Ah, it’s still looking at me.
The first thought squeezed from deep within his mind was this.
Probably because it all felt too unreal, Yang Siguang held the eyeball in his hand, examining it for a long, long time, yet he felt none of the horror or aversion that one should feel when facing a human organ.
His mind was hazy, his thoughts scattered, and thinking became incredibly difficult.
Why was Li Chen’s eyeball in his backpack?
After a good while, Yang Siguang belatedly thought this.
Maybe this was just a dream? This was his first thought.
But the texture of the eyeball was so vivid, and there were distinct tear marks on the muscles and nerve bundles at the back…
Fragments of a phone conversation with a classmate drifted into his mind; his classmate had said that the speed of the car in the accident was very fast (maybe it really was fast? But Yang Siguang found he could no longer recall clearly), so much so that when Li Chen was fatally injured, his internal organs were completely shattered and his body severely damaged.
More fragmented images floated into Yang Siguang’s memory.
He remembered Li Chen’s shoes; one had already flown off in the impact, landing much farther than his body. So when the medical staff were moving him onto the stretcher, one of Li Chen’s feet was bare.
The white cloth covered only Li Chen’s head, leaving his feet uncovered.
As the stretcher moved past Yang Siguang, he saw Li Chen’s completely twisted ankle.
Like a misassembled figurine, the corpse was lying on its back, yet its toes pointed straight to the ground.
Ah, Li Chen was already a complete mess…
A voice whispered quietly in his heart.
And the eyeball?
Did the eyeball fly off like that shoe?
And then accidentally fall into his bag?
Yang Siguang pondered in a daze.
When he came to, he realized he had already fetched a clean glass.
There were ice cubes inside the glass.
He had carefully wrapped the eyeball in plastic wrap and placed it on the ice.
Yang Siguang could no longer remember where he had read about this method; only that the article mentioned this would better preserve the organ’s vitality and increase the success rate of reimplantation back into the body.
At that moment, Yang Siguang’s train of thought broke off.
He suddenly realized that he didn’t actually need to be so careful.
Because Li Chen no longer needed to think about organ reimplantation; after all, Li Chen was already dead.
…
A thin layer of condensation appeared on the outer surface of the glass.
Yang Siguang stared intently at Li Chen’s eyeball through the glass.
The eyeball was still so vivid, so moist, as though it were gazing back at him.
It was as if it had only temporarily left that person’s body, staying by Yang Siguang’s side for just a short while.
By the next day, when the nightmare faded, it would return to Li Chen’s eye socket and once again glance past him with that cold and disdainful look.
At this thought, it was as if an invisible, icy hand reached straight into Yang Siguang’s abdomen, mercilessly kneading his insides.
Yang Siguang felt a wave of intense nausea.
He stumbled to his feet and rushed to the bathroom, but as soon as he reached the doorway, his legs buckled, and he collapsed to the floor.
*
Yang Siguang threw up.
*
That night, Yang Siguang came down with a high fever.
Perhaps it was because, before he went to sleep, his mother had been cursing and yelling at him, so much so that even in his dreams, Yang Siguang’s ears were still filled with her shrill and furious screeches.
“…How many times have I told you? Do you not have ears? Stay away from that monster born of slut! Far away—do you understand?”
“Other kids at least know to care for their mothers, but you? Is your brain broken? Have you forgotten what that slut did? She stole your dad! Don’t you know that from now on, you’re just a child without a father! You’re nothing but a bastard!”
“And you’re still playing with that slut’s child?! Are you heartless or brainless? Damn it, you still have the nerve to cry! I haven’t cried, so what right do you have to cry?”
…
In the dream, it was also a hot, sultry afternoon.
The scorching sun was about to set, and the color of the sunset was blood-red, dyeing the entire world in an unbearable hue.
In the narrow, oppressive hallway, his mother’s broom hit Yang Siguang’s body in time with her curses, and her once-smiling face was now filled with fierce hatred.
Yang Siguang remembered that he had been crying.
It seemed that he had never made a sound when he cried, always shedding tears in silence.
