The Gold-Toothed Administrator

Tom swiftly took care of all seven ants, varying in size. This owed much to his upbringing in the orphanage, where scuffles with his "little friends" were common, and his commitment to self-improvement during his subsequent solitary life.

He quickly bandaged the skin on his leg, which had been punctured by ant bites, fortunately avoiding any bone damage. Climbing back onto the table, he measured the smallest ant, barely the size of half his palm, on the cutting board.

The yellow ant's body measured around 2.8 millimeters, which was normal. However, the two ants next to it, as well as the larger one, were clearly abnormal.

The largest ants Tom had seen were flying ants, but examining these bodies, all belonging to the same yellow ant species, revealed an abnormal size discrepancy. Yellow ants simply couldn't grow to such proportions.

Frowning, Tom used the cap needle to puncture the heads of the two abnormally large ants. Despite his revulsion, he found red gems inside, albeit much smaller than the one he had found earlier, barely the size of his thumb.

There were no gems in the four smallest ants.

Tom examined the three differently sized gems under the sunlight, each radiating a red glow.

A series of strange occurrences—his shrinking, loss of network, the appearance of abnormally large yellow ants, and now, red gems inside their heads—seemed suspiciously interconnected to Tom.

"What should I do?" Tom pondered, glancing at the ceiling. "Perhaps I should explore other rooms first. Seeking help from a reliable tenant is better than risking being devoured by ants here."

A man of action, Tom decided to proceed immediately. Having encountered giant ants, he braced himself for further dangers outside. While stray cats and dogs roamed the neighborhood, they usually appeared at night. It was morning now, so the risk should be lower.

Besides the cap needle, he needed more formidable defensive weapons. Among the tools on the table, Tom deliberated his choices.

When assembling models, certain parts required modification, often done with a craft knife. Tom found dismantling the drawer too cumbersome, so he removed the blade he had replaced a few days ago.

At 3.5 centimeters long, the blade was too large. Tom found a scrap of modeling material, tied it to the blade's end with a thread, and coated it with a layer of 502 glue. Soon, he fashioned a knife measuring 5 centimeters in length.

Tom then broke two biscuits into pieces for sustenance. He wrapped them with the three differently sized red gems in a cloth and strapped them to his back. He also fastened the cap needle and a rolled-up cloth as a rope around his waist. Fully equipped, he was ready to depart.

Exiting through the door was impractical, as he couldn't open it at his size. Additionally, he lacked the anatomical structure of ants to squeeze through the crack. He also lacked the courage to jump from the bed, which now seemed like a 10-meter-high platform. However, an outwardly protruding ledge outside the window was within his reach.

He remembered passing through five rooms to reach the staircase, where a ventilation window marked the end of the ledge. This was the most viable route. As for the elevator, he couldn't reach the controls, and if ants entered when the doors closed, he'd have nowhere to escape.

Tom, with his makeshift gear, scaled down the window's ledge using a ruler as a bridge. Despite the strong wind, the direct sunlight made him feel warm.

Glancing out, what was once a three-story drop now resembled a skyscraper. Calculating, Tom realized the third floor now equated to over 140 meters in height, truly towering.

"Blessed be, Amitabha!" Tom muttered, praying before brushing his wind-tossed hair aside, cautiously making his way along the ledge towards the staircase.

Next to Tom's apartment lived a young woman who frequently brought questionable men home. However, since they usually frequented bars at night, Tom didn't spot anyone when he peered into her window. He had intended to seek her help, but finding no one, he proceeded to the next apartment.

The next room belonged to the building's administrator, a creepy middle-aged man with a large gold tooth. Tom peered inside, recalling the man's disdainful laughter and creepy smile, and wondered what the administrator did in his room.

Surprisingly empty, the administrator typically slept until the afternoon. Tom found this odd as he ventured inside.

The administrator's room was messy, befitting a fifty-year-old bachelor. Tom, considering his size, deemed it unlikely the man would notice him and decided to investigate.

