Chapter 1 – Su City’s 2.07 Extraordinary Robbery and Murder Case that Rocked the Nation!
Su City’s ChangAn Fan Factory was established in the 1990s. It’s main business was the manufacturing of electric fans, heaters and other similar projects.
At its peak, the factory employed more than 2000 employees and business was booming. It’s products were exported to Southeast Asia and it was the top taxpayer in Su City.
However in the past ten years, domestically made old-fashioned fans have fallen in popularity with consumers and their performance has been steadily declining. Out of the four dormitory buildings that were once bustling, now only two: No 3 and No 4, were still inhabited and had not had it’s electricity or water supply stopped. {T/N: Traditionally in China, once people got jobs in China they were expected to work there long-term, most likely their entire lives. Their family housing would then be given to them by their employer and hence they would live with a bunch of their colleagues’ families in the same building.}
The residential buildings, built in the old-fashioned style of the last century, stood lonely in the wind and rain. As the sun set, Building No 3 was basked in a dim, dusky glow but blocked, Building No 4 was dark in its shadow.
Today was the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. Due to the holidays, there was barely a soul passing by on the street in front of the old building.
As 7 o’clock approached, a white-skinned young man wearing a white T-shirt stepped off a bus. He was carrying a bag with takeaway food and walked towards the dormitory building of the fan factory. When he walked through the security gate, the doorman uncle who sat inside the air-conditioned booth beside the gate, looked at him and took off his glasses. “Xiao Lian ah, have you found a new place to stay? Next week you will be forced to evacuate so you need to find some place in advance.” {T/N: Xiao Lian means Little Lian, refers to being junior in terms of age/seniority, not physical appearance.}
Lian Xi: “I went to look at a few places today, they weren’t too bad. Later I’ll go to take another look.”
The security uncle nodded: “Okay, take your time. It’s important to think about these things carefully. Although it’s just renting and not buying, those landlords always want to sign at least a one year contract. If it’s someplace you won’t be happy then it’ll be bad!”
Lian Xi thought for a while: “Are you sure this place is going to be demolished next week?”
The doorman uncle: “Yes, I’ve already received all the documents.”
“Okay.”
The young man responded softly and then took the takeaway towards the No 4 dormitory building.
The hot and humid evening breeze of early summer blew through the plastic bag making a shaking noise. The youth’s slender fingers slid down a few inches, grasing the plastic bag tightly, ensuring that the contents inside wouldn’t spill or make a mess.
Lian Xi passed the No 3 building which had a few lights on and walked into the No 4 building. Once his figure turned the corner inside, he couldn’t be seen again from outside.
In the security booth, another uncle who worked security and who had just been in the toilet, came back. As he buttoned his pants back up, he craned his neck to see Lian Xi’s vanishing figure. “Is that fellow from No 4 still living there and not moved out yet?”
The glasses uncle: “He doesn’t have any money, how can he move? In the entire Su City, which other place has such good conditions, with air conditioning and internet and rent only being 400 yuan a week? Only our fan factory’s dormitory! But he doesn’t have any choice. Next week the dormitories will be demolished so he has to move even if he doesn’t have any money.”
“I heard this little fellow does live streaming.”
“What’s live streaming?”
“Don’t you know? Come, I’ll show you.” He took out his mobile phone and clicked around on it.
“What the hell is this? How come there’s little girls taking their clothes off?” {T/N: The doorman refers to girls who are younger than him as “little girls” or more specifically “little dollies”, they’re probably adults, just much younger than him.}
“You really don’t know about this? Hey, do you think that fellow’s live streaming is like this too?”
“Even a guy can do this?”
The doorman uncle shook his head. “Who knows? I think that little fellow looks more beautiful than those girls on the top of the page. Who knows what he does.” Suddenly remembering something, the doorman retracted his neck and looked furtively towards Building No 4 which was at the very end. “Talking about him, isn’t he very brave? He actually is courageous enough to live in Building No 4. And even lives in the room that someone died in before!”
The glasses uncle made fun of him: “What’s this? You actually believe in ghosts?”
“What, you don’t?”
“Of course not! If they’re so amazing, tell them to come find me tonight. I’d really like to see them try!”
