Chapter 118: Aberrant 8

After entering the rain-soaked Tianzi Building, the five-member team noticed that today’s Tianzi Building was different from the one they had seen two days ago.

When they had escaped the building last time, Aberrant had been asleep, and the six lower floors had already vanished. They hadn’t passed through the lower six floors.

This time, the moment they entered the building, they found themselves in the world of the six lower floors.

It was a place completely different from the six floors above.

Everything was gray and dusty, even the lights in the rooms appeared dim. The most unsettling part was that this place was inhabited by many “people.”

They didn’t resemble the chaotic anomalies outside but seemed more like ordinary people living in the building, trapped in a repeated death loop.

At first, the five-member team remained highly alert, but these gray and blurry figures didn’t attack them. The rooms filled with dangerous, ominous energy were eerily still.

They passed through a room and saw an elderly man. He sat at the entrance of the first floor, moving sluggishly as he carried a small stool back to his room. He then turned on the TV, and the Cantonese opera singing echoed from the open door.

But the moment the team looked inside, they saw the old man sitting dead on the couch, his head tilted back. His body decayed at a rapid pace, with countless maggots crawling over the rotting flesh. In his skeletal hand, he still clutched the TV remote.

Next door, a middle-aged woman was muttering curses, her words mixing with the sound of chopping vegetables. It sounded as though she was cooking while complaining about her useless husband who couldn’t make money.

As they passed the window, they could still hear her scolding her husband.

In the next moment, when they looked into the room through the door, they saw only the woman’s severed head on the dining table, while the man, kneeling on the floor, mechanically chopped at her body.

There were bowls and basins scattered on the floor, filled with pieces of meat.

Thud, thud, thud—

The eerie scene made even the seasoned team members feel uncomfortable.

Moving forward, they encountered a closed door. Though it wasn’t soundproof, muffled voices of young boys and girls intermittently spilled out, and it was clear what they were doing.

But before they could even register it, two gray figures kicked the door open, followed by the sounds of arguing, shouting, cursing, and crying from within.

A young girl, her face obscured, ran out of the room, clutching her face, and dashed upstairs.

“Be careful, don’t let your guard down. Don’t engage with them, and don’t wake them. Head upstairs,” Teacher Wen warned.

They passed the first floor and headed up to the second. Several men with cigarettes dangling from their mouths appeared ahead, swaggering with weapons in hand.

“Looks like a few new girls came in. Do you think they’ll be arranged to stay here? If they do, it’ll be more convenient for us…”

“They just arrived. Sister Xiang and Brother Guo aren’t sure, so they’ll have someone watch them to make sure they don’t run off. They’ll stay at the shop for now. You should go to the shop if you want to spend money.”

“Haha, he just wants to freeload. If you want convenience, don’t we have Junmei and Hejie upstairs? Just knock on their doors!”

“Tch, I wouldn’t dare. They’d strip me clean.”

The men chatted casually as the five-member team carefully avoided the gray figures passing by. They seemed oblivious to the team’s presence and continued heading downstairs.

On the third floor, they encountered a hunched woman dragging a large bundle of clothes. Each step of the cart made a loud noise on the stairs, causing other residents in the building to yell at her, but she ignored them completely.

On the fourth floor, at the staircase, the team saw someone fall from above. It was the girl in a school uniform—she had jumped from the upper floor with a dull thud.

Unable to hold back any longer, Nurse whispered, “Teacher Wen, is there really danger on the lower six floors of Tianzi Building? It seems like there’s nothing too special here.”

White Eagle added, “It does seem like this place is just showing the building’s former residents, like their lingering imprints.”

“My blade doesn’t feel the presence of any spirits on them. It should be like White Eagle said, just lingering imprints,” Big Bear also commented.

Teacher Wen said sternly, “Don’t let your guard down. There’s no way there’s no danger here.”

Only Black Cat remained silent. She was responsible for reconnaissance in the team. Though Nurse often said she blended into the shadows, making her presence barely noticeable, right now, her presence seemed almost nonexistent.

