Chapter 708: Food

"It?"

I noticed the sudden change in Bai Ya'er's expression. Just as I was about to ask for details, she scrambled out of bed and stumbled toward the door. As she passed me, she shot me a vicious glare. "It's all your fault! All your fault!"

I had just saved her life. Not only was she ungrateful, she was actually complaining. Had I known, I would have left her by the side of the road and driven off alone.

Then again, Bai Ya'er's abnormal behavior proved one thing. When the voice-activated lights mysteriously turned on earlier, something had indeed followed me upstairs.

The woman walked over to the red-painted wooden door, pressed her body flat against it, faced the balcony, and turned off the living room lights.

I couldn't understand her actions. Did this woman also have the ability to see in the dark? Or would that unclean thing only reveal itself in the darkness?

Bai Ya'er waved me over, gesturing for me to stand beside her.

"What are you looking at?"

She shushed me with a gesture and pointed toward the balcony.

From this spot, we had a clear view of the ruined architecture across the way. Dark clouds pressed down from above as endless, pattering rain washed over the Ancient Building.

I didn't know how long we watched, but the rain grew heavier. Through the torrential downpour connecting heaven and earth, shifting dark silhouettes faintly began to appear inside the abandoned Ancient Building.

I possessed the Judging Eye. Even though I couldn't see perfectly clearly, I was sixty to seventy percent sure those things weren't living people.

The shadows inside the ancient architecture drifted through the various rooms as if searching for someone. Among them was a short, small silhouette trailing at the very back, holding something like a rubber ball.

It ran a few steps and dropped the "ball" in its hands. As it leaned by the railing to pick it up, it looked straight up at Bai Ya'er's room the instant it grabbed the ball.

We were at the exact same height. Both on the fourth floor.

When the dark silhouette stared at me, a very strange sensation washed over me. Space and time seemed to distort. For a brief moment, I forgot I was in the Red Building and felt as if I were standing right there in that ancient building complex. The small shadow's face grew clearer and clearer.

It was like standing over an ancient well and looking at the crescent moon reflected in the water. As the ripples faded, everything became incredibly real.

A faded, washed-out coat covered in patches. My gaze moved upward, and just as I was about to see the short shadow's face, it suddenly hugged the ball and turned away. The moment it left, that bizarre sensation completely vanished, as if nothing had ever happened.

"What just happened? Why did I hallucinate when making eye contact with that shadow? Was it the power of a formation? Or because of the terrain?" I was completely baffled, so I could only turn my attention to Bai Ya'er.

I tapped her shoulder. Only then did she seem to jolt awake from a nightmare, her face deathly pale and drenched in a fine sweat.

"Now can you tell me why you did that? And what exactly is the 'it' you were talking about?" I had so many questions, my doubts piling up by the second.

Faint light once again illuminated the chilly little room. Bai Ya'er slumped onto the floor, muttering to herself. "It followed you in, but then it left. No, maybe it just lingered at the door for a while."

"What are you talking about? Can you explain it to me?"

Under my repeated questioning, Bai Ya'er finally relented. "Just treat what I'm about to tell you as a story. Don't take it seriously, and don't look too deeply into it. Seeing as you brought me home and didn't try anything funny, I'll point you to a way out. Since it isn't midnight yet, hurry up and leave the Red Building. Run south. Run as far away as you can."

"In this pouring rain, you want me to run through the wasteland all by myself?" I frowned, looking at Bai Ya'er.

"You'll be lucky if you can even escape." She scrambled up from the floor, the alcohol long since scared out of her system. "Do you know what that place across from us is? The Longchang Community!"

"I heard people mention it when I first arrived in Jinghai. That place is also called the Pig Cage Apartments. It seems to be a local taboo; adults don't even let kids near it." I gestured for her to continue.

"You only know it as the Pig Cage Apartments, but you don't know the origin of that nickname." Bai Ya'er shivered, a trace of chill creeping into her voice. "Decades ago, Jinghai was a foreign concession. At that time, the flames of war scorched the Land of Huaxia. To escape the fighting, refugees from over a dozen surrounding towns flocked to the outskirts of the concession, hoping to be let inside for shelter. But there were too many disaster victims seeking asylum, and the concession authorities never intended to let them in from the start. To prevent riots, they came up with a compromise: building the 'Pig Cage' encampment, the predecessor to the Longchang Community."

"This area was a buffer zone between the concession and Huaxia. It didn't actually belong to the concession. They only did it to placate the masses. When the war reached that stage, they could barely protect themselves, let alone take care of others." Bai Ya'er pointed at the massive sprawl of architecture in front of us. "What you're seeing now is only a preserved fraction of it. The true Pig Cage Apartments covered a massive area. Back then, the refugees were settled here. Often, five or six people would be crammed into a single room of just a few square meters."

