Numbers

His balance was only five hundred yuan.

Why five hundred again?

Oh, that Property Manager had mentioned it earlier. Apparently, it was the reward they received for surviving the previous assessment Instance.

They had risked their lives, and all they got was five hundred yuan?

Looking at the drinks and food priced at over a hundred yuan, Jiang Mingran suddenly couldn't bring himself to buy them.

After agonizing over it for a long time, he bought only a bottle of mineral water and a sandwich.

The wall beneath the screen abruptly parted, revealing an opening.

Strange. Didn't the wall lead outside? Could there be a conveyor belt inside it that delivered the food he selected?

Jiang Mingran leaned over the opening and peered inside. It was pitch-black; he couldn't see anything.

After his earlier experiences, Jiang Mingran naturally wasn't about to tempt fate by sticking his hand inside.

Two seconds later, a 500 ml bottle of mineral water and a sandwich half the size of his palm dropped out.

Then the opening slowly closed.

The wall looked as good as new. Jiang Mingran knocked on it. It felt solid, with no sign of any mechanism.

Nothing about this place could be explained by ordinary logic anymore... Jiang Mingran picked up the water and sandwich, intending to put something in his stomach first.

These few things had cost thirty yuan. It pained him to spend that much.

Meanwhile, Shao Lan was also standing in front of his vending machine.

His screen displayed:

Income: 10,500 Balance: 10,500

Shao Lan tapped the "Income details" tab.

It displayed:

Cleared [Assessment Instance: Night of the Cannibal] Base payment: 500

Obtained [Precious memory: Su Xia's pocket watch] Bonus: 10,000

Shao Lan paused, then reached into his pocket.

Sure enough, after he left that old room, everything had vanished like a dream. Only the pocket watch remained in his pocket.

In the wedding photo inside, the young couple wore shy, gentle smiles.

No wonder the rules had specifically included the words "Goodbye, Su Xia"-only by letting Li Chengyuan say a proper goodbye to Su Xia would he hand over the pocket watch.

And that watch had actually brought him ten thousand yuan in survival funds.

Yes, survival funds.

Shao Lan had roughly figured out the rules for surviving in this building.

Taking the elevator allowed them to enter an Instance. If they returned alive, they received money.

If they obtained a [Precious memory], as he had, they could earn an additional bonus.

Compared with the meager base payment, the money from obtaining a memory was far greater.

And that money could buy everything they needed to survive.

Thinking of apartment 801 across the hall, Shao Lan lowered his eyes.

He could more or less guess how the woman in 801 had died.

She had starved to death.

If they didn't dare enter the games, they couldn't earn money. Without money, they couldn't buy food.

How long had that woman gone hungry to waste away like that?

Shao Lan didn't dare think about it, nor did he want to.

He only knew that he absolutely couldn't end up like her.

When Jiang Mingran came to Shao Lan's room, he discovered that Shao Lan had bought four potatoes and a tray of eggs.

"Why did you buy everything raw?" Jiang Mingran asked in surprise. "Can you eat that as it is?"

"I checked every category," Shao Lan said. "The markup on [Ready-to-eat food] is the worst. The prices of other items aren't much different from the real world."

One kilogram of potatoes cost three yuan fifty.

Thirty fresh eggs cost sixteen yuan.

Ready-to-eat food? Jiang Mingran thought of the sandwich he had just finished.

That probably fell under the ready-to-eat food Shao Lan had mentioned. He could eat it as soon as he bought it.

The potatoes and eggs Shao Lan bought cost about as much altogether as Jiang Mingran's sandwich. The difference was that Jiang Mingran's sandwich contained only a few pitiful slices of ham and some leaves, and he would be hungry again shortly after eating it.

Shao Lan's food, on the other hand, would last a long time.

"So we... eat the eggs raw?" Jiang Mingran remembered an American TV show he'd watched, where the muscular male lead cracked four raw eggs into his mouth every morning.

