they received after surviving the previous audit instance.
They risked life and limb, trading their lives just for five hundred yuan?!
Looking at the drinks and food priced at over a hundred yuan each, Jiang Mingran suddenly hesitated to make a purchase.
After agonizing over it for a long time, he only bought a bottle of mineral water and a half-palm-sized sandwich.
The wall beneath the screen suddenly parted, revealing an opening.
Strange, shouldn’t the wall lead outside? Could there be a conveyor belt inside the wall that delivered all the food he selected?
Jiang Mingran leaned down and peered into the opening, but it was pitch black, and he couldn’t see a thing.
With his previous experience, Jiang Mingran naturally wouldn’t foolishly stick his hand inside.
Two seconds later, a 500ml bottle of mineral water and a half-palm-sized sandwich dropped out.
Then, the opening slowly closed.
The wall returned to its original state. Jiang Mingran knocked on the wall and found it solid, with no visible mechanism.
Everything in this place could no longer be explained by common sense… Jiang Mingran picked up the mineral water and sandwich, intending to fill his stomach first.
These few items alone cost 30 yuan, and Jiang Mingran felt a sharp pang of regret.
Meanwhile, Shao Lan was also standing in front of the vending machine.
His screen displayed:
“Income: 10,500 | Balance: 10,500”
Shao Lan tapped on the “Income Details” section.
It showed:
“Cleared [Review Instance: Night of the Man-Eater] – Base amount: 500”
“Obtained [Precious Memory: Suxia’s Pocket Watch] – Reward amount: 10,000”
Shao Lan paused slightly and reached into his pocket.
Sure enough, after coming out of that old room, everything else had vanished like a dream, but this pocket watch remained in his pocket.
On the wedding photo inside, the young couple smiled shyly and gently.
No matter why the rules specifically stated the four words “Farewell, Suxia”—only by letting Li Chengyuan properly say goodbye to Suxia would Li Chengyuan hand over the pocket watch.
And this pocket watch actually brought a survival fund of ten thousand yuan.
Yes, a survival fund.
Shao Lan had roughly figured out the survival rules in this building.
By taking the elevator, one could participate in instances, and if they came back alive, they would get money.
If they obtained a [Precious Memory] like he did, they would receive an extra bonus.
Compared to the meager base amount, the money gained from obtaining memories was much higher.
And this money could be used to buy everything they needed to survive.
Thinking of Room 801 across the hall, Shao Lan lowered his eyes.
He could roughly guess how the woman in 801 had died.
She was starved to death.
If she didn’t dare participate in the games, she wouldn’t get money, and without money, she couldn’t buy food.
How long of starvation had that woman endured to become that emaciated?
Shao Lan didn’t dare to think about it, nor did he want to.
He only knew that he must never end up like that woman.
When Jiang Mingran came to Shao Lan’s room, he found that he had bought four potatoes and a tray of eggs.
“Brother, why did you buy raw ones?” Jiang Mingran asked in surprise. “Can these even be eaten directly?”
“I checked all the items Shao Lan said. “The ready-to-eat foods have the worst markups, while other items don’t have that big of a price difference compared to the real world.”
One kilogram of potatoes cost three-and-a-half yuan.
Thirty fresh eggs cost sixteen yuan.
Ready-to-eat food? Jiang Mingran thought of the sandwich he had just finished.
That must fall under what Shao Lan called ready-to-eat food, which could be eaten immediately after purchase.
The total amount Shao Lan spent on potatoes and eggs was about the same as what Jiang Mingran spent on his single sandwich. But the difference was that Jiang Mingran’s sandwich only had a pitiful few slices of ham and lettuce inside, and he would be hungry again shortly after eating it.
Meanwhile, Shao Lan’s food could last him a very long time.
“So… are we supposed to eat the eggs raw?” Jiang Mingran recalled American TV shows he had watched, where muscular male protagonists cracked four raw eggs into their mouths every morning when they woke up.
Shao Lan shook his head: “Many foods cannot be eaten raw. Getting sick would be terrible.”
He pointed to the table nearby, and only then did Jiang Mingran notice an induction cooker sitting on it.
“Brother, you even bought a stove?!!” Jiang Mingran was shocked.
