The Old Building Speaks Not

Linwan, an old city on the northern coast.

The bustling alley in the south is rooted in the heart of the old city. By day, its streets are desolate and dilapidated, their surfaces permanently coated in black grease and grime. At night, the lights blaze, and stalls selling grilled skewers, seafood, and prepared foods stretch for hundreds of meters amid a noisy crush of people. It is a gray zone where migrant workers, longtime local residents, and short-term renters intermingle, a place where human ties are thin, self-interest runs deep, and nobody talks about other people's business.

North of the alley stands Jinhua Apartments, a red-brick residential building completed in 1994.

Thirty-two years old, it was originally a dormitory for workers at the food factory. It has open-air corridors, concrete stairwells, water seeping through the walls, and exposed pipes. There is no underground civil-defense shelter, no hidden floors, and no bizarre figures lurking on the roof. The first floor houses liquor and tobacco shops and prepared-food businesses; the second has mahjong parlors and tea rooms; and the third through seventh floors are home to retired factory workers, tenants in debt, and people staying temporarily.

The building has no shared code of evil, only silent bargains: don't pry, don't interfere, help one another when money is involved, and keep quiet when trouble strikes.