Chapter 706: Painter

Whenever I dealt with strangers, my first instinct was to look them in the eye.

Over the course of a dozen or so live broadcasts, I had crossed paths with all kinds of people. Some had clear eyes, like lakes on a high plateau; some had dull gazes, their bodies visibly hollowed out by wine and vice; some hid malice in the depths of their eyes like starving vipers; and others had deep, fathomless stares, like a boundless ocean.

Most of the time, I could gauge a person's character just by looking at their eyes. But this time, I wasn't so sure.

The eyes of the man behind the door were unlike any I had seen before. His eyeballs were densely covered in bulging, bloodshot veins, making him look severely sleep-deprived. Yet, paradoxically, there wasn't a trace of exhaustion in his gaze. Deep within his pupils hid an unnatural, manic excitement.

He looked like a cultist performing a sacrifice, awaiting the descent of a demon.

"Hello. Does this woman live here?" I held the drunk woman's chin and leaned a bit closer to the iron door.

The man behind the door didn't answer. His eyes twitched violently in their sockets. As the woman's face drew nearer, his pupils gradually dilated, the blood vessels in his eyes looking as if they might burst.

Noticing his abnormal behavior, I shifted the drunk woman in front of me to block, stepped to the side, and adjusted my angle. Using Judging Eye, I peered through the crack in the door into his apartment.

Bags of garbage piled high inside the foul-smelling apartment, all stuffed into black plastic trash bags. The bottoms of a few had torn open, leaking a dark yellow liquid.

The apartment wasn't large, but the walls were covered in various graffiti. Most featured living people, severed limbs, and blood—all fringe art pieces that challenged the limits of human morality.

'Is this guy a painter?' The concrete floor inside was a mess of spilled paint. Furniture had been haphazardly piled together—the table, bed, and wardrobe all crammed into a corner—leaving a large empty space in the middle of the room. A solitary easel stood squarely in the center.

'Sure enough, the people living here all have some sort of mental illness. They aren't like normal folks.' I retracted my gaze, wondering if this person could be a live show streamer.

Thinking back to the night I left Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital and ran into the live show streamer from Jinghai City, I recalled he had been entirely shrouded in a black robe. His voice was hoarse—likely faked—and judging solely by his build, he was a man.

At this thought, I couldn't help but take a few extra glances at the man behind the door, trying to compare their heights. Unfortunately, he didn't give me the chance. He remained hiding behind the door, revealing only half of his face.

"She's drunk. You two are neighbors, so you should know each other..."

Only my voice echoed in the hallway. I couldn't tell if the man behind the door was looking at me or the drunk woman. Several seconds passed before he tilted his head toward the adjacent door.

"You mean she lives in this apartment?" There were three apartments on each floor of the Red Building, and the drunk woman happened to live in the middle one.

"Thanks." Before I could finish speaking, the man shut the door. Worth noting was that he had pushed it closed with his shoulder.

'Is he holding something? Are his hands full?' An image surfaced in my mind: separated only by an iron door, a murderer had been talking to me while clutching a dripping knife and a severed head.

'It's not impossible. His place reeks, and with all those different smells mixed together, I can't even be sure if it's the stench of a corpse.' I glanced at the crack around the iron door. It was smeared with various colors of paint. He seemed to have done it on purpose. 'How cautious.'

Finding nothing else, I turned and walked to the middle iron door. I inserted the key, and the lock clicked open. "Finally got you home."

I pulled the iron door open. Flakes of rust fell away as the hinges creaked.

In the pitch-black, enclosed stairwell, the sound was especially unnerving. I glanced over my shoulder. The floors above and below were shrouded in darkness, as if some monster were hiding within.

Pushing open the heavy red wooden inner door, I dragged the drunk woman into the apartment. Before I could even find the light switch in the living room, a dark silhouette suddenly fluttered across the room.

My heart jumped, and I nearly shouted the Ghost Art Oral Formula. Fortunately, numerous live broadcasts had tempered my nerves like steel, and I forcefully held it back.

Looking closely, I realized the living room window hadn't been closed tightly. The swaying, fluttering shadow was just the curtains.

"Scaring yourself is what scares you to death," I muttered, letting out a breath. I turned around to close the outer iron door, only to find a faint light seeping through the crack of the iron door on the other side.

Flickering unsteadily, it didn't look like electric light. It looked more like the glow of an open fire!

Possessing Judging Eye, I was extremely sensitive to changes in light. Before I opened the door, there had absolutely been no light in the hallway. This faint firelight had only appeared after I opened the door.

'Light is leaking through the door crack. Is someone peeking?' To avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings, I didn't do anything drastic. Feigning complete ignorance, I simply pulled the outer iron door shut, then closed the red wooden door behind it.

