‘Can’t Save the World by Pretending to be Dead’
Chapter 1
City Su, Chang’an (ancient name of Xi’an Xī’ān [西安]) capital of China during Tang Dynasty Tángcháo [唐朝] the Electric Fan Factory was established in the 1990s, mainly engaged in electric fans, heaters and many others.
At its peak, the factory employed more than 2,000 employees, and the business was booming, with its products exported to Southeast Asia, making it the top taxpayer in Su城 {abbr. for Suzhou Sūzhōu [苏州]}.
However, in the last ten years, the old domestic fans were not liked by consumers, and the performance was declining, and the factory was laying off employees every year. Originally bustling four dormitory buildings, now only the third and fourth two buildings are still where people live, not cut off from water and electricity.
The old residential buildings of the last century in the wind and rain fluttering, lonely, sun sets in the west, the yellowish daylight shrouded in the third building, fell a layer of faint shadow, covered the back of the blocked building 4.
Today is the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday (the 5th day of the 5th lunar month). Once during the holiday, the old street in front of the dormitory building has even fewer pedestrians passing by.
Near seven o’clock, in the public bus, a white skinned youth, wearing a white T-shirt, carried a bag of packaged takeaways, slowly walking towards the ground fan factory dormitory building. When he arrived at the dormitory building door guard room, inside wearing glasses blowing air-conditioning, the guard uncle looked up at him, took off his glasses: “Xiao Lian ah, have you found a new house yet? The mandatory evacuation is next week, so you have to find one in advance.”
Lian Xi: “I went to see a few houses today, it’s not bad, still looking.”
Uncle gatekeeper nodded: “Oh, take your time to look for a new house! Though we are renting, not buying, those landlords sign contracts with us for a year, if we are not happy living there, annoyed ah!”
Lian Xi thought for a moment, “Are you sure the demolition is next week?”
Uncle: “Yes, the documents have come down!”
“Good.”
Answering softly, the youth walked towards the dormitory buildings with a takeaway bag.
The hot and humid evening breeze of early summer blew over the plastic bag in his hand, making a clicking sound. His long, thin fingers slipped a few inches downward, gripping the plastic bag tightly and pulling it tightly, and only then did the plastic bag, which swung with the wind, stop rattling.
Lian Xi passed the third building with a few lights on, and walked straight into the fourth building. Turning a corner into the building hole, and can no longer be seen.
In the janitor’s room, another janitor uncle who just went to the toilet came out, and while lifting his trousers, he stretched his neck and looked at Lian Xi’s back: “That young man in Building 4 is still living there and hasn’t moved?”
Glasses uncle: “No money, how to move? How many houses in the whole of Su City have good conditions, air-conditioning and internet, and the rent is only 400 per month? Just one! The Fan Factory Dormitory! But it’s time to move, when the dormitory building is demolished next week, no money yet he still has to move.”
“I heard that young guy is a live streamer.”
“What’s a live broadcast?”
“You don’t know? Come on, I’ll show you.” Took out his mobile phone and operated it.
“Boy, what is this, how come there are female dolls undressing on it.”
“This…I don’t understand it. You say, that chap engaged in live broadcasting is like this too?”
“That’s a guy. Can (they) also engage in this?”
Doorkeeper uncle shook his head: “Who knows, I see this young man looks better than this woman who does the broadcasting, I have no idea what his job is.”
Suddenly remembered one thing, the gatekeeper uncle shrunk his neck, quietly looked at the end of the fourth building at one glance: “But his courage is actually bold, actually daring to live in the fourth building, but also specialised in living in the house of the dead!”
Uncle Eyes chided him, “What are you doing, you still believe in ghosts?”
“What, you don’t believe?”
“Wtf, believe in what?! If you’re capable, you let the ghosts come to me at night, I’d like to see where there are ghosts!”
***
Lian Xi’s rented house is on the fourth floor.
Fan factory dormitory building has not yet stopped water and electricity in the third and fourth building, the third building rent minimum 800, the fourth building minimum 400. even Lian Xi did not think about it, and chose the fourth building. However, the rent for each floor of Building 4 is also different. The lowest rent of 400 is for the house on the fourth floor, and the lowest rent for the others is 500.
Because the room where the man died is on the fourth floor.
The air-dried and blackened old stairs are full of potholes, Lian Xi climbed the stairs while shaking the plastic bag, while thinking in a trance about where he should live next.
Looking at the entire city of Suzhou, there is absolutely no place as good as the dormitory building of the fan factory.
A room and a hall, fully furnished, with air conditioning and Internet, and only 400 a month.
If he really can’t find a good place, he will probably have to go back to his hometown.
