Chapter 700: The Same Location

Compared to Longchang Community from before, a name like Pig Cage Apartments stuck in the mind much more easily—after all, very few places would ever be given such a bizarre name.

'It's eight-ten right now. The stream starts at midnight, so I still have plenty to prepare.' I set down the Live Show's Large-Screen Phone and sat on the musty wooden bed. 'When I escaped from the Three Yin Sect, I faked my own death, so the online wanted notice for me should be dropped soon. I still need to be careful, though. All kinds of people mingle in the livestream room. If I can stream normally tonight, wearing the Good and Evil Asura Mask will be the safer bet.'

The Human Skin Mask was my biggest secret. This face could never be exposed; I would rather stream with my real face to leave myself a way out.

Truth be told, I knew full well that wearing the Good and Evil Asura Mask was just fooling myself. Still, as long as the recording of the stream didn't leak, it wouldn't matter even if the livestream viewers reported me. They had no way to keep evidence, and if they talked too much and touched on the Live Show's secrets, the Live Show wouldn't let them off either.

I let out a sigh. Plenty of other troubles weighed on me. The Human Skin Mask required maintenance and couldn't be worn indefinitely; coupled with the damp, muggy environment here, its edges were already showing signs of wear and wrinkling.

Maintaining the Human Skin Mask called for rather special materials, so even though I knew the method, I had no way to repair it right now.

'Looks like I'll have to stay in Jinghai City a while longer.' I ran a hand over my face. That layer of cold skin felt deeply unpleasant, yet there was nothing I could do about it.

Nobody in this world liked living behind someone else's face; it was only ever done when backed into a corner.

'I have to stay sharp for this stream and keep my location hidden as much as possible.' Once the phone was fully charged, I packed my important belongings, tore off a slip of paper to wedge at the bottom of the door, and finally pulled it shut and left.

Jinghai City was completely unfamiliar to me. If I wanted the stream to go smoothly, I needed to gather some basic information first.

The inn I was staying at had been converted from a residential building. It was three stories tall and didn't take up much ground, yet it had been carved up tightly into more than a dozen cramped little rooms, much like a beehive.

"Boss, do you have hot water here?" I called out toward the end of the hallway. Nobody answered, so I headed in the direction I remembered the middle-aged woman going.

Shabby as the inn was, plenty of people stayed here, and muffled noises drifted from behind every door.

"Anyone here?" At the very end of the corridor was the boss's own single room. The door stood half-open, and the sound of a male and female lead arguing in a soap opera drifted from inside.

I peered through the gap in the door. The room was twice the size of a normal guest room, with a battered sofa and a foul-smelling wire-mesh bed facing away from the doorway.

The middle-aged woman was absorbed in the TV, her hands greasy from whatever she had just finished eating.

Just as I was about to speak, I caught sight of a ghostly scrawled talisman pasted on the far wall of the room.

Come to think of it, I had dabbled in Buddhist arts, the Fate Ghost, and the Ghost Dao alike, yet I couldn't make sense of the talisman on her wall.

It didn't look like a common wealth-seeking talisman, nor was it any kind of Talisman Paper meant to protect one's luck or pray for blessings. Its strokes were jagged and chaotic, giving it a deeply eerie appearance.

What struck me as even stranger was that household talismans were normally pasted on door lintels, roof beams, or entryways, whereas the talisman in her room was pasted right at the head of her bed.

'What does this mean? Is it meant to suppress evil spirits, or to suppress herself? Could it be a talisman for dispelling nightmares, pasted at the head of the bed to help someone sleep in peace?' Unable to figure it out, I knocked on the door and asked politely, "Boss, do you have hot water here?"

Only when she heard the knock did the middle-aged woman turn her head. She grabbed a piece of coarse cloth from the table and wiped her hands carelessly. "Does it have to be hot water? There's mineral water downstairs, five yuan a bottle."

"Downstairs? How come I didn't see any just now?" I was only making conversation with her to fish for useful information.

"What a hassle," the middle-aged woman muttered, rising from the sunken sofa. "I'll go get it for you. How many bottles do you want?"

Once she stood up, I noticed something else.

The boss's hands and the corners of her mouth glistened with grease, yet there wasn't any food in the room—only that strange smell wafting from the wire-mesh bed.

"Just one bottle for now. By the way, do you have anything to eat around here? I've been on the road all day, and I'm starving." Putting on a broad smile, I tried my best to look simple and honest.

"This is an inn, not a restaurant. Go look outside if you want a meal—there are several places at the mouth of the alley." Wearing those grease-stained clothes, the middle-aged woman headed reluctantly downstairs.

"Boss, do you have any local specialties around here? The kind of food you folks usually like to eat," I probed cautiously.

"No. If you want good food, go to the inner district. Out here, you just eat whatever's made for you." Her attitude was awful, and she barely gave me the time of day. "Since you're staying here, I'll give you one piece of advice. Outsiders coming to Jinghai shouldn't wander around the outer district aimlessly—watch out, or you'll end up getting yourself killed."

