Chapter 48: Everyone Strives to Survive in Their Own Way
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
After ejecting a bone from his mouth, the building manager hastily fixed his protective mask back in place and, with unsteady steps, made his way off into the distance.
Feeling a sense of relief, Wan Qiu cautiously removed his hands from his face, only to be assaulted by an overwhelming, foul odor.
“This place smells like someone’s been decaying in here for days,” he commented with a grimace.
His eyes scanned the room, taking in the trash can and shoe cabinet. They were meticulously organized, betraying no hint of the room’s pungent smell, save for some crumpled pieces of paper.
Curious, Wan Qiu picked up the papers, slowly realizing that they were fragments of a diary.
“Today is my 30th day in apartment 505. The woman living directly across the hall is a striking, kind-hearted single mother who has a habit of shopping late at night. Our paths often cross in the corridor when I return from my night job.”
“She’s captivating with her silky black hair. Strangely, she’s always in the same attire and carries a faint, unusual fragrance.”
“I didn’t think much of it initially, but as evening fell, the landlord shared some news.”
“He informed me that the long-vacant apartment opposite mine, empty for half a year, had found a tenant. I wouldn’t be alone anymore.”
“I was puzzled. How could a single mother be residing in that supposedly uninhabited apartment? Nightly, I would hear the sound of children laughing and an ever-intensifying foul smell coming from there.”
“A foul smell?” Wan Qiu pondered, “The person who wrote this diary lived in 505, but this looks like 506, the apartment across?”
In the dim light, Wan Qiu noticed footprints on the concrete floor of the living room, marked with what looked like “red mud.”
“Is this blood mixed with mud?” He cautiously bent down, tracing the footprints until they led him to a set of pale legs, eerily still, as though they had been there in the living room all along.
Despite bracing himself, Wan Qiu was so startled that he collapsed to the ground. Raising his eyes, he saw a young girl standing between the living room and the kitchen.
She was dressed in black, her skin ghostly pale as if deprived of sunlight for an extended period.
The room’s foul stench seemed to cling to her, but apart from that, she looked like any ordinary child.
Her clothes were neat, her hair fashioned into charming braids, and in her hands, she held a strawberry bear plush toy.
“Mom, there’s someone here.” Seeing Wan Qiu, she immediately called out for her mother, her voice tinged with fear of the unfamiliar.
The kitchen was shrouded in darkness, the curtains drawn, concealing what lay within.
Soon after, another young girl, perhaps four or five years old, appeared from the kitchen, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed, “Mom won’t talk to me again, she’s ignoring me again.”
As the younger girl struggled to place the bowls on the table, Wan Qiu noticed that the odor emanating from her was even more intense than that of her sister.
With a mix of bravery and innocence, the younger girl ran over to her older sister to help wipe away those tears. Then, turning to Wan Qiu with an inviting look, “Would you like to join us for dinner? My mom’s cooking is really good!”
Just then, a loud clang resonated from the kitchen as a cleaver forcefully struck the cutting board, a clear indication of their mother’s presence.
Sensing the importance of complying in this eerie situation, Wan Qiu quickly seated himself at the dining table.
The atmosphere around the table was chilling. The older sister, still clutching the strawberry bear, sat in silence with her head lowered. The younger sister, more animated, kept stealing glances at Wan Qiu.
Introducing herself, Nannan spoke with a hint of defiance, “My name is Nannan, and this is my sister Xianxian. We’ve been living here for a long time, but now some mean people are trying to kick us out, claiming this place isn’t ours,” she said, her voice tinged with resentment as she picked up her chopsticks. “You’re not one of those people, are you?”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation
Wan Qiu shook his head, his eyes moving back and forth between Nannan and Xianxian, but he remained silent, unsure of what to say.
From the kitchen, the sound of sizzling accompanied the already strong smells, now mixed with the tantalizing aroma of cooking food.
The kitchen curtain briefly lifted, revealing a hand with five severely decayed fingers holding a plate of stir-fried cabbage.
“I’ll get it,” Nannan eagerly said, taking the plate from the doorway to the table.
The busy figure in the kitchen, presumably their “mother,” did not emerge, and the curtain fell shut again, the ghastly fingers disappearing into the shadows.
As the scent of cooking meat intensified, a horrifying realization struck Wan Qiu. The ghost stories he had heard were unfolding into reality. The two girls’ mother had passed away, but to prevent eviction, her spirit, still attached to her decaying body, continued to cook and care for her daughters daily.
