Bai Liu pushed open the dilapidated door of the security room and walked into the cemetery.

The cemetery has the usual cemetery scene, with rows of marble tombstones and a pedestal about 1*2 meters wide in front of them, on which are written the deceased's date of birth, date of death and cause of death.

Mu Ke looked around at the pedestals, his eyes fixed, as if collecting information from them for comprehensive analysis. He raised his head and looked at Bai Liu: "More than 80% of the people here died before the age of 60, with an average life expectancy of only about 52 years. The cause of death is generally various organ diseases. It seems that it is work-related injuries caused by the poor environment."

"Not only that." Liu Jiayi stopped in front of a tombstone, "The later a person's birth date is, the earlier their death date is."

She said calmly: "Their average life expectancy is still shortening, and the number of people dying suddenly has increased."

Mu Ke followed Liu Jiayi's line of sight and saw a 32-year-old woman who died suddenly in front of a computer chair. "According to the data on the tombstones here, the average age of death for women in Sunshine City has dropped to around 30 in recent times, and for men it has dropped to around 35."

"They are just men and women who have just passed the best childbearing age." Mu Ke looked at Bai Liu.

Bai Liu walked forward with a calm look in his eyes. "If you can't have children, you'll die suddenly. The real estate developers in Sunshine City are obviously adjusting everyone's average life expectancy to an age where people can work hard all their lives, but their productivity will decline after giving birth."

“That’s how you get the most value out of everyone.”

Mu Sicheng looked around, lowered his head to search for plants, raised his head and looked at Bai Liu with a frown: "There are only normal tombstones here. I didn't see the entrance to the 18th floor underground cemetery, and I didn't see the floor number."

Tang Erda looked down at the property in his hand: "The number is unit 0812."

Bai Liu stopped and looked up at the tombstone: "The twelfth in the eighth row, this should be it."

Tang Erda looked towards the place where Bai Liu stopped and his eyes froze.

There was only a tombstone there, and the surroundings were bare without any other buildings. If Bai Liu said that this was the cemetery, then there was only one possibility.

"Lift up the pedestal," Bai Liu ordered calmly, "The entrance is inside the tomb."

Mu Sicheng was shocked and asked, "Inside the tomb? Does that mean our floor is already the first floor of the cemetery?"

"But if the first layer is the entrance and you have to lift it up to get in..." Mu Sicheng looked at the tombstone of the young man who died at the age of 26, "Then where are the graves of these people?"

Tang Erda also frowned: "These people died too early. They don't look like the rich people who can afford the first level of tombs."

Bai Liu looked calmly at the young man's portrait on the tombstone and said, "This is not the first floor."

"According to the normal building structure, the tomb here should be called a basement or garage. It is the cheapest location in the entire building."

"So the people buried here are probably lower-class citizens of Sunshine City who can't even afford an 18-story cemetery."

The thick pedestal corpse stood up as Tang Erda and Mu Sicheng lifted it up together. When the pedestal was turned over to see the situation inside clearly, Mu Sicheng couldn't help but gasp first, and even Mu Ke and Tang Erda changed their expressions.

After the pedestal was lifted, there was a dark staircase below that was so narrow that only one person could pass through. This was not a shocking scene. What was shocking was that there was a transparent plastic coffin on the lifted pedestal, and a living person was curled up in the coffin!

This boy, who seemed only in his teens, hugged his shoulders and curled up in a coffin that was only two-thirds the size of his body, as if he was in a womb. He hugged his body tightly and breathed gently. The mist from his breath hit the wall of the coffin and created a circle of mist. His expression was tense and painful, as if he was about to die from suffocation.

Tang Erda immediately opened the lid of the coffin, pulled the boy out of the coffin, and patted his face hard: "Wake up!"

The boy coughed twice and woke up in a daze. Seeing someone in front of him, he rubbed his eyes and asked, "Are you the new residents of 0812 Cemetery Building? Sorry, I fell asleep just now. I'm getting up now to let you in."

Mu Sicheng responded for a moment, then he looked at the boy who stood up naturally to make way for them in disbelief: "You were sleeping... here just now?"

The boy didn't seem to think there was anything strange and nodded: "Yes, this is my home, I sleep here at night."

Mu Ke looked at the transparent coffin that was less than 1.5 square meters, the "home" in the boy's mouth, with an indescribable look.

"If you are a resident on the ground floor of this cemetery," Liu Jiayi stared at him and asked, "then who is the person on the tombstone outside with the inscription of death at the age of 26?"

The boy shook his head and said, "That's me, but I'm not dead yet."

Mu Sicheng looked up at the photo on the tombstone, carefully compared it with the boy's face, and finally nodded affirmatively: "Yes, although the photo is a bit blurry, it should be one person."

Bai Liu stared at the boy calmly and asked softly, "You look like you are only in your teens, why did you build a tombstone that says you are 26 years old?"

