"Yuanyuan, you haven't handed in this quarter's payment yet."
"Oh, wait." A voice came from the room, and then the door opened a little, and a white hand stretched out from inside, holding three red translucent beads in the palm of the hand, "Sister Xue, take a look at this, is it okay?"
The beautiful woman called "Sister Xue" had a beautiful face, snow-white skin, blood-red lips, and was wearing a gauze dress on such a rainy day.
Such a woman coming to this old neighborhood should be very eye-catching, but at this time even the voice-controlled lights in the corridor were not on. The corridor was quiet, as if there was no one there.
Sister Xue took the beads, shook them, and said, "Okay." Then she took out a brush and drew a few strokes on the security door.
The shabby security door emitted a faint light, and then slowly returned to its ordinary appearance.
Sister Xue put the beads into a pocket on her waist, said goodbye with a smile and left. After a while, the security door that had been opened a crack was gently closed again. Everything happened silently and the neighbors nearby did not notice anything.
A few minutes later, a shrill scream of a wild cat was suddenly heard outside the window, and in an instant, the voice-controlled lights in the corridor lit up.
Yuan Yuanyuan let out a breath and walked back to the bedroom.
Her tense muscles suddenly relaxed and she fell back onto the bed.
She was the only one in the room. A small yellow lamp on the bedside was quietly on, emitting a warm and faint light.
It was quiet everywhere, and the screen of the mobile phone placed on the bed was glowing.
The beautiful woman just now is the "second landlord" of this area, who is responsible for collecting "rent" from the little monsters here on behalf of the boss.
Yuan Yuanyuan moved to this place a year ago. There are all kinds of monsters mixed here and the security is not particularly good, but as long as you don’t go out in the middle of the night to commit suicide, life here is quite orderly.
As a half-demon, Yuan Yuanyuan has spent a lot of effort in recent years to find a place where she can live in peace. Even if it is this place that is similar to a monster slum, she feels grateful to be able to settle down.
There are many cases of flirting and fighting between monsters, and they are xenophobic by nature, so they are not very welcoming to half-monsters like Yuan Yuanyuan.
The city where Yuan Yuanyuan currently lives is a city where monsters and humans live together. She jokingly calls this city the "City of Freedom". The leader is a very good monster. His rule is that as long as a certain amount of protection fee is paid every month, he will protect the monsters living here.
So there are many monsters like Yuan Yuanyuan in this city who are not accepted by the outside world. The order is very chaotic, but there is order in the chaos.
Most monsters don't like this city. The only ones who really like this city are some notorious monsters, indiscriminate killers, and some monsters who are trying to avoid something.
Before she became a monster, Yuan Yuanyuan had imagined many things about monsters, but in recent years, she has been too lazy to even think about her own affairs. Some things will feel different only when you participate in them yourself. The blood and brutality in them are quite disgusting things, and are not as beautiful as imagined.
The "rent" for this quarter has been paid... I can probably spend three months in peace and stability.
Yuan Yuanyuan turned over and looked at the drizzle outside. She was extremely satisfied with her current place. Monsters were used to being active at night, but as a former pure human, she still adhered to human habits and never went out at night.
It's night time now... It's a great time to stay up late to cultivate. Having just paid the "rent" for this quarter, Yuan Yuanyuan is in a particularly good mood and feels that she can stay up until two in the morning today.
She turned on her three-year-old mobile phone, opened an app specifically for reading comics, and found a comic that she particularly liked recently. The name of the comic is "Demon Records", which tells the story of a young demon hunter.
"Yao Ji" was painted by a new artist named "Ji Qiu". He had never been a famous artist before. However, a month ago, he suddenly emerged as a dark horse and topped the popularity list of the website.
Yuan Yuanyuan didn't like to read comics about monsters anymore after she became a monster, but she couldn't resist the fact that this comic was on the front page every day. One day, she opened the comic out of curiosity and was completely absorbed in it.
If you ask Yuan Yuanyuan why she likes this comic, she can only say that the monsters drawn by this artist are very realistic.
It's not just true.
When Yuan Yuanyuan looked at this comic book, she sometimes felt that these monsters all had original forms. She even thought that the artist was also a monster, who just broke into the human world on a whim and picked up a paintbrush to draw such a comic book.
In fact, there are many powerful monsters among them. They are proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting. After all, they have lived for so many years, and many of them have lived from ancient times to the present.
But a monster that has lived to this age... certainly doesn't have so much free time to draw something like this.
She looked at the phone in her hand and curled her lips. In the past, when I read romance novels, the monsters in the novels could live in peace with humans, and were very active in integrating into human society, and even had a romantic relationship. At that time, I thought the girlish heart was so cute, but now I think it is more and more nonsense.
It's not that she is not romantic, the key is that only after she came here herself did she know what was going on. Those famous big monsters are like mysterious dragons that are hard to find, and the nameless little monsters are all struggling for survival. The monster hierarchy is as strong as the evil feudal society, and most monsters live a very difficult life.
Yuan Yuanyuan went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk, then came back and lay down on the bed again. Some things were really fucked up when she thought about it. No one knew how she, a socialist child who grew up under the red flag, could suddenly return to the feudal society in just a few years.
