With a creak, Su Bai pushed open the relatively intact wooden door and stepped into the old residence, which looked strangely out of place amid its surroundings.
The old residence felt much larger inside than it had looked from outside. Both its exterior and interior were relatively well preserved, too. Rather than the ruins found everywhere in the Nightmare World, the first thing Su Bai saw was a fairly clean front courtyard.
Although all the plants in the courtyard had withered and died, and cracks covered the walls and stone paths, the water jars in one corner remained undamaged. They were filled to the brim with rainwater tinged with blood.
Not every lake and river in the Nightmare World flowed with foul-smelling blood, but repeated collapses of civilization had left it with boundless seas of blood, as well as blood-filled pools and even lakes scattered everywhere. Over time, all the water in the Nightmare World had taken on an eerie hue. Even the rain that fell from the sky carried a bloody tint, making the world's once-normal lakes and rivers gleam blood-red beneath the Red Moon.
Perhaps the residence before him was simply too ordinary. Only when Su Bai saw the bloody water in those jars did he truly feel that he was indeed in the Nightmare World.
Finding no sign of the blue flame in the front courtyard, Su Bai pushed open the front house's main door. It was pitch-black inside and smelled of mildew, no different from any residence left vacant for years. Little Fire was nowhere to be seen in the front house, either. Who knew where he had gone chasing that weak little flame?
Fortunately, Su Bai's eyes could make out the way even in darkness, so his missing "light source" did not stop him from