Chapter 26 The Elevator (3) Can't you pretend to be a human being?! ...
The knocking on the door completely drew the attention of the family of three.
After an eerie silence, the mother's gaze left little Chang Mingai, her eyes rolling upwards as she stared horribly at the doorway.
The mutated father returned, his neck once again crossing the dining table, stretching all the way to the cat's eyes, and opening one eye wide as he leaned closer.
"Oh—our friend Alice has arrived. He's the one you messaged, isn't he?"
Instead of pulling his neck back, Dad used his swollen body to crawl forward across the table with his hands and feet, sweeping plates and food onto the floor with a crash.
The mother's long hair was shaken back and forth, hitting little Chang Mingai. She laughed strangely, like the piercing sound of fingernails scratching a skull.
"Since he's Alice's friend, of course we should invite him in and treat him well. Please come in, let's give him a surprise!"
Her neck stretched out, deliberately brushing past Chang Mingai's head, and she leaned out from under the tablecloth, excitedly waiting for her father to open the door, not wanting to miss the bloody scene that was about to unfold.
There was another knock on the door, and Dad responded with his head close to the door, "Coming, coming," but his long neck dragged his body upwards like a scorpion's tail, with the sharp, fleshy limbs pointing towards the door, poised to strike.
Chang Mingai realized they were going to hurt Xie Tan. Courage overcame fear and reason. She forgot that she had just analyzed Xie Tan's unfathomable nature. In that instant, her mind was focused on the fact that her classmate, who was involved, was about to be killed by her.
So she ran forward quickly, lifted her mother's long hair and the tablecloth, and shouted, "Don't come in, it's dangerous!!"
Her mother suddenly bent down, getting close to her face. Her pale, contorted face was taller than her now, and the wind from her voice almost knocked her over: "Shh—"
The door opened.
Xie Tan stared at the horrifying scene inside the room. In the dim light, a grotesquely twisted monster of flesh maintained its attack posture, its human head close to his, its features wide open as if grinning. And indeed, it laughed out in a terrifying way.
Beneath the messy dining table, a woman's head peeked out, tilted to the side, staring at them with malice.
But when the door opened, they all stopped. Xie Tan saw that the woman's head seemed to turn secretly in the air, as if she had smelled something.
Xie Tan looked at them calmly.
The door slammed shut the next second.
When the door was opened again, the room had changed completely.
Warm, inviting light; the dining table is spotless, laden with delicious food; and no woman's head peeks out from under the tablecloth.
A middle-aged man, who looked presentable, stood at the door. His dark circles had lightened slightly. He politely and warmly welcomed him in: "Are you Alice's friend? Please come in. Have you eaten? I don't know if you like to eat, but would you like something to eat?"
"Excuse me." Xie Tan sat down opposite the man, guessing that Chang Mingai had been sitting there before.
He also noticed the man's address to Chang Mingai: Alice. Then, recalling the white rabbit that ran into the apartment, he understood.
The moment he opened the door, he heard Chang Mingai's faint voice, but he didn't see anyone. He also tried to recall the ancient fairy tale of growing bigger and smaller.
He was sensitive to touch and immediately felt something patting his calf. He pretended to drop the chopsticks, gathered the little figure in his palm, and felt the long hair brush against the back of his hand.
But the head under the table didn't make any extra movements, so Xie Tan didn't hesitate and hid the little figure in his coat pocket.
Chang Mingai glanced at the table secretly and saw that there were three more dishes on the table than before, as well as real freshly squeezed juice, making it even more sumptuous.
She secretly rolled her eyes. These two monsters, they treat people differently depending on who they're dealing with! They gave her that... some kind of blood, ugh.
Xie Tan pretended to eat a few bites, and her father started chatting about everyday things. Xie Tan seized a moment in the conversation and asked, "Is she not home?"
"Kids are like that, they're playful. I heard they made plans with friends, but how can you befriend just anyone? My friend said that society is a mixed bag, and kids can't tell the difference. They can easily be deceived if you're not careful. Parents need to be more attentive, and it's okay to be a little firm."
Dad paused here and immediately explained to Xie Tan, "Of course, you are very good. If Alice made friends with people like you, her mother and I wouldn't have to worry!"
"Thank you." Xie Tan looked at the closed room. "Can I wait for her in her room?"
"No problem, please come in." Dad got up and opened the door for him himself, the door that Chang Mingai couldn't open even with a key.
The father clearly didn't want to leave and wanted to follow him into the room, but suddenly a deafening telephone rang in his room.
Dad froze, hesitating at the door, but the phone kept ringing. It would hang up automatically, then ring back again without stopping, relentlessly, each ring louder than the last.
Just by listening to the ringtone, Xie Tan could tell the caller was impatient.
