Now he was almost ninety percent certain that he himself was the writer in this story.
"Continue! Quick, continue!" Yin Junchi felt excited.
Wen Xishu continued:
"Don’t worry, the writer soon moved into... Room 14-1."
"He discovered that shortly after moving in, he wasn’t sure if he had any inspiration, but he seemed to crave work more and more."
"His laziness seemed to be absorbed by something."
"At first, he found it hard to adapt. As a best-selling author, he naturally thought he should be lazy."
"He had always believed, ’I can’t be too industrious, that would make me look like a beast of burden, put me on the same level as those web novel authors who rely on constant updates.’"
"But after moving here, he couldn’t sleep at all, and his desire to work gradually squeezed out his rationality. With part of his sin of sloth extracted, he began to become diligent."
"He hadn’t yet realized that his ’sloth’ was also a part of his self. He was delighted by the magic of this room."
"But deep down, he thought... how could this be so unscientific? Maybe it’s the magnetic field? Could there really be places in the world that make people industrious? Like prisons in Kangaroo Country?"
"In any case, he became very diligent. The newspaper related to the strange tales, he began to read it over and over again, while the newspapers he usually used for inspiration were just glanced at and discarded."
"But this time, he read it many times."
Yin Junchi felt as if someone had installed a camera in his room. He felt offended.
But he wanted to hear the continuation of this story:
"Continue with the story!"
Wen Xishu said:
"He began to work with abandon. But at this time, he didn’t know that in the other six floors, there were six people like him, becoming part of the sacrifice."
"In 7-5, there lived an extremely obese man who was addicted to eating, but now he only drinks water and doesn’t eat. He was already a bit haggard because his gluttony had been extracted."
"In 21-9, there lived a university student whose obsession with certain activities had made his body somewhat frail. He indulged in fantasies about two-dimensional characters, essentially a divine chosen lust sinner."
"But now, he began to extremely loathe doing such things. Because his lust had been extracted."
"In 28-11, there lived a lawyer named Jiang Yingce, a top player in the legal world, very arrogant. But now he would feel embarrassed by even the slightest flaw in his home, the tiniest speck of dust on his body... he didn’t dare to meet anyone and became excessively self-conscious."
"Because his pride had been extracted."
"In 35-13, there was a comedian who brought joy to others through his work, but he himself always felt pained and had a bad temper. In my hometown, there was someone called Zhou Xingxing who had many good works, but almost everyone who worked with him said he had a bad temper."
"But guess what happens to the comedian in 35-13 now? Maybe you can even occasionally hear his exaggerated laughter. He felt extremely happy no matter what he did."
"Because his wrath had been extracted."
"Next, there’s Room 49-3. A mother and her child moved in here. The mother was actually very harsh because she couldn’t accept that other people’s children were better than hers."
"Even though she was quite ordinary, she believed that her child should be the top student at Jicheng University in the future, should be a super genius capable of overturning fate and breaking class barriers through studying. Her resentment, jealousy, and desire were all imposed on the child."
"But now, she no longer cared about the child. Whatever made the child happy was all that mattered, she only indulged the child."
"Because her envy had been extracted."
"In 42-7, there’s no need for me to say more, An Zhenqi, the scion of a wealthy family, had changed his usual greed and started doing things almost akin to charity. Because his greed had been extracted."
"Greed, pride, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, wrath."
"On the seven floors, with seven being the key number, there lived these seven households!"
"Even the homophone of this building is called Seven Taboos Mansion."
"Oh, the writer also often experienced hallucinations... in his hallucinations, there were six hundred and thirty people surrounding him, their expressions one of extreme terror. Guess how the number six hundred and thirty came about?"
"This building has a total of forty-nine floors, with thirteen households per floor. Suppose each floor was occupied by one person..."
Wen Xishu’s eyes were fixed firmly on the writer, Yin Junchi. He didn’t care if this would scare Yin Junchi.
Anyway, Yin Junchi wouldn’t drop dead immediately.
Yin Junchi immediately began calculating. If there are thirteen households per floor and one person per household, there would be a total of six hundred and thirty-seven people...
And subtracting the seven people who had their original sins extracted, there would be six hundred and thirty people left! Precisely the number of people he saw in his extreme exhaustion, during his hallucinations.
At this moment, Yin Junchi felt a chill run down his spine.
"How’s my story? Oh, the ending is, the author died. His death became part of the story; he did write a great work, and his editor made a fortune because of it, but... it was meaningless."
Indeed, it was meaningless.
Yin Junchi’s eyes were bloodshot, and his survival instinct helped him shake off the urge to continue writing.
He so wanted to document this story, it was amazing. In fact, by Yin Junchi’s standards, this story was too clichéd.
Yet now, he was completely engrossed, this was an unprecedented experience, and as long as something was novel, other details didn’t matter.
Just like boys watching Island Country movies for the first time, they hardly cared about the actresses’ looks, only later did they start having all sorts of demands regarding looks, body shapes, themes, costumes, and poses.