"I'm 17 years old," the boy explained. "When I was 16 and started working, I took out a loan to buy a house in the cemetery in District E. The agent developer said he could give me a tombstone. I thought I didn't want to have children and didn't have any other wishes, so I could die at 26. So I told the agent developer to just write 26 as the date of death on the tombstone."

"That's how this tombstone came about." The boy didn't think he was saying anything strange at all and smiled at Bai Liu and the others.

Tang Erda's mood was extremely complicated: "You are only 17 years old, where are your parents?"

"They're all dead." The boy said in a natural tone, "What are they doing on the building construction site? They usually die early. Not long after they die, the house we bought with the loan is repossessed at the end of the 20-year term."

"Although I have lost my house, I still have some money left to pay off. I still have to pay off the loan for more than ten years, so I can't save any money. I can only buy a house in the cemetery."

Mu Ke looked down and saw the boy's bloodstained hands. These were typical hands that dragged ropes and did heavy labor on the construction site. He paused and asked, "Where are you working now?"

"It's a new property in District C. It just opened and they're hiring. I was lucky enough to get in. The salary is not bad. I've been making quite a bit of money lately."

The boy finished his words in a good mood, then he crawled into the coffin and curled up into a ball. He looked up, smiled, and waved to Bai Liu and the others in a friendly manner: "We have to go to work tomorrow, you should go in and rest, it's not safe to stay here late."

This attitude was so normal, as if he was not in a cemetery, but in an ordinary apartment, greeting the new neighbor who had just moved in next door.

"I need to rest, too." The boy yawned and lay down in the coffin. He pressed a button next to it, and the base rose and closed like an automatically opening and closing elevator door.

A group of people walked silently in the dark corridor, and the stench in the air became stronger.

"That child is only 17 years old and not yet an adult." Tang Erda suddenly spoke, his voice a little hoarse, "What kind of place can allow a 17-year-old child to accept everything and sleep in the tomb of his 26-year-old self?"

Bai Liu said calmly, "There is probably no concept of adulthood here. The standard they use to distinguish people is whether they have the ability to work, so it seems that the basic age is 16."

Tang Erda fell silent again.

The footsteps of five people moved downstairs. When they reached the first floor, a faint, blue staircase light came on. Through this light, they could see that there were five households on the first floor of the narrow and low cemetery building. The door of each household was not designed as an open door, but a narrow, push-in door with a rusty iron chain hanging on the bolt.

Each household is arranged from top to bottom, with three sliding doors. The narrow layout, the strong dark blue light, the smell of decay, and the dense sliding doors make this place look like a——

Mu Ke said softly: "--This is more like an incinerator than a cemetery."

As everyone stopped to observe the environment, the footsteps stopped and the lights in the corridor went out again.

There were a few clattering sounds coming from the darkness, the muffled sound of a sliding door being pushed from the inside, metal chains swinging and colliding back and forth, the sound of clothes rubbing and the sticky sound of flesh being torn, and the stench in the air suddenly became much stronger and sourer.

Bai Liu calmly took out a long whip from behind him and threw it on the ground with a crisp "snap".

The voice-activated lights in the corridor lit up again as the sound came on.

Under the dim flickering blue light, all the sliding doors were pushed open. On each sliding door sat a person, with his body hunched forward, wearing tattered and greasy clothes, with messy hair, his head hung, and his arms resting on his straight feet, not moving at all.

Flies were buzzing around them, and a pus-yellow liquid that looked like rotten fat liquefied was dripping from the edges of the rags, forming small puddles on the ground, from which a sour, foul smell wafted.

The metal chain hanging from the bolt swung back and forth, casting uneasy shadows on the ground.

Everyone took out their skill weapons and vigilantly formed a circle with their backs against Bai Liu.

Bai Liu looked around and calmly ordered: "This time we will not explore the monsters' weaknesses, but directly search their cemetery property certificates. If we get them, we will run to the next level. If there are any living people, we will take them with us. Unless there are special circumstances, do not harm the low-class citizens and house slave NPCs here, because they have no houses and are most likely wandering monsters. If you harm them, follow the map. Do you understand?"

Everyone said in unison: "Yes!"

The lights in the corridor flickered twice again and dimmed. A strange breathing sound came from the darkness, as if a group of people were using their decaying and hollow lungs to simulate the process of breathing. A sharp sound of whip hitting the ground was heard, and the lights came on again.

The corpse with maggots in its eyes and rotten jaw, with its head tilted, rushed towards Bai Liu fiercely!

The author has something to say:

Average life expectancy is based on "15 Lectures on the World Modernization Process"

The original text is: With the start of the Industrial Revolution... the workers faced the worst conditions: Manchester was filled with thick smoke and sewage... Female workers in textile factories worked 12-16 hours a day and had an average life expectancy of 17 years.

This is what I found from high school history material questions. Having said that, I would like to wish you all good luck in the new year and may your names be placed on the honor roll!