Chapter 720: The Eighth Floor

Li Ming stood behind the bedroom door. By the time I reached him, his expression had returned to normal. The rapid shift of two distinct emotions across his young face was jarring. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed a six- or seven-year-old child capable of such a feat.

"What are you doing?" I glanced at Li Ming, then stared at the spot he had just been watching. In the mirror, a tall and a short blurry silhouette leaned against each other. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

"Please, take me away. I miss my mom and dad." Fresh tears pooled in the corners of Li Ming's eyes. Between his natural adorableness and the thick sob in his voice, his plea was enough to soften anyone's heart.

I still harbored my doubts, but considering he was only a child, I pushed them aside and led him out of the bedroom. "Don't run off. Stick close to me, and once the sun comes up, I'll get you home safely."

In truth, I wasn't entirely sure I could actually get him home in one piece. I had only made the promise to keep him calm for now.

The little boy who actually lived on this sixth floor had locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out. There was no point lingering here. After giving the apartment one last thorough sweep, I took Li Ming by the hand and headed for the front door.

"Time to go." Standing at the door, I pressed my ear toward the corridor. Dead silence.

"The boy has the keys to this apartment," I murmured. "If he refuses to come out, I can't exactly take them from him. It's a shame his mind seems impaired and he can't communicate properly; otherwise, I could have brought him along too." Both of the children on the sixth floor were bizarre. They were terrified of each other, and some unknown secret definitely lay between them.

"One of these two little guys is acting..." As a live show streamer, my understanding of fear ran far deeper than most. It was more than just an emotion; it was an extreme physical state. While both boys put on a convincing display of terror, one of them was being just a little too theatrical.

Going beyond is as bad as falling short. If it had been anyone else, they might never have noticed under such intense stress. Unfortunately for him, he ran into me—a paranormal streamer with rock-solid psychological resilience.

"If you want to play, then I'll play along."

Pressing my ear to the wooden door, I listened closely. Once I was sure no one was outside, I rested my hand on the lock and slowly turned it.

The latch clicked, and I pulled the wooden door open a crack.

"Not a word," I warned Li Ming beforehand. Only then did I activate my Judging Eye and peer out into the hallway.

The thick darkness felt like a pair of massive hands trying to crush anyone trapped within it. A suffocating pressure hung heavy in the stairwell.

I shifted my gaze downward, and my heart raced the moment I spotted the footprints on the floor.

"The monster left these? This is what I have to fight in the Red Building?"

A trail of sopping wet footprints stained the otherwise dry stairs. Judging by their shape and size, they looked identical to those of a normal adult. There was nothing strange about them at all.

"The spacing of the prints is completely regular, except right in front of this apartment where they overlap. It seems that thing stood here for quite a while." Looking back on it, the timing had been terrifyingly close. If I had been even a little slower, I would probably be running for my life right now.

Staring at the footprints did yield some clues, though. At the very least, their shape proved these monsters had a physical form just like the living.

I recalled Zhu Li's paintings. "Does that thing really look like the figures he drew? Humanoid, but with its internal organs hanging on the outside?"

Whether its organs were exposed or its body was covered in bite marks and scars, these traits all pointed to the same conclusion: they were neither living humans nor your average spirits. This was a bizarre entity unlike anything I had ever seen.

"It's raining outside, and there are wet footprints on the floor. That proves this thing has a physical body, even if it's invisible to the naked eye." I stood at the front door and threw a glance back toward the mirror in the bedroom. "None of the other apartments have mirrors. The only one is hidden behind the door in this kid's bedroom. All the furniture and utensils in the apartment are set for three people. That means the boy's parents must still be living here with him—they're just invisible to the naked eye, and they can only communicate through that mirror."

As the realization struck, my expression darkened, and my eyes suddenly flew wide. "Wait, why is one of the rotten apples in front of the mirror missing?"

The boy had evenly divided the rotten apples in front of the mirror, but now, the number of apples on the two plates didn't match.

"When did that happen? I didn't notice a thing." When I had left the bedroom to call the other boy out of the bathroom, Li Ming was the only one left in there. Had he taken the apple?

I cast a suspicious look at Li Ming. He stared back innocently. There was no residue from the rotting apple around his mouth, and his clothes had no pockets where he could have hidden it.

"He didn't eat it, and it isn't on him, so where did the apple go? Is there really someone else in this room? I just can't see them?" The little boy living on the sixth floor was terrified of Li Ming. Standing here now, I also felt there was something wrong with Li Ming.

"He was abducted and brought into the Red Building. He has no connection to the tenants here, so why would the boy be afraid of him?" I had a vague answer forming in my mind, but I still needed to gather more clues to prove it.

"If mirrors can reflect those entities, then I should make good use of that." I had the Mirror Fragment I brought out from the Deep Dream Layer on me. It refused to reflect my own image, but its basic functions were no different from a normal mirror.