***
Lian Xi’s room was on the fourth floor.
In the fan factory’s still inhabitable dormitories, the minimum rent for Building No 3 was 800 yuan and for Building No 4 was 400 yuan. Without thinking about it, Lian Xi immediately picked Building No 4. But when it came to Building No 4, every floor’s minimum rent was also different. 400 yuan only applied to the room on the fourth floor, the minimum rent on all other floors was 500.
The rooms where people had died were on the fourth floor.
The old stairwell was full of black stains and holes and indents in the wall. As Lian Xi walked up swinging the plastic bag, he was thinking in a daze about where he should go next.
Thinking about the entire Su City, there wasn’t another place that was better than this fan factory’s dormitory.
Only 400 yuan a month for one bedroom and one living room, with all the furniture provided, and air conditioning and internet included.
If he couldn’t find another good place, then he’d probably have to return to his hometown.
Sighing, Lian Xi had reached the fourth floor. As soon as he looked up he saw a middle aged man organizing his things in the corridor. He had taken out all the cardboard boxes and random paper he didn’t want anymore and piled them in the corridor. After doing that, he looked up and saw Lian Xi. The middle-aged man smiled, the mole on the corner of his mouth twitching. “Xiao Lian, you’re back. Have you found a new place to stay?”
Lian Xi’s eyes focused on the black mole on the corner of the man’s mouth for a second. He said, “No ah, I haven’t yet. Have you found a place?”
“I’ve found one. I’m moving out tomorrow. Ai, in the last couple of years all the old employees of the fan factory have moved out one by one. Only my family was thick-skinned enough to stay on here. Now that it’s going to be demolished, it’s impossible to stay here any longer. Are you eating these unhealthy things tonight again?”
Lian Xi’s footsteps only slowed but he didn’t reply.
The middle-aged man: “Look, my wife already moved over to the new place this afternoon but before she left she made a pot of roast pork. Why don’t I bring it over later tonight and we can eat together and have a drink or two. We’ve been neighbours for half a year after all, but I’ve never seen your place or eaten with you. Don’t be polite, I can’t finish it by myself anyway.”
Lian Xi: “There’s no need. I bought a lot of malatang and I already can’t finish it.”
The man waved his hands: “Don’t be polite with me! After I finish moving these boxes, I’ll go over to yours!”
Lian Xi: “…..”
He took out his key and entered his home.
After closing the door, Lian Xi sighed heavily.
Ever since he was a child, he was no good at communicating with others. So of course he was bad at rejecting them. His parents died when he was very young and afterwards he was sent to the orphanage. All the kids in the orphanage had small bodies but big ideas, each of them had their own personalities. He already didn’t like to talk and living at the orphanage meant he had even less people to converse with.
As for why he rented this ill-fated place, one was because the rent was cheap and the other was because the people were sparse. No one wanted to live near a potentially haunted house.
He didn’t like crowded places.
People liked to talk. People liked to be lively and gossip and watch other people be lively and gossip.
He didn’t know how to talk or be lively, and didn’t like watching others be lively or gossip either.
Also if he stayed near a person for too long….
He looked down at his right hand and flexed his fingers slowly.
If he stayed near a person for too long and cursed them to death, then what should he do?
The fan factory’s Building No 4 was a good place to rent, and it was also the most famous haunted building in Su City.
In the 1990s, not long after this building was constructed, there was no security guard and no big iron gate outside, anyone could come in and out. The managers of the fan factory didn’t take this very seriously either. They weren’t in a rush to get a gate or a security guard. Not until three months after the dormitory building was constructed, when a bloody incident occurred.
It was the night of New Years Eve. At that time setting off fireworks hadn’t been banned yet and the deafening sound of firecrackers was everywhere in Su City. {T/N: Refers to Chinese New Year, usually sometime in February.}
On this noisy and lively new years eve, in the very early morning hour right after the Spring Gala had finished broadcasting, a murderer ran up to the fourth floor of Building 4 and entered a room to rob, rape, murder and….
Cannibalize.
A family of three was killed brutally.
