Chapter 731: An Untouchable World (1)

The flame on the red candle danced, casting a dim yellow light. I wasn't sure if it was my imagination, but after entering this room, I actually felt a rare hint of warmth.

The old woman's rental apartment wasn't large, consisting of only four rooms. All the windows were pasted over with bright red paper, completely isolating the space from the outside.

"Granny, I saw something come in just now. Please be careful." I followed the blind old woman, keeping a certain distance from her.

The old woman didn't speak, heading into the inner room on her own.

She was blind, yet she didn't bump into a single piece of furniture as she walked. She seemed to know the exact placement of every item in the room. I had no idea how many years she had lived here to be so familiar with everything.

Without a cane or the wall for support, the old woman trembled her way into the inner room.

Taking a step forward, I caught a musty, aged odor. It smelled like a tree root dug out from deep within the soil and held right under my nose.

The scent was very distinct—heavy and decayed, making me reluctant to approach. The last time I had smelled something similar was in Daoist Priest Xianqing's sickroom.

The door behind me let out heavy thuds, as if something was beating against it. The iron chains rattled, but the bright red wooden door didn't budge an inch.

I looked back for a long time, my heart in my throat. I was terrified that the obsession would break in and harm the Old Granny as well.

"Don't worry, it can't come in." The Old Granny seemed to have heard the noise at the door. Gathering her silver hair, she said, "Don't be afraid. The more you fear it, the more that thing will seek you out."

"Why does it sound like you're coaxing a child?" I shook my head and grinned. "Granny, can I take a look inside the inner room? A little guy ran in here just now, and I can say for sure he's hiding in a corner somewhere."

"What do you want with him?"

"I just want to ask him a few things about the Red Building and that complex of ancient architecture across the way." My voice was completely sincere. The old woman was advanced in years, and I didn't sense any malice from her. I had no reason to lie.

"If you want to know something, you can just ask me. That child is timid; you'll scare him." The old woman spoke slowly, her voice kind.

"That child?" I picked up on the implication in her words. It was obvious that the blind old woman and that short, dark figure knew each other. It was even possible that the person she had been waiting for all along was him.

"It's a long story. Granny, you should sit down first."

Seeing her limited mobility, I moved to help her, but before I could even reach her side, she waved her hand at me. "It's no trouble. Just ask whatever it is you want to ask."

She walked over to the low wooden bed and patted around the quilt. A moment later, she pulled a bamboo sewing basket from the corner. Holding a needle in one hand and thread in the other, her movements were incredibly fluid despite her blindness.

"Granny, what are you doing?" I asked, a bit curious. I walked into the inner room and saw some silk and fabric in the bamboo basket. Beneath the silk lay a round, bulging object.

The silk had lost its vibrant luster, looking like something from many years ago.

"I'm old and have nothing to do, just killing time." The old woman expertly picked up the fabric and began to embroider, stitch by stitch. Her movements were slow, but watching her was incredibly soothing.

Even, neat, harmonious, smooth, and fine—the old woman was using Su Embroidery techniques. I was entranced for a moment, only snapping out of it a few minutes later. I couldn't quite bear to interrupt her. "Granny, when I first entered the Red Building, you said you were waiting for someone. Can you tell me who you're waiting for?"

"He has already come in. He is the child you were chasing." The old woman's voice was unhurried, and her hands didn't stop their work.

"It's really him?" That short, dark figure wasn't an obsession, nor an evil spirit, and certainly not a living person. To be honest, it was my first time seeing such a bizarre existence. "Pardon me for asking, but is that child a family member?"

Master Tianxin had said this building was close to reincarnation and that there was an entrance to the Animal Realm nearby. I guessed that the child might be the old woman's deceased little grandson who had somehow followed reincarnation back to her.

To my surprise, the Old Granny shook her head. "He isn't my family. I never married."

"Then why are you waiting for him? There has to be a reason." The Red Building was such a dangerous place, yet the old woman insisted on living here. She had even opened her door late at night to keep watch by the entrance. If she was willing to do all that, that short figure had to be extremely important to her.

Hearing my question, the Old Granny paused her needlework and looked up. A pair of completely white eyes stared toward the doorway—as if looking at me, but also as if gazing through me toward somewhere farther away.

"He isn't my family, but over seventy years ago, I promised I would always wait for him."

"Over seventy years ago?" My eyes widened as I looked at the Old Granny. That short figure flashed through my mind again, and I found it unbelievable. "Granny, you promised to wait for him over seventy years ago? But from the looks of him, he can't be more than six or seven years old. Even if he suffered from starvation growing up during wartime, his height and age shouldn't be that far off."

Whether it was his behavior or his physical appearance, that short figure was exactly like a child. It was hard to believe he was actually an old monster who had lived for over seventy years.