Pulling the wooden door open a sliver, I placed the Mirror Fragment at the doorway and angled it in every direction. After confirming there was nothing unusual outside, I said, "That thing should be gone."

Taking Li Ming by the hand, I stepped out of the apartment. The voice-activated lights down on the first floor had long since gone out. The surroundings were pitch black, making it feel as though I was inside the intestinal tract of some vicious beast.

"When the noise came from the sixth floor earlier, the voice-activated light on the first floor was the first to turn on. Those wet footprints also came tracking up from the bottom." I frowned in thought. 'The monster came in from the outside, which means it's currently even more dangerous outside the Red Building than it is inside.'

Too many people had died horrific deaths in those decades-old buildings, and now, it seemed they had returned.

I wasn't familiar with Jinghai City, but after just a few short hours of exposure, I was at least certain of one thing: rainy nights held a special significance for this city.

Whether it was the folk songs and local sayings, or the bizarre daily habits of the locals, it all ultimately boiled down to the rainy nights.

'Zhu Li and the others might be twisted, but they're definitely living people. If the living can survive inside the Red Building, then this Apartment Building must have some ability to ward off evil.' Reaching this conclusion brought me a little peace of mind. I had the key to Bai Ya'er's room, which gave me a reserved fallback route.

Clutching the Mirror Fragment, I stepped back into the stairwell. I took Li Ming's ice-cold little hand and headed up the stairs.

"A 'cute' little boy lives on the sixth floor, and the tenant on the seventh floor is missing. Now it's time to pay a visit to the woman on the eighth floor who makes a living 'selling meat'." I carefully dodged the wet footprints on the floor, making my way up.

The seventh floor connected to a safety passage that led into the other units. I made sure to check the footprints at the fork; the other party hadn't left my current unit, but had continued straight up.

"That monster is still in the stairwell. The situation isn't looking good." Steeling my nerves, I kept a close eye on the footprints on the floor and followed them all the way to the eighth floor.

There were three iron doors. The ones on the left and right were battered and worn, while only the middle door was pasted with couplets and door gods.

"Pretty high-profile, even putting up couplets. It seems this tenant has been living in the Red Building for quite a while." I stood at the door, just preparing to knock. My hand was already raised when I suddenly noticed a hole opened above the iron door. A wire dangled down through that small hole. Because the wire was tied to the iron door, I hadn't spotted it at first.

"Tying a wire to an iron door? Isn't she afraid of an accident?" Aside from the first floor, I hadn't seen any voice-activated lights or exposed wiring in the Red Building. "What's the use of this wire coming out of the tenant's room?" I untied it and gave it a gentle tug. Surprisingly, a crisp bell chime rang out from inside the door.

It was a bit of a distance from the door; the bell sound was likely coming from the tenant's bedroom.

The sound quickly stopped, and everything returned to normal.

"This wire has a bell tied to it. A tug on the outside and they can hear it inside, saving the trouble of knocking." I thought it over carefully. This woman on the eighth floor made her living by selling meat in the Red Building. As for what kind of "meat" she was selling, I could roughly guess a thing or two.

"Perfect, saves me the trouble of knocking." I continually tugged at the bell. After ten seconds or so, the sound of slippers scraping across the concrete floor echoed from within the apartment. "Finally couldn't hold back and decided to come out?"

I stopped what I was doing and planted myself in front of the door.

Another moment passed, and the inner wooden door didn't budge. Instead, a voice sweet to the bone drifted through the door. "Today... doesn't work."

"What do you mean?" Grabbing the wire, I froze for a moment, quickly realizing this woman had misunderstood my intentions.

My eyes darting, I simply decided to play along and lowered my voice. "Let me in, or else I'm staying right here at your door tonight."

"Today really doesn't work. You have to wait until the rain stops. Why are you so unruly?"

"Don't give me that nonsense about rules. Let me in." I knew how dangerous it was in the stairwell and didn't want to waste any time. "It's just past midnight. Dragging this out won't do either of us any good."

"Are you really in that much of a rush? Then... alright." The female voice hesitated for a long time before finally pulling the inner wooden door open a crack. "But staying the night costs extra."

Seeing the wooden door open, I grabbed the handle of the iron door directly. The moment she unlocked the iron door, I rushed inside, giving her absolutely no chance to change her mind.

The woman didn't seem to notice anything amiss. She relocked the iron door, carefully shut the wooden door, and only then turned to look at me.

The first time she laid eyes on me, she realized something was wrong. Her pitch spiked, sounding somewhat sharp. "Did you just move in? How come I've never seen you before?"

As the woman studied me, I was sizing her up as well.

She was around 1.6 meters tall and slightly plump, with a cute face that made her look quite young.

She wore only a thin shirt, leaving both her legs exposed. Her skin was incredibly pale, but the thing that caught my attention the most was the grease stain at the corner of her mouth. It looked like she had just finished eating something.