"My friend might have an emergency, so please excuse me. You can play by yourself for a while. You can play whatever you want. We have books, toys, dolls, and even a game console."
Dad reluctantly went into his bedroom, closed the door, and locked it.
Chang Mingai rolled her eyes again. With her partner around, the imposter wouldn't even bother acting anymore. Wasn't that her bedroom?
Xie Tan also closed and locked the bedroom door, without using anything to barricade it. The right to open and close the door was still in the monster's hands, so there was no need to do anything extra.
It was inconvenient for him to hold Chang Mingai in his hands, and he didn't know if there were any monsters in the room. The tablecloths in the room were obviously meant to hide his elusive mother.
So he first put her in a clean glass milk bottle on the ground.
Chang Mingai's first action was to survey her surroundings. She breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't see any more hair or faces appear behind the furniture.
Xie Tan deduced this from her actions, so he picked up the milk bottle and placed it on the table, then sat down at the table.
Chang Ming liked to hide to the right of the stack of books so that the person opening the door wouldn't see her.
The room was indeed the same as her bedroom, except that there was an extra small dish on the table with two round, toothed cookies.
"A giant cookie?" Her eyes lit up, but Xie Tan blocked the cookie with his finger, and she calmed down.
Now is not the time to grow bigger. With Xie Tan around, it would be easier for her to shrink and be taken away to escape from here.
She first briefly recounted her experiences and discoveries, then asked Xie Tan what his thoughts were.
Xie Tan: "The elevator said it wasn't time yet."
This is clearly a key hint, like what an NPC might say when you're stuck in a game.
The elevator only opens when people are getting on or off. Chang Mingai tried hard to recall the usual opening times: "The neighbor's kid often orders takeout, around five or six o'clock? The delivery rider comes up in the elevator."
Xie Tan was not optimistic about this: "Those doors won't do. They're just for show, like cardboard boxes."
Chang Mingai then thought, "It seems like there's a leak upstairs these past few days. The property management can't find the source, so they go upstairs to check every evening around six o'clock. Because my house was also affected, I remember it quite clearly. It's usually around six and a half o'clock, but I just checked and it's only five o'clock. Are we going to have to wait an hour?"
The clock may not reach six o'clock.
The clock in the living room is keeping track of time, but the hands and the dial don't quite match.
Those are the missing hands of the clock in the art museum.
If the elevator opens at 6 o'clock, the clock will probably be stuck at 5:59.
They still need to dial it manually.
So Xie Tan put Chang Mingai back in his pocket, and Chang Mingai, holding the two cookies, quietly returned to the living room.
Dad was still on the phone inside. They could faintly hear the conversation, and although they couldn't make out the content, the tone suggested they were arguing about something.
They kept quiet so as not to wake their mother.
The dishes on the table had all been cleared away, leaving only a small ice bucket of red "drinks," an empty juicer placed beside it, and the area under the table was quiet.
Beneath the living room clock sits a white stainless steel birdcage containing a felted budgerigar.
Xie Tan saw felting tools in Chang Mingai's room and guessed that they used to have a parrot, and after it passed away, they made this felting tool as a memorial.
He walked up to the clock, and as soon as he took it off, he realized something was wrong—there was a hole behind the clock!
There was a face in the cave, smiling gently at them—it was their mother!
The woman's head flew forward rapidly, closing in on Xie Tan, and she opened her mouth to bite the clock, instantly shattering the glass surface of the clock.
Her long neck swept around Xie Tan, and she spat the clock into the ice bucket, splattering blood everywhere.
The clock was submerged in blood, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared from sight.
The ice bucket was knocked over by the woman's neck as she pulled it back. Xie Tan only had time to retrieve the hands of the watch before the dial was swept away to who knows where.
The woman's head circled around to face Xie Tan from the other side, as if encircling him.
With a terrifying expression, she spoke gently: "Darling, you don't need this. If you want to go out, just tell the elevator and ask it to let you out."
Xie Tan looked towards her parents' bedroom. Her father, having finished his phone call, stood hesitantly in the dimly lit doorway, seemingly wanting to stop her, but when he met Xie Tan's gaze, he made no move.
His phone rang again, but he avoided answering it. He walked by casually and accidentally dropped the phone precisely into the overturned ice bucket. The weakened sound was instantly absorbed by the remaining blood.
He pretended nothing had happened, then looked at Xie Tan again and found Xie Tan looking at the toy house on the shelf: "You like this?"
Xie Tan snapped out of his daze: "Is this her birthday present?"
Like a snake, his mother circled him twice more, then smiled gently: "It's something we prepared for her, but it's not a birthday present. There aren't only birthdays when you get a present. There are 365 days in a year, and there are always days worth celebrating, right?"
In Alice in Wonderland, the theme of the tea party between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter is "Happy Birthday to You (not your real birthday)".
