Inside that concrete sarcophagus, the world was split into two distinct zones of misery. The front area, hugging the heavy iron door, served as a rat warren for Aunt Lian and Aiguo, those pieces of human wreckage who spent their prime guarding the merchandise. A suite of old sofas sat there, a cracked and dirty patchwork of filth and tears that looked like the spent shell of a childhood daydream gone wrong.
Between the long couch and the two stuffed chairs stood a table that had become a charnel house for cigarette ash, scattered food scraps, and the crumbs of forgotten snacks. A tea set, caked with a black slime of old brown stains, sat next to a TV remote like a grotesque effigy of a normal home. On the screen, a horror movie flickered from an outdated DVD player—a cosmic joke, considering the machinery of a nightmare was already turning in the rooms behind them.
An ancient fridge and a few shelves stood against the wall, next to an old fan that exhaled a shivering rattle into the stagnant, choking emptiness. Beyond that lay the old staff bathroom, now modified into a nightmarish multipurpose facility: part kitchen for preparing the children's slop, part storage, and part laundry. It was a void of logic where the machines washed the clothes, the wardens rinsed the dishes, and the staff took care of their own physical business in a single, unholy space.
At the other end of the room, thin plastic partitions served as the walls for two stalls—the private bunkers where Aunt Lian and Aiguo laid their heads. It was a scene of profound, choking emptiness, a world of pain that made the heart perform fantastic rubber acrobatics of despair, yet this purgatory was the best this monolith of doom had to offer.
The next section of this charnel house operation was walled off by a cracked and dirty patchwork of heavy iron mesh. It was a cage, pure and simple—a sarcophagus-like monolith built to hold the small-fry. The grating had been welded to the building's skeleton in a series of rough, rust-caked joints that looked like jagged scars. It stretched from the floor to the high, cold ceiling, an absolute void of logic for anything that used to be a happy farmstay.
Stepping through the narrow iron door was like entering a rat warren. To the right sat a row of garish plastic drawers—six or seven of them—looking like bright, out-of-place toys in a cemetery. The floor was covered in old, rank mats of linoleum, peeling away to reveal the profound, choking emptiness of the cold concrete beneath. Scattered across the floor were the remains of a childhood daydream gone to rot: a stuffed rabbit, now a washed blackboard of gray grime with its innards leaking out; a headless robot; a doll with no arms and a scalp that had gone bald years ago. They weren't toys anymore; they were a cracked and dirty patchwork of garbage meant to soothe the high-voltage shrieks of the captured.
Deep within the monolith of doom lay the former cold-storage lockers. The large room—a nine-by-four-meter purgatory—served as the main dormitory for the merchandise. The floral linoleum on the floor was swollen and peeling, its surface bubbled like the blistered skin of a corpse. Walking across it felt sticky, a world of pain for the senses. On this floor lay a dozen spent shells of old latex mats, each one a swampy reek of stale sweat and child-piss.
Then there were the two smaller rooms—the killing floors of the spirit. These were the old freezers, four-by-three-meter airless pits where the thick walls ensured no scream ever reached the light of day. The heavy iron doors were secured with massive lever locks that turned with a shivering rattle. When they closed—CREAK... BANG!—it was a sound that told every child in the cage that the machinery of a nightmare had claimed another victim. For the ones who wouldn't mind their manners, these dark pits were the end of the line.
When Aiguo wrenched open the iron cage door, it let out a screech like a soul in a centrifuge, a sound that made every nerve-ending red-line. Inside the pen, seven children—the gang's previous haul—scrambled into the shadows of the sleeping area like cornered rabbits. They were a motley set of human wreckage: four boys and three girls, the eldest not even eight years on the clock. They huddled together, a single shivering rattle of fear. The youngest, a little tyke of three, began to wail, a high-voltage shriek of sheer, unholy dread. A larger boy grabbed him, clamping a hand over his mouth to kill the noise—because Aunt Lian was there, her switch making a dry, wicked swish-swish sound in the stagnant air.
Overhead, the long LED tubes were failing, blinking on and off like a bad heart. The flickering turned the room into a murky, stuttering purgatory. Aunt Lian grumbled at Aiguo, her voice as thin as a sliver of ice, complaining about his refusal to fix the goddamn things. In this monolith of doom, even the light felt diseased. Ah-Ling, feeling a clammy sliver of guilt, reached out to comfort the new treasures, but the twins—Ying and Huo—offered only a fixed, radiant smile. To them, this charnel house looked like an amusement park.
"So many friends," the boy whispered. "We like having friends to play with," the girl added. They let out a high, brittle giggle that sounded like it belonged in an insane asylum. Even the blind beast, Bo, seemed to catch the mood. Its hooves made a sharp, rhythmic clattering on the concrete—clack-clump-clack—as if it were performing a boneless dance.
