Shelly washed his hands three full tis before he could finally stop slling anything.
He muttered curses as he returned to the studio, leaving behind the prop used for playing the victim, Everly, forgotten on the sofa.
Perhaps it was because just now his worthless dad’s frown had so vividly expressed disgust, but lying in the living room picking at her feet, Everly seed to catch a whiff of the sll Shelly had described—a stench like “fish left in a powerless fridge for three days in the middle of sumr.”
What the hell… is the sll from downstairs finally drifting up the stairwell?
The living room was right by the entrance door. Compared to the inner bedrooms by the windows, it was far more likely to be affected by odors drifting through the apartnt. Everly sniffed, looking around. The stench ca in waves—sotis she could sll nothing, sotis she caught it again. The putrid sll almost made her spit out her milk.
So this is what they call the sll of a corpse… Disgusting. She hoped the police would finish surveying the scene quickly so the landlord could hire a cleaner to scrub the apartnt. Otherwise, even if it wasn’t hot right now, this stink drifting around would still be unbearable!
Many of the residents shared Everly’s thoughts. Especially that afternoon, when the temperature had unusually shot up to 29°C—a rare heatwave for this city. The high sun scorched the building, releasing odor molecules trapped in the gaps of the wooden structures. As the temperature climbed, the stench drifting from apartnt 304 grew even stronger, almost like a biological weapon.
That day, every resident of Mayflower Apartnts, from the first floor to the sixth, was thoroughly assaulted by the sll.
By evening, after a day of steadily intensifying odor, it had finally crossed the human threshold for tolerance—becoming unbearably pungent. In the apartnt, those who normally stayed confined now couldn’t; the shut-ins ca out; even the artist couldn’t take it. He abandoned his brushes, wrapped baby Everly in sheets, and practically fled downstairs.
For a mont, the entire building resembled an ant nest scalded with boiling water—residents were swarming out in all directions, fleeing in a frenzy.
Strangely, though the apartnts reeked inside, once people stepped outside, the sll vanished instantly. This created a bizarre scene outside Mayflower Apartnts: a large number of residents, carrying simple bundles, wearing masks, and covering their noses and mouths, dashed out the doors—only to pause a few steps away, sniff the air, and look around in confusion. Most of them, having nowhere else to go or unwilling to pay for a hotel, looked around, saw the outdoor space was relatively clean, and simply unpacked their things on the ground, using whatever they could find as makeshift seating.
Shelly, being a painter, had always considered himself sowhat refined. Seeing others settle on the ground outside and set up for a night in the open, he hesitated. In the end, vanity won out—he refused to squeeze in with the crowd. Hugging Everly, he went to a nearby small inn and made do for the night.
The inn was terrible. Its narrow, cramped rooms were windowless, perpetually slling of mildew, and poorly soundproofed. At night, all sorts of ambiguous noises leaked through the walls from every direction. Though Shelly had been down on his luck before, he had never stayed in such a deplorable place. Coupled with the trauma from the corpses downstairs earlier that day, he drank heavily before bed to vent his frustration and bolster his courage—getting himself thoroughly drunk.
The result? He overslept the next morning and completely missed the checkout ti. The innkeeper, eager to make a bit more money from a late checkout, hadn’t bothered to wake him. Finally, it was Everly, starving and fed up, who whined and repeatedly kicked Shelly in the face with her small legs, rousing the snoring, drunken man at last.
“What ti is it…? What? Already this late? Damn it!”
Shelly groggily opened his eyes. Seeing the ti, he instantly shot upright in bed.
He threw on clothes haphazardly, carrying his suitcase in his left hand and holding Everly in his right, and rushed to the front desk to check out.
“Are you sure you want to check out? Then you’ll need to pay for an extra day,” the chubby innkeeper asked with a calm, leisurely tone.
“But I’m only an hour and a half late!”
“That’s still overti… Mr. Shelly, are you trying to skip paying?” Behind the counter, the hefty innkeeper lazily drew on his cigarette, casually raising his right hand beneath the desk to reveal a hand covered in blue tattoos and the polished black half-stock of a gun.
The poor painter Shelly’s face changed in an instant.
“Then… then I’ll stay another night and check out tomorrow morning,” he stamred obediently.
“No problem, enjoy your stay~” The innkeeper put the gun away and waved at Shelly. Noticing Everly’s eyes fixed on him, he happily made a funny face at the little baby.
“Giggle…” Everly was hungry. Seeing the fat innkeeper make the culprit who had caused her to miss breakfast take a small loss, she was overjoyed, a toothless grin spreading across her face.
Since he was already late, Shelly decided to stay another night to make it worthwhile.
The inn’s ground floor was a tavern. The drinks were homade by the chubby innkeeper and very cheap, attracting many lower-class locals at night.
With so many people around, word traveled fast. The news that a devout couple in Mayflower Apartnts had died as a sacrifice, leaving a corpse stench so strong it forced residents to flee, was now spreading like wildfire through the old city.
