Huang Liang walked forward in the direction the woman had indicated. The street narrowed, and the bright red shop windows were gone, replaced by a gray expanse. The sunlight was blocked by the houses on both sides, and the snow on the ground had not been shoveled but had been trampled into a mess, like a dirty carpet with many footprints.
The streets are so narrow they can no longer be called streets, they're more like alleys. I wonder if this is a common term in Amsterdam.
There were hardly any people in the alley, and the footprints on the ground were clearly left after the snow stopped last night. However, Huang Liang found it strange; with such a heavy snowfall overnight, would so many people really come to a place like this to seek pleasure?
Finally, an elderly woman passed by. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Huang Liang went up to her and asked, "Excuse me, ma'am, do you know where Sea Cucumber Street is?"
The old woman glanced at Huang Liang expressionlessly and sighed, "Young man, the Pink House up ahead is so nice, why go to the sea cucumber shop?"
Huang Liang knew she had misunderstood, but he didn't want to explain. He took out a piece of paper and said, "I'm looking for this address."
The old lady took the slip of paper, took out a pair of reading glasses from her pocket, put them on, and carefully looked at the address. "1307? There's no house number on Sea Cucumber Street."
Huang Liang was stunned. No house number? How was he supposed to find it?
However, he didn't give up and asked, "Tell me where Sea Cucumber Street is, and I'll find it myself."
The old woman said, "This is Sea Cucumber Street. From here to there—" She pointed to the narrow alley ahead, "Including the alleys on both sides, but none of them have house numbers."
Huang Liang thanked him and decided to go look for it himself.
The old woman stopped him again and said, "Young man, all the girls here are pretty much the same. Don't be fooled by those people handing out flyers at the train station. If her photos are pretty and the price is ridiculously cheap, you'd better watch your wallet."
Huang Liang nodded, thanking the kind old woman again. However, he felt she was being overly enthusiastic; everyone here was a client, she should be used to it by now. Did he look like a virgin?
He walked forward for a while and found that there were indeed no house numbers on either side. When he turned back, the old lady was gone; she had disappeared into some alley.
The note clearly stated No. 1307, Sea Cucumber Street, but why was there no address? Could it not be this red-light district? Judging from what the homeless man said, it seems every red-light district has a place called Haihuanggua. However, such dark and dirty places are definitely outside government jurisdiction, so it's understandable that there's no address. Following this logic, it's very likely that other Haihuanggua places also don't have addresses.
Huang Liang considered counting each door one by one, but immediately dismissed the idea. The number 1307 was too large; without house numbers, no one would bother to count which door they were.
He wandered into the alleys on both sides. There were probably not many customers at this time, with only a few doors open. Some thin women with dark circles under their eyes stood at the door, forcing smiles and nodding to Huang Liang.
Huang Liang felt that this scene was somewhat similar to some alleyways in China, suggesting that this profession was similar all over the world. However, these women looked more sickly, probably having used drugs. He had seen many addicts in the hospital; they were emaciated, with dark skin, lifeless eyes, and bluish-black circles around their eyes, resembling terminally ill patients, or even worse.
He randomly asked a woman for her house number, and she waved her hand, cursed "FUCK," and told him to get lost if he wasn't interested.
Huang Liang was certain that there were no house numbers here, so this number might not be a house number, but something else entirely. He stared at the note for a long time, and finally thought of breaking the number down. Could it be a combination of 13 and 7, like the seventh room in the thirteenth alley?
So he went back to the intersection of Sea Cucumber Street and Pink House, and started counting alley after alley from there. When he reached the thirteenth alley, he went inside.
This alley looked no different from the others, except there wasn't a vampire-like woman standing in a half-open doorway.
Looking at the completely melted snow on the ground, Huang Liang felt increasingly uneasy. Logically, the middle alley should be the most crowded, since everyone heading into the smaller alleys had to pass through it. Yet, there was still snow on the road in the middle alley, but not here. This meant that either someone had cleared the snow, or too many people had trampled it clean.
Everything suggested that this place was unusual, and he might have found the right spot.
He stopped counting when he reached the seventh door.
A red cloth was hanging on the door, I don't know what it was for. The entrance was very clean, without a trace of snow. But further ahead, the snow had piled up to about an inch thick, neat and tidy, and no one had touched it.
Huang Liang looked up at the sky through the gap. A white cloud stretched across the two buildings, moving slowly in the wind. He took out his phone, opened the map, took a screenshot, saved it, and put the image into the Ghost folder, naming it "No. 07, Lane 13, Haihuanggua".
After doing all that, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
The door creaked open, and the face of a wrinkled old woman appeared behind it, smiling at him, "Young man, you've finally found it!"
Huang Liang was stunned. Wasn't this the old lady he had met while asking for directions?
The moment I stepped through the door, a wave of dampness hit me, along with a faint smell of decay.
Amsterdam is by the sea, so it is indeed quite humid, but you rarely smell this kind of odor in the cold, dry winter. Huang Liang almost suspected that this old lady was also a former prostitute who solicited customers at the sea cucumber shop; the room was where she worked, and the floor was littered with used condoms.
Thinking of this, he felt a wave of acid reflux and almost vomited.
Just then, the old woman's eyes met his, her gaze icy, almost piercing his very being. "Young man, your reaction isn't quite right. Are you being affected by human emotions?"
Huang Liang was startled, only then remembering that the place they were coming to today was a secret base of the organization, and those who could appear here, even among the Parasites, had a certain strength and status.
"Oh, this is my first time here, so I might not be used to it yet," he said.
"Only humans need to adapt," the old woman said coldly.
Huang Liang had no idea what role the old woman played in the organization, nor did he expect that his unusual reaction would immediately arouse her suspicion.
"May I ask who you are...?" he asked tentatively.
"Don't ask so many questions, I'm just a doorman."
The old woman closed the door as she spoke, shutting out the daylight. Inside, only the dim light from a single pink wall lamp illuminated the room. The same pink lamp, however, created a warm and exotic atmosphere in the Pink House, while here it only evoked gloom and mystery.
"You were brought by Howard, weren't you?" the old lady asked as she walked inside.
"Yes." Huang Liang followed numbly behind her. "Where is he?"
"Of course I'm at a party!"
After passing through the outer room and entering the inner room, the old lady opened a door, revealing the entrance to the basement, and said, "Go down from here, the party has already started."
A staircase spiraled downwards, growing darker and darker, looking like it led to a deep, dark hell.
Huang Liang didn't hesitate and went straight in.
The sound of a door creaking shut came from above; the old lady had already turned and left, probably to greet other comrades.
The moment the entrance door closed, it was as if the gates of hell had shut, plunging the passage into darkness.
Huang Liang suddenly remembered the various legends about hell he had heard when he was a child, and the old woman surnamed Meng who guarded the entrance to hell.
He continued down the wall, feeling his way along, and then he heard strange sounds coming from underground—eerie, groaning sounds, like the weeping of ghosts, the groans of a woman giving birth, the screams of someone being whipped...