This tube-shaped apartment building was originally the staff dormitory for a leather factory.
Most of the people in the building knew each other. Back then, Uncle Li was the cook in the factory canteen, and also a relative of the factory director.
Later, the director grew increasingly wealthy, switched to other businesses, and sold the leather factory to someone else. He was a fairly decent person—the workers that the new factory owner kept continued working at the factory, while those the new owner didn't want could continue living in this tube-shaped building.
Many years passed. Uncle Li aged from youth to old age, and the leather factory was on the verge of bankruptcy. Yet those people—or their descendants—still lived there.
Uncle Li said, "Xue Fei moved in three years ago. She's the granddaughter of the original factory director, a top student from the School of Industry and Commerce. When she learned that the factory where her late grandfather had built his fortune was about to go under, she traveled all the way here."
Three years ago, Xue Fei was 22 years old.
Ning Su didn't know the educational background settings of this alternate world. In his world, 22 was about the age when someone just graduated from college.
Uncle Li: "I didn't know who she was at first. I just saw her going to the factory often, looking happy every day."
"I warned her to be careful."
Ning Su: "Why be careful?"
Uncle Li: "The factory wasn't doing well and was close to shutting down. The workers hadn't been paid for a long time. When people are desperate and broke, you never know what they might do."
"Besides, the new factory director's whole family is troublesome—every single one of them is no pushover. The factory ended up in this state precisely because of all the infighting within that family."
"By the time I found out, she was already pregnant—with the new director's son's child."
"I don't know if she knew that Fang Guosheng had a wife. When she was three months pregnant, she actually came to tell me about it herself, very happily."
Uncle Li: "I told her about the Fang family situation and advised her to terminate the pregnancy. The next evening, she came to me and said she didn't want to—she wanted to keep the child."
That night was a rainy one. She stood outside the canteen for a long time, holding an umbrella.
Her thick, dark curly hair was damp with raindrops.
Uncle Li opened the door, and Xue Fei lowered her head and said to him, "Uncle Li, I want to keep this child."
"You know, my grandfather and father have both passed away, and my mother remarried. I really, truly want this child."
"This factory was where my grandfather built his fortune, and now Fang Guosheng is in charge. I plan to help him turn the factory around, and then we'll leave this place. Both the factory and this child mean a lot to me. The factory is like the fruit of our collaboration—I can let go of that, but I can't let go of the child."
Her belly grew bigger and bigger, and she became the subject of gossip and pointing fingers in the tube-shaped building.
But she didn't care. She worked every day and took care of herself and the baby.
Uncle Li: "Later, things blew up after all."
Ning Su: "What happened?"
Xue Fei seemed to have a fate tied to water. She said that when her grandfather and father died, there was heavy rain, and every time it rained, she felt deeply downcast.
That night, there was another downpour.
From the tube-shaped building came sharp, piercing screams—desperate wails that cut through the pounding rain and muffled thunder, carrying all the way to the canteen.
A man ran through the rain to the canteen and pounded on the door: "Uncle Li! Uncle Li! You've got to come see! Something terrible has happened!"
Uncle Li rushed to Room 612 in a panic, but the moment he saw the glaring blood seeping out from under the door, he knew just how serious and dangerous things were.
The vivid red blood, the harrowing screams, and the pungent, metallic stench of blood overwhelmed all his senses.
Stiff with dread, he walked through the doorway, his pale eyes widening in shock.
That was two years ago. Uncle Li was 67.
He had lived through many years and witnessed plenty of big scenes—he'd even been through a few factory brawls and stabbings.
But that scene still sent a chill straight through him.
Xue Fei lay in a pool of blood, her limbs pinned down by four men, while a middle-aged woman pulled a barely formed infant from her cut-open belly.
That woman was Fang Guosheng's wife. She glared at Xue Fei with hatred and icy contempt: "You worthless wretch—you actually thought you could give birth to this bastard!"
The baby was wrinkled and drenched in blood, its eyes unable to open.
Suddenly, the woman burst into wild, manic laughter, her crow's feet deepening with every cackle—each crease filled with venom and malice, colored by the yellow of the lamplight and the red of the moonlight. "You really want this child?"
***
Fei Xueying, the tattooed man Nie Yuwei, and his roommate Tang Chi arrived together on the sixth floor.
Last night, Ling Xiao and Ning Su had gone upstairs without including them in their discussion, leaving the remaining players anxious and at a loss.
Today was the sixth day—nearly a fifth of the dungeon's time had already passed, and they hadn't eliminated a single desire monster.
They couldn't wait any longer and met up again that afternoon.
In the end, ten players had gathered in this run-down tenement building:
Ling Xiao and Ning Su, Qin Wu and Jia Yahua, Tang Xin and Fei Xueying, Li Ming and Han Liang, and Nie Yuwei and Tang Chi.
Qin Wu and Jia Yahua firmly followed Ling Xiao and Ning Su's lead. Tang Xin, being Ling Xiao's die-hard fan, needed no convincing. Han Liang hesitated because of his roommate Li Ming's death. In the end, only three of them decided to go that night to try and kill the desire monster Xue Fei.
They had to at least give it a shot—they couldn't just sit around waiting to die.
They already knew that Xue Fei's desire was reproduction, which meant they also knew her weakness.
They all agreed that wherever the "face" was located on a desire monster was the part that best embodied its desire—that was its core, and therefore its weak point.
That night, Fei Xueying had torn off the monster's head and limbs but hadn't pierced her womb—and that confirmed their theory.
So now that they knew its weakness, why not go and destroy it?
The three crept carefully up to the sixth floor. Tonight, Room 612 was eerily silent.
When 612 was quiet, the entire sixth floor fell still.
They tiptoed and finally heard the pouring rain outside.
Somehow, it had started raining without them noticing.
Heavy, thick rain enveloped the world, and the musty smell of decay in the old tenement grew even stronger.
A heavy downpour might bring peace to a few, but for most people, it was far less pleasant than a sunny day.
The tattooed man, Nie Yuwei, said, "Let's make this quick!"
With that, he kicked open the door to Room 612.
That door—kicked, smashed, and rammed by who knows how many people over time—had its paint peeling in patches and was covered in crisscrossing cracks. It gave way easily, finally destroyed by that last kick.
"Bang." They landed on the ground.
The scene inside the room was laid bare before three pairs of wide-open eyes.
Room 612 was still in disarray—damp walls covered in thriving moss, clothes scattered everywhere belonging to who knows how many people, and the body of a man lying beside the bed.
A massive monster hovered in the midst of it all.
Hair crawled across every wall, its long limbs made up of countless children's limbs, with small hands converging at the belly.
Converging at a thick, red gash.
The long, thick gash was red on the outside and green within, running across the bridge of the nose, reaching the corner of the eye, and cutting across the forehead.
The eye that grew on its belly was shedding large, crimson teardrops, one after another—just like the rain outside the window.
In this world, the thin clouds were red, so the sky glowed with a faint reddish hue, and even the rain was red.