'One is an eccentric lunatic, and the other is secretly peeping. It seems this woman's neighbors are far from simple.' I fumbled along the wall for a long time before finding the light switch. It was a white porcelain shell with exposed wiring, taped around the edges—extremely crude.

With a flick of my finger and a soft click, a pale white light met my eyes.

The living room light bulb had a very low wattage. The light was soft—or rather, dim.

'The people here seem to have a soft spot for the dark.' The Old Granny on the second floor had said that they never made much noise going upstairs and rarely triggered the voice-activated lights. The Painter I had just met also kept his apartment pitch-black, and now even this drunk woman's home was exactly the same.

The lighting was deliberately kept dim, as if anything too bright would attract terrible things.

I dragged the drunk woman into the living room and surveyed my surroundings.

The small apartment wasn't spacious, consisting of one living room, one bathroom, and one bedroom. The kitchen connected to the balcony, separated only by a partition.

'It might be small, but it has everything one needs. If you don't mind the environment outside, living here alone would actually be pretty nice.' I laid the woman down on the sofa and walked to the window, a black umbrella in one hand. Looking out from here, I had a perfect view of the abandoned building complex.

'The restaurant owner said Longchang Community was built decades ago, forced into construction by the concessions to give refugees a place to stay.' I recalled his words, doubts sprouting in my mind. 'If that cluster of ruined buildings is Longchang Community, then what is this Red Building? Do they share the same name? Or is there a hidden secret behind this?'

I glanced at the woman sleeping deeply on the sofa. As a tenant, she would definitely know the answer.

Although this woman had a sadomasochistic complex and likely suffered from other mental illnesses, she didn't pose any threat to me. How much trouble could a frail, skin-and-bones woman really stir up?

I closed the window and drew the curtains. Under the dim light, the slender, delicate woman lay diagonally across the sofa. Her high heels were still in the Audi, leaving her barefoot. Her firm, slender calves were pressed together, her snow-white skin like fine silk.

A lone man and woman sharing a room—unfortunately, I didn't entertain any stray thoughts.

'I have to wake her up. I need to get more clues before the midnight live broadcast officially begins.' I tore my gaze away from the woman. She was beautiful and dressed with great taste. I was curious why she would live in such a desolate place. 'What does she do for a living?'

I hadn't found any clues about her identity in the car. Now that I was in her home, I felt it necessary to do a proper investigation.

Pulling open the drawer beneath the coffee table, I found some daily necessities: a fruit knife, toilet paper, a few packets of tea, and a small bottle of hangover pills.

'Normal people rarely keep a stash of these at home. Looks like she gets hangovers often.' I twisted the pill bottle open, read the instructions, and tapped a few pills into my palm. "What a hassle. Open your mouth."

The woman was dead asleep and couldn't possibly hear me. In order to wake her up as quickly as possible, I had no choice but to grab her chin and force the pills into her mouth.

Her lips brushed against my palm, moist and soft. If it were someone with less willpower, they really might not have been able to control themselves.

I propped a sofa cushion under the back of her head to prevent the pills or anything else from getting lodged in her windpipe. Once she was settled, I grabbed a glass from the coffee table, filled it with tap water from the kitchen, and helped her drink it.

"Let's hope this works." I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:10 PM. There were still fifty minutes until the broadcast started.

Setting down my umbrella, I started wandering around her apartment.

The living room layout was simple, the floor clean, and everything was perfectly organized. Just looking at this, it was impossible to associate her with words like sadomasochism.

'The trash can is spotless and lined with a new bag. She probably empties it every day. The bathroom mirror is immaculate, her cosmetics are arranged by height, and the toothbrush and toothpaste are facing the exact same direction. Does this woman have OCD?' I looked over at the living room window. 'Something feels off. If she's truly that meticulous, why was the window open when I came in? The sky has been overcast all day, and she knew it was going to rain. Why wouldn't she close the window before leaving?'

My eyes narrowed, and I quietly backed up until my spine was pressed against the wall. 'Could it be that after she left home, some stranger broke into her apartment through the window? After all, her neighbors are a bunch of weirdos. I can't judge them by common sense.'

The apartment wasn't large, leaving almost nowhere for a person to hide. After checking the kitchen and the bathroom, I pushed open the bedroom door.

'What's that smell?' The moment the door opened, a bizarre stench drilled into my nose, smelling like something rotting.

I covered my nose and mouth and entered the bedroom. I looked around but couldn't find the source of the foul odor. 'It seems to be coming from this wall.'

Stepping up to the wall right next to the bed, my nostrils flared. 'Is there a dead body hidden inside the wall?'

I took two steps back and recalled the building's layout, realizing that this wall backed right up against the Painter's apartment. 'The smell of rot is coming from his place. Was my earlier guess correct? His hands were holding murder weapons, which was why he couldn't close the door normally?'

I pressed my palm against the surface of the wall. It was severely damp; a firm scrape of my fingers was enough to gouge out a large chunk of plaster.