“You know, we are a very clean house. You can cook, but please no big fire, no extra grease, no smoke, and no heavy smelling food, like - salad and tofu.” The owner of the third place, a very clean and spacious house with one spare room for rent, was a kind looking old lady.
“Uh - so basically I can’t cook at all?”
“You
can
cook, but you can’t just cook very greasy food, or smelly food. Because I am very sensitive, and it’s very hard to clean the house and clear the smell.” The old lady shook her head.
“Okay, thank you. I will think about it.” Wu Xiaoming nodded, marking the place as an “if he had no other options” option.
The fourth place was around a 20 minute car ride away, and it was a loft at the top of a 15-th floor building. The ceiling was leaking, the floor was very dirty, and the bathroom was at the corner with no ways, its location indicated by a lone standing toilet.
“You see, it’s a very open floor plan, which allows you to do a ton with the space.” The one showing Wu Xiaoming the place was an agent wearing a very professional, greasy smile: “You are an actor right? So you are a creative! Imagine all the different things you can do here, am I right?”
“But - there’s practically nothing here! Not even a bed!” Wu Xiaoming scratched his jaw.
“Which means you can buy your own bed, and a big one, and you can put it right next to the window and sleep at the city night lights!”
“I - I’ll think about it.” Wu Xiaoming was more honest this time, because he could simply sleep on a lone mattress on the ground, and maybe just use a screen to block the toilet. But the leaking ceiling was indeed an issue - it would be quite a hassle if he ever got flooded , especially when he was exploring the ethereal realm.
The rideshare back would take 2 hours, the entire path was red on the map app, while his phone battery was at 30 percent, so Wu Xiaoming just bought a gossip magazine from a shop by his pick up point so that he would not be bored.
“Explosive Scoop: Jennifer Richardson and Brandon Sharpe on a secret date?! ” This piece of gossip was highlighted on the fifth page, with bright red letters. The two names triggered his latent memories. He already knew Jennifer Richardson, the singer with whom he had had a date-for-press arrangement, who had then broken it off due to his overdose scandal, and might just be a crush for the previous Wu Xiaoming; and Brandon Sharpe was a bitter rival of Wu Xiaoming - and not simply unfriendly acquaintances who could not work together, but instead the kind that actually actively despised each other due to various past personal drama.
Wu Xiaoming had no idea how this Brandon Sharpe felt about him in actuality, but he was pretty sure the previous Wu Xiaoming harbored quite a bit of real resentment, even hatred for him that it remained in his memories and would still come up this much time later.
Suppressing these feelings that were not of his own, he continued to read the article. With a bit of distance to him personally, and a relatively clear mind, the article read more like insinuation and speculation based on a few photos caught by the paparazzi. It went on to bring up older rumours about the two being in a relationship ever since they worked on a few episodes from a popular TV series together. And then almost at the end, it mentioned the upcoming projects from the two: Brandon Sharpe is returning to the popular TV series as his previous character, a doctor with an abrasive demeanor but a heart of gold, and Jennifer Richardson would be releasing updates on a new single soon.
Overall, it appeared that this was the “setup” for a series of news releases from a “date-for-press” arrangement. Now that he was someone in the know, it just seemed way less interesting.
With this story providing a format and a model, he was able to recognize two more similar stories in this same magazine: one was about another singer - actor pair, and the other was about the supposed split of a two-actor pair, only one was more subtle and just happened to coincide with the timing of a new show, and the other more blatant, like the one about Jennifer Richardson and Brandon Sharpe.
He reached the hotel with less than 10 percent battery on his phone. The magazine lasted only forty minutes, and that was him giving it generous attention and reading through all the stories rather carefully. He had to actually search a lot of the celebrity names, which could roughly help with understanding the gossip and rumors, but not a lot. It was surprisingly eye opening that a lot of the celebrities mentioned in this magazine had similar careers at least to an outsider like him. No latent memory popped up, maybe the previous Wu Xiaoming did not actually have much impression on them.
The crowd in the lounge earlier was gone. And he was able to check in again with the front desk. Maybe the owner, the old man named Elijah Erikson, would actually give him a discount, maybe he would not. It was worth a try.
“Sorry Mr. Wu, we are still waiting for the manager to get back to us.” The same receptionist responded to Wu Xiaoming with a wry smile: “I’m sorry, maybe check in tomorrow? Also, do you want to auto extend your room if you don’t checkout? The rate’s the same.”
“Yes, please. And I will check in tomorrow. Thanks.” Wu Xiaoming turned around and headed out the door. Right now it was almost 6PM, and time for him to actually grab a bite.
And there’s one thing he wanted to do - he would like to actually check out the store where the zombie mask was, where a child’s imagination created a zombie outbreak “limbo”.
A burger in hand, half a burger still in his mouth, Wu Xiaoming found his way to the narrow street where the young child’s father’s shop had been. The condition was pretty much what he had expected: a street facing a tall, dirty and lightly cracked wall. The smell of urine permeated the air, and by a rough count there were around six homeless guys sleeping on the street, two standing by the wall, mumbling to themselves.
Wu Xiaoming headed straight toward the position of the location of the shop from memory. Most of the shops along his way were closed, with broken or graffiti-covered windows and heavily locked doors. And the rest of the shops that were open, had boarded up most of their windows.
Without much trouble, he located the shop of the young child’s father. It was closed, and from the broken and tarnished billboard its former name was something “jefe”. The door was locked, and all of its windows were broken, and many parts of the metal frame were dented, bent or even burned and sawed through.
He peeked into the interior through the biggest window - there was a broken drawer and a microwave with a heavily spray-painted exterior with its door dangling.
This window was just big enough for him to go through, so he knocked off the remaining glass on the edge of the window before hopping in.
The floorboards creaked when he walked. There were plenty of places for sunlight but the air was still chilly, still and slightly moldy. As Wu Xiaoming walked towards where the zombie mask was in the ethereal realm, the air grew colder and staler. He slowed his steps and pulled out the soapberry wood staff from his backpack - he brought it with him just to be safe, and actually had had no intention of using it until now.
A low, sniffling weeping voice shot chills through his entire body and made the hairs on his back stand up. Someone was here? But there was simply no sign of it.