"Are you sure you want to live in this building?"
The agent lowered his voice: "When the last tenant moved out, he was mentally a little... Abnormal."
Lin Wan signed the contract and walked into No. 13 Huaiyin Road with his suitcase.
The apartment was very old, the corridor lights flickered on and off, and dark green moisture seeped under the wallpaper. She knocked on the next door to say hello.
The door opened a crack and a box of cookies was handed out.
Only one hand was exposed from the crack in the door - too pale, with long knuckles, neatly manicured nails, and a faint dark green line on the inside of the wrist.
Attached was a note, the handwriting was so neat that it was almost pathological:
"Welcome. Don't look in the mirror after ten o'clock at night. Don't say any names. Don't answer the knock on the door. There are no additives in the cookies, so feel free to eat."
Signature: Ying Jin.
Lin Wan folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket, thinking: The residents in this building must have some kind of histrionic personality disorder.
At 10:03 that night, she was brushing her teeth in the bathroom and glanced at the mirror with her peripheral vision.
In the mirror, there was a person standing behind her.
The man had a Ying Jin face, but he smiled and opened his mouth - the mouth was cracked to the base of his ears, and there was no tongue inside, only countless curled, wriggling, translucent tentacles.
"Ying Jin" in the mirror mouthed:
"You saw me."
——
Later, Lin Wan learned that No. 13 Huaiyin Road was a "shelter".
On the second floor lives Po Meng, who has lost her memory. She makes soup every night, and what is cooked in the soup is the past she has forgotten.
On the third floor lives one of the twenty-eight stars expelled from the heaven. Every night he counts the stars on the balcony and weeps one by one.
On the fourth floor lives a fox who has lived for three thousand years. He works as a high school teacher during the day and corrects mistakes in students' dreams at night.
The fifth floor... No one lives on the fifth floor. But every full moon night, eyes will grow on the walls of the entire floor.
And her neighbor who likes to bake cookies is the "landlord" of the building.
He maintains the existence of the entire building, seals things that should not be seen behind each door, and protects this group of "others" forgotten by the world in the calmest way.
Until Lin Wan appeared. There is something about her that can completely open "the door" he sealed.
——
"Why did you come?"
Ying Jin showed a panicked expression for the first time. He stood at the end of the corridor, behind him the twisted, falling ceiling dripping with sticky night.
Lin Wan clutched the folklore notes in her hand and remembered a sentence written in the paper:
"Human beings fear the unknown because we assume that the unknown will hurt us. But maybe the unknown just doesn't know how to be loved."
She took a deep breath and walked towards him.
"I'll study you."
"Then?"
"Then... Write an essay and tell the world that you are not terrible."
Ying Jin was stunned for a moment. Then he laughed.
That smile was a standard, gentle, and beautiful curve for human beings. It was completely different from the smile that was cracked to the base of the ears in the mirror.
"Lin Wan," he said, "you are the first human being I have met in this world who is not afraid of me."
"You are also the first Cthulhu I studied who can bake cookies."
Behind the door, all the non-human neighbors in the whole building were lying on the crack of the door to eavesdrop. Teacher Fox quietly wiped the corners of his eyes, Twenty-Eight Stars gave a thumbs up on the balcony, and Po Meng silently added an extra spoonful of sugar to the soup.
This night, the lights at No. 13 Huaiyin Road were brighter than ever before.
[High concept + daily healing + Chinese Cthulhu + urban ghost stories + unit group portraits + sweet but not greasy + scary to think about]
"The gods choose to sleep because when they wake up, the world will collapse."
"But he chose to wake up because of her."
Intention: The unknown is not hurt, it is just not knowing how to be loved.