This was a building designed by some wicked person. As soon as Su Qing walked in, his unusually active imagination started incessantly heading to strange places—this was an old house with an antiquated look, whatever it had been used for before. It was grey from the outside and grey from the inside. The corridor was particularly long, with a small window at the end, not even south-facing. The lighting was extremely poor. The walls and the floor were all grey. 

This place gave a person an extremely oppressed feeling. It might have been Su Qing’s mistake, but it seemed that after the scream and the gunshot, this place was even quieter than before. There was no one else in the long hall, only him and Chen Lin, one in front and one behind, their steps echoing in the emptiness. Su Qing walked fearfully, looking back twice with each step, afraid that some rare creature like a vengeful ghost or a Sadako would suddenly come up behind him. 

Chen Lin looked back, smiled, and said to him, “Everyone should be in the main hall eating now, so it’s fairly quiet.” 

Then Chen Lin took him around corner after corner, and at last Su Qing saw the so-called “main hall.” There were two men with loaded guns standing at the door of the “main hall.” Su Qing suspected he had arrived at some prison concentration camp and subconsciously searched the walls for the indicative “Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist.” Some faint voices came from inside, indistinct with the door closed. 

There were many rooms next to the main hall. Even the doors to these rooms were grey. Su Qing looked closely and found many marks on the doors. With his shut-in’s eyes, he couldn’t really tell what had made these marks. He only thought they were chaotic and had a very sinister look. 

Chen Lin said, “If you want, you can pick one of those rooms to stay in. They’re all the same. If you make friends with another ‘little grey,’ you can live with your friend.” 

When Chen Lin said the word “friend,” the smile on his face seemed unusually secretive in this grey space, facing the two guys holding machine guns. Su Qing shuddered. Before he could say anything, Chen Lin pushed open the main hall’s door and took him inside—once inside, Su Qing was stunned. 

The main hall was dimly lit, with a row of crude and simple tables and food on the tables. The quality of the food actually didn’t seem so bad, and there was a pot of fragrant soup cooking. There was also a row of men with machine guns monitoring the situation at all times. 

In the main hall were all kinds of strange and grotesque…humans. 

A fat man with heavy black bags under his eyes was tearing at his own face, contorting his features for all he was worth. When he was ignored again and again, he suddenly jumped onto a small table. The other end of the small table tilted up when he stepped on it. The fat man plopped down onto the ground, and a pile of food overturned onto his head, painting him all colors—really as though he’d come out of a circus troupe. But the merry gentleman was still very unperturbed, as though it wasn’t food that had spilled on his head but holy water. He was so pleased he began to dance with joy, even singing a tune. 

Su Qing listened carefully and heard that he was singing, “Doll and bear dance, one, two, one…” 

And this wasn’t all that horrifying. The next moment, a woman not wearing any clothes openly came up in front of him. Su Qing had forgotten about the concept of see no evil. His already large eyes became even rounder. He looked foolishly at the arrestingly beautiful girl boldly crawling in front of him—she was “crawling,” on all fours like an animal. She made a few circles around him, even sniffed his feet, then rubbed his calf with her head. 

Su Qing nearly jumped. In a moment of desperation, he rambled out: “Oh, holy crap, th-th-this lady’s too hardcore…” 

Wherever he looked, there were people bashing their heads against the wall, wailing as they bashed; people shoving food up their noses; people smiling foolishly as they sat on the ground hugging table legs; people dipping their fingertips in sauce and imitating Picasso on their own bodies… Su Qing tearfully thought, Is this a lunatic asylum? 

Apart from obviously mad ones, there were also some especially dull ones, conscientiously lined up one by one at the food table. A few white coats were feeding them. They were like the woman being dragged by Shi Huizhang, though their condition was a little better—at least they could still move their eyes. When someone spoke to them, though they were slow to respond, they could still more or less react like a living person. 

The few remaining ordinary people looked away the instant they made eye contact with him. There was a sort of wary fright in their faces; Su Qing saw it clearly. 

Chen Lin pushed him by the shoulder. “Go on, you’ll be their companion from now on. Remember the duty of a little grey. Be good, or else…” 

He made the shape of a gun with his hand, adding, “Maybe I’ll come see you in a few days.” 

If he hadn’t known something was off by now, Su Qing really would have been an idiot. Unspeakable panic surged up in his heart. He found the courage somewhere to grab Chen Lin’s sleeve as he was about to go. Chen Lin paused. His gaze fell on his tense, pale fingers. He raised his eyebrows. “What, is there something else?” 

Su Qing’s throat moved. He spoke with difficulty: “You…tell me the truth, a so-called ‘little grey,’ does that mean…becoming like them in the end?” 

Chen Lin slowly squeezed Su Qing’s hand. He was very strong. He seemed have to have no difficulty prying Su Qing’s fingers off himself. The smile on his face was gone. In a very low voice, he softly said, “So what if it does? So what if it doesn’t? Don’t try to escape, and be careful…” 

He didn’t say be careful about what. He seemed to trust that Su Qing would know perfectly well. 

Then Chen Lin turned and left the main hall. Watching the door shut tightly in front of him, Su Qing simply despaired. He suddenly took a step forward, but almost at once, the two guards nearest to him raised their machine guns. The black muzzles aimed at Su Qing’s head. 

The white coats feeding the idiots looked up simultaneously, forbidding gazes like awls, jabbing into his back from different directions. 