"Yes." The old woman turned her head slightly to look at a high bulge beneath the quilt in the corner of the wooden bed. "Seventy years have passed for me, but for him, it was merely the repetition of a single night."

The Old Granny's words held a hidden meaning. I frowned in thought, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

"You won't understand." After saying this, she lowered her head and threaded her needle again. "Rest here for the night, and leave as soon as the sun comes up."

I looked at the bulging quilt on the bed, then at the old woman slowly embroidering. There was an indescribable harmony between them. It seemed they knew of each other's presence but were unwilling to point it out, silently keeping each other company.

A few minutes later, the quilt on the bed shifted, opening a narrow slit. The short, dark figure poked his head out. As soon as he saw me standing in the doorway, he immediately pulled back, entirely unaware that the large movement had left his lower half exposed.

"Does this look like someone who has lived for seventy years?" I couldn't help but laugh, though I also felt deeply perplexed. Illuminated by the candlelight, he remained a blurry silhouette in my eyes, just like a shadow. Even using the Judging Eye, I couldn't see him clearly.

"Granny, when did you move into the Pig Cage Apartments? Can you tell me about this building?" I still wasn't ready to give up and decided to ask indirectly to gather some useful information.

"I was one of the first tenants in the Apartment Building. Actually, I lived in this area before the building was even constructed." The old woman didn't answer anything more about the Red Building. She didn't say a single word about how the Apartment Building became what it was today, nor what had happened in between.

I knew she was intentionally avoiding the topic, but with so many innocent lives involved, I had to force her to confront the issue. "Some of the tenants are completely unhinged. They seem to be under some sort of influence—their minds are a mess, and they think of themselves as pigs. They're even capable of cannibalizing their own kind..."

"I can't control what other people do." Granny's calloused hands never stopped for a moment, and the pattern on the silk was gradually becoming clear.

"Out in the hallway, this little guy and I were chased by a monster covered in bite marks. According to a friend of mine, that thing is an obsession, and it's very hard to deal with..."

"I don't know what you're talking about. You came from the outside. Just leave after tonight and never come back. Treat everything that happened here as a nightmare and just forget about it." The old woman spoke earnestly, and I could hear the genuine kindness in her advice.

Since the old woman was unwilling to tell the truth, I didn't know how to keep pressing. My mind was in complete chaos.

The room became extremely quiet. Perhaps it was this sudden change that made the short figure hiding under the quilt think something had happened, prompting him to poke his head out again.

I turned my head and met his gaze. I didn't know if it was the mask on my face or the bloody red glow in my eyes that frightened him.

The little guy frantically backed away. His grip loosened, and the ball he had been clutching dropped to the floor, rolling right in front of me.

It was completely pitch-black. Even right in front of my eyes, I still couldn't make out its appearance. All I knew was that it was a blurry, spherical object.

Bending down, I subconsciously tried to pick it up. I reached out, but grabbed nothing but empty air.

"Strange..." I tried several times over, but the object couldn't be picked up at all. It was as if it really was just a shadow. "I can see it, so why can't I touch it?"

Before I could figure it out, the little guy on the bed suddenly darted out, hugged the spherical object, and then turned to hide back under the quilt.

His sudden movement caught my attention. Even when fleeing for his life earlier, he had held tightly onto that spherical object and refused to let go. 'He's clearly scared to death, yet he grips it so tightly and refuses to let go. It seems that thing is extremely important to him.'

My eyes flickered as I swept my Judging Eye over the old woman's bamboo basket, my gaze pausing on the object pressed at the very bottom beneath the silk.

"Granny, can I take a look at the silk you're embroidering? This is Su Embroidery, right?"

"You know about Su Embroidery?" The old woman's voice softened considerably. "Don't mess up the things inside. I can't see, and if they get messed up, I won't be able to find them."

I didn't stand on ceremony, carefully lifting the top layers of silk one by one.

Flowers, birds, fish, insects, green vines, and cyan garments—if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, who would have thought this was embroidered by a blind old woman?

Lifting the final piece of silk, I stared blankly. Sitting at the very bottom of the bamboo basket was an Embroidered Ball.

Strands of silk thread were woven together, crisscrossing like a budding flower.

Brushing it lightly with my fingers, the stitches felt dense and highly textured. I couldn't resist taking it out.

Blooming with twelve petals, this Embroidered Ball was likely something from many years ago. The colors on the silk had faded, but the patterns stitched by the threads still retained their original hues.

I held it gently in my hands, a multitude of thoughts rushing through my mind in an instant.

'Why does this Embroidered Ball only use black thread? And why is it the exact same size as the spherical object that short figure was hugging the whole time?'