Aunt Lian's pulse was starting to red-line with irritation. She knew these two were worth a king's ransom—Dragon-Phoenix twins always were—and she didn't want to damage the merchandise. But the goat was a different story. "Get that damn animal out of here!" she hissed at Aiguo. "Let it stay, Auntie," Ah-Ling interjected, her voice painted with a nursery-rhyme sweetness. "It came with them. If we take it now, the small-fry will start screaming and strip everyone's gears.".
"Fine," the old woman snapped, her face a mask of cold knowledge. "Let it stay and piss and shit wherever it wants. These kids already smell like a swampy reek; a little goat-stink won't make a damn bit of difference." Aunt Lian stomped out, a permanent bend in her spine as she retreated into the shadows. Ah-Ling tried one last time to reach the twins, but they ignored her, marching straight toward the other children in the darkness. She felt the void of logic again—a jagged jolt of terror in the meat of her soul. She backed away and followed Aiguo out. The man with the cleft lip slammed the heavy iron door—CHUNNK!—before sliding the massive bolt and snapping a cast-iron padlock into place. The machinery of the nightmare was locked tight, and the world was sealed out.
Ah-Ling bolted from the cage as soon as the bolt thudded home; she had no desire to linger in that purgatory of neglect longer than necessary. It wasn't just that the sight of those children made her heart perform fantastic rubber acrobatics of despair, but Aiguo made her skin crawl. He was a piece of human wreckage with a grotesque effigy of a face that exhaled a swampy reek—he was the one man she wanted to put a world of distance between.
When she stepped back into the front building—the gang's rat warren—she found Lao Zhang braying into the phone, his laughter a brittle, jagged sound that filled the choking emptiness of the hall. Da-Li and Xiao Fei were busy looting the ancient fridge; the machinery of their hunger was finally kicking in, as none of them had eaten since the false dawn and it was now leaning toward a graying afternoon.
"Cai Shen Ye—the God of Wealth—has finally come to call!" Zhang bellowed as he slammed the phone into its cradle, causing everyone to turn, their pulses starting to red-line. "Get ready to celebrate! Someone's coming to eyeball the twins today, and they're offering a king's ransom. If luck stays on our side, they might just buy the whole lot—clear out the entire brood and end this slaughterhouse operation in one go!".
"Hooray for Zhang!" Da-Li celebrated by upending a gallon of milk, the white fluid splashing over his face and neck like wet plaster as he cheered.
"Dragon-Phoenix twins!" Zhang laughed, the sound echoing like a chemical curse. "Just having them in the nest brings the luck! Fei, Da-Li—get to town. Fetch meat and booze. We're hosting the Big Boss's people and their clients tonight, and we're going to do it right.".
He turned his hard, greedy eyes toward Ah-Ling. "And you—get back there after you eat. Help Aunt Lian process the merchandise. Bathe them, dress them, make them look like a childhood daydream. And tell Aiguo to scrub that cage; if the place stinks like a charnel house when the buyers arrive, it'll strip the gears of our profit margin!".
Ah-Ling stood frozen, her mind a void of logic. The gears of the machine were turning too fast, but a part of her felt a clammy sliver of relief. If the children were sold, they'd be out of this monolith of doom, and surely anywhere else was better than this. But before she could finish the thought, a sudden shout from Da-Li made her jump, the sound cracking the stagnant air like a liquid whipcrack.
"Why waste the scratch on town-meat, Zhang? We've got a prime, fat hunk of mutton sitting in the cage right now! Skip the butcher, just fetch the hooch and we're golden!" Da-Li bellowed, his laughter a brittle, jagged sound that filled the choking emptiness of the room.
Lao Zhang—that fifty-year-old piece of human wreckage—pointed a finger at the massive wall of meat and barked a laugh in return. "Hungry for my specialty goat soup, are you? Fine, you bald bastid. Come on, raid the icebox and kill that hunger first. Move it! Once we're fed, the gears of the machine start turning again".
Zhang thumbed his phone to relay the "God of Wealth" news to Aunt Lian. A thin, raspy chuckle—sounding like a rattle in the throat of a dying man—drifted through the line before she snapped the connection shut without a word.
"Old biddy's got the manners of a sewer rat," Zhang muttered, staring at the dead receiver like it was a grotesque effigy.
In the kitchen, Ah-Ling and Xiao Fei were busy wrangling a pot of instant noodles—a cracked and dirty patchwork of dried wheat, scrap meat, and wilted veg. Suddenly, the door burst open and Aiguo, the man with the cleft lip, blundered in. He was gasping for air in doglike gasps, his face a mask of defeat and deep, cold knowledge.
"Quick! Aunt Lian's calling! You gotta come... you gotta help us!" he stammered, his voice a shivering rattle.
"What kind of crazy has gotten into you now?" Da-Li slammed his chopsticks onto the table with a sound like a liquid whipcrack, his pulse starting to red-line at the interruption.
"It's the small-fry! They're singing! They won't stop, no matter how much we threaten them!" Aiguo's eyes rolled like trapped rabbits in his head. "Aunt Lian and I are at the end of our tether! Move it!"