Half of the arms of the wife and daughter were found still immersed and cooked inside the iron pot, and there was still a half a bowl of uneaten meat set out on the table.
It was said that when several old detectives entered the crime scene, they immediately vomited afterwards.
This was Su City’s extraordinary robbery and murder case that took place on 2.07 (Feburary the 7th) that shocked the whole country!
The kind of heinous and without morals killing was immediately noticed by the people of the country. Everyone demanded angrily that the murderer must be caught. However the murderer didn’t leave many clues or traces behind, and also the investigation team was hampered by a lack of criminal investigation technology at the time. So although they investigated for a full two years they didn’t come up with anything.
Until now the murderer was still at large.
Lian Xi put the takeaway bag on the dining table and split the disposable chopsticks. He glanced indifferently at the wall next to the table and saw several brown marks on the pale wall that could never be wiped clean. It was spray-like as if someone had severed their carotid artery and sprayed it all over the wall at once.
How can an ordinary person live in such a haunted place? According to the stories, a lot of other haunted events also happened in Building No 4 afterwards.
So right now there were no other tenants in all of Building No 4 except for Lian Xi and the brother next door.
Lian Xi didn’t care. He stared at the hot and fragrant malatang with red millet and chilli oil floating in the noodle broth. He didn’t move his chopsticks for a long time. It wasn’t the bloodstains on the wall that upset his appetite, but rather the fact that if the uncle next door really came, then he definitely wouldn’t be able to have a good meal.
But malatang also couldn’t be stored in the fridge. It would immediately congeal.
“Ai.”
He sighed. Lian Xi packed up the takeaway again and placed it inside the kitchen cabinet.
The next second, the doorbell rang.
Lian Xi opened the door. With one hand the middle aged man was knocking and in the other hand he carried a pot of roasted red neat. He smiled and said, “You opened up pretty quick. Let me go back and get some alcohol.”
Lian Xi: “There’s no need. I have wine.”
The middle aged man: “Little brother, I only drink white rice spirits. I’m not used to those foreign wines that you young people drink!”
Lian Xi: “Rest assured, it’s rice wine.”
“Then all right. I’m coming in now, oh.”
After entering, the middle aged man looked around curiously.
Lian Xi went into the kitchen and took out a bottle of Yanghe Daqu from the cabinet. He took out two glasses and put them on the table. He poured the middle aged man wine and himself water.
The middle aged man: “You don’t drink?”
Lian Xi: “If I drink I might make a mistake”.
“This is not giving me face!”
“My dad died from drink driving.”
“……”
Lian Xi added another blow on top: “Originally he didn’t want to drink but his friends he was eating with kept persuading him, saying that if he didn’t drink it wasn’t giving them face. So after that I never drink alcohol.”
Of course, prior to that he hadn’t ever drunk either.
“…..”
The middle aged man: “I’m sorry ah, little brother. I didn’t know. Then I’ll drink alone.”
The friendship of a middle-aged man came on as quickly and as easily as a bottle of strong spirits. As long as you called him older brother and let him call you younger brother, then you would transform into a brother from another mother.
The middle-aged man drank and ate meat. Soon his face was flushed and it was clear that he was a little bit drunk. He kept trying to pull Lian Xi into to talk more.
“Little brother, I heard that you’re a live steamer. What’s that?”
“It’s just facing the computer and doing some stuff online?”
“Computer? I don’t really understand what it is you young people do.” The man was drunk. His arm pressed on the table to prevent his entire body from slipping down. He raised his head and squinted his eyes. “Everyone says live broadcasting is very noisy and they hate living next door to someone who does it. But little brother, how come every day you’re so quiet? I never hear any noises from your place.”
Lian Xi: “….”
It really wasn’t fun to chat. As soon as he tried it, it turned into a sore subject.
Why was he so quiet?
It was noisy when other people did live broadcasts because other people knew how to chat and speak very well!
Lian Xi was an introverted mushroom. Every day when he made a live broadcast it was muddled and he didn’t like to talk.
In addition, other live streamers made a lot of noise because they wanted to thank big brothers for buying them gifts. They had to excitedly say things like, “Thank you big brother for donating 666! Brothers, pay attention to this big brother! Thank you big brother! Big brother is generous!”