Just while being carried downstairs for dinner (Shelly eating while Everly sucked on her bottle), Everly overheard from the nearby conversations that earlier this morning, after pressure from various parties, the police had officially determined that the couple in apartnt 304 had died due to obsessive involvent in a cult, and the team had cleared the scene.
When the landlord saw that the apartnt had been cleared, he imdiately called in a professional cri scene cleaning crew to scrub every inch of apartnt 304. All the furniture was thrown out, and the floor was pried up piece by piece to ensure no corner was left untouched.
“Does Mayflower Apartnts still stink?” Shelly asked.
“A friend of mine who lives there went back this afternoon. I heard they sprayed deodorizer inside—it doesn’t sll at all anymore,” a diner replied.
Shelly was overjoyed. “Great! Looks like I can go back tomorrow.”
—Little did he know he was about to experience what it truly ans to “be too happy and have misfortune follow.”
That evening, in the tavern, two n started fighting over the attention of a woman. At first, it was just a minor scuffle, but it turned out that the two were from rival gangs.
As the fight went on, more gang mbers joined in, and what began as a small brawl escalated into a full-blown clash between the two gangs.
Timid Shelly naturally had no intention of getting involved in such a dangerous affair, but luck was not on his side. While trying to escape, he was accidentally struck in the calf by a chair swung by one of the gang mbers.
“Ahhhhh! My leg!” Shelly scread, clutching his leg in pain. Tears and snot stread down his face like a fountain, covering him completely, leaving him instantly immobile.
In the end, it was the chubby innkeeper who ca to the rescue—either out of a sense of justice or worry that Shelly might die in the brawl and bring trouble to him. At any rate, at the critical mont, the innkeeper heroically barged into the fray, rescued the stunned Shelly and the baby in his arms, and shoved the unlucky pair behind the counter to hide.
The tavern fight raged on for nearly half an hour.
By the ti the police finally arrived and shouted to break up the chaos, there was not a single good spot left in the room.
Both sides involved in the brawl were pinned down by police batons and roughly shoved into police cars. As for Shelly, he was sent to the hospital in an ambulance, sirens wailing all the way.
The bad news: his calf was fractured.
The good news: this hospital stay didn’t cost him a cent.
The chubby innkeeper kindly recomnded a lawyer to Shelly. No one knew exactly how that lawyer worked his magic, but before long, under the lawyer’s supervision, Shelly signed a letter of settlent and received a hefty compensation paynt from both gangs involved in the fight. Although he later had to give a cut to the lawyer and the innkeeper, even after those deductions Shelly still made a killing from the injury. He was all smiles, sighing again and again about how the injury had been totally worth it.
Everly was happy too. Since her worthless dad had a broken leg and couldn’t take care of her, the hospital arranged a temporary nanny. Though only hired short-term, the nanny was ticulous—feeding her, burping her, changing diapers, bathing her, turning her over, and coaxing her to sleep. She took such attentive care of little Everly that in just ten-odd days, Everly plumped up noticeably.
Unfortunately, good tis never last.
Half a month later, with his bones healing well, worthless dad Shelly was discharged from the hospital.
Once Shelly left the hospital, Everly could no longer freeload off the nanny’s careful care. That was because the nursing fees were bundled together with the hospitalization costs and reimbursed by the gangs involved in the fight. Stingy Shelly would never be willing to spend his own money hiring a caregiver.
Everly: sad QAQ
After finishing the discharge procedures, father and daughter hailed a taxi at the hospital entrance, preparing to return to Mayflower Apartnts. Unexpectedly, when Shelly gave the destination, the taxi driver’s expression imdiately turned a bit strange.
“You’re going to Mayflower Apartnts?” the driver turned around to confirm with Shelly.
“Yes. Why?”
“You… you haven’t heard? The rumors about that place.”
“What rumors? About the two people who died in 304?”
“No, not that… The cult couple in 304 is old news now. The latest word about that building is—Mayflower Apartnts—it… it eats people.”
“Nonsense. I’ve lived there for years. If it really ate people, how could I still be alive?” Shelly was an atheist and had always scoffed at talk of gods and ghosts, dismissing it all as superstition. Seeing that the taxi still hadn’t moved, he urged impatiently, “I’m in a hurry. Just drive!”
“All right, hold on tight.” The driver shrugged and said no more. He stepped on the gas, and the car shot forward.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi stopped at the roadside several dozen ters away from Mayflower Apartnts.
The road ahead was blocked.
Shelly rolled down the window. Together with Everly, swaddled against his chest, he craned his neck to look toward the apartnt entrance.
A ring of police tape had been set up on the ground to the right of the building’s main gate. Two police cars with red lights flashing and a white ambulance with its lights blazing ford a loose periter outside the tape. Several uniford officers were maintaining order around the cordon, while dical staff in white hurried back and forth.
Outside the police line, onlookers packed the area three layers deep, sealing the scene completely.
Another homicide had occurred at Mayflower Apartnts.
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