This time, Xie Xishu’s fever was more severe than any he had ever experienced.
For the first few days, he was burning up so badly that he was on the verge of fainting, lying in bed unable to even open his eyes, his mind always in a hazy state — he was burning up so much that he even began to hallucinate. In a daze, it seemed as if someone had lifted his neck, pried open his tightly locked jaws, and poured warm, sticky porridge down his throat, one spoonful at a time. Of course, he also had nightmares, dreaming that some kind of scaly, terrifying cold-blooded creature had somehow snuck into his room, always circling around his bed whenever he was too deep in sleep to wake.
By the time Xie Xishu finally broke his fever and had enough strength to get out of bed, it had been several days.
He had lost quite a bit of weight after the illness, but fortunately, he felt better than he had expected after recovering, with no aftereffects besides weakness.
However, after checking the access control records and his phone messages, Xie Xishu had no choice but to face a fact: his parents had indeed not returned during the entire time he was burning up with fever.
In fact, they hadn’t even contacted Xie Xishu.
Sometimes, even Xie Xishu himself felt that the only communication his parents had with him was the regular monthly deposit into his account.
After being sick for so long, Xie Xishu’s phone was filled with nothing but countless missed calls and text messages from Teacher Li. The messages were all the same, urging him to make the most of his valuable time in senior year and not to let a minor illness cause him to slack off and drift through his days. He was told to return to school as soon as possible.
So, it must have been just a hallucination.
That hazy memory of being taken care of was probably just a scene he imagined when his mind was muddled by the fever.
Or perhaps those strange events and uncontrollable panic he experienced the night before he collapsed were just paranoid delusions brought on by excessive mental stress.
Xie Xishu dismissed the notification on his phone screen, rubbed his temples, and mumbled to himself.
He also forced himself not to pay too much attention to the faint, subtle sense of dissonance around the house.
For example, the “old” bath towels that felt brand new, as if they had never been used.
Or the few sets of loungewear he could no longer find, no matter how hard he looked.
And the faint, lingering fishy smell that refused to go away from the entire house.
… Xie Xishu tried to cheer himself up by cleaning the house thoroughly, but no matter how hard he scrubbed the floors or wiped the furniture, that smell clung stubbornly to the air, never dissipating.
So, as soon as his body had recovered enough, Xie Xishu immediately returned to school for classes. At least there, he wouldn’t be haunted by the smell, driving himself paranoid and tense.
However, after being bedridden for several days, stepping outside felt like stepping into another world. The streets, once bustling with cars and pedestrians, had suddenly become desolate and empty. Many of the shops lining the street had pulled down their shutters, with notices posted announcing temporary closures.
When Xie Xishu finally reached the school and walked into the classroom, he almost thought he had mistakenly come at the wrong time — though it was common for students at Third High to skip class and slack off, never before had the classroom been this sparsely populated, with about a third of the seats empty. Normally, Xie Xishu found the rowdy laughter and chatter of his classmates irritating, but now the unusual quietness made him feel strangely uncomfortable.
Thankfully, the seat next to him wasn’t empty. A familiar figure, Cheng An, was lying there playing on his phone as usual.
“… Come on, even you got hit, and now you’re asking why there’s no one in class. Haven’t you heard there’s a flu outbreak going around? A lot of people couldn’t be bothered to come to class,”
Cheng An, as lazy and nonchalant as ever, stretched lazily and answered in a laid-back manner in response to his deskmate’s return and inquiry.
“Don’t even mention our kind of no-name school. Even the neighboring 7th High School, which is full of study maniacs, has a lot of students down. My dad’s company also has a bunch of employees completely knocked out. I heard that some people are already calling for work and school to stop. Haven’t you noticed there are way fewer people on the streets?”
“I didn’t expect it to be this serious.”
Xie Xishu answered softly.
The flu outbreak in City A hadn’t just started; a lot of people had already been infected before, but it had never been this severe.
“You know, I just have the worst luck. I happened to catch a cold right before the peak, and now my dad doesn’t even want me staying at home, saying he’s afraid I’ll spread it to him. He forced me to come to school, saying that in a place like our school, there’d definitely be a bunch of people skipping class, and a place with fewer people is safer. Damn it, wasn’t it him who found this lousy school for me?”
Cheng An complained indignantly, but he soon noticed that Xie Xishu was obviously a bit distracted. The latter kept glancing back from time to time, looking at the empty seat behind him.
Oh, right. When Xie Xishu first entered the classroom, the first thing he looked at was that seat.
That was Qi Wu’s seat.
At that thought, a vein on Cheng An’s forehead twitched slightly.
Then, he heard Xie Xishu’s slightly hoarse voice ask in a low tone, “Qi Wu… didn’t come to school today?”
For some reason, Cheng An suddenly felt an inexplicable anger slowly rising from deep within him.
“Ugh, weren’t you pretty afraid of him before? How come you seem so concerned about him now?”
Cheng An licked his canine tooth with his tongue, pretending to joke as he coldly retorted.
Xie Xishu’s gaze trembled slightly at this question, and a shadow fell under the boy’s pale eyes, making him look even more fragile and haggard.
“I’m not concerned—”
Xie Xishu’s voice suddenly rose, but he quickly suppressed it again.
“I just… I was just asking.”