When Lian Xi did a live broadcast, there sometimes wouldn’t be a single soul who would give a gift. So even if he wanted to thank someone, there wasn’t any such opportunity.
So how could his live broadcast make enough noise to annoy his neighbours? If so, how could he live in this sort of place?
The middle aged man didn’t get bogged down in talking about live streaming. After all, it wasn’t something he understood. He was just mentioning a few words casually. He looked at the dark brown bloodstain next to the dining table and after a while he raised his hand and said quietly, “….little brother, aren’t you afraid?”
Lian Xi was quiet. His clear and calm eyes looked at the middle aged man. He replied, “Then why aren’t you scared?”
The four eyes stared at each other.
Lian Xi’s eyes were deep and dark like an abyss of a thousand feet. There weren’t any ripples or sparks of light.
The middle-aged man felt his scalp go numb. He laughed dryly and reached for the bottle of wine on the table. He lowered his head to pour himself another, trying to dispel the tense energy in the air. “I’m just talking casually. After all, it’s not like ghosts can really bother people. And where else in Su City can I find another place that’s so cheap? If not because it’s going to be demolished, I really want to continue living here longer….”
“Pu-dong——”
His voice suddenly ceased.
A bloody and pus-filled eyeball landed, with a thump, in the wine glass in front of the middle-aged man.
The room went silent.
Lian Xi didn’t speak.
The middle-aged man also didn’t say a thing.
The clock on the wall ticked by second by second.
After an unknown period of time, the middle-aged man reached out and scooped out the eyeball that fell into the wine glass. He slapped it back into his eye socket in one go. He raised his head and exposed a bloody and horrible looking left eye. If a human eyeball didn’t fall out, no one would realize how big it actually was. Around it the skin had become rotten and maggots were wiggling about.
Only the white eyeball was still moving around unceasingly.
The middle aged man gave a hoarse laugh in the back of his throat. The sound was definitely not one that a human could make. It sounded like rough sand rubbing against a blackboard.
“Sorry little brother ah. I embarrassed myself.”
Chapter 1 – Su City’s 2.07 Extraordinary Robbery and Murder Case that Rocked the Nation!
Su City’s ChangAn Fan Factory was established in the 1990s. It’s main business was the manufacturing of electric fans, heaters and other similar projects.
At its peak, the factory employed more than 2000 employees and business was booming. It’s products were exported to Southeast Asia and it was the top taxpayer in Su City.
However in the past ten years, domestically made old-fashioned fans have fallen in popularity with consumers and their performance has been steadily declining. Out of the four dormitory buildings that were once bustling, now only two: No 3 and No 4, were still inhabited and had not had it’s electricity or water supply stopped. {T/N: Traditionally in China, once people got jobs in China they were expected to work there long-term, most likely their entire lives. Their family housing would then be given to them by their employer and hence they would live with a bunch of their colleagues’ families in the same building.}
The residential buildings, built in the old-fashioned style of the last century, stood lonely in the wind and rain. As the sun set, Building No 3 was basked in a dim, dusky glow but blocked, Building No 4 was dark in its shadow.
Today was the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. Due to the holidays, there was barely a soul passing by on the street in front of the old building.
As 7 o’clock approached, a white-skinned young man wearing a white T-shirt stepped off a bus. He was carrying a bag with takeaway food and walked towards the dormitory building of the fan factory. When he walked through the security gate, the doorman uncle who sat inside the air-conditioned booth beside the gate, looked at him and took off his glasses. “Xiao Lian ah, have you found a new place to stay? Next week you will be forced to evacuate so you need to find some place in advance.” {T/N: Xiao Lian means Little Lian, refers to being junior in terms of age/seniority, not physical appearance.}
Lian Xi: “I went to look at a few places today, they weren’t too bad. Later I’ll go to take another look.”
The security uncle nodded: “Okay, take your time. It’s important to think about these things carefully. Although it’s just renting and not buying, those landlords always want to sign at least a one year contract. If it’s someplace you won’t be happy then it’ll be bad!”
Lian Xi thought for a while: “Are you sure this place is going to be demolished next week?”
