Chapter 718: The Invisible Family (2)

The rotting apples gave off a foul odor, their oozing juice sticking to the boy's coat. He looked a bit timid, his filthy hands guarding his stomach for fear they would fall.

"You're taking these things back?" I looked at the little boy, countless questions springing up in my mind. "You live in the Red Building and survive by digging through the trash? Where is your family?"

The boy looked at me timidly. Standing by the coffee table, he didn't dare to make any sudden movements, only occasionally shaking his head.

"It's exhausting trying to communicate." I watched the boy's every move, noting the deep-seated unease hidden on his face. I felt a sudden pang of pity; no matter what, he was still just a child.

I rubbed his head. "Where do you usually stay? Can you take me to see it?"

The sensation against my palm was very strange. The boy's hair was stiff, and his skin was wrinkled and shriveled. Whether it was due to prolonged malnutrition or some other reason, the child's skin felt far too rough compared to others his age—like that of an elderly man in his sixties or seventies.

The boy gave a slight nod. Hugging the rotten apples with both hands, he cautiously squeezed past me. He broke into a jog, picking up speed as if he wanted to get away from me as quickly as possible.

"Wait." I reached out and pressed my hand to his shoulder. The moment my fingers touched him, his body gave a clear shudder, as if he had been badly frightened.

The boy's various oddities made me suspicious.

Raising the hand holding the black bag, I pointed at the red wooden door. "Was the door unlocked when you came in?"

The boy turned around blankly and nodded as stiffly as a wooden puppet. Knowing I wouldn't get anything out of him, I didn't press the matter. I sighed and walked out of the room with him.

I pushed open the wooden door. A dead silence filled the corridor—it was even more terrifying than a ghost domain.

"The seventh floor..." The seventh-floor tenant had only recently disappeared. I had originally wanted to figure out the reason behind it, which would greatly help my exploration of the Red Building. But after encountering the little boy, I temporarily changed my mind and decided to uncover this child's secrets first. After all, compared to the adults in the Red Building, a child was much easier to deal with.

At the corner between the seventh and eighth floors was an emergency stairwell. Even using the Judging Eye, I couldn't see what was at the end of the passage. "Following the emergency stairwell leads to the other units in the Red Building; the elevators should be installed there."

Although I didn't walk over, I could faintly sense the danger. Murderous intent lurked at every step within the Red Building. It seemed peaceful, but in reality, one wrong move and I would likely plunge into the abyss, never to recover.

"The little boy is a breakthrough point. Even if he refuses to talk to me, I have ways to deduce clues from his living habits." Closing the door to the seventh-floor rental unit, I grabbed the boy's shoulder and returned to the sixth floor with him. "Which one is your home?"

The boy seemed to understand. Cradling the apples in one arm, he reached his other hand down his collar and pulled out a set of filthy keys.

"So they were hanging around his neck."

The keys the boy took out were the same design as the ones I had snatched from Bai Ya'er, only the teeth were cut differently.

Hugging the apples, he clumsily approached the iron door. Because he was so short, he had to stand on his tiptoes to insert the key into the lock.

It should have been an ordinary movement, but he was too nervous. His body tilted, and one of the rotten apples tumbled out of his arms.

The moldy, spoiled apple rolled down the stairs. My heart leaped into my throat. Time seemed to slow down as my eyes tracked the apple's movement.

Before my body could react, the apple had already rolled through the gap in the stair railing.

As luck would have it, the rotten apple dropped straight from the sixth floor, bouncing against the iron railings before finally smashing in front of Doctor Zhang's door on the fourth floor with a heavy thud.

The sound of the apple falling wasn't actually that loud, but the corridor was so quiet that the noise carried far away.

I leaned over the railing and looked down. When I saw that the voice-activated lights on the first floor had lit up in response, my face turned deathly pale.

"Oh no!"

I possessed the Judging Eye, so looking down from my vantage point, I could see everything crystal clear. Under the glow of the voice-activated lights, a pair of wet footprints was sprinting rapidly up the clean concrete stairs!

There was clearly no one there, but those footprints were moving faster and faster!

"It's coming my way?! The sound of the falling apple attracted it! Damn it, what is this thing!"

Even using the Judging Eye, I couldn't see it. All that remained in my vision was that pair of rapidly moving footprints.

'Is this the "it" Zhu Li talked about?' Thoughts sparked in my mind. Before I could come up with an answer, I looked down again—and the footprints had already reached the second floor!

Right at that moment, something even worse happened. The voice-activated lights on the first floor suddenly went out!

I knew full well that something was rushing up the stairwell at breakneck speed, yet I couldn't see it. The suffocating urgency made my chest tight.