"Five or six people living in such a tiny room?" I was somewhat skeptical. With that many people packed together, they wouldn't even be able to stretch out to sleep.

"Five or six was just the beginning. As the war raged on, more and more refugees gathered outside the concession. In the face of life and death, the vast majority of people are selfish. Everyone wanted to get into the concession for shelter, but there was only so much housing. To secure a spot in the Pig Cage Apartments, all sorts of dark, filthy transactions took place in secret." Bai Ya'er didn't describe the details of those transactions, as if they were too unspeakable.

War was the root of all suffering. As long as the war didn't end, that suffering would continue to fester until it eventually forced living people to become monsters.

"More and more people lived in the Pig Cage Apartments. Some rooms even had over a dozen people crammed inside. Have you ever seen a pigsty in the countryside? People were packed together, eating, drinking, and relieving themselves in the same space, all just to survive. But they lived without a shred of dignity, exactly like livestock. And that was only the beginning. The truly tragic and horrifying events happened a few months later. The invaders besieged the concession and cut off the food supply. Think about it. With so many people left without food, what were they supposed to do?"

Bai Ya'er's voice wavered. She weighed every word for a long time before slowly speaking them aloud. "Some people wanted to leave, but the entire concession, including the outer perimeters, was completely blockaded. Leaving meant death. To survive, the residents of the Pig Cage Apartments tried everything. They dug up wild herbs, caught fish and frogs in puddles... but there were simply too many people. Those things weren't nearly enough. Before long, to get just enough food to scrape by, they resorted to stealing, robbing, and trading their bodies. They stopped at nothing. Soon, this apartment block in the buffer zone lost what little order it had left. Everything collapsed into chaos."

I already guessed what happened next. It was exactly as the restaurant owner had revealed back then.

When the first waft of cooking meat drifted from the Longchang Apartments, a brand-new term quietly began to spread. The people here formed an unspoken understanding, using the rules of human society to establish the most absurd method of survival.

The food was selected from within the individual rooms. Whoever was chosen became the food.

After hearing Bai Ya'er's words, my chest felt heavy. Time had passed, washing away the stench of blood that once shrouded the Pig Cage Apartments, leaving behind only those dilapidated, honeycomb-like Ancient Buildings. They dragged their broken bodies, sprawling across the wasteland as if recounting that sick, maddening history.

"It is terrifying, but it's all in the past now." I glanced at Bai Ya'er. "You aren't a Jinghai local, and you've only been here for three months. Who told you all this?"

Bai Ya'er was momentarily at a loss for words and didn't answer my question. "We got sidetracked. Now I'll tell you what's really important. Over a decade ago, Jinghai City was established as a special economic zone. The economy skyrocketed, and more and more people came here to chase their dreams. Housing and commodity prices in the inner district soared. Businessmen saw an opportunity, certain that the outer district would soon follow suit. One of them, looking for a cheap deal, bought up the Old Site of Pig Cage Apartments for next to nothing."

"That man didn't believe in the superstitions and wanted to tear down the Ancient Building. After the construction plans were finalized, many people tried to dissuade him, including survivors of the Pig Cage Apartments. Unfortunately, the businessman was blinded by money and insisted on having his way. In the end, before construction could even begin, this wealthy businessman died in an accident." Bai Ya'er described it vividly. "His successor seemed to know the hidden dangers and immediately flipped the wasteland for an unbelievably low price before moving abroad. Rumor has it he never returned to Jinghai. The land changed hands several times, but not a single owner knew peace. Finally, the higher-ups stepped in and took over the property. Following the guidance of an expert, they built this Red Building right across from the Pig Cage Apartments. Because it's so close to the Longchang Apartments and sits right on the original borders of the Longchang Community, locals view this building as a part of the Pig Cage Apartments too. Over time, it adopted the exact same name as the Longchang Community."

'Bright red can intimidate evil entities, so painting the building's exterior with red paint makes sense. But giving it the exact same name is a bit strange,' I pondered to myself. 'Why continue using such an inauspicious name? There has to be something fishy going on here.'

"That is the origin of the Pig Cage Apartments. As for the 'it' I mentioned earlier..." Bai Ya'er stole a glance toward the bedroom, her voice somewhat unnatural. "I've actually never seen it myself. I've only heard the older tenants here talk about it. Every rainy night, it wanders through the hallways."

"That's as good as saying nothing at all. What exactly is 'it'?"

"I can't explain it clearly, but it definitely exists. I've heard its footsteps before. And there was one time..." Bai Ya'er lowered her voice. "It knocked on my door and lingered outside for a very long time. That was back when I first moved in."

After saying that, she gave me a push, her expression incredibly strange. "Anyway, you need to leave right now. If you wait until after midnight, you won't be able to leave even if you want to."