Sighing softly, Lian Xi climbed to the fourth floor. When he looked up, there was a middle-aged man in the corridor packing up his things. He moved out the discarded cardboard boxes that he didn’t want at home and piled them up outside the door. When he looked up and saw Lian Xi after doing this, the middle-aged man smiled nervously, and a big black mole at the corner of his mouth smiled so much that it tilted to one side: “Xiao Lian, you’re back. Have you found a new home?”
Lian Xi’s eyes stopped for half a second on the black mole on the side of the man’s mouth, and said, “No, I’m still looking. Have you found it?
“I’ve found a good place, and I’ll move out completely tomorrow. Harmful, these years the factory’s old employees have all moved out one by one, and our family is still stubbornly staying here. Now it’s going to be demolished, it’s impossible to live here anymore even if you want to. Are you eating this unhealthy food at night again?”
Lian Xi’s footsteps paused, not saying anything.
Middle-aged man: “In this case, we’ve stewed some braised pork at home, my wife has moved into the new house first this afternoon, she stewed it before she left. I’ll bring it to your place tonight and we’ll have a couple of cups. We’ve been neighbours for half a year and I’ve never even been to your house to eat with you. Don’t be polite, I can’t finish it alone too.”
Lian Xi: “No need, I bought a lot of spicy hot pot, I can’t finish it all.”
The middle-aged man waved his hand, “Don’t be polite with me! I’ll go to your place after I finish moving these cardboard boxes!”
Lian Xi: “…”
Taking out the key, he opened the door and entered the room.
After the door to the room closed, Lian Xi sighed heavily.
He was never very good at communicating with people since he was young, let alone talking about rejecting people. When he was young, his mum and dad were gone, and then after he was sent to the orphanage, the children in the orphanage were all tricky, each with their own ideas. And he wasn’t a talker, so now there was even less people to interact with.
One reason for renting the murder house was that the rent was cheap, and the other reason was that there were few people, and no one was happy to live near a murder house.
Place where there are a lot of people, not good.
People like to talk, people like lively events, and people like to watch even more.
He can’t talk, he doesn’t like lively or bustling scenery, and even dislikes watching it even more.
Moreover, staying with people for a long time ….
Looking down at his palm, his right hand slowly bent and opened.
What about staying with people for a long time, and giving them death because of digestion?
Fan Factory No. 4 dormitory building is a good place to rent a room, but also a famous murderous building in Su City.
In the 1990s, the dormitory building just soon after the completion did not hire a doorman, the outside is not locked with a big iron door, where anyone can run in. Factory leaders did not take it seriously, doorman, iron gates can slowly finish, put no rush. Until the dormitory building was built three months later, there was murder case.
It was the night of the New Year’s Eve, when there was no ban on fireworks, the city of Suzhou, deafening firecrackers ringing everywhere.
On this noisy and lively New Year’s Eve, just after watching the Spring Festival Gala in the early morning, the murderer ran to the fourth floor of the fourth building, burglary, rape, murder …
Cannibalism.
A family of three, was brutally killed.
Half of the arms of the wife and daughter are still soaking in the cooking iron pot where the meat is cooked, and half a bowl of leftover meat is placed on the table.
It is said that several old criminal police officers who worked on the case vomited as soon as they entered the house.
This shocked the whole country City Su 2.07 home invasion robbery and murder case!
This kind of heartless, heinous murder was instantly noticed by the whole country, and everyone angrily demanded that the murderer must be caught. However, because the murderer did not leave too many traces, and moreover due to limited criminal investigation techniques, the task force investigated for two whole years and found nothing.
The murderer is still at large (remain unpunished by the law).
Lian Xi put the takeaway bag on the dining table, and he unwrapped the disposable chopsticks. His eyes indifferently swept towards the wall beside the table, only to see several brown traces that could never be wiped clean on the bleak white wall. It was in the shape of a spray, as if someone had cut their carotid artery, and it sprayed all over.
Where would an ordinary person dare to live in this kind of murderous house, and it was said that after the incident, there were quite a lot of haunted things happening in building four.
So the whole Building 4, no other tenants, only Lian Xi and the next big brother.
Lian Xi was indifferent, he looked at the hot spicy hot pot, looking at the soup surface floating red millet spicy and chilli oil, delayed moving the chopsticks. Not because of the blood stains on the wall, but if the uncle next door really came to find him, he could not eat.
But the spicy hot pot (málàtàng) couldn’t be stored in the fridge, it would become spoiled right away, ah.
“Ugh.”
Sighing, Lian Xi helplessly put the takeaway bag back in and put it on the kitchen cabinet.