"Singing?" Zhang's brow darkened into a hard scrawl of fury.
Ah-Ling felt a cold lead of certainty settle in her gut. A memory clawed its way out of the dark galleries of her mind: the twins—that matched set of porcelain nightmares—looking at her with fixed, radiant smiles.
We came out to play... We have to go sing....
Zhang was fuming, but he felt a clammy sliver of dread beneath the anger. In all his years in this slaughterhouse operation, he'd never seen a pro like Aunt Lian lose her grip on the merchandise. If she was calling for reinforcements, the situation was a void of logic.
The boss lunged to his feet, calling for a blind, rat-like scramble toward the back. They had to see what the hell was happening with their king's-ransom cargo before the world went entirely sideways.
The moment the door to that concrete sarcophagus opened, a sound hit Ah-Ling like a physical blow. It was the small-fry—a matched set of porcelain nightmares and their fellow captives—singing in a loud, jarring unison. The melody was a cracked and dirty patchwork of a nursery rhyme, but the words were a chemical curse that made the air in the hall feel stagnant and thick as meat.
They sang:
"The sky bleeds red, the Star of Disaster flickers bright.
(血色长空,荧惑烁烁.Xuèsè chángkōng, yínghuò shuòshuò.)
Men sow their own unmaking; there is no hiding from the light.
(世人造孽,因果难脱.Shìrén zàoniè, yīnguǒ nán tuō.)
Greed is the fire, leaving the world a spent shell in the night.
(贪念如火,焚尽山河.Tānniàn rú huǒ, fén jìn shānhé.)
Heaven settles the score, and the demons rise to bite.
(天道清算,万妖复活.Tiāndào qīngsuàn, wàn yāo fùhuó.)
The old dream wakes, for the world of pain is in sight.
(旧梦初醒,乱世将至.Jiùmèng chū xǐng, luànshì jiāng zhì.)
Who stays breathing? All shall be white bones, stripped of their might."
(谁能生还?皆成枯骨.Shéi néng shēnghuán? Jiē chéng kūgǔ.)
The children were linked hand-in-hand, performing a grotesque, boneless dance in a circle near the bars. Ying and Huo led the unholy choir, their voices bright and clear, their fixed, radiant smiles never wavering.
Aunt Lian, was in a state of high-voltage shriek. She beat the iron cage with her switch, her voice a thin sliver of ice as she bellowed for them to shut their traps. It did no good; the gears of her authority had stripped completely.
Most of all, she dared not enter that rat warren. Bo, the blind beast, was bobbing his head in a shivering rattle, his ivory horns—sharp as spear-tips—twitching with a malevolent life as he blocked the door. He stood as a silent watchman of the pit, and Lian knew with a cold lead of certainty that if she crossed the line, the beast would process her into meat, goring her until her guts were strewn across the floor in a crimson, chaotic mess.
Lao Zhang and his crew were lost in a void of logic. The more they bellowed at the small-fry to shut their traps, the more the high-voltage shriek escalated. It was like pouring high-octane gasoline on a charnel house fire. Zhang felt his pulse start to red-line. In a jagged jolt of fury, he yanked the pistol from his waistband and cocked it with a sound like a rattle in the throat of a dying man.
KA-BLAM! KA-BLAM! KA-BLAM!
Three shots, like liquid whipcracks, hammered into the ceiling.
The effect was like a chemical curse. The unholy choir snapped shut. The twins—that matched set of porcelain nightmares—froze, their fixed, radiant smiles still pasted to their faces. Even Bo, the blind beast, stopped its boneless dance and stood as still as a washed blackboard.
"Enough! Shut your traps, every one of you!" Zhang bellowed, his voice like grinding glass.
He jumped back with a miserable squeaking sound as a shard of roof tile plummeted down, missing his skull by a sliver of ice. It shattered on the floor with a sound like a dropped plate of porcelain.
"Goddamn it, now there's another hole in this spent shell of a building to fix," Zhang muttered. He watched as the children began to flow toward the back of the monolith of doom, trailing after the twins in their bleeding red finery and that blind beast.
Zhang turned his hard, greedy eyes on Aunt Lian.
"Control them, Lian! We've got merchandise to move tonight, and I won't have the gears stripped now!". He jabbed a finger at her. "And don't you dare damage the goods. If you mark their skin, I'll carve it out of your hide! If they want to scream, let them. They'll run out of breath eventually, like any other animal in a trap.".
Aunt Lian just stood there, her face a mask of defeat and cold knowledge. She was a piece of human wreckage now, panting in doglike gasps, sweat cutting trenches in the wrinkles of her face. She watched the small-fry huddle together in a dark gallery of the room, a single shivering rattle of fear.
"That damn song," she hissed, her voice as thin as a sliver of ice. "It gives me the willies."
Ah-Ling followed the grunts out of the slaughterhouse, but the words of the song were already a chemical curse in her mind. She whispered them to the stagnant air:
"Who stays breathing? All shall be white bones, stripped of their might…"
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