"There's only one way to get away now." I turned and walked toward the little boy. Completely unaware of the impending danger, he held the apples with one hand while the other was still searching for the wooden door's keyhole.

"There's no time!" I grabbed the keys around his neck, disregarding how he might react. I pulled him along, opened the red wooden door, shoved him straight inside, and squeezed in right behind him.

I was so panicked that I didn't even shut the outer iron door securely; I only managed to lock the inner red wooden door.

"Shut up, don't make a sound!" Not daring to turn on the lights, I pulled the boy over and leaned against the wooden door, holding my breath.

One second, two seconds...

Half a minute passed, but there was still no movement outside. It was far too quiet.

'Did that thing leave? Or... is it crouching right outside, separated from me by nothing but a wooden door?' My palms were drenched in sweat. I took a deep breath to calm my violently pounding heart, and only then did I peer through the crack in the door.

The corridor had returned to silence. It was pitch black and faintly exuded a biting chill. The air seemed to carry the dampness of rain.

'It seems to have been here...' Looking out through the crack, there were blind spots in my vision, so I couldn't be entirely sure if the thing had actually left.

Withdrawing my gaze in trepidation, my tense muscles finally relaxed. Only then did I have time to inspect the little boy's home.

"Shoe cabinet, table, chairs, wardrobe..." Halfway through looking around, I noticed something was wrong. The layout of the boy's home was identical to the others, but the furniture inside was all miniature, seemingly tailor-made just for him.

There was no sofa in the apartment. The dining table in the living room was the same height as the coffee table in Bai Ya'er's home, and beside it sat three dilapidated wooden chairs covered in mildew.

'Three chairs? Are the two extra ones for the boy's parents?' I groped along the wall for a moment but failed to find a light switch. Filled with doubt, I followed the boy into the living room.

The boy didn't turn on the lights either. He seemed to have long grown accustomed to the dark. Placing the rotten apples on the dining table, he fairly divided them into three portions.

Watching the boy's bizarre behavior, I felt a chill creep up my spine. 'Could there be other people living in this apartment?' I thought to myself.

The boy ran into the kitchen and brought out two plates. He placed the separated apples onto them, leaving only his own portion on the table.

"Are these for your mom and dad? Can you take me to see them?" I asked softly. The boy neither refused nor agreed. Holding the plates, he entered the bedroom.

When the door was pushed open, a faint stench drifted out of the room. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't the smell of mildew.

The bedroom's layout was similar to the living room's. The bed was very low, and the bedding was damp, with mildew already growing around the edges.

'There's no one else in the room?' My senses were extremely sharp, far beyond those of an ordinary person. If someone else were hiding in the room, they definitely wouldn't be able to fool me.

'The rental unit is only so big, and everything is lower and more miniature than usual; it simply couldn't hide an adult,' I thought to myself, but I wasn't entirely certain. Right by the bed were two pairs of adult slippers. Interestingly, the way they were placed was very peculiar—both pairs had their toes pointing toward the bed.

'When the boy went to the kitchen to get things just now, I also took a look. Whether in the kitchen or the bathroom, all the utensils were in sets of three. Judging solely from these details, there should be three people living in this apartment.'

Completely unable to figure it out, I leaned against the bedroom door, holding that severed hand. Just as I was about to see what the boy would do next, I suddenly noticed that he had frozen in place. Holding the plates in both hands, he stared at me with an indescribably bizarre look.

It was hard to imagine that a child's gaze could actually give me the creeps. Offering a bitter smile, I walked toward him. "What do you want me to do?"

The boy didn't speak. The moment I stepped away from the bedroom door, he squeezed right past me, set the plates down, and shut the door.

"You're..." I didn't finish my sentence. The rest of the words caught in my throat as my eyes locked onto the bedroom door.

Behind this completely ordinary door, a life-sized mirror had actually been installed!

Without the lights turned on in the room, the reflection in the mirror was a blurry mess, but two dark shadows could faintly be seen.

"Why is there a mirror behind the door?" I blurted out. Only after speaking did I suddenly realize a crucial issue. Since entering the Red Building, this seemed to be the very first time I had seen a mirror!

'That's right, I didn't see any mirrors in the homes of Zhu Li, Bai Ya'er, or the others.' Thinking about it now, it was completely unnatural. It was understandable for Zhu Li and the Doctor not to have mirrors, but for Bai Ya'er—a physical model, a woman who cared about her appearance—to not have a mirror in her apartment was incomprehensible.

'I saw cosmetics in her bathroom, but I didn't find a mirror. Right! How could I have overlooked such a critical detail!' A sudden thought popped into my head. 'Mirrors must hold a special significance in the Red Building, and the Live Show's first optional task is related to mirrors...'