To his left, on the bed beneath the window, lay an inflatable doll, typical of a creepy middle-aged man. However, the foul stench permeating the room made Tom wrinkle his nose.

"Nothing interesting in a middle-aged man's room," Tom muttered to himself, but suddenly, something caught his attention on the bed.

Half the size of the inflatable doll lay a human body, its head seemingly shattered, with crimson blood staining a large portion of the sheet—a sight too gruesome to behold.

Tom recoiled in shock, managing to suppress his urge to vomit. Having dealt with corpses during his brief stint as a mortuary assistant, he wasn't entirely unaccustomed to such scenes.

The body, several times larger than Tom's current size but smaller than the administrator's original size, undoubtedly belonged to the administrator himself. However, it was clear the body had also shrunk, though not to the extent of Tom's.

Another oddity added to the list. Suppressing his disgust, Tom approached the body, convinced the peculiar events were linked to his own shrinking. He needed answers. As for the gruesome remains, Tom had dealt with worse during his previous job.

If the person had died before shrinking, there would definitely have been a large puddle of blood, but now it was still small. He felt something was suspicious and decided to figure it out, so he reluctantly endured the nauseating wreckage and crawled back to the window along the hanging cloth strip.

The morning breeze outside the window dissipated the nauseating smell of blood, and it took Tom quite a while to catch his breath.

Sitting by the window, Tom began to analyze, "Could his head have encountered something during the shrinking process, causing it to shatter? After death, his shrinking process stopped, so he ended up like this, larger than me but smaller than his original size."

"He definitely didn't die before shrinking; you can tell from the blood at the scene and the burst head." Tom looked at the city outside. Due to his smaller size, his field of vision had shrunk. Buildings that were visible before now appeared hazy in the distance.

"There may be other possibilities, but at least for now, this is what I see."

He took out some cookie crumbs and ate a small piece, then continued on his way, passing through the next room.

There was no one in the room, but based on the example of the manager, he decided to lower the rope and inspect the bed.

The tenant of this room was a young man with glasses, who was friendly and neat, but very obsessive-compulsive. Tom had only seen him a few times. It was said that the young man was a writer of online novels and spent his days locked in his room writing.

The bed was clean and empty. Tom searched around but found nothing unusual. Obviously, the young man hadn't gone to bed yet.

This was confirmed by the glowing monitor on the nearby computer desk; the young man had indeed been typing all night.

Tom climbed onto the desk along a hanging rope from the bed. The computer was still on, presenting an opportunity.

He jumped onto the keyboard and pressed the WIN key and D key to quickly return to the desktop. The computer showed a problem with the network connection in the bottom right corner of the desktop, and both the QQ and WeChat icons were dark.

The wireless WIFI couldn't connect to the internet, and the young man's computer was connected to the telecom broadband fiber. It seemed that it still couldn't access the internet.

"Has the entire network in this area collapsed?" Tom muttered to himself as he approached the edge of the computer desk, cautiously peering out. The ant incident just now made him still feel apprehensive; it was better to be careful.

His cautiousness paid off when he took a look. He was startled.

Several ants were huddled together on the chair in front of the computer desk. Tom took a closer look, "Oh my God!"

Several ants, each the size of a large dog, were feasting on a naked human body, about the same size as Tom, on the chair. And in the middle of the chair, there was a pair of large glasses.

"Are those... the glasses of the young man?" Tom covered his mouth in horror, afraid that he might attract the attention of the ants feasting on the body.

But the more he feared, the more it came true. One of the ants suddenly raised its head and spotted him, immediately snapping its jaws shut. The other ants also looked up.

"Run!" Tom had only one thought in mind. He quickly turned and ran towards the bed. The large ants, with their blood-stained jaws opening and closing, crawled up the legs of the computer desk at lightning speed.

"There's still time!" Tom hurriedly ran to the hanging rope between the bed and the computer desk, jumped up, and crawled towards the bed.

But as he landed on the bed, another ant of the same large size blocked his way.