He simply didn’t dare make a sound, yet for some reason, his mother seemed even angrier and more furious at that moment.
Her nails nearly dug deep into his flesh, leaving that patch of skin a terrifying purple-black for a long time afterward.
But this clearly did not satisfy her anger.
“Crying, crying—only know how to cry, just as disgusting as your useless father—let me ask you, Yang Siguang, are you still going to hang around that slut’s brat in the future?”
Yang Siguang whimpered in pain and slowly nodded.
Her bloodshot eyes seemed to blaze in their sockets.
Her hand clamped down on his neck, damp and full of sweat.
“Alright, say it with me—Li Ailing is a slut who gave birth to a filthy spawn named Li Chen, and you’ll never play with that filthy family again!”
…
Tears mixed with sweat, like tiny insects, trickled down his skin.
They crawled over the fine wounds left by the broom, bringing a fine prickling pain.
The child, clutched tightly by his mother, struggled to part his lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to repeat that venomous curse aloud.
The woman became more furious and unhinged than ever.
“So—that’s how it is, right? You’re just like that dead dog; you can’t help yourself when you see that filthy brat from the Li family, can you? Are you going to say it or not? Say it or not—”
As she shrieked, she suddenly turned, grabbed a rusted pair of black iron scissors from by the door, and acted as if she were about to cut into the boy’s cheek.
“If you’re not going to say it, then fine—since you’re useless, might as well shred this face!”
The cold blade pressed against the child’s gums, and a thick metallic taste filled his throat. It was hard to tell if it came from blood or the metal itself.
In his extreme terror, Yang Siguang was horrified to see that the small, timid boy before him was now struggling, making sounds under his mother’s grasp.
“No, no no no no, don’t say it! Don’t say it!”
The ultimate fear rose from deep within Yang Siguang’s bones, and he screamed out in his dream. Yet, as in countless nightmares before, he was unable to change anything that had happened that afternoon.
“Li Ailing is a slut… sob sob… who gave birth to Li Chen…”
“Who gave birth to that filthy spawn Li Chen!” his mother corrected viciously.
“Li Ailing is… a slut… who gave birth to Li Chen… Li Chen, that filthy spawn… I’ll never play with him again… sob sob…”
“Louder!”
Her bloodshot eyes continued to glare fiercely at the boy.
And the boy could only keep raising his voice, screaming that sentence in a shrill, broken cry, over and over.
By the end, veins were bulging at his temples, and his entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
…
He didn’t even remember when his mother had shoved him away and returned to her room, slamming the door behind her.
All he could do was stand blankly at his own door, crying and shouting.
“Li Ailing… is… sob sob…”
Just then, the boy suddenly felt a piercing gaze fall on him.
In his state of panic and confusion, he shouldn’t have been so sensitive to others’ gazes, but this one was different—it was far too sharp, far too intense.
In the midst of his tears, he slowly turned his head and met the eyes of a similarly small and frail figure on the stairs.
A bloody light fell from behind the shadow and stabbed into the boy’s eyes, making it impossible for him to see the person’s expression clearly.
But he remembered those eyes.
Once, they were always filled with affection and gentleness, a golden-brown warmth that seemed to flow like honey. But from that day on, they turned especially cold.
*
Yang Siguang opened his eyes on the bed, drenched in cold sweat.
His pillow was completely soaked, probably because he had been crying in his dream. Now his eyes were burning and bloodshot, and even glancing at his phone screen felt like a steel needle piercing into his eyeballs, sending waves of unbearable pain.
Pressing his eyelids with his hands, Yang Siguang took a moment to recover.
“Ah…this is just…”
He mumbled to himself, sitting on the bed and watching as the light from the gap in the curtains gradually illuminated the entire room.
He could no longer remember how many times he had dreamt of things from his childhood.
To be fair, it was just an ordinary, unremarkable past.
Back then, Li Chen’s mother, a single parent, had moved next door with him.
His father kept saying how hard it was for them—a lone mother and her child—and he often went over to help them out. Before long, the two had developed feelings for each other.