Shao Lan had chosen the cheapest induction cooker available, but it still cost 128 yuan.
He had spent far more than Jiang Mingran…
Shao Lan’s expression turned somewhat serious as he lowered his voice: “Xiao Jiang, ready-to-eat foods are so much more expensive than ingredients that need to be cooked. Do you know why?”
Jiang Mingran froze; he really hadn’t thought about it.
“Prices are tied to demand,” Shao Lan said. “The markup on ready-to-eat food means the demand for it is high.”
“The reason behind it is that everyone feels they will be able to get out soon.”
Jiang Mingran was stunned.
Indeed.
Although he was trapped here now, he still held unrealistic expectations in his heart.
He kept feeling that if he found a way, he might be able to leave right away.
He still had competitions; his coach was waiting for him to perform, and college life had just unfolded before him, waiting for him to experience it.
He couldn’t imagine having to live in this creepy building for a long time—how long is a long time? A week, a month, or a year?
“Did you see that corpse in 801? She starved to death,” Shao Lan said softly. “How long does a person have to be trapped before they starve to death?”
Jiang Mingran shuddered.
Before her death, that woman had been so starved she was skin and bones, practically a skeleton.
She must have suffered from hunger for a very long time, failing to find a way out until the day she died.
“We need to find a way out, but we must make sure we stay alive until we find it,” Shao Lan said. “I don’t know how long finding a way will take, so we need to save our money as much as possible.”
Too many people probably held the same hope as Jiang Mingran, which was why they bought instant food they could eat right away—buying a stove and pots seemed to require spending more at once.
But what if they weren’t just eating one meal in this building, but dozens or hundreds of meals?
When broken down, buying cooking utensils and cooking for oneself was definitely more cost-effective.
There was tap water in the bathroom pipes, and Shao Lan used the induction cooker to boil the potatoes and eggs.
The steam from the boiling water rose up, and through the layer of white mist, Shao Lan suddenly noticed something like a tattoo on Jiang Mingran’s arm.
Strangely enough, this tattoo didn’t seem to have existed earlier when they were in Suxia’s instance.
“Xiao Jiang,” Shao Lan pointed at Jiang Mingran’s arm. “What is this?”
Following Shao Lan’s gaze, Jiang Mingran turned his head and lowered his eyes to look at his right arm. Right where a vaccination scar would be, there was something that looked like a burn scar from a fire.
However, ordinary scars didn’t have a distinct shape, whereas this one looked like letters—
“XLI”.
“What the hell is this?” Jiang Mingran was shocked. “I’ve never gotten a tattoo, where did this thing come from?!”
Shao Lan observed it closely.
The scar looked as though someone had used a specialized iron stamp, heated it red-hot, and pressed it onto the skin, leaving a scar as it healed.
Such a process would undoubtedly be extremely painful, yet Jiang Mingran was completely unaware of it.
Wait.
Shao Lan thought of something. He took off his long-sleeved white shirt and searched his own arms.
There were no scars on his arms.
However, before Shao Lan could even voice his confusion, Jiang Mingran blurted out, “Brother, it’s on your back!!”
Sure enough, on Shao Lan’s body, there was a scar similar to Jiang Mingran’s, just in a different spot.
Jiang Mingran’s was on his arm, while Shao Lan’s was located between his neck and back, right at the base of his cervical spine (the C7 vertebra / large vertebra protrusion).
And the shape was different too. After taking a look, Jiang Mingran told Shao Lan, “It’s VIII.”
Shao Lan frowned.
At this point, he already understood what the shapes of these scars were.
Roman numerals. His number was 8, and Jiang Mingran’s number was 41.
But what did these numbers represent?
Were they identification numbers? Much like how students in a class each have a student ID, did every homeowner in this building automatically receive a serial number from the moment they moved in?
Yet, if everyone lived in their own designated rooms, the room numbers alone should have been enough to represent each person—for instance, Shao Lan was in Room 802, and Jiang Mingran was in Room 803. Why would an extra number be necessary?
And if these numbers weren’t serial numbers, what could they possibly be? Branded onto their bodies in such a cruel, indelible way, these numbers had to carry a profound significance.