Someone Was Knocking
After closing the door, Xu Huo took a look around the room.
By ordinary standards of aesthetics, the room was almost unbearably ugly. The embossed walls were covered in intricate, unrecognizable patterns, as were the carpet and bedsheets. Even the bathroom tiles and curtains had them.
The dim yellow light made the room feel oppressive. The only things easy on the eyes were the toilet, the sink, and the mirror above it.
He went into the bathroom, pulled a towel over the mirror, and rolled up his sleeve to tend to the wound on his arm.
The long wound had rotted over an even larger area. Though he could see the fungal threads inside, the discomfort from the injury hadn't gone away.
He scraped away some of the wound with a knife and bandaged it. Then he came out and draped his jacket over a chair. "I'm not going out tonight."
The painted woman, stuck to the inside of his clothes, blinked and remained in the same position.
He had just gotten ready to sleep when someone knocked on the door. Xu Huo opened it to find the hotel manager, who handed him a meal box. "This is complimentary from the hotel. There's an apple with it, too."
He had changed out of his clean jacket and into his work uniform, which smelled of perfume.
"Can I order something?" Xu Huo asked.
"I'm afraid not," the manager said. "My coworker took the night off, so I'm the only one here. I can only provide meal boxes. If you want anything else, you'll have to go out and get it. Besides, folks here go to bed early. Everyone closes up at ten."
Xu Huo handed him a few White Cash. "I'd like to order a late-night snack."
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