Then, Yang Siguang’s father simply left his wife and child to run off with that woman.
In the conservative past, this was big news, something people talked about for a long time.
Yang Siguang’s mother, who was already quick-tempered, became even more volatile after enduring all the pointing and gossip. At her worst, she was nearly insane. Even now, she looked at Yang Siguang with constant irritation, as if everything about him was wrong.
Her attitude toward him was even worse back then, and Yang Siguang had been beaten and scolded over trivial matters since he was a child.
But no matter how bad things got for Yang Siguang, he was still better off than Li Chen at the time. At least his mother, though quick to anger and inclined to hit, still made sure her child had enough to eat, clothes to wear, and a school to attend.
Li Chen didn’t have that kind of luck.
Everyone said Li Ailing, his mother, was beautiful, but they also had to admit she was out of her mind. She had cut ties with her family to run off with a well-known thug, ending up with Li Chen as a result.
The thug was killed shortly after Li Chen was born, leaving Li Ailing to raise him alone. But she was like a sheltered rich girl, worse at taking care of a child than most people would be with a dog.
When she ran off with Yang Siguang’s father, she left Li Chen with three coins.
Li Chen bought six steamed buns with those coins.
He made them last half a month, starving himself until he was skin and bones, his eyes hollow.
*
Before things turned chaotic, Yang Siguang already loved spending time with Li Chen.
At that time, there was no trace of the future “Li Shen” about him. Years of malnutrition and his mother’s neglect made him much smaller than Yang Siguang, and the unusual color of his pupils was more noticeable back then, causing other kids to tease him, calling his eyes “ghost eyes” and making up songs to mock him.
So Li Chen was truly timid back then—quiet, solitary, and withdrawn.
But in front of Yang Siguang, he was always so gentle and endearing…
Like a little puppy eager to wag his tail and come over with just a beckon.
And Yang Siguang was indeed very young then.
Too young for the love and hatred of adults to mean much to him.
By the time he found out Li Chen was almost starving to death alone at home, he couldn’t hold a grudge for long. Every day, he would save half of his breakfast and lunch to feed Li Chen.
Li Chen adored him back then…
To the point of hugging his arm tightly, asking over and over if they could stay together forever.
*
“Of course! I won’t leave you!”
Yang Siguang remembered that he had answered Li Chen this way back then. At the time, he didn’t know what “attachment disorder” was or what “psychological dependency” meant. He only knew that if Li Chen couldn’t see him, he would hide under the bed in fear, and only when he was there could that thin child sleep soundly.
In a quiet part of himself, Yang Siguang also enjoyed that unique affection and dependence.
He thought he would be good to Li Chen.
He could take care of him forever—after all, he was easy to care for.
…
But it wasn’t long before Yang Siguang’s mother found out he was sneaking food to Li Chen.
To him, he simply didn’t want Li Chen to starve. All he did was share a little food and occasionally take him out of that room with no water or electricity to sneak into his own home for a bath and watch some TV.
But to his mother back then, Yang Siguang’s behavior was nothing short of betrayal.
So, Yang Siguang received a harsh beating.
And just at that moment, Li Chen, usually so timid and afraid of people, heard his cries echoing through the corridor and, surprisingly, gathered the courage to crawl out from under the bed, slipping out of his door to check on him.
As a result, he witnessed the scene of his scolding and curses.
…
It seemed that from that day on, Li Chen never showed Yang Siguang any kindness again.
Yang Siguang had once thought of sneaking over to apologize, and explain what had happened that day. But after a few days of hesitation, Li Chen’s grandparents came to fetch him.
The elderly couple, with expressions full of complex emotions, silently led the quiet, frail child to a luxury car that drew whispers from the nearby residents.
At that moment, Yang Siguang was locked in a small, dark storage room by his mother. Through a gap in the window, he watched Li Chen get into that car.
He called out to Li Chen, but his voice, hoarse from crying, was too weak to be heard.
Through his blurred tears, he watched the car gradually drive away. Even though he was still a child, a strong sense of destiny surged in his heart.
—He had completely lost hope of reconciling with Li Chen.