Teacher Wen was the first to sense something was wrong. He glanced at Black Cat’s figure and immediately issued a warning: “Black Cat is in trouble!”

At the same time, he drew a talisman and cast it on Black Cat.

Unknown to them, Black Cat had been slowly covered in a layer of gray, making her look indistinguishable from the shadows in the building.

When the talisman hit her, a brief flash of color appeared, but it was quickly overtaken by the grayness once again.

Black Cat vanished before their eyes.

Before they could even encounter Aberrant, they had already lost one member of their team.

Teacher Wen made an immediate decision: “Find Black Cat first!”

White Eagle took out the talisman around his neck and followed its guidance.

“Black Cat is on the fourth floor.”

They circled around the dim, gray fourth floor, where a thin mist of gray fog lingered in the air. Nurse’s breathing grew a little more rapid, and his mind became slightly hazy, for a moment forgetting who he was.

Sensing something was wrong, he grabbed a syringe from his medical kit and injected himself in the arm. The sharpness returned to his mind, and he heard White Eagle’s voice saying, “Found her, she’s here.”

Black Cat had become one of the building’s residents. She had forgotten her identity and was now enduring the abuse of her “husband.”

The “husband’s” face was obscured by the grayness, but his features were still distorted in an ugly snarl. He shouted foul language, accusing her of having an affair and now intending to kill her.

Nurse watched Black Cat’s face contort with a mixture of pain and fear, rushing forward to stop the man’s abuse. He kicked the man aside and turned to help Black Cat, but as he touched her, he noticed the parts of his own body that made contact with hers were slowly turning gray as well.

Big Bear swung his knife, glowing faintly with a golden light, and cleaved the monstrous man in half. But as the man dissipated into mist, Big Bear vanished too, his face frozen in shock.

“What’s going on…” The words had barely left his mouth before Nurse also disappeared from his spot.

He no longer remembered that he was a player sent by the Association. He couldn’t recall meeting up with his teammates or encountering any anomalies. All that remained in his mind was a single truth: he was a resident of Tianzi Building 410.

He had graduated not long ago but still had no job. He loved music but couldn’t find a way to stand out. He had some talent, but compared to musical prodigies, he was far from enough.

He made a living by busking with his guitar on the streets, renting a cheap, chaotic, and crowded room in Tianzi Building. The building housed women from the nearby red-light district, thugs who collected debts, and poor souls with nowhere else to go.

He couldn’t see a future for himself. The repetitive, hopeless days crushed him, and so he had prepared some poison to end his life.

He sat next to the electronic keyboard he’d bought with frugal savings and took the pills.

Nurse drifted in and out of clarity as the grayness on his body thickened.

Aberrant sensed the human scent in the nest, but looking at the pile of clothes before her, she hesitated before continuing to search through the floral dresses.

Even here, the sound of a child crying was loud and growing more frantic, which made her anxious.

She dug out a dozen or so floral dresses. None of them were identical to the one that had been torn, so she could only take these dresses back.

While her mother was away, Qian had beaten up her disobedient younger siblings, who had torn the pillows, and decided not to get them new ones.

When her mother returned, she carried a dress in each arm. Qian, looking at the dresses, broke into a smile through her tears.

“Mom, I really like you,” Qian sweetly said, making a request.

“Mom, I want to take a bath, and then you can change me into a new dress. Mom, smell me, smell me, I haven’t bathed, I’m almost starting to smell.”

Aberrant, entranced by her, lowered her head to sniff her and was embraced by the child around her neck. She couldn’t bring herself to leave, and so, she took the child and the floral dresses to find a place to bathe.

“I don’t want a shower bath, I want a tub bath. A bath with a bathtub. I want to play with the water.”

Aberrant had no choice but to find a large wooden tub in some room, fill it with water, and let the child bathe.

“Mom, I want a little duck to bathe with me.”