She had been thinking about this matter for several years, and only recently did she finally stop thinking about it.
Yuan Yuanyuan took a sip of milk, and white milk stains got under her nose. She looked at the picture on her phone, which showed a woman in red clothes lying in a pool of blood, her body covered in blood, her black hair scattered on her back and shoulders.
The woman's eyes were fixed forward. She had a pair of deep eyes with upturned corners. The red dress she wore was like a blood-red flower, which bloomed beautifully but withered very quickly.
Yuan Yuanyuan was drinking milk while looking at the woman. It was obvious that the painter was very fond of this woman and he used an entire page to paint her. The whole screen was filled with bright red and pure black. The interweaving of black and red looked very heavy and textured, as if one could see the woman's death with one's own eyes.
If there really is such a big monster... what would it be like when it dies
Yuan Yuanyuan actually felt a little frightened when she thought about it. Her whole body felt like it had been electrified and numb.
She turned a page, ready to see what happened next, when suddenly someone knocked frantically on the door.
"Who is it?" Yuan Yuanyuan turned over and sat up, picked up a small knife from the bedside and shouted outside.
It is almost eleven o'clock in the evening, which is generally not a time when guests come to visit, so I don't know who is knocking on the door.
She got out of bed a little timidly, hesitated for a moment when she approached the door, then remembered that Sister Xue had drawn a barrier for her anti-theft door an hour ago, so she mustered up the courage to walk over.
Unexpectedly, the person knocking on the door turned out to be her neighbor.
"Yuanyuan! Yuanyuan, are you there?" The door was banged. Yuanyuan heard the familiar voice and slowly opened the door. A woman came in from the door. She was wearing a black coat, her hair was wet, and she looked anxious. "Yuanyuan, have you seen my Xiaoying?"
"Xiaoying?" Yuan Yuanyuan was stunned. "She hasn't come back yet?"
Xiaoying is the child of Yuan Yuanyuan's neighbor. Even though Yuan Yuanyuan has to pay rent to the monster on time every month, she lives in a community full of humans, and her neighbors are pure humans through and through.
"No, I just went to pick her up from the cram school, but I didn't pick her up. Her teacher also said that she left after class, and I couldn't get through when I called." The neighbor's eyes were red. He didn't know how long he had been running in the heavy rain, and his trouser legs were wet.
“…” Yuan Yuanyuan looked up at the sky outside. It was a rainy day today and she could smell a faint fishy odor in the air.
"Yuanyuan, your uncle and I will go out to look for her. Please keep an eye on her. If Xiaoying comes back, call me right away." The neighbor said, and then turned and left. Yuanyuan was dumbfounded for a moment, "Wait a minute! Aunt! Aunt! Come back first! It's raining outside! Call the police first!"
The neighbors have now walked far away, "It has been reported!"
Yuan Yuanyuan stood at the door for a long time. She thought that even if she called the police, it would probably be of no use.
The fishy smell outside was getting stronger and stronger. Yuan Yuanyuan had smelled it a long time ago, but she hadn't gone out yet, because it was best not to get involved in matters between monsters, especially hunting.
The rules of this area are that you are not allowed to kill weak monsters that do not cause trouble at will, but if there is a private fight between monsters, the leader will not intervene.
She has been following this rule for the past year and never goes out at night. After all, the barrier painted on the door is not so much for defense as it is for identification, proving that the people living here are legal residents and are protected by the boss.
But if a private fight breaks out... then this barrier will be useless, and other monsters can easily rush into her house and hack her to death without worrying about any punishment.
As a half-demon, although she has not been in contact with the monster world for several years, Yuan Yuanyuan still knows these unspoken rules. Although she has become a monster, she will never cause trouble. However, today... she met an acquaintance.
Yuan Yuanyuan closed the door and stood at the entrance. For the first time, she felt at a loss. She felt that what happened today was the most fucked-up thing that had ever happened to her. It was even more fucked-up than when she was chased for most of the night by a bird-faced idiot who discriminated against half-demons during the Chinese New Year.
She stood there for a very long time, like a frozen statue, until the voice-controlled lights in the corridor turned off automatically, and then she suddenly moved.
Yuan Yuanyuan did not go back to her bedroom to continue reading comics. She quickly ran to her closet and started looking through her clothes. She pulled out all the clothes one by one and threw them all over the floor.
After rummaging for a few minutes, Yuan Yuanyuan finally found a black windbreaker and tried it on herself.
This was a set of clothes that her father had worn before. It was very big, enough to cover her head and body completely, so that no appearance could be seen at all.
Yuan Yuanyuan stretched out a hand to cover her face and rubbed it. After three seconds, she raised her head again.
There was a noticeable change in her appearance.
…Take a gamble.
Yuan Yuanyuan put on a windbreaker, her eyes suddenly became sharp, and a hint of red spread to the corners of her eyes.
There was a gust of wind outside the window... It was as if someone had quietly sneaked in and seen this scene.
This scene suddenly froze on a piece of drawing paper, black and red intertwined into one.