Nannan, perhaps too young to understand death, still saw her as her mother like always. Xianxian, painfully aware of the grim truth, remained, unable to leave the mother she still loved.
The preparation of the second dish was underway, and Wan Qiu felt a growing sense of dread. His unique ability to foresee death filled his vision with ominous images of his demise.
He saw the potential dangers that lay ahead: if he offered to fetch the next dish, he risked being pulled into the kitchen and murdered by the spectral “mother,” possibly becoming part of the next course; refusing to participate might provoke an attack from the sisters; attempting to escape could trigger a deadly pursuit by the “mother”; staying put meant being trapped in this macabre scenario indefinitely.
A single blood-tinged tear rolled down Wan Qiu’s cheek as he gripped his head, his gaze averted from the kitchen, paralyzed by fear.
The aroma of cooked meat grew stronger, and soon, a plate of vividly red meat, borne by decaying fingers, was set down.
The girls, enticed by the smell, eagerly moved towards the dish, but Wan Qiu, in a moment of desperate bravery, stepped forward before the elder sister, his legs shaking uncontrollably.
Holding the plate of meat, his courage quickly ebbed away. Blood-streaked tears on his face and his legs failing him, he collapsed to the floor.
“Why do they all bully me… I wish I had a mom too…” he murmured, overwhelmed by a flood of tragic memories and a palpable sense of looming death.
As Wan Qiu’s voice dwindled, the bustling sounds from the kitchen came to a halt. Xianxian lifted her head, her face etched with a peculiar expression; Nannan, her braids bouncing, stepped closer to Wan Qiu.
Curled up in terror, Wan Qiu sensed someone approaching. Innocent yet solemn, Nannan extended her hand, murmuring something towards the kitchen.
The kitchen curtain stirred slightly, and a figure with a face shrouded in black hair peeked out, its stench suffocating. Between the strands of hair, Wan Qiu glimpsed a bloodshot, foreboding eyeball.
“Mom?”
A muffled growl resonated from the darkness. The “mother,” brandishing a large cleaver, slowly raised her arm, her eyes glowing a sinister red.
Wan Qiu’s heart pounded, his eyes clenched shut, bracing for the worst. But unexpectedly, he felt no harm.
Gingerly opening his eyes, he saw the mother’s decayed fingers tenderly caressing his head.
“You can’t take our mom away, but if you’re hurting, you can talk to us,” Nannan spoke with unexpected maturity.
Returning to his seat at the dining table, Wan Qiu was enveloped in a surreal atmosphere. Although his eyes were capable of foreseeing death, everything around him seemed detached from his own reality.
The ghostly mother presented the third dish herself. As Wan Qiu watched the family start their meal, he hesitated to lift his chopsticks, feeling as if he had somehow deceived the spectral mother.
“I actually came from outside.” Speaking truthfully, Wan Qiu recounted all his experiences to the ghostly mother and her daughters.
In his life marked by misfortune, this was the first time Wan Qiu felt a sense of belonging, a home. He began to view the ghostly mother as part of his family, a fantasy perhaps born from his deep yearning for kinship.
Having faced so much darkness, Wan Qiu clung to this rare display of kindness, desperately seeking something good in his life amidst the evils he had encountered.
When Wan Qiu mentioned his friend who had disappeared within the building, the younger daughter, Nannan, piped up with enthusiasm: “Let’s ask Ms. Nosy. She knows everything about this place!”
Her suggestion came with a cautionary note, “But be careful, the building manager might catch you.”
Xianxian, the elder sister, cast a warning glance at Nannan, who, undeterred, boldly suggested, “Or maybe we should just trap the building manager! There are so many of us in the building, are we really scared of just one person?”
“The building manager is an agent of the Flesh Immortal. You shouldn’t speak so recklessly,” Xianxian admonished her younger sister, her tone serious.
“I’ve had a close look at the building manager,” Wan Qiu added, his voice frail. “This figure you’re all worried about, it looked like nothing more than a rat to me. Perhaps it consumed something bizarre, which is why it has such a daunting presence.”
Deep down, Wan Qiu harbored skepticism towards the supernatural. Throughout his life, whenever he faced bullying and turned to prayer for help, his pleas went unanswered.
In his eyes, the world was filled with despair, leading him to a grim conclusion: if there truly were any gods out there, they certainly weren’t looking out for someone like him.