"Is the outer district really that chaotic?" I feigned surprise. "Boss, don't tell me you're trying to scare me on purpose just because I'm young. The moment I walked in the door, you told me some story about how women carrying black umbrellas on rainy days can't stay at the inn, and now you're saying the outer district is dangerous. Jinghai is a tier-one city in Huaxia and a special economic zone, after all. If it were really like you say, wouldn't things be completely out of hand?"

"Talk about treating a kind heart as a donkey's lungs. Ignore an elder's advice and you'll suffer for it—you're in for plenty of trouble later." The middle-aged woman didn't seem to care, ambling unhurriedly downstairs.

Seeing that the timing was right, I casually remarked, "Now that I think about it, it really is strange. On my way here, the taxi driver said pretty much the same thing you did. At the end, he warned me that there are two places in the outer district I must never go—one is called Longchang Community, and the other is called something like Pig Cage Apartments..."

Before I could even finish, the middle-aged woman walking ahead of me stopped dead in her tracks without the slightest warning, and I nearly bumped right into her back.

"What's wrong? Have you heard of those two places?" A flash of excitement glinted in my eyes before vanishing, and I forced myself to stay calm.

"Two places?" The middle-aged woman turned around slowly, the heavy flesh on her face quivering slightly. "A taxi driver told you that? Did you offend him or something?"

Her words left me somewhat baffled, unsure how to answer. "Are those two places very special?"

"Pig Cage Apartments is Longchang Community. They're the exact same place, just called by different names." A strange look came over the middle-aged woman's face as she sized me up, staring until my scalp tingled. "Why are you asking about that place?"

"I just heard someone mention it and got a little curious."

The middle-aged woman stared at me for a long moment before saying, "Outsiders shouldn't go poking their noses around. It won't do you any good."

"Boss, the way you're making it sound so eerie is giving me the creeps. Are there really unclean things out in the outer district?"

The boss ignored me. She walked downstairs, grabbed a bottle of water, shoved it into my hands, and then went back to her room with a sour look on her face.

'What's so unmentionable about it? Acting all secretive.' My mind turned it over. Judging by the middle-aged woman's reaction, all the locals probably knew about Pig Cage Apartments and Longchang Community—it wasn't some deeply hidden secret.

'Now this is interesting. The task issued by the Live Show matches the location provided by that streamer, and both are in Jinghai City. I really don't know if that's a stroke of luck or a misfortune.' Having this stream take place in Jinghai City was good news for me, and it also proved one thing: the Live Show hadn't given up on me. I still had value it could use.

The only thing that left me uneasy was that the task location the Live Show gave me was identical to the address that streamer had revealed to me, which made the Live Show feel all the more mysterious and terrifying.

'It's definitely not a coincidence. I should be able to figure out the reason behind it once this stream is over.' I went back to my room, packed my livestreaming gear, picked up the black umbrella by the door, and slipped out of the inn without a sound.

The restaurant sat at the mouth of the alley behind a shabby storefront. Probably because of the rain, there wasn't a single customer inside.

I casually picked up a menu from the table and called out toward the back kitchen.

Before long, a middle-aged man in his forties walked out holding a towel. The instant the door curtain lifted, I used the Judging Eye and spotted a ghostly scrawled talisman pasted on the wall of the restaurant's back room as well—identical to the one in the middle-aged woman's room at the inn.

'What is that talisman for? Why does it feel like every household has one pasted up?' I kept quiet about it, finished ordering my food, and took a random seat.

Once the food was ready, I ate at my end of the room while the middle-aged man lit a cigarette and squatted by the shop entrance with the towel draped over his shoulder, glancing deep into the alley from time to time.

His odd behavior caught my attention, though after my run-in with the middle-aged woman earlier, I took a much more tactful approach this time instead of asking outright.

"Boss, do you sell cigarettes here? Give me a pack."

The shop owner was quite warm. He stood up and walked over with a chuckle. "I don't sell cigarettes here. Here, make do with one of mine for now."

He pulled a cigarette from a crumpled soft pack and lit it for me. The smoke was harsh and stung my throat.

"Boss, you're a Jinghai local no matter how you slice it—why are you smoking five- or six-yuan cigarettes?"

"What kind of Jinghai local am I? I used to be nothing more than a farmer—I was lucky just to have dry tobacco to smoke." He didn't seem like the sharp-tongued, petty sort; he just looked as though something was weighing on his mind, his eyes darting toward the alley every now and then.

"You live right here in Jinghai and still don't count as a Jinghai local? Flipping a property like this would probably net you several million yuan, wouldn't it?"

"What you're talking about is the inner district." The middle-aged man blew out a puff of smoke. "The inner district and the outer district aren't the same. I've been hoping for demolition and redevelopment every year for more than ten years, and nothing has changed."

"That doesn't make sense. The TV says every day that land in Jinghai is tight, so why not expand outward? If you ask me, the outer district and the inner district will merge sooner or later." With every line I spoke, I quietly watched the changes in the middle-aged man's expression.

"They can't merge. The outer district is way too chaotic." The middle-aged man took puff after puff of his cigarette. Even while talking to me, his eyes stayed fixed on the pitch-black alley. After a few minutes, his expression changed, and he murmured in a low voice, "It's here..."