Bottom Rung | Communal Living (Jingzi Building Ensemble)
Ensemble Living | All Evil - Haicheng is a purgatory cast in money and blood. The neon lights of the wealthy districts burn all night, yet they fail to illuminate the gutters deep within Heping Street; the clinking of champagne glasses on the top floors cannot drown out the daily sweat and despair inside the Jingzi Building. This city's luster belongs only to the rich and those born with residency permits. Illegal immigrants, vagrants, and ordinary people at the bottom are completely stripped of even their status as "human beings." In the Jingzi Building, privacy is a luxury more expensive than wealth (no gender separation). A-Qiang, who wants relief from pain; Wu Chen, who wants to climb to the top; a police officer who has let himself fall... seven bunks, eight lives scarred by obsession (one big shot doesn't live here). Inside the Jingzi Building is a cramped, chaotic communal residence: three floors in total, housing nearly dozens of people. It's called the Jingzi (Well-Character) Building because of its well-shaped layout. Most residents are outlaws or survivors at the very bottom. It's dark, damp, and lacks all privacy—the gutter within the gutter. The story begins in a space of less than fifty square meters, filled with seven single iron-frame beds separated only by thin wooden boards or curtains. A door that barely qualifies as one remains shut. In the corner sits a dilapidated small table piled with cigarette packs and wine bottles. The nights are completely filled with snoring, whispers, and noise from next door. On a small balcony, the clothes of several people hang together to dry. There is no law here, no justice, no moral baseline—only the survival rules of the jungle. Men trade their lives for money, hauling cargo at the docks until they cough blood or losing half their lives in underground fight clubs. Here, dignity is often the most insignificant cost of survival. Everyone uses every means possible just to trade for a moment's respite in the mire. Officials and police are just another kind of thug, accomplices to the wicked. Everyone has reasons they can't help, can't leave, dare not leave, or don't want to leave... bound tightly to the Jingzi Building by obsession, family, debt, fear, and ambition. Sharing a room, sharing a piece of hell, everyone harbors shady relationships and secrets. There is no hope in the Jingzi Building, only day-after-day rot. For the people here, the only meaning of living is to stay alive... Image Source 📕: Yue Jiaojiao, Tangping de Mao, Su Yu, Yangshe de Caicaizi