Chapter 100: Addiction, Rules, and Violations

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Jiang Wan listened, though she did not understand what he meant by the shortage of time. In any case, the faster they acted, the better.

She reached out, her fingertips sweeping across the goods on the shelves. After the two of them had walked roughly a hundred and eighty meters, they passed from the small packets of snacks where they had begun into the section labeled Household Goods.

Here, shelves were crowded with all manner of grotesque objects. As they continued forward, they came upon what was labeled as a rice cooker—but it was nothing more than a human head. The brain inside gave a cackling laugh. Its lips and tongue had long since been removed, yet it could still make a sound.

Above the head, Jiang Wan lifted her own and fixed her gaze on a line of text.

“Automatic Time-Telling Rice Cooker—Automatic Reminders and Time Announcements.”

She fell silent for a moment, unsure where to begin complaining.

“It would obviously be more convenient if they just developed some technology,” she muttered.

But Chen Qing’s voice came from beside her. “A place like this could never develop technology…”

He drew a deep breath. The desire in his mind had gradually begun to turn into pain. He could feel the discomfort spreading through his entire body, reaching even the ends of his limbs, and arrived at a conclusion: if he opened another packet of the entities’ snacks, the feeling would ease.

He lowered his head, his voice weak and listless.

“If civilization ever develops in the Backrooms—if they acquire language and communication, if they can hunt those outsiders in groups and try to seize certain things from investigators who come poking around in their midst—then they will gain enormous wealth with every success. A piece of skin that, when worn, can become another person’s face. A big toe that brings good luck.

“They could follow those investigators and tear chunks of flesh from their enormous bodies. Swallowing it once a day would let them live happily.

“For entities like them, technology and thought are the most unnecessary things in existence. Why waste energy thinking? If you dislike someone, just kill them. Entities survive by relying on rules, after all…”

But as he spoke, he suddenly froze.

That was right. Entities survived by relying on rules. But if one violated the rules, and the supermarket—or rather, the entity that was the supermarket itself—attacked the violator, then what were these entities wandering through the supermarket doing?

“Rules… The rules.”

He fell silent and released the shopping cart.

“What is it?” Jiang Wan asked, puzzled. When she saw Chen Qing’s trembling hands, her confusion only deepened.

Chen Qing merely drew a deep breath. Suppressing the most direct desire rising from his heart and nerve endings, he shook his head at her.

“I need to find those entities.”

“What for?” Jiang Wan asked, frowning in bewilderment.

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“I don’t think this is right.”

After a brief pause, he repeated the words posted at the entrance of the supermarket:

“First: Stealing is forbidden inside the supermarket.

“Second: Leaving without paying is forbidden inside the supermarket.

“Third: Helping merchandise escape is forbidden.”

He turned to Jiang Wan and continued, “Have we already violated the first two rules? But look at us. Nothing has happened. In fact, after we ate those foods, we became safer—not less safe—even though we had already broken the rules.”

He gestured around them. His gaze grew clearer as his thoughts took shape.

“There is definitely something wrong with this place… Perhaps it is the rules. Perhaps it is the environment of this Backroom…”

He remained silent for several seconds before asking Jiang Wan, “How long do you think you need to find Zhang Lan’s body?”

“How long…” She thought for a moment. “Twenty minutes.”

“Then make it half an hour. Once the half hour is up, we meet at the supermarket exit. Even if you find it sooner, you must wait until the thirtieth minute before appearing there. Do you understand?”

As Chen Qing spoke faster and faster, a trace of tension began to show on his face.

This was the first time Jiang Wan had acted alone in the Backrooms, but she did not want to be the last one to arrive.

She drew a deep breath, her eyes bright as she nodded. “Okay.”

“From this moment on, we split up.”

The instant Chen Qing finished speaking, the phones on both their bodies began counting down. They turned and went their separate ways: one toward the direction from which they had come, the other toward the road ahead.

But barely three or four seconds after they had parted, when they were only a few dozen meters apart, Chen Qing’s knees could no longer support his body. With a heavy thud, he fell to the ground. He raised a hand and braced himself against the nearby shelf. The goods upon it either sneered at him or laughed with wild abandon.

He struggled to support himself, then leaned heavily against the wall. As he felt the weakness spreading through his body, his mind returned to Zhang Lan…

No. Perhaps it was a sentence left behind by Zhang Lan’s parents.

“There is medicine here that can save her. There must be medicine here that can save me.”

He remained silent, his gaze drifting toward the distant reaches of the supermarket.

“If only I had a cigarette…” he murmured with a faint laugh. “But I don’t smoke.”

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He laughed for a while, then fell silent again.

“Perhaps even cigarettes couldn’t suppress this feeling…”

Supporting himself with the shelf beside him, he continued onward. After passing through the snack aisle, Chen Qing saw the entities picking through the goods.

This time, they did not keep their eyes fixed on him. They merely sensed someone approaching, lifted their heads for a glance, and that single glance was enough for Chen Qing to realize that their attitude toward him had changed.

They raised their heads, then lowered them again, staring intently at the food on the shelves as though nothing before them had anything to do with them.

As for Chen Qing, he walked straight toward them. Even when he came within three or five meters, none of them lifted its head.

Then he watched as the entities tore open the packaging and poured the pure-white larvae from the bags into their mouths. Pale green fluid trickled from the corners of their lips, while blissful smiles spread across their faces.

He trembled. Deep within him, he felt a craving like an addiction to poison. The weakness in his body seemed as though it could be cured by those mature insects.

He gritted his teeth and leaned against the shelf.

No. This was absolutely wrong.

He racked his mind, thinking desperately. He had once relied on something before…

Pain.

Grating his teeth, he reached out and snapped a length of metal rod from the shelf. He raised his hand, and the rod plunged into his thigh.

It was not enough. Far from enough.

But the pain was already sufficient to let him think.

“They have violated the rules.

“Stealing is forbidden inside the supermarket, yet they have stolen food. Unless… those foods are not merchandise?

“Leaving without paying is forbidden inside the supermarket. They put everything back after eating. Does that mean they have not left without paying?

“No. These two rules are wrong!”