Chapter Eight: The Food Crisis

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Nine o’clock at night. Xiuming sat in his room, flipping through the doctrine book he had brought back, his brow furrowing deeper the further he read. This religion was called the Church of Complete Truth. From the opening spiritual exhortations to the later practical instructions, it compelled one to question whether the reality of the world they inhabited was genuine. The explanations for various rituals and incantations were so meticulously detailed that, if even half of the doctrine were true, it would overturn all conventional scientific understanding.

The pages halted at an emblem—a design identical to the one carved on every door upstairs. In one corner of the page, a handwritten note read: “Other side 12, 7.”

It could be a code, a reminder, or perhaps a set of coordinates. Regardless, Xiuming committed the numbers to memory.

After a night’s rest, everyone spent the next day meticulously inspecting the house, scrutinizing it down to every brick and tile.

“There’s only one day’s worth of food left,” Guo Zhengxiang observed, frowning at the meager supplies laid out before him.

“And we haven’t caught any rats,” Xiuming added.

“This is bad. I think we should all go outside together—maybe we’ll find something. Last time Gao Yi looked, he was in a hurry and might have missed something,” Xiuming suggested.

Fei Xin nodded in agreement.

“All right. Let’s check outside next,” Guo Zhengxiang said.

“I’ll stay. There’s nothing to see,” Gao Yi replied.

Xiuming and Fei Xin exchanged a silent glance.

Guo Zhengxiang nodded. “That’s fine. You stay—Wang Qian isn’t doing well.”

Gao Yi’s expression flickered with relief before turning somber again. “I’ll leave it to you, then.”

The five of them made their way to the balcony where Gao Yi had previously climbed down. The tree trunk wasn’t far from the window, so once the men jumped to the trunk, they could help the women down. One by one, they descended.

In front of the trunk, a row of windows was securely shut. Xiuming couldn’t fathom why these windows were so impenetrable.

Reaching the ground, they found the surrounding vegetation withered and lifeless, and, not far from the house, a black wall cut them off.

Xiuming approached the wall and reached out to touch it. There was no friction, no sensation at all. He balled his fist and struck it, but felt no resistance.

The others also searched along the wall, hoping to find a mechanism or a flaw. Perhaps, with some luck, they could tear open the black curtain and see the bright sunlight outside—and escape.

“Any discoveries?” Fei Xin asked, coming up beside Xiuming.

Xiuming pressed his lips together. “Can I come to your room tonight? There’s something I want to discuss.”

“Oh?” Fei Xin glanced at him. “Of course.”

After their quiet agreement, they split up to continue searching for clues.

“What if we dig a tunnel under the wall?” Tao Tao suddenly suggested.

“Right!” Guo Zhengxiang slapped his forehead. “Maybe if we dig a hole, we’ll find ourselves outside with a bunch of cameras waiting, congratulating us for completing some survival show.”

“That’s a fun idea,” Cui Kaixuan laughed, rolling up his sleeves and picking up a dead branch to start digging.

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But no matter how hard he tried, the ground showed no sign of disturbance, though to the touch it felt exactly like real earth.

“It’s no use. We seem to be completely sealed in,” Cui Kaixuan said, rising and shaking his head.

“Knew it wouldn’t be that easy,” Guo Zhengxiang sighed.

By now, not a single patch of grass went unchecked.

Xiuming arrived at a corner of the wall, overgrown with dead vines. Pushing them aside, he found a section of wall damaged by the elements, exposing some bricks.

Suddenly, a thought struck him. “Other side, 12, 7.” The note resurfaced in his mind. The other side meant the far side of the house, and 12, 7 could be the number of bricks.

He crouched down and counted the twelfth brick from left to right, then the seventh from the bottom up. Gripping the edge of the brick, he pulled hard.

With a thud, the brick came loose. Xiuming’s heart leapt; he reached inside.

There was nothing.

“Maybe someone hid something here, and it’s already been taken,” he thought, and put the brick back in place.

“Come here! Look at this!” Cui Kaixuan called out.

Everyone hurried over to find him crouched near the wall, staring at a row of iron bars on the ground—a manhole cover, it seemed. He poked a stick through, and it slid deep underground.

“A drainage outlet!” Guo Zhengxiang grabbed the bars and pulled with all his might, the others lending a hand. But the bars were fixed as if welded to stone.

“No surprise there.” After their attempt at digging earlier, no one was truly disappointed.

“Let’s have a look further ahead.”

They circled to the front door. The same black walls surrounded them, the flowerbeds were a tangle of weeds, and the door was tightly shut.

Nothing blocked the entrance, yet the door wouldn’t budge. That scrap of paper with a hundred-yuan note was still there, half-exposed under the door.

The group exchanged uneasy looks. Something was off, but they couldn’t quite say what. The door’s refusal to open had nothing to do with their inability to leave, since beyond the door, the house was still hemmed in by an invisible wall. So why wouldn’t the door open?

“The car is just the other side of the wall,” Guo Zhengxiang said, taking out the car keys and pressing them—no response.

After another fruitless search, they returned inside.

Xiuming lingered at the back, lost in thought. Suddenly, his entire body seized up; he couldn’t move or make a sound. His consciousness began to blur.

“Hey? Xiuming? Xiuming?” Fei Xin turned and saw him standing rigid, then his legs buckled and he collapsed.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

Xiuming opened his eyes to find everyone gathered around him.

“What happened to me?” he asked.

“You just collapsed. How do you feel now?” Fei Xin inquired.

Xiuming shook his head. “I don’t even remember falling. I’m all right now.”

“It could be low blood sugar,” Fei Xin suggested.

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Since he seemed fine, they climbed the tree and returned to the second floor.

“Nothing found.”

“What do we do when the food’s gone?”

“No idea. Maybe we’re all going to die here.”

“…”

Dong—the clock chimed.

“I thought the clock was broken!”

“Is there another clock?”

“Hurry! Let’s check!”

While the chiming still echoed, they rushed to the mezzanine.

Bong, bong, bong—the mezzanine clock rang out, its hands pointing to six o’clock sharp.

“The time’s wrong,” Fei Xin remarked, glancing at her phone. “It’s ten in the morning, and my battery’s nearly dead.”

“How does it keep going off on its own?”

“Let’s hope we catch a rat, or we’ll be starving soon,” Guo Zhengxiang said with a bitter smile.

They made their way to the hall.

The food beneath the stainless steel bowl remained untouched.

Xiuming glanced at the oil painting on the wall. In the faint glow of Guo Zhengxiang’s emergency flashlight, he saw that the Madonna angel, who had once shed tears of blood, no longer wore a gentle smile—her lips now curled into a sharp, sinister grin, and dark liquid trickled from her mouth, just like the key that had hung in Fei Xin’s shadow not long ago…

“You’re finally back,” Gao Yi said, appearing at the entrance to the hall. “Wang Qian… she’s dead.”

“What!?” Everyone gasped and rushed to Wang Qian’s room.

“Qianqian! Qianqian!” Tao Tao and Fei Xin clutched her hand, calling her name.

But Wang Qian lay motionless. After checking her breathing, the two women’s eyes filled with tears.

“Please leave. We’ll change her clothes…” Fei Xin said.

The four others stepped out and closed the door.

“When did Wang Qian pass away?” Xiuming asked.

“Not long after you left,” Gao Yi replied. “I was changing her wet towel when I found she’d stopped breathing.”

About ten minutes later, Tao Tao and Fei Xin emerged.

With a sharp crack, Tao Tao slapped Gao Yi across the face.