"Women's underwear?" Wen Qing hadn't noticed those details. It was only after
"Wu You must have seen his secret too, which is why he came running out to stop us after learning we'd been in contact with Wu You." Chen Ge and Wen Qing stood in the hallway, both speaking in low voices so only the other could hear. "What worries me most isn't the man stealing underwear—it's what he said. Wu You kept the door open, waiting for his parents to come home, which means he thought his family had only gone out. But that middle-aged man said Wu You's parents were killed by Wu You himself."
"Are you saying the middle-aged man murdered Wu You's parents?" Wen Qing followed behind Chen Ge, and her way of thinking was gradually becoming more similar to his.
"I think it was a group effort. No single person was the direct killer, but all of them had a hand in Wu You's parents' deaths." After meeting three of the tenants, Chen Ge had discovered that this building had its own unspoken rules, and the residents had tacitly agreed to them. Anyone who tried to break those rules would likely be targeted by everyone. "When a person witnesses a murder and doesn't cooperate with the police investigation—when they maliciously conceal what they know—they become an accomplice."
"By that logic, I feel so sorry for Wu You. After we find Xiang Nuan, should we take him with us when we leave?" Wen Qing was a very kind woman, but kindness was the most useless trait for the natives behind the door. If you wanted to survive in this place for the long term, the first thing you had to discard was the goodness in your heart.
"Let's find Xiang Nuan first."
They followed the stairs down to the second floor, and both Chen Ge and Wen Qing stopped in their tracks.
Standing in the gloomy second-floor corridor was an old woman, clutching a porcelain bowl stained with grime. Inside the bowl were some coins and leftover scraps of food.
The old woman had been standing outside a particular door, straining with all her might to twist the door handle, but no matter how hard she tried, the door refused to open.
When Chen Ge walked past, the old woman spotted him, turned, and shuffled toward him.
Her filth-covered hand waved in front of Chen Ge. She held out the bowl, making clicking sounds in her throat that sent chills down the spine.
"Granny Li?" Wen Qing recognized the old woman. She was visibly shocked at the sight of her condition.
"You know her? From your neighborhood?"
"She used to live there. Later, her son said she'd gone missing. Nobody's seen her for years." Wen Qing's eyes were filled with astonishment. "That old woman used to be so refined—hair combed perfectly neat, not a single wrinkle on her clothes. She'd spend hours in the garden by herself, tending to all those flowers and plants."
"Could it be that her son didn't want to take care of her anymore and just abandoned her?"
"She's his mother, not some object. How could anyone just throw her away?"
"Don't overestimate human nature. I saw the news the other day about a man who buried his paralyzed mother alive. Even novels wouldn't dare write something like that."
Chen Ge and Wen Qing stood in place. The old woman's mind seemed to have suffered some severe shock—she was rambling and incoherent, impossible to communicate with, only persistently thrusting the bowl toward Chen Ge.
"Are you hungry?" Chen Ge didn't mind the old woman's filthy clothes. He stepped closer and said gently, "Would you like me to walk you home?"
Based on Wen Qing's brief description, Chen Ge felt this crazy old woman was a "good person"—the kind who might be an ally worth winning over.
The old woman seemed unable to form complete sentences. She anxiously shoved the bowl toward Chen Ge, strange sounds rasping from her throat.
Chen Ge fished a small bill from his pocket and placed it in the old woman's bowl, but she stubbornly kept the bowl raised, her hands gesturing desperately at something. What she wanted wasn't money—she wanted something else entirely.
The commotion the old woman was causing drew attention. After a tense standoff lasting over a dozen seconds, the door to room 206, near the staircase on the second floor, swung open.
"You again." A young man stood in the doorway, wearing headphones, his face unnaturally pale as though he hadn't seen sunlight in a long time. "I just chased you off. How are you back already?"
He looked at the filthy old woman with open disgust, stepped out, and physically pulled Chen Ge away from her. "Don't let this old hag latch onto you. If she does, she'll follow you everywhere—like some kind of death-haunting ghost. Annoying as hell."
The young man in room 206 was, so far, the most normal person Chen Ge had encountered behind the door. His speech patterns, his appearance—everything about him was exactly like an ordinary person from the outside world.
"Xiao Sun?" Wen Qing recognized the young man, but he didn't recognize her.
"Who are you? Never mind, I don't care to know. Keep it down—I'm recording a song in here." The young man shut the door right after speaking.
"Is that young man the old woman's family?" Chen Ge asked quietly.
"No. Granny Li lives in 205. Her son looks quite fierce—nothing like her at all."
"Then who is Xiao Sun? He feels different from the other tenants." Chen Ge stared at room 206. As he encountered more and more tenants, his confusion only deepened. This was Xiang Nuan's world behind the door—what kind of relationship did these people have with Xiang Nuan?
"Xiao Sun is a college student. Likes singing. He rented room 206 in Jinhua Community for a while. He paid six months' rent upfront but moved out in the second month. Didn't even ask for his deposit back. Left a bunch of stuff behind too. The landlord complained about it for ages."
"What was your impression of him?"
"He rarely left his room. Didn't go to classes. Didn't talk much. Occasionally he'd make a trip to the supermarket and buy a huge haul of daily necessities and food. In my mind, he was just a regular shut-in."
"A perfectly ordinary shut-in who mysteriously vanished two months after moving into your community." When the door had briefly opened earlier, Chen Ge had used his Yin Eye to peer inside room 206. He'd noticed several cracks running across the walls, with plaster peeling off badly. The interior was in terrible condition.
"What do you mean, mysteriously vanished? Maybe he just had an emergency and didn't have time to notify the landlord. Oh, I heard from the landlord that the room Xiao Sun rented was an absolute mess—garbage piled up like mountains, furniture broken. Maybe he was afraid he'd have to pay for the damages, so he just snuck away."
"A sheep living among a pack of wolves—what do you think happens to that sheep?"
"What are you trying to say?"
"If it doesn't become a wolf, it gets eaten by wolves. When everyone around you is complicit, if you refuse to be an accomplice, the only thing left is to become a victim."
Granny Li heard every word Chen Ge said. Interestingly, her frantic movements began to slow, growing smaller and smaller. It seemed she understood what he'd said.
Granny Li's reaction was exactly what Chen Ge had expected. He'd deliberately discussed Xiao Sun right in front of her as a test.
Surviving in the world behind the door was extraordinarily difficult. Every "person" needed their own reason not to be killed.
Wu You was a compulsive liar. Granny Li was insane. Xiao Sun appeared to be the most normal one, which meant he was in the most danger going forward. Of course, if he had already "compromised," that was a different matter entirely.
Her hands trembling around the porcelain bowl, Granny Li couldn't speak. She stopped all her strange gestures and simply followed behind Chen Ge, refusing to leave.
It was just as Xiao Sun had said earlier—Granny Li was like a "death-haunting ghost," clinging on and refusing to let go no matter what.