"Click!"
After encountering a black-hearted boss at work, being exploited for her labor as a minor, and being unable to overcome the challenges despite her best efforts, Xiangzi returned to her home.
Fengchuan Xiangzi came to the room she shared with her father, opened the door, and as expected, saw Xiang Zi's father sprawled on the floor like a paralyzed Living Corpse.
He had said he would get his life back together when they moved, but he only managed to keep it up for less than 3 days after arriving. He even said that morning he was going back to read newspapers and send out resumes, and now he was lying on the floor again.
Gritting her teeth, Xiangzi quickly began to clean, turned off the TV in her father's room, then lit a desk lamp in the alcohol-reeking room, and despite her drowsiness, found her schoolbag in the corner and started reviewing.
Time passed bit by bit, and drowsiness crept in. She checked her phone and it was already 12 o'clock. On the lock screen, there was a long string of concerned messages from Nagasaki Soyo, a bandmate, asking why she was able to come to practice less and less.
She hesitated for a moment, but still didn't reply, choosing to pretend to be someone who didn't stay up late at this time, and continued to bury herself in her homework, fighting a desperate battle.
Just as Fengchuan Xiangzi was fully focused on her homework, a sound suddenly came from behind her.
"Bang bang!"
A crisp metallic knocking sound rang out.
Xiang Zi's father, like in the opening animation of Plants vs. Zombies, suddenly extended his hand.
"Ah! Xiangzi, you're back?"
Xiangzi was startled at first, thinking there was an earthquake in Tokyo, but after carefully feeling and realizing there wasn't, she walked over to Xiang Zi's father, who she hadn't known was back for two hours, with a dark expression and covered him with a blanket.
Then, frowning, she went to her room to find out what had fallen.
It was called a room.
But this place was actually the hallway of their house.
The layout of Xiangzi's current room was: upon entering, to the left was a row of shelves, already filled with various storage boxes, with only an old doll that somewhat resembled Shinku from Rozen Maiden or Bloody Mary, the Clockwork Puppet, sitting blankly on a pile of miscellaneous items.
Opposite that row of miscellaneous items was Xiangzi's mini floor futon, so small that she had to curl up to sleep on it, with a cheap gauze curtain enclosing her last small private space.
And she also found what had fallen.
"Strange…"
She looked at it; it was a half-price bento she had rushed to buy after work, with two small boxes containing enough food to last a day if planned properly.
The two bento boxes in the plastic bag were placed steadily, but the one on top was strangely tilted on the table.
In truth, her falling to this point wasn't without options, but she simply couldn't accept her father being driven out of the family like this, nor could she abandon her father, who was now like a useless person and felt he would die if she left.
Just as Xiangzi carefully moved the bento box further in, to prevent it from falling again, a sound came from behind her.
"Clang!"
She tensed up at first, then, as if she realized something, she gritted her teeth.
It must be her old man knocking over a beer can...
Fengchuan Xiangzi's eyes suddenly widened, and she whipped her head around.
No! She had clearly picked up those beer cans already, and put them all in a plastic bag!
In front of Fengchuan Xiangzi, a round white can rolled from the corner of the room towards her, its Sapporo Beer label and snow-white body particularly conspicuous in the dim room.
Xiangzi looked forward, and there was an open garbage bag.
"Clang!"
Another beer can rolled out of that garbage bag and slowly moved towards Xiangzi.
It was like a mischievous prank by a naughty child.
But at this moment, Xiangzi felt a great sense of dread.
Just a can rolling towards her made her feel a desire to retreat… fear.
This fear didn't come from seeing a terrifying scene or image, but from something deeper: something that defied the brain's cognition was happening in her own domain, where she slept.
It was like a picture on paper suddenly moving, or a breeze blowing in a sealed room; this was a fear and unknown that stemmed from human logical thinking.
What a normal high school girl should do when faced with this reaction is probably scream.
After all, this is human instinct: to make a sound to call for companions, and then wait for others to solve the problem.
But Xiangzi was completely different; she retreated several steps, leaning against the door.
She twisted the doorknob, intending to open the door leading to the common area.
This was the only time she felt that living in such a mixed-up shared accommodation was good.
After all, that feeling—the clear awareness that other humans lived on the other side of a 160cm wall—could provide a great sense of security in such a situation.
Throwing the door wide open, Fengchuan Xiangzi ran across the tatami with her white socks, which were a bit dirty from a day of school.
"Hey! You bastard old man! Wake up, something's wrong!"
There was no typical horror movie protagonist's initial suspicion that an anomaly was a natural phenomenon; when she felt something was wrong, her first reaction was to take Xiang Zi's father out and then see.
Her footsteps crossed over the bottles and cans, and she entered Xiang Zi's father's room, shaking his shoulders repeatedly.
However, as she shook him, Xiang Zi's father merely opened his eyes dazedly, then rolled over, muttering something with his lips as Xiangzi continued to shake him.
After all, this floor full of beer wasn't just a normal hangover; it was the kind of drunkenness where he wouldn't wake up even if two people carried him, as if he had drunk flammable oolong tea, more like a blackout than a hangover.
Seeing Xiang Zi's father in such a state, Xiangzi immediately grew anxious, directly raising her palm and slapping him on the face while speaking.
"Wake up! This isn't the time…"
"Click!"
However, while she was still slapping Xiang Zi's father, a sound came from the doorway.
The door closed.
This sound also caught Xiangzi's attention.
But when Xiangzi turned her head to look, what she saw was...
Bottles and cans scattered everywhere.
They were like an orderly army, lying horizontally in the room, rolling slowly in one direction.
The cans in front even slowed down, as if deliberately waiting for the rolling cans behind them.
"Bang!"
With a sound, the bottles that had been rolling with the slope reversed direction at once.
All of them rolled towards the room.
"Thump-thump!"
Fengchuan Xiangzi had no time to think, she heavily stepped on the tatami and stood up, her sense of crisis telling her not to let those cans come in.
She directly pulled the door shut, pulled out her phone, and with trembling hands, tried to call the police while also calling out for help to her neighbors, even though she disliked receiving help from others and wasn't so stubborn as to refuse in this situation.
But it was at this moment, as the cans pushed against the sliding door, that Fengchuan Xiangzi saw a shadow like a human figure appear on the wall illuminated by her desk lamp, except that where the head should have been, there was a long face like an anteater.
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