The doorman uncle: “Yes, I’ve already received all the documents.”
“Okay.”
The young man responded softly and then took the takeaway towards the No 4 dormitory building.
The hot and humid evening breeze of early summer blew through the plastic bag making a shaking noise. The youth’s slender fingers slid down a few inches, grasing the plastic bag tightly, ensuring that the contents inside wouldn’t spill or make a mess.
Lian Xi passed the No 3 building which had a few lights on and walked into the No 4 building. Once his figure turned the corner inside, he couldn’t be seen again from outside.
In the security booth, another uncle who worked security and who had just been in the toilet, came back. As he buttoned his pants back up, he craned his neck to see Lian Xi’s vanishing figure. “Is that fellow from No 4 still living there and not moved out yet?”
The glasses uncle: “He doesn’t have any money, how can he move? In the entire Su City, which other place has such good conditions, with air conditioning and internet and rent only being 400 yuan a week? Only our fan factory’s dormitory! But he doesn’t have any choice. Next week the dormitories will be demolished so he has to move even if he doesn’t have any money.”
“I heard this little fellow does live streaming.”
“What’s live streaming?”
“Don’t you know? Come, I’ll show you.” He took out his mobile phone and clicked around on it.
“What the hell is this? How come there’s little girls taking their clothes off?” {T/N: The doorman refers to girls who are younger than him as “little girls” or more specifically “little dollies”, they’re probably adults, just much younger than him.}
“You really don’t know about this? Hey, do you think that fellow’s live streaming is like this too?”
“Even a guy can do this?”
The doorman uncle shook his head. “Who knows? I think that little fellow looks more beautiful than those girls on the top of the page. Who knows what he does.” Suddenly remembering something, the doorman retracted his neck and looked furtively towards Building No 4 which was at the very end. “Talking about him, isn’t he very brave? He actually is courageous enough to live in Building No 4. And even lives in the room that someone died in before!”
The glasses uncle made fun of him: “What’s this? You actually believe in ghosts?”
“What, you don’t?”
“Of course not! If they’re so amazing, tell them to come find me tonight. I’d really like to see them try!”
***
Lian Xi’s room was on the fourth floor.
In the fan factory’s still inhabitable dormitories, the minimum rent for Building No 3 was 800 yuan and for Building No 4 was 400 yuan. Without thinking about it, Lian Xi immediately picked Building No 4. But when it came to Building No 4, every floor’s minimum rent was also different. 400 yuan only applied to the room on the fourth floor, the minimum rent on all other floors was 500.
The rooms where people had died were on the fourth floor.
The old stairwell was full of black stains and holes and indents in the wall. As Lian Xi walked up swinging the plastic bag, he was thinking in a daze about where he should go next.
Thinking about the entire Su City, there wasn’t another place that was better than this fan factory’s dormitory.
Only 400 yuan a month for one bedroom and one living room, with all the furniture provided, and air conditioning and internet included.
If he couldn’t find another good place, then he’d probably have to return to his hometown.
Sighing, Lian Xi had reached the fourth floor. As soon as he looked up he saw a middle aged man organizing his things in the corridor. He had taken out all the cardboard boxes and random paper he didn’t want anymore and piled them in the corridor. After doing that, he looked up and saw Lian Xi. The middle-aged man smiled, the mole on the corner of his mouth twitching. “Xiao Lian, you’re back. Have you found a new place to stay?”
Lian Xi’s eyes focused on the black mole on the corner of the man’s mouth for a second. He said, “No ah, I haven’t yet. Have you found a place?”
“I’ve found one. I’m moving out tomorrow. Ai, in the last couple of years all the old employees of the fan factory have moved out one by one. Only my family was thick-skinned enough to stay on here. Now that it’s going to be demolished, it’s impossible to stay here any longer. Are you eating these unhealthy things tonight again?”
Lian Xi’s footsteps only slowed but he didn’t reply.
The middle-aged man: “Look, my wife already moved over to the new place this afternoon but before she left she made a pot of roast pork. Why don’t I bring it over later tonight and we can eat together and have a drink or two. We’ve been neighbours for half a year after all, but I’ve never seen your place or eaten with you. Don’t be polite, I can’t finish it by myself anyway.”