Shao Lan shook his head. "A lot of food can't be eaten raw. We'd be in trouble if we got sick."

He pointed at the table beside them. Only then did Jiang Mingran notice an induction cooker sitting on it.

"You even bought a pot?" Jiang Mingran exclaimed in shock.

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 grew grave. In a low voice, he asked, "Mingran, do you know why ready-to-eat food costs so much more than ingredients that need cooking?"

Jiang Mingran froze for a moment. He really hadn't thought about it.

"Prices are tied to demand," Shao Lan said. "The markup on ready-to-eat food means there's high demand for it."

"And the reason behind that is that everyone thinks they'll get out soon."

Jiang Mingran froze.

It was true.

Although he was trapped here now, he still harbored unrealistic hopes.

He kept thinking that if he found a way, perhaps he could leave right away.

He still had competitions ahead of him. His coach was waiting for him to deliver results. University life had only just opened up before him, waiting for him to experience it.

He couldn't imagine living in this eerie building for a long time. How long was a long time-a week, a month, or a year?

"Did you see the body in 801? She starved to death," Shao Lan said softly. "How long does someone have to be trapped before they starve to death?"

Jiang Mingran shuddered.

Before she died, that woman had wasted away to skin and bones, almost a skeleton.

She must have gone hungry for a long time, never finding a way out even as she died.

"We need to find a way out, but we have to make sure we stay alive until we do," Shao Lan said. "I don't know how long finding a way will take, so we need to save as much money as possible."

Perhaps too many people held the same hopes as Jiang Mingran. That was why they bought food they could eat immediately: buying a cooker and a pot clearly cost more.

But what if they weren't going to eat just one meal in the building, but dozens, or hundreds?

Spread over that many meals, buying cookware and cooking for themselves was definitely cheaper.

There was running water in the bathroom. Shao Lan used the induction cooker to boil the potatoes and eggs.

Steam rose from the boiling water. Through the veil of white vapor, Shao Lan suddenly noticed something like a tattoo on Jiang Mingran's arm.

It was strange. That tattoo hadn't seemed to be there when they were in Su Xia's Instance.

"Mingran." Shao Lan pointed at Jiang Mingran's arm. "What's that?"

Following Shao Lan's gaze, Jiang Mingran turned his head and looked down at his right arm. At the spot where he had received vaccinations was something resembling a burn scar.

But ordinary scars had no particular shape. This thing looked like lettering-

"XLI."

"What the fuck is that?" Jiang Mingran was stunned. "I've never gotten a tattoo. Where did this thing come from?!"

Shao Lan examined it closely.

The scar looked as though someone had heated a special iron stamp until it was scorching hot, pressed it against the skin, and let the wound heal.

That process would obviously have been extremely painful, yet Jiang Mingran clearly knew nothing about it.

Wait.

Something occurred to Shao Lan. He took off his long-sleeved white shirt and searched his arms.

There were no scars on his arms.

But before Shao Lan could puzzle over it, Jiang Mingran blurted out, "Your back!"

Sure enough, Shao Lan had a scar similar to Jiang Mingran's, just in a different place.

Jiang Mingran's was on his arm, while Shao Lan's was between his neck and back, over the prominent vertebra at the base of his neck.

The shape was different too. Jiang Mingran looked at it and told Shao Lan, "It's VIII."

Shao Lan frowned.

By now, he understood what the shapes of the scars were.

Roman numerals. His number was 8, and Jiang Mingran's was 41.

But what did those numbers represent?

Identification numbers? Just as every student in a class had a student number, did every resident in this building automatically receive a number when they moved in?

But if everyone lived in their own room, their apartment number should already be enough to identify them. Shao Lan was 802, for example, and Jiang Mingran was 803. Why did they need an additional number?

And if these weren't identification numbers, what else could they be? Branded onto their bodies in such a cruel, indelible way, these numbers had to be extremely important.