Everyone struggled to survive in their own way

Spitting out a bone, the Building Manager put its mask back on and staggered away.

Wan Qiu breathed a sigh of relief and took his hand away from his mouth and nose. A thick stench flooded his nostrils.

"This place stinks, like someone's been dead here for days."

He looked down at the trash can and shoe cabinet. Both were neatly kept, with nothing dirty inside, only some discarded scraps of paper.

Wan Qiu unfolded the papers. They seemed to have been torn from a diary.

"Today marks my thirtieth day living in 505. Across the hall from me lives a beautiful, gentle single mother. She often goes grocery shopping at night, and I always run into her in the hallway when I get off the night shift."

"She's truly beautiful, with sleek black hair. What's a little strange is that she always wears the same outfit, and there's a faint, odd smell about her."

"At first, I didn't think anything of it, but just as it was getting dark, the landlord told me something."

"He said the apartment across from mine, which had stood empty for six months, had finally been rented out. Now I'd have someone to keep me company."

"I don't understand why a single mother would be living in an empty apartment. I clearly hear children laughing every night, along with the... increasingly foul stench coming from that room."

"The smell?" Wan Qiu's mind raced. "The diary's owner moved into 505, but this seems to be Room 506—the apartment across from his?"

A faint light fell across Wan Qiu, and he saw footprints smeared with "red mud" on the living room's concrete floor.

"Blood mixed with mud?" Wan Qiu slowly crouched down, following the footprints with his gaze until a pair of deathly pale legs came into view.

They appeared without warning, as though they had been in the living room all along.

Although Wan Qiu had braced himself, he was still so frightened that he fell onto his backside. His gaze traveled upward, and he saw a girl standing between the living room and the kitchen.

The girl wore black. Her skin was frighteningly pale, as though she hadn't seen sunlight in a long time.

Everything in the room was steeped in the stench, and the girl was no exception. Apart from that pungent odor, though, she didn't seem much different from any normal child.

Her clothes were washed clean, her hair was tied into two cute little braids, and she held a Strawberry Bear plush in her arms.

"Mom, someone came in." The girl's voice was hoarse and flat. She seemed terrified of people from outside, so the moment she saw Wan Qiu, she called for her mother.

The kitchen lights were off, and a curtain hung across the doorway, obscuring whatever was inside.

A moment later, another girl, seemingly four or five years old, came out of the kitchen carrying three bowls. She cried as she spoke. "Mom's stopped talking again. She's ignoring me again."

She struggled to set the bowls on the table. The stench coming from this child was even more pungent than the smell on the girl in the living room.

"Let's eat, Sis." The little girl was very considerate. Wiping away her tears, she first ran to her sister, then looked at Wan Qiu. "Do you want to eat with us? My mom's cooking is really good!"

Bang!

A cleaver slammed down on a chopping board. The mother the sisters spoke of really was in the kitchen.

Wan Qiu sat down at the table as quickly as he could, obediently doing as he was told.

The atmosphere at the table was rather frightening. The older sister holding the Strawberry Bear kept her head lowered and said nothing, while her much smaller younger sister was lively, looking Wan Qiu over from time to time.

"My name's Nannan, and this is my big sister, Xian Xian. We've lived here for a very long time, but now bad people keep trying to drive us out. They say this apartment isn't ours." Nannan sounded a little angry. Holding her chopsticks, she tried to talk to Wan Qiu. "You're not here to drive us out too, are you?"

Wan Qiu shook his head, his gaze moving between Nannan and Xian Xian. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing.

The sounds of cooking came from the kitchen, and the aroma of food gradually mingled with the pungent stench.

Soon, the kitchen curtain lifted, and a plate of stir-fried cabbage emerged.

The crisp, tangy, spicy cabbage sat on a pure white plate, which was being held by five badly decomposed fingers.

"I'll get it." Nannan eagerly ran to the kitchen doorway and brought the plate to the table.

The "mother" busy in the kitchen didn't come out. The curtain fell, and the five fingers vanished into the darkness.

Oil heated in a pan. "Mom" seemed to have started on the second dish. Before long, Meat Fragrance drifted out. This was a meat dish.

After seeing those five rotting fingers reach out of the kitchen, Wan Qiu's eyelids twitched wildly.

The Strange Tale had become real. The two girls' mother was already dead, but to keep them from being driven out of the apartment building, her soul still clung to her rotting corpse. Every day, she cooked for her daughters, washed their clothes, and braided their hair.