Su Qing felt as if time had come to a standstill. His eyes opened wide, his heart beat more and more violently, and his whole body trembled. His back was soaked in cold sweat. 

He thought, What now? What should I do? 

At last, his hard-won courage was once again defeated by fear. Su Qing took two steps back. The guards lowered their machine guns and faced him expressionlessly, standing in place. 

The fat man singing “Doll and Bear Dance” rolled up in front of him, pinched his nose, stuck out his tongue, and shook his head, making an incomparably hideous face at him. 

Su Qing looked at him sadly and felt that he had fallen into a boundless, bottomless nightmare. He suddenly raised his wrist and bit it fiercely. He bit through the skin and drew blood, but he didn’t wake up. 

Just then, a hoarse scream came from a corner. A few “little greys” seemed to be having a fight. They were gathered in a circle, letting out all kinds of lifelike and high-tech noises. Through the cracks, Su Qing could faintly see a man among them, cowering in a ball. 

A white coat wearing a mask looked up. His expression was invisible. He only looked indifferently in that direction and passed judgment: “The Type 4 Auxiliaries are erupting. Whom have they picked today? Tell Jiang Lan to keep her little greys in line.” 

Another white coat seemed to sneer. “Jiang Lan?” 

Then the brief exchange ended. 

A man in ragged clothes timidly approached Su Qing. He asked in a whisper, “Are you…are you new?” 

Su Qing turned his head. The moment after their eyes met, the man seemed to take fright, irresistibly avoiding his eyes. This was one of the rare people in his right mind among the lunatics and idiots. Su Qing felt that he was extremely precious. Not even daring to breathe loudly, he softened his voice, afraid that a loud breath would scare him off, but there was still a bit of urgency in his voice: “What is this place? How the hell did they get like that…and what are these people up to? What is a ‘little grey?’”

Bombarded by his string of questions, the man’s expression turned dull. He hesitated for a moment, then cautiously asked, “What…type of Auxiliary Blue Seal are you?” 

“They said I was a Type 2.” 

The man breathed a sigh of relief at once. He patted his chest and quietly mumbled, “Not a Type 4, not a Type 4, that’s good…” 

He looked around shiftily. As though he had determined that Su Qing was safe, he bravely came a little closer to him, tugged on his clothes, and took him aside. He quietly said, “You should stay away from the Type 4 Auxiliary Blue Seals. You have to stay away from them.” 

“Why?” 

The man quietly said, “We Auxiliary Blue Seals have grey imprints, so we’re also called ‘Grey Seals,’ and that’s why they call us ‘little greys.’ Type 4 Auxiliary Blue Seals are also called anger type blue seals, it’s like…like them. They lose their reason. To let off the anger, they would do anything. Anyone they get their eyes on is a goner. In this place, no one cares about fights between little greys.” 

Su Qing asked the question he had wanted to ask all along: “Who…are these people?” 

The man shuddered and seemed even more afraid. His lips even went white. After a long while, he said, “They…are the genuine blue seals. I heard the researchers say that they’re called Conversion Type Blue Seals, a special kind of human that can absorb others’ emotions and use them as an energy source… Shi Huizhang is their chief. I saw with my own eyes how he snapped a stone pillar with one hand. And then there’s that woman…Jiang Lan, I’ve seen her walk on walls.” 

Su Qing subconsciously tugged at his ear, feeling that this place was seeming less and less like Earth. 

The man continued: “I overheard some things, I don’t know if they’re right. I heard that blue seals and grey seals are both only sensitive towards one kind of emotion. In other words, each person can only absorb one kind of emotion from others, so they need an opposing grey seal to absorb the opposing emotion to keep the person whose emotions are being absorbed from going out of control and exposing them…” 

In these hopeless surroundings, Su Qing’s brain became unusually quick—the organ in his skull had never worked at such high efficiency in his life. When he heard this, he immediately asked, “Given what you’ve said, why do they absolutely need grey seals? Why can’t the blue seals absorb emotions for each other?”

The man stared. He clearly hadn’t thought of this question. He haltingly said, “I…I don’t know… I haven’t been here long…” 

Su Qing suddenly thought of something and asked, “So what type is a Type 2? And what about you? What type are you?” 

The man explained, “Type 2 is sadness. I’m a Type 3, fear.” 

Su Qing stared. He wanted to follow up with something else, but just then, the group of so-called Type 4s in the corner clustered together like a flock of angry birds and began to howl. One of them, red-eyed, ran out and picked up the pot of soup still boiling over the fire. 

His hands instantly began to smoke, but he seemed not to feel it. As if he was on drugs, he ran back excitedly carrying the burning pot and spoke in a human language: “Time to be doused alive in soup—”

The man next to Su Qing was so scared his legs went weak. His eyes rolled up. He plopped right down on the ground and lay there. 

During this gap, Su Qing saw the person they were surrounding. It was an old man with grey hair, extremely thin, huddled in the corner and trembling all over. His arms were tightly covering his head. From Su Qing’s point of view, he could just see one of his eyes, terrified to the utmost, with deep wrinkles at the corner. 

The wrinkles abruptly made Su Qing’s heart ache. Somehow, he remembered his dad, Su Chengde. 

A whole day’s fear, sadness, anger, despair, and other negative emotions collapsed in an instant. Su Qing’s mind went blank. He suddenly picked up a chair and strode over. He swung it around and smacked it hard against the back of the head of the “dangerous element” carrying the soup.