Apartment from Hell Chapter 5 (1/2)

Chapter 5 – Ah Xiu

Li Yin looks at the bright moon outside of the window. When the hour hand of his watch pa.s.ses the 12 o’clock mark, it will mean that they have already been manacled to this village. They can only leave after a month, at midnight on July 8th.

A month… that is truly very rare.

In terms of the instructions the b.l.o.o.d.y word usually give.

Li Yin can still remember it clearly… what happened the first time that Ye Kexin brought him to see Xia Yuan.

His first impression was– This isn’t right, is it? Is he really the man who has lived in this horrifying place for four years (last year was Xia Yuan’s fourth year)?

Wearing a pair of frameless gla.s.ses and a well ironed suit, a tall and lanky figure, a kind and scholarly face, this man looked… No matter how hard he tried, Li Yin was unable to reconcile this appearance with the image of the residential representative he had in mind.

“You are the new resident?” Back then, Xia Yuan accepted him easily as though it was a normal, habitual occurrence.

“Yes, Mr. Xia. I…”

“Don’t say anything.” Xia Yuan immediately gestured for him to sit down in his room and then told Ye Kexin, “Kexin, go inform everyone about the new resident.”

At that time, Kexin was looking at Xia Yuan, her face red like the color of ripened apples. She could not even bring herself to look at him directly. Nodding her head shyly, she left.

Xia Yuan’s room was about the same size as Li Yin’s. However, the interior design was a bit more minimalist in comparison.

“Don’t be too nervous,” Xia Yuan smiled and said, “Everyone who enters this apartment for the first time will feel very lost. And when I tell them the truth, they will all feel as though the world is collapsing around them. They find it hard to accept and believe that this is happening to them.”

“Up… Up to this point, I’m confused about everything here.” Li Yin palmed his forehead and said, “Mr. Xia… I… Do I really need to stay here from now on?”

“Would you like some coffee or tea?” Xia Yuan did not answer directly, but instead took a china cup out of the cupboard. He said, “Here I have the Pre-rain Longjing. As for coffee, all of it is imported from Colombia and Brazil. My parents s.h.i.+pped them to me from other countries.”

“Coffee… I have always felt that type of thing is no different from traditional Chinese medicine,” Li Yin said with a bitter smile, “Yes, tea will be fine. Right, don’t add wolfberries.”

“Alright, do you want some chrysanthemum?”

“Sure.”

Xia Yuan looked about 24 or 25 years old, just a little bit older than Li Yin. But the way he does things was with a manner of maturity and experience. After he finished making the tea, he pa.s.sed it to Li Yin warmly. Then he said, “Please try to believe what I’m about to say next. I can promise you that I will definitely not lie. But I also cannot guarantee how much you are able to accept.”

“I, I understand.”

Following that, Xia Yuan told Li Yin everything.

After Xia Yuan finished speaking, Li Yin’s expression was astonished to the extreme. He simply could not wrap his head around such bizarre sounding words.

But… they were undeniably true. He already tried walking out of the alley before looking back at this place. As expected, this apartment had disappeared completely.

This is indeed an incomprehensibly strange building.

“I understand what you’re feeling at this moment, but… I have to tell you this: you will die if you leave this apartment for more than 48 hours. If you don’t believe my words, I can show you some recordings. In order for people to believe this rule, previously I…”

“I trust you,” Li Yin accepted his words quite easily. “So… when you guys are at the destination appointed by the b.l.o.o.d.y words, you’ve all met…you’ve met…”

“Yes.” Xia Yuan did not beat around the bush. His face had also turned a bit pale. “I am sorry to say that after I entered this apartment, I am no longer an atheist.”

“The existence of…spirits?” Li Yin’s hands started to shake uncontrollably.

Xia Yuan pushed his gla.s.ses up his nose bridge and said, “When I look back at the past, how I’ve been able to stay alive till today is nothing but a nightmare. Just simply remembering it makes me doubt how I endured everything till now.”

At this point, Li Yin asked a question that he had been thinking about for a while.

“You just said that normally, the apartment will not allow the time between two b.l.o.o.d.y missions to exceed half a year. Then…for one resident, how long might the instructions given to him be separated?”

“That’s hard to say,” Xia Yuan continued. “At first they will be relatively fast. Every few months there will be a new emergence of the b.l.o.o.d.y words. But then the later it gets, the longer the gap between missions becomes. I have already completed five b.l.o.o.d.y missions. And from my last b.l.o.o.d.y mission till now, it has almost been a year…”

“Then… doesn’t that mean that under the circ.u.mstances where there are no instructions released, we have to live here forever?”

“Yes. It can’t be helped. The saying that you can only leave after completing ten b.l.o.o.d.y missions was what I heard from the old residents when I just moved in. And later on, all of those old residents have already died.”

Clearly, it seemed that from today onwards, Li Yin would also have to live in this apartment for a long time.

After that, Xia Yuan introduced Li Yin to every resident in the apartment.

The following people left a profound impression on Li Yin. The couple, Hua Liancheng and Yi Ye who lives in room 706. They seemed very young, maybe freshly graduated from college. They moved into this apartment a year earlier than Li Yin did, and the three of them got along very well. Two other people were also unforgettable to him.

Tang Wenshan who lives in room 502. And Odagiri Sachiko who lives in room 402.

Tang Wenshan is a gloomy, quiet young man with very cold eyes. Whenever he looked at other people, there would always be a cynical expression on his face. On the other hand, Odagiri Sachiko is an international student from j.a.pan who came to China for college. She speaks Chinese very well. But her calm and serene expression always makes her thoughts incomprehensible to other people. Another reason Sachiko left such a deep impression on Li Yin is because he thinks that she is inhumanly beautiful, like a cla.s.sic gothic lolita.

After Li Yin began to live in the apartment, he would naturally run into his neighbor Odagiri Sachiko quite often. At first, he hoped to establish a good relations.h.i.+p with these experienced residents, but unlike the friendly Ye Kexin, Odagiri Sachiko always gives people an unapproachable impression. Whenever she is free, she can always be seen holding the j.a.panese edition of [The Tale of Genji].

Li Yin remembers that when he was leaving yesterday, he went with Ye Kexin to Odagiri Sachiko’s room to say goodbye. But she remained icy cold and did not say a single word the whole time.