Her younger daughter, Nannan, didn't understand death yet and still treated her mother as her mother. Her older daughter, Xian Xian, understood everything, but she refused to leave as well, because her mother was still her mother.

The second dish was nearly ready. Wan Qiu was under immense pressure now, and phantom images kept flashing through his eyes.

Starting with the third dish, everything would shed its gentle facade. Death traps lay everywhere.

Wan Qiu saw all the different ways he could die. The older daughter would fetch the second dish, and then it would be his turn. If he went over, "Mom" would drag him into the kitchen, kill him, and make him into the third dish. If he refused to fetch it, the sisters would kill him. If he ran, "Mom" would leave the kitchen and hunt him down. If he didn't run, he would be kept here forever.

A bloody tear trickled from his eye. Wan Qiu clutched his head, not daring to look at the kitchen.

Meat Fragrance grew richer. Soon, a plate of bright red meat was ready, and the rotting fingers held it out.

Both girls grew excited at the smell of meat. The older daughter was just about to go over when Wan Qiu suddenly seemed to make a decision.

He stepped ahead of her and approached the kitchen, his calves trembling.

By the time he took the plate of meat in both hands, Wan Qiu had used up every last scrap of courage. Bloody tears streaked his face, and his legs went weak as he slowly sank to the floor.

"You can't all pick on me... Mom, where's my mom...?"

Countless miserable memories flashed through his mind. Wan Qiu was scared out of his wits, but the only person willing to help him had disappeared too.

His mind was blank now, and his body wouldn't obey him. He was scared, terribly scared. He felt as though he was about to die.

As Wan Qiu's words faded, the cooking sounds stopped. Xian Xian slowly raised her lowered head, a strange expression on her face, while her younger sister jumped off her chair and came over to him.

Crying in terror, Wan Qiu sensed someone approaching and curled up into a ball.

The younger daughter with the cute braids held out her hand. When Wan Qiu didn't respond, she murmured something toward the kitchen.

The kitchen curtain stirred slightly. Five rotting fingers lifted it, and a face completely hidden behind black hair poked out.

The stench surged through the room. Through a gap in the black hair, Wan Qiu clearly saw a bloodshot eyeball.

"Mom?"

A low growl sounded in the oppressive darkness. Ghost Mom slowly raised her other arm, which held an enormous cleaver. Her eyes had turned entirely blood-red.

Wan Qiu's heart pounded furiously. He squeezed his eyes shut, but after waiting a moment, he felt no pain.

Slowly opening his eyes, Wan Qiu saw Ghost Mom's five fingers gently pat his head.

"You can't steal our mom, but if you're upset, you can tell us," the little girl said in the tone of a grown-up.

Back at the table, Wan Qiu still felt as though none of this was real. His eyes could see death, but things other than death rarely had anything to do with him.

Ghost Mom brought out the third dish herself. Watching the mother and her two daughters begin to eat, Wan Qiu didn't pick up his chopsticks. He felt as though he had deceived Ghost Mom.

"Actually, I came in from outside." Without telling a single lie, Wan Qiu told Ghost Mom and her daughters everything that had happened to him.

In Wan Qiu's unfortunate life, this was the first time he had ever experienced the feeling of home. He even began to imagine that Ghost Mom was his family and treated her as such.

Perhaps because he had suffered so much cruelty, whenever Wan Qiu encountered even a little kindness, he did everything he could to cling to it.

After learning that Wan Qiu's friend had disappeared inside the building, the warmhearted younger daughter immediately spoke up. "Let's go find Gossip. She knows everything!"

"Careful, or the Building Manager will carry you off."

The older sister glared at her younger sister, who shot back defiantly, "Then why don't we just capture the Building Manager? There are so many of us in this building. Why should we be scared of him alone?"

"The Building Manager represents the Flesh and Blood Immortal. You little brat, you're always talking nonsense." The older sister began scolding her.

"I saw the Building Manager's real face earlier," Wan Qiu said timidly. "The Building Manager you're all afraid of seems to be just a rat. It stole some things to eat, and that's why it has such a terrifying aura."

Deep down, Wan Qiu didn't believe in gods or Ghosts, because every time he was bullied, he prayed endlessly, yet none of them had ever helped him.

To him, this world was so miserable that even if a god truly existed, it wasn't his god.

(End of chapter)