There is only one day a year that is a birthday, but there are 364 days that are not birthdays, which fits the illogical nature of dreams.
But as Xie Tan listened, he became a little distracted: "So that's how it is."
Mom tilted her head too far, so she turned it half a circle more to straighten it.
She didn't like the boy's current appearance. Although he still had little expression, he seemed somewhat lonely, like a shadow on the moon that could not be seen.
What should she do in this situation? Humans seem very fragile. Although he is different, she doesn't fully understand his emotions. She just doesn't want to see him like this.
But then, someone who couldn't read the room spoke up. Dad said, "This was an idea from my friend. He said parents should prepare gifts for their children. Don't you have a gift?"
Good heavens! Mom glared at it with a terrifying look. "Can't you act like a human being?! Is this how humans talk?"
Dad felt wronged. Before Alice came in, you even mocked me, saying, "Don't take yourself too seriously!"
“I have no father; my mother died early,” Xie Tan said calmly.
The mother's glare at her own kind was even more terrifying; she knew that humans cared deeply about blood ties and family, otherwise they wouldn't have impersonated Alice's mother and father.
Dad patted his mouth, and where Xie Tan couldn't see, tumor-like flesh gushed out, sealing the gap between his lips.
It shrank back and stopped talking.
Mom stretched her neck again, tied up the exquisite dollhouse, and handed it to Xie Tan: "Now this is your gift. Happy birthday, dear."
Xie Tan took it, and little Chang Mingai slipped into the toy house.
Her toy figure stood by the window, its head tilted as it looked out. As soon as Chang Mingai landed, she was face to face with it and was startled.
But she held back, frozen in place, without making a sound, so as not to attract the attention of the two monsters.
She stared at the lifelike little figure, and the more she looked at it, the more it resembled her, even the hair looked real... Could it be that her mother made it with her own hair? She was experiencing the uncanny valley effect!
Once the situation stabilized, she carefully carried away the toy figurine. She wanted to hide it, as there was no way she could go out in this situation. Since she was forced to live together, out of sight, out of mind!
Outside the toy house, Xie Tan feigned hesitation, but his mother stopped him from refusing, saying, "Take it. Alice doesn't like it; she's too old to play with this."
Alice was struggling to stuff the toy figurines into the cabinet, too lazy to even roll her eyes.
Her partner looks much colder, okay? Is he even old enough to do this?
Xie Tan: "Thank you."
"You're welcome." His mother, who had been surrounding him, slowly circled back to allow him to leave.
But just as Xie Tan was about to leave, that head suddenly flew back and stopped in front of the toy house: "But I need to check if you took any extra things with you."
The wind blew open the door of the toy house as she spoke, and an eye squeezed into the door frame, peering inside, its pupil slowly scanning from left to right and then from right to left.
As she approached, Xie Tan knocked on the bottom of the hut.
Chang Mingai was resting at the dining table when she felt a tremor. She immediately became alert, and the moment the door opened, she turned her back to the door and sat motionless, pretending to be a toy figure.
The cold, sticky gaze lingered on her back, and cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She was afraid that if she made a sound, the monster would hear her.
"Is it ready yet?" Xie Tan asked, a hint of impatience in his voice.
"Alright." Mom, having failed to find a flaw, slowly pulled her neck back. "Have a safe journey."
The door closed.
When they reached the elevator, Chang Mingai cautiously opened the window of the small house and threw out the toy dad and the toy mom from under the table. She really didn't want to be with them.
"My watch is broken, what should I do?"
"The pointer isn't broken."
Chang Mingai took the shrinking pointer from the window and turned around in a daze.
"There's no clock in the toy house!"
This was the only difference between the toy house and the real one, something she hadn't noticed before.
The toy house is synchronized with the real house; if you hang a clock in the house and set it to six o'clock, it will look the same.
“But there’s no clock face.” Chang Ming’ai suddenly realized, looking at Xie Tan with admiration, “Giant Cookie! No wonder you wouldn’t let me eat it.”
No, that's not it.
Xie Tan thought to himself, "The reason I stopped you at first was because I was afraid you would grow too big like in the original story and break the house."
But he has already become proficient.
Whatever, that's what they all think anyway.
"Then everything is under control." Xie Tan said calmly.
Chang Mingai pressed the hands into the round cookie, hung it up, and set the time to six o'clock.
The other cookie was secured with a hair tie and carried on the back.
They waited, and after two minutes, the elevator hummed upwards, and the electronic screen began to display the floor number.
It worked; the elevator came up from the first floor.
Chang Mingai breathed a sigh of relief for a moment, but soon remembered something else: she wanted to throw out the most terrifying toy figure—herself!
Let the toy figure stay on this floor. Leaving with her will only give her more mental pollution.
But when she opened the cabinet door, she was shocked to find it empty.
Her toy figurine is missing.
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