"Rules of the Apartment on the Other Side"
[No taking the elevator after midnight] [Don't peek into the neighbor's peephole] [Don't look directly at the light source before five o'clock in the morning]… The words in blood are glowing with an ominous red light, and behind them are the absolutely invincible "residents": the rickety figure walking on bone spurs in the corridor, the smiling face that imitates you in the mirror but takes a late shot, and the sarcoma dripping mucus from the ceiling. They are the incarnation of rules, they are swallowed when touched, and resistance is tantamount to self-destruction.
A scrawled note from a friend is the only way to survive. Here, the way to survive is never to fight, but to obey - even if the rules are contradictory and may be added at any time. The light is both a shelter and a trap, the neighbors are a threat and also hide clues, and even the blur of the shadow is counting down the "dead date" for violations.
The "public code" at the bottom of the ashtray reveals a deeper horror: the rules themselves are bait, and friendly terms hide fatal traps. Shen Baizhou looked at his increasingly transparent palms and the dark red runes spreading on his wrists, and understood that he was being assimilated by the rules.