Lian Xi: “There’s no need. I bought a lot of malatang and I already can’t finish it.”
The man waved his hands: “Don’t be polite with me! After I finish moving these boxes, I’ll go over to yours!”
Lian Xi: “…..”
He took out his key and entered his home.
After closing the door, Lian Xi sighed heavily.
Ever since he was a child, he was no good at communicating with others. So of course he was bad at rejecting them. His parents died when he was very young and afterwards he was sent to the orphanage. All the kids in the orphanage had small bodies but big ideas, each of them had their own personalities. He already didn’t like to talk and living at the orphanage meant he had even less people to converse with.
As for why he rented this ill-fated place, one was because the rent was cheap and the other was because the people were sparse. No one wanted to live near a potentially haunted house.
He didn’t like crowded places.
People liked to talk. People liked to be lively and gossip and watch other people be lively and gossip.
He didn’t know how to talk or be lively, and didn’t like watching others be lively or gossip either.
Also if he stayed near a person for too long….
He looked down at his right hand and flexed his fingers slowly.
If he stayed near a person for too long and cursed them to death, then what should he do?
The fan factory’s Building No 4 was a good place to rent, and it was also the most famous haunted building in Su City.
In the 1990s, not long after this building was constructed, there was no security guard and no big iron gate outside, anyone could come in and out. The managers of the fan factory didn’t take this very seriously either. They weren’t in a rush to get a gate or a security guard. Not until three months after the dormitory building was constructed, when a bloody incident occurred.
It was the night of New Years Eve. At that time setting off fireworks hadn’t been banned yet and the deafening sound of firecrackers was everywhere in Su City. {T/N: Refers to Chinese New Year, usually sometime in February.}
On this noisy and lively new years eve, in the very early morning hour right after the Spring Gala had finished broadcasting, a murderer ran up to the fourth floor of Building 4 and entered a room to rob, rape, murder and….
Cannibalize.
A family of three was killed brutally.
Half of the arms of the wife and daughter were found still immersed and cooked inside the iron pot, and there was still a half a bowl of uneaten meat set out on the table.
It was said that when several old detectives entered the crime scene, they immediately vomited afterwards.
This was Su City’s extraordinary robbery and murder case that took place on 2.07 (Feburary the 7th) that shocked the whole country!
The kind of heinous and without morals killing was immediately noticed by the people of the country. Everyone demanded angrily that the murderer must be caught. However the murderer didn’t leave many clues or traces behind, and also the investigation team was hampered by a lack of criminal investigation technology at the time. So although they investigated for a full two years they didn’t come up with anything.
Until now the murderer was still at large.
Lian Xi put the takeaway bag on the dining table and split the disposable chopsticks. He glanced indifferently at the wall next to the table and saw several brown marks on the pale wall that could never be wiped clean. It was spray-like as if someone had severed their carotid artery and sprayed it all over the wall at once.
How can an ordinary person live in such a haunted place? According to the stories, a lot of other haunted events also happened in Building No 4 afterwards.
So right now there were no other tenants in all of Building No 4 except for Lian Xi and the brother next door.
Lian Xi didn’t care. He stared at the hot and fragrant malatang with red millet and chilli oil floating in the noodle broth. He didn’t move his chopsticks for a long time. It wasn’t the bloodstains on the wall that upset his appetite, but rather the fact that if the uncle next door really came, then he definitely wouldn’t be able to have a good meal.
But malatang also couldn’t be stored in the fridge. It would immediately congeal.
“Ai.”
He sighed. Lian Xi packed up the takeaway again and placed it inside the kitchen cabinet.
The next second, the doorbell rang.
Lian Xi opened the door. With one hand the middle aged man was knocking and in the other hand he carried a pot of roasted red neat. He smiled and said, “You opened up pretty quick. Let me go back and get some alcohol.”
Lian Xi: “There’s no need. I have wine.”
The middle aged man: “Little brother, I only drink white rice spirits. I’m not used to those foreign wines that you young people drink!”
Lian Xi: “Rest assured, it’s rice wine.”