The next second, the door really rang.
Lian Xi pulled open the door, the middle-aged man retrieved his hand that knocked on the door, holding a pot of red roast pork on his other hand, and laughed: “Quite fast for you to open the door, wait for me to go back and get some wine.”
Lian Xi: “No need, I have wine at home.”
Middle-aged man: “Little brother, I only drink white wine ah, I’m not used to your young people’s foreign wine or red wine!”
Lian Xi: “Don’t worry, it’s white.”
“Then fine, I’ll come in.”
Entering the house, the middle-aged man looked around curiously.
Lian Xi went into the kitchen and found a bottle of Yanghe ‘hard liquor made with such yeast’ from the cabinet, and took two glasses and put them on the table. He poured a glass for the middle-aged man, but poured water for himself.
Middle-aged man: “You don’t drink?”
Lian Xi: “Drinking holds things up.”
“This is not giving me face!”
“My dad died from drunk driving (driving while intoxicated; DWI).”
“….”
Lian Xi added a knife: “Originally he did not want to drink, table friends have been persuaded, do not drink meant that not giving face. So I haven’t had any wine since then.”
Of course, he did not drink that before.
“…”
Middle-aged man: “I’m sorry little old pal, I really don’t know, I’ll drink alone then.”
Men’s friendship is like drinking strong alcoholic drinks, as long as you call a brother, you are my half-brother (with a different father) or have the same father but different mothers.
The middle-aged man drank and ate meat, his face was red, obviously a little drunk, and one by one, he pulled Lian Xi to talk.
“Little old pal, I heard that you are engaged in live broadcasting, what is live broadcasting, what for.”
“It’s just to the computer, messing with some online stuff.”
“Computer? I really don’t understand what you guys young people are doing.” The man was drunk, his arm pressed on the table to support his entire upper body before he didn’t slide down, he raised his head and squinted his eyes, “People say that live broadcasting is very noisy, and they especially hate to live next to someone who is doing some live broadcasting. But little old brother I see that you’re very quiet every day ah, there’s no sound in your house.”
Lian Xi: “…”
He really doesn’t talk but it’s really so heartrending whenever he speaks.
Why does he have no sound?
Other people’s live broadcasts have sound because they can chat, they can talk, and they speak well!
Lian Xi is a boring person, every day live broadcast muddle-headed and ignorant, and also do not like talking.
Other than that, other anchors have sound because they want to thank Big Brother for the gift. Speaking about upgrading to the ‘slap the table and stand up’ matter: “Thank you for giving the big brother a set of 666, all the brothers give big brother a wave of attention! Thank you big brother! Generous Big brother!”
Lian Xi live broadcast a night, the gift of very few people, who wanted to give thanks and didn’t have a chance to give thanks.
If his live broadcast can have sound, neighbours complain because of the noise, then can he still live in this place?
The middle-aged man did not dwell on the live broadcast, after all, he did not understand this stuff, just casually saying a few words. He looked at the cluster of dark brown blood on the side of the dining table, and after half a day, he lifted his finger and pointed, and said quietly, “… Little old pal, aren’t you afraid?”
Lian Xi was silent, clear and calm eyes turned his head to look at the middle-aged man, and asked in return, “Then you are not afraid?”
The four eyes were opposite each other.
Lian Xi’s dark and deep eyes seemed like a man-eating thousand-foot pool, without any ripples, and without any personality or lively atmosphere
The middle-aged man felt his scalp go numb, he laughed dryly and reached for the wine bottle on the table. While lowering his head to pour himself a drink, while easing the atmosphere: “We just casually said, this person, things were made difficult for him that he died? Such a cheap house, in the whole of Su City, you can not find the other, if it’s not demolished, I want and will continue to stay here…”
“Plop–”
The voice ended abruptly.
An eyeball wrapped in veins, blood and pus, flopped, fell into the wine glass in front of the middle-aged man.
The room was deadly silent.
Lian Xi did not speak.
The middle-aged man did not speak either.
The clock on the wall clicked away the seconds.
After who knows how long, the middle-aged man reached out and picked up the eyeball that had fallen into the wine glass and pressed it into his own eye socket with a slap. He looked up again, and there in his bloody left eye was a blurry, ghastly sight; a human eyeball never knew it was that big until it fell out. The flesh around it was rotten, maggot-ridden and writhing.
The only thing left was the one shining white eyeball, crunching and quivering.
A raspy laugh came from the middle-aged man’s throat, a sound that definitely didn’t sound like something a human could make, as if coarse sandstone was rubbing against a blackboard persistently.
“Sorry, little (old) pal, I’m sorry that you see something funny.”