Apartment 404

In the suburbs stands an apartment building with gray walls and white windows, in a remote location that cannot be found on any map. Those who do not know the way call it simply "Apartment 404" after its number plate; those familiar with it call it the "Suicide Apartment." Every room is stocked with a full set of suicide tools for guests to choose from: they enter through the front door, register, and receive a room key; if they change their minds along the way, they leave through the back door. The manager never tries to hold them back, only softly saying "Let's not meet again in the next life" as their silhouette disappears. This novel was compiled and published from a popular series serialized on the online platform "Naodong Storyboard," using the apartment as a stage to string together more than twenty stories of despair and survival: why does a venerable old man who lived through turbulent times choose the death method known as "pasting the official seal"; why do a police officer's daughter and a criminal's child grow up together; someone is interrogated night after night by insomnia and memories; someone confirms their own existence by peeping into others' lives; someone brings secrets no one else can understand and sits before the manager to pour them out. As doors open and close, all kinds of lives unfold one after another. The stories enter through suspense but land on warmth and redemption: those who come here leave their final farewell in the apartment and also leave themselves the possibility of living on. Every story hides a twist, and the endings are often unexpected. It is about death, but what it truly asks is "how to live well."