“Then all right. I’m coming in now, oh.”
After entering, the middle aged man looked around curiously.
Lian Xi went into the kitchen and took out a bottle of Yanghe Daqu from the cabinet. He took out two glasses and put them on the table. He poured the middle aged man wine and himself water.
The middle aged man: “You don’t drink?”
Lian Xi: “If I drink I might make a mistake”.
“This is not giving me face!”
“My dad died from drink driving.”
“……”
Lian Xi added another blow on top: “Originally he didn’t want to drink but his friends he was eating with kept persuading him, saying that if he didn’t drink it wasn’t giving them face. So after that I never drink alcohol.”
Of course, prior to that he hadn’t ever drunk either.
“…..”
The middle aged man: “I’m sorry ah, little brother. I didn’t know. Then I’ll drink alone.”
The friendship of a middle-aged man came on as quickly and as easily as a bottle of strong spirits. As long as you called him older brother and let him call you younger brother, then you would transform into a brother from another mother.
The middle-aged man drank and ate meat. Soon his face was flushed and it was clear that he was a little bit drunk. He kept trying to pull Lian Xi into to talk more.
“Little brother, I heard that you’re a live steamer. What’s that?”
“It’s just facing the computer and doing some stuff online?”
“Computer? I don’t really understand what it is you young people do.” The man was drunk. His arm pressed on the table to prevent his entire body from slipping down. He raised his head and squinted his eyes. “Everyone says live broadcasting is very noisy and they hate living next door to someone who does it. But little brother, how come every day you’re so quiet? I never hear any noises from your place.”
Lian Xi: “….”
It really wasn’t fun to chat. As soon as he tried it, it turned into a sore subject.
Why was he so quiet?
It was noisy when other people did live broadcasts because other people knew how to chat and speak very well!
Lian Xi was an introverted mushroom. Every day when he made a live broadcast it was muddled and he didn’t like to talk.
In addition, other live streamers made a lot of noise because they wanted to thank big brothers for buying them gifts. They had to excitedly say things like, “Thank you big brother for donating 666! Brothers, pay attention to this big brother! Thank you big brother! Big brother is generous!”
When Lian Xi did a live broadcast, there sometimes wouldn’t be a single soul who would give a gift. So even if he wanted to thank someone, there wasn’t any such opportunity.
So how could his live broadcast make enough noise to annoy his neighbours? If so, how could he live in this sort of place?
The middle aged man didn’t get bogged down in talking about live streaming. After all, it wasn’t something he understood. He was just mentioning a few words casually. He looked at the dark brown bloodstain next to the dining table and after a while he raised his hand and said quietly, “….little brother, aren’t you afraid?”
Lian Xi was quiet. His clear and calm eyes looked at the middle aged man. He replied, “Then why aren’t you scared?”
The four eyes stared at each other.
Lian Xi’s eyes were deep and dark like an abyss of a thousand feet. There weren’t any ripples or sparks of light.
The middle-aged man felt his scalp go numb. He laughed dryly and reached for the bottle of wine on the table. He lowered his head to pour himself another, trying to dispel the tense energy in the air. “I’m just talking casually. After all, it’s not like ghosts can really bother people. And where else in Su City can I find another place that’s so cheap? If not because it’s going to be demolished, I really want to continue living here longer….”
“Pu-dong——”
His voice suddenly ceased.
A bloody and pus-filled eyeball landed, with a thump, in the wine glass in front of the middle-aged man.
The room went silent.
Lian Xi didn’t speak.
The middle-aged man also didn’t say a thing.
The clock on the wall ticked by second by second.
After an unknown period of time, the middle-aged man reached out and scooped out the eyeball that fell into the wine glass. He slapped it back into his eye socket in one go. He raised his head and exposed a bloody and horrible looking left eye. If a human eyeball didn’t fall out, no one would realize how big it actually was. Around it the skin had become rotten and maggots were wiggling about.
Only the white eyeball was still moving around unceasingly.
The middle aged man gave a hoarse laugh in the back of his throat. The sound was definitely not one that a human could make. It sounded like rough sand rubbing against a blackboard.
“Sorry little brother ah. I embarrassed myself.”
