"Hey! It's you! Are you okay?"
Nan Yue blinked. "Are you... Su Xiaoxi?"
Su Xiaoxi chewed her gum, looking a bit dazed as if processing the question. After a moment, she said, "Yeah. What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
Nan Yue looked at her. The woman before her was almost unrecognizable from the one she had met on the first day. She had a permed wave in her hair, heavy makeup, and a lit cigarette in her hand.
"Where's Mu Qing?"
Su Xiaoxi looked at her strangely. "Mu Qing?"
"There's no one named Mu Qing in my room."
Nan Yue fell silent. "You... live alone?"
Su Xiaoxi nodded. She brushed back her long hair, revealing her left cheek.
Nan Yue froze.
There was a mole on her left cheek.
Nan Yue had seen it before—in an old newspaper.
The female tenant who previously lived in Su Xiaoxi's room had been in the sex trade. When she was arrested, her photo had been published in the newspaper.
The mole was in the exact same spot.
Su Xiaoxi waved at her and walked away in her high heels.
"...It's not just us."
Nan Yue murmured, "We aren't the only ones being assimilated."
Thinking on the bright side, only the normal tenants were being assimilated; the serial killers weren't.
If things were worse, the serial killers would be assimilated too, leaving them with even less information.
But if Su Xiaoxi had been assimilated...
Then what about her roommate, Mu Qing?
...
The night before, at Oasis Community.
"Mu Qing, I'm heading back first. Be careful on your late shift."
Su Xiaoxi said goodbye to her companion and headed back alone. Lately, she had felt that this job was very exhausting. For some reason, she had suddenly started remembering some phone numbers.
She had tried calling the numbers that appeared in her mind and found they all belonged to men.
And they addressed her very intimately, as if they had a history together.
The strange thing was... she didn't find it bizarre, nor did she feel afraid.
It seemed perfectly natural.
Mu Qing felt the same way. The two had even discussed doing business out of their rented room to save some money.
As for why they hadn't resigned yet...
Perhaps something deep within their hearts was still struggling.
But after 3:00 AM that night, Mu Qing suddenly didn't want to stay in Oasis Community anymore.
It was painful to watch the residents here living lives she could never afford.
She didn't resign or speak to her supervisor; she just grabbed her things and left.
She would go back and do business with Su Xiaoxi. Life was so hard now; they had no choice but to take this path.
Later, they would move somewhere else and start over.
Mu Qing was exhausted as she walked through the hallway.
The dilapidated and eerie hallway didn't seem so terrifying to her now. After all, it was remote enough that it wouldn't be easy for their business to be discovered.
"Clack, clack."
"Clack, clack, clack."
For a moment, Mu Qing thought she was hallucinating from exhaustion, but there were definitely footsteps behind her.
Was someone following her?
A chill crept up her chest. The pitch-black hallway and the silent environment made her panic.
She ran a few steps in the dark and even tripped over a step in her alarm.
Hearing her commotion, the footsteps behind her stopped.
Mu Qing's heart pounded heavily, echoing in the hallway.
She listened for a while. It was quiet; the footsteps had vanished.
Had she misheard? Or had they gone back?
Mu Qing didn't have the energy to think deeply. She scrambled to her feet, flipped open her phone, and used the screen's light to guide her way.
As she walked, she heard the sound of heels clicking on the floor again.
But this time was different; it was the sound of high heels.
Mu Qing breathed a sigh of relief. People like them weren't afraid of anything except bad men.
Knowing a woman was behind her made her relax. After all, there were many girls in this building. It was normal for everyone to be working and coming home late.
Mu Qing didn't speak; she just walked quietly. The sound of high heels not far behind was a kind of company.
As she was about to reach the fifth floor where she lived, Mu Qing suddenly realized something.
Only she and Su Xiaoxi lived on the fifth floor. There were two other girls in the other unit, but she had observed them, and none of them wore high heels.
Did they buy them recently?
For some reason, Mu Qing was suddenly afraid.
Images flashed through her mind, including the corpse found on the first floor a few days ago. She stopped.
Swallowing hard, Mu Qing slowly turned around and shone her phone's light behind her.
A distorted figure stood not far away. The light only revealed a vague outline.
He was wearing a pair of pink high heels, appearing unbalanced, which made his posture strange and grotesque.
And on his hands, he wore a pair of leather shoes.
In a flash, Mu Qing suddenly understood the abnormalities she had buried in her mind.
Like why the person following her had vanished without the sound of a door opening or closing.
Like why the sound of the high heels hadn't been rhythmic, sounding more like someone who was drunk.
Because... there had only been one person behind her the whole time!
The leather shoes were him, and the high heels were him.
Mu Qing thought she would scream, but in her extreme terror, her throat muscles tightened so much she couldn't make a sound.
Seeing that she had discovered him, the figure let out a bizarre laugh, a gurgling sound squeezed from his throat.
Then, without warning, he suddenly bent down and charged at Mu Qing on all fours.
"Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack."
"Clack, clack."
"Clack."
...
"Notice! Notice!"
A loudspeaker suddenly blared, so loud that Nan Yue felt the building tremble.
"To maintain order, protect resident safety, and beautify the city, demolition work will begin at midnight tonight. Please vacate the premises before midnight."
The announcement played on a loop. Chi Yu poked her head out and saw the developer driving a car with a loudspeaker mounted on it, aimed at the demolition building.
"The schedule moved up."
Nan Yue's expression soured. It was supposed to be at the end of the month, which meant they should have had two or three days left. Now, the progress of the pollution world had accelerated.
They only had a few hours left to leave.
"There's no time. We can't hesitate anymore."
Nan Yue arranged for everyone to find a way into the tenants' homes to complete the remaining logic chains. Once they were finished, Jiang Haoyu would write a short article, and that would be it.
"Jiang Haoyu will stay in the room to rest. The rest of you should pair up."
She pointed to Yin Qian and Chi Yu, then looked at Jiang Siyan. "You make a trip to Old Wu's home."
There weren't many things in the clinic, but there should be something at his home. Although the brain-scooping line was already clear, it was better to be certain.
The group scattered. Nan Yue wondered where Wu Gang had actually gone.
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