“Mom, this shower gel smells bad.”

“Mom, look, I have so many bubbles on my head!”

“Hahaha!”

The child, enjoying the bath and playing with the water, giggled happily. Water splashed all over Aberrant, even soaking her long black hair.

Qian, who was good at pulling and tugging, noticed her mother’s expression after wetting her, then eagerly tilted her head to say, “I’ll wash your hair, Mom.”

Then she wrung out the towel and stretched it out to wipe her mother’s face.

Aberrant lowered her head and let the child wipe her face, then continued to clean the child’s body.

After finishing, Qian put on the much-anticipated floral dress. But the joyful expression on her face faded, and she pouted, almost in tears, saying to her mother, “The dress is too big, boo-hoo.”

What should she do now?

Aberrant, holding the child, roamed the building looking for needle and thread to alter the dress.

Although she was growing anxious as she noticed the scent of humans running around in the nest, the child, clutching her hair, kept asking, “Mom, can you make the dress smaller?”

Aberrant sat on a chair, sewing with several hands at once. In just a few minutes, her movements went from clumsy to smooth.

Qian sat on her lap, using both hands to help push her mother’s hair aside so she could see. Although Aberrant could still see through the hair.

After finally finishing altering the dress, Aberrant watched with satisfaction as Qian twirled around in the dress. She then hugged her and carried her back.

Back in the Infant Room, Aberrant almost couldn’t wait to put her down, but as soon as she turned, the child grabbed her skirt.

“Mom, where are you going to play? I want to play too,” the child looked up at her, eyes pleading.

Aberrant turned back, gently rocking the energetic child in her arms like she would a baby.

Normally, such a gesture would have put other infants to sleep, but Qian kept her eyes wide open, staring at her.

Aberrant had no choice but to lie down, pulling the other babies to sleep too. This time, Aberrant used the blanket Qian brought to cover all the children, with one draped over Qian’s belly as well.

With the gentle rocking, Qian finally closed her eyes.

Seeing her eyes shut, Aberrant moved to put her down.

But in the next instant, Qian suddenly opened her eyes, locking gazes with her, her eyes sparkling.

Aberrant lay back down.

Qian flipped over and lay on her mother’s chest, saying, “Mom, are you going to go play after I fall asleep?”

Aberrant: “…”

Qian, not quite happy, said, “Fine, but you have to wait until I fall asleep before you go.”

Seeing the child close her eyes, Aberrant waited for quite a while before getting up again.

Qian suddenly opened her eyes with a smile, looking at her as if expecting a surprise. “I lied, I’m not asleep yet!”

Aberrant paused for a moment, then slowly lay back down.

Qian closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. After a while, when no movement came from Aberrant, she secretly opened one eye to see her motionless.

She reached out and gently nudged her mother. “Mom? Mom, are you asleep?”

Aberrant didn’t sleep yet. She first had to get her mother to sleep.

Downstairs, Teacher Wen and White Eagle struggled with all their might and finally managed to rescue the other three teammates trapped on the lower six floors, bringing them up to the top six floors.

Here, the gray shadows and haze had vanished, and the surroundings returned to normal.

They no longer had to worry about being assimilated, but they still had to prepare for other anomalies.

Teacher Wen’s Safe House enveloped the teammates, and he instructed, “Rest as quickly as possible. We’ll soon stir up Aberrant here, and there’s another tough battle ahead.”

They all believed Aberrant could appear at any moment, so they spared no time in using Nurse’s energy potion to recover.

However, they waited all night, and when morning arrived, Aberrant still hadn’t shown up.

Having fought off the building’s other anomalies throughout the night, Nurse, nearly on the brink of collapse, asked hazily, “Teacher Wen, why hasn’t Aberrant appeared?”

Teacher Wen replied, “…I don’t know either.”

According to the information, Aberrant would start wandering the building once she woke up on the third night, and she would appear drawn by the presence of people. This had always been the case—so why was it different this time?