Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

My name is Lin Xiaoxia, a six-month-old office worker struggling to find a place to live in a big city. My monthly salary is 3,500 yuan, and after deducting transportation and food expenses, I struggle to even afford decent clothes. So when the agent told me about a two-bedroom apartment in the old city for just 1,200 yuan a month, complete with a small balcony, I almost immediately jumped on the offer.

The agent was rubbing his hands, his eyes a little vague, and he stammered, "Ms. Lin, everything about this house is good, except... the neighbor is a little special." At that time, my mind was full of "1,200 yuan! Two-bedroom apartment! With a balcony!", and I didn't care about "special" or not. I promised the agent on the spot: "As long as the house is cheap, I can tolerate alien neighbors!" Looking back now, I was so young and naive at the time. I didn't understand how "outrageous" was hidden behind the word "special".

Moving day was a Saturday, and the weather was scorching hot. The sun had softened the asphalt, making it sticky to the touch. I'd taken a leave of absence from work and, at seven in the morning, keys in hand, headed for the old town. Tucked away in a corner of the city, the streets were lined with decades-old houses, their walls covered in lush green ivy. Some windows still had old-fashioned wooden lattices, and pots of wilted succulents sat on the windowsills, exuding a sense of age and decay.

The building I rented was at the end of the street, a six-story red brick structure. The bricks had faded, revealing the mottled cement underneath. The iron gate at the entrance was rusted, and when it opened, it creaked, like an old man's heavy sigh. I was standing at the entrance, confirming the address on my phone, when I heard a distant "thump, thump, thump." I turned and saw a moving company truck slowly approaching, its bed packed full of the belongings I'd accumulated over four years of college.

Two movers jumped out of the car, wiped the sweat from their foreheads, and greeted me: "Miss Lin? Everything is here, shall we move upstairs now?" I nodded quickly and handed over two bottles of iced mineral water attentively: "Thank you for your hard work, it's so hot out here."

The workers didn't hesitate, unscrewing the caps and gulping down half a bottle before starting to carry the boxes. My rental apartment was on the second floor, not a high rise, but the corridor was incredibly narrow and cluttered with miscellaneous items—Mr. Zhang's old bicycle on the third floor, Aunt Li's pickled vegetable jars on the fourth, and Grandma Wang's waste bins on the fifth. The corridor was so crowded that only one person could barely fit through. The workers had to lean sideways, carefully avoiding the debris, carrying the large boxes, taking every step with extreme caution.

I followed the master, clutching several plastic bags of daily necessities. The sweat on my forehead trickled down my cheeks, only to reappear as soon as I'd wiped it off. The corridor had no windows, and the air wasn't circulating. It was as stuffy as a steamer, mingled with an indescribable smell—the fumes from cooking next door, the stale, old smell of an elderly person's home, and the dampness of mold in the corners.

Just as the mover carried the last cardboard box into the second-floor corridor and was about to put it at my door, I was following behind, wiping the sweat off my face, when I suddenly heard a loud and powerful shout from above my head. The sound penetrated the stuffy air and hit my ears straight in the face: "Hey! That mover! Be careful! Is that box in your hand filled with my freshly pickled radish?"

I froze for three seconds, then subconsciously glanced down at the plastic bag in my hand. Inside was indeed a bag of unopened dried radish from the supermarket. I'd bought it yesterday, planning to have it with my morning porridge. But the box in the master's hand was clearly filled with my winter clothes! Puzzled, I looked up and saw a figure hanging from the security window on the third floor.

She was a woman, perhaps sixty years old, wearing a rose-red floral apron with a golden "good luck" pattern. Her hair was casually tied back with a wooden chopstick, a few strands dangling on either side of her face, damp with sweat and sticking to her skin. Her face was the most striking thing. Foundation was so thick it could be scraped off and used as putty, leaving her as pale as a painted wall. Her cheeks were painted a vibrant red, like sweet potatoes fresh from the stove. Her lipstick was even more exaggerated, extending two centimeters beyond her lip line. It was a highly saturated, bright red, making her look like a matchmaker straight out of a New Year's picture.

She was holding a stainless steel cooking spatula in her hand, with a few grease stains on the spatula head. She was leaning over to look down, her eyes extremely sharp, staring at the cardboard box in the mover's hand like a hawk, as if her precious dried radish was really hidden in the box.

"Auntie, did you see it wrong?" I quickly looked up to explain, my voice a little distorted with anxiety. "That's my suitcase. It contains winter clothes, not dried radishes."

The old lady said "Oh" with obvious disappointment in her tone. She smacked her lips and wiped the cooking spatula on her apron. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, as if she had discovered a new world. She pointed at the plastic bag at my feet and said, "Is that dried radish in your hand? Let me tell you, little girl, your dried radish looks tasteless! When I pickle dried radish, I have to put star anise, peppercorns, cinnamon, and pour some white wine on it. I pickle it for half a month, and then it tastes so delicious! Next time, I'll pack you some of my pickled radish. I guarantee you'll eat two more bowls of porridge with it!"

I was a bit bewildered by her sudden enthusiasm. Just as I was about to say "Thank you, Auntie," she suddenly uttered an "Ouch!" and shrank back abruptly, as if she had remembered something important. Then, a crackling sound, like something burning, came from the room, mixed with a burning smell, drifting down through the window.

Then, I heard her yell, even more penetrating than before: "My braised pork! It's going to burn!" The voice was full of anxiety, and I could even imagine her frantically running around the house. Within two seconds, she poked her head out again, with a little black soot on her forehead and a smudge of foundation on her face, but she didn't care at all. She gave me a standard "OK" gesture and said loudly: "Little girl, my name is Wang Cuihua, and I live on the third floor above you! If you have any problems in the future, just call me, I'm the most enthusiastic person!" After that, she closed the window with a "clang", and the sound was so loud that it almost turned on the voice-activated lights in the corridor. The window was closed and the door was locked, so how could it disappear?"