He mumbled to Cheng An, but his expression became increasingly strained and odd.
He couldn’t tell the clueless Cheng An in front of him what he had done to Qi Wu in the bathroom before.
He had smashed Qi Wu’s head open.
Although it seemed like no one else at school knew about this, even a fool could guess that, given Qi Wu’s personality, what awaited Xie Xishu next was a terrifying revenge he hadn’t even imagined.
For example, that night when the phone suddenly appeared outside his door, it was like an invisible warning, letting Xie Xishu know that Qi Wu was aware of where he lived. Even if he tried to run home, it wouldn’t help—Qi Wu would always find him.
Even though Qi Wu wasn’t at school now, Xie Xishu was still tormented.
It was like a second shoe that hadn’t dropped yet, with Xie Xishu’s nerves stretched taut at every moment, ready to snap at any second.
And it was as if Qi Wu knew exactly how to provoke someone’s fear and despair to the maximum. Maybe this was just part of his method of torment.
In the days that followed, Qi Wu never showed up.
Xie Xishu continued his routine of going to and from school every day. Apart from the fact that fewer and fewer people were around at school and on the streets, his life seemed to have returned to normal.
But Xie Xishu knew that this was all just an illusion.
As soon as Qi Wu reappeared, his life would completely fall apart, never to return to its original state.
*
The flu in City A was getting worse by the day.
Aside from the initial batch of people who had caught the flu and recovered, gaining some resistance, everyone else was being completely knocked down by this unprecedented outbreak. Perhaps because of this, the atmosphere in society was becoming more and more tense, with incidents of unprecedented criminal activity occurring frequently.
Now, even sitting in the classroom, Xie Xishu could occasionally hear the wailing of police and ambulance sirens racing by on the streets.
At first, these sirens, signaling incidents, were more frequent at night, but now they were constant even during the day, blaring on and off, making it impossible to focus and putting people on edge. The entire senior class 1 was now down to only a third of its students, and most of those left were people who couldn’t be bothered to take care of their sick parents or relatives and had come to school to avoid the chaos at home.
“Ahhh, why isn’t our school closing? I heard several other schools have already switched to online classes at home…”
That day, Xie Xishu was absentmindedly working on a worksheet when he suddenly heard a sharp complaint from someone nearby.
Cheng An was one of the few students, like Xie Xishu, who still came to school every day, but his family’s health had been declining, and Xie Xishu could tell that his usually lazy classmate was becoming more irritable by the day.
At that moment, someone else nearby chimed in, jokingly teasing, “If you really can’t stand it, just skip class. Cheng-ge, if you stay at home, your old man can’t force you to come to school, right? Now that everyone else is stopping work and school, no one would care if you skipped a few classes.”
Hearing this, Cheng An’s already irritable expression stiffened slightly.
“That won’t work. How could I bear to leave our school’s one and only ‘top student’ all alone in this haunted place, studying by himself? Look at him, with that scrawny frame—if someone drags him into some bush, there won’t even be time to cry… You know things are a mess now; anything could happen.”
Cheng An habitually joked with Xie Xishu.
But as he said the last few sentences, his voice suddenly grew a little hoarse, for reasons unknown.
Xie Xishu instinctively furrowed his brow, glancing at Cheng An more carefully.
At that moment, Cheng An raised his arm and hooked it around Xie Xishu’s shoulder, his entire body leaning against Xie Xishu as if he had no bones left.
“…Isn’t that right, ‘top student’? You must miss me a lot too, huh?”
Cheng An spoke with a mischievous grin, but the strength in his hands was unusually strong.
Xie Xishu’s face instantly darkened.
“Don’t joke around like this.”
He said coldly.
The boy’s palms were warm, and even through the school uniform, Xie Xishu could feel the clammy heat. A wave of instinctual disgust surged through him as he tried to pull away from Cheng An, but despite his efforts, he couldn’t break free from the other’s grip. The heat spread across his skin, making every hair on his body stand on end. Though he might be accused of overreacting, at that moment, Xie Xishu couldn’t control his response.
“Cheng An—”
He shouted sharply.
“Let me go!”
However, Cheng An paid no heed to Xie Xishu’s resistance.
With a strange smile, the boy leaned in, pressing his face against Xie Xishu’s shoulder, his nose twitching as he inhaled deeply near the collar of Xie Xishu’s shirt.
“So fragrant, Xie Xishu. How did you get so fragrant these days…?” Cheng An mumbled, “Could it be you’re really using some perfume? It smells so good.”
Cheng An’s breath brushed against Xie Xishu’s neck, and murky, fragmented memories began to surge from the depths of his consciousness, severing his connection to rationality in an instant.
“Cheng An—”
Xie Xishu’s fingers trembled for a moment before they reached for the thick, heavy reference book on the desk, as solid as a brick.
Just as he was about to grab the book and smash it at Cheng An, the latter seemed to sense something, and abruptly pulled away.
“Whoa, no need for that! It was just a joke, no need to be so fierce.”
Cheng An smiled, but his eyes were dark and unreadable.
“……”
Xie Xishu gritted his teeth, his gaze slowly sweeping over Cheng An’s face.
At least at this moment, Cheng An seemed… more or less normal.
But Xie Xishu couldn’t ignore the shiver that had surged through him when Cheng An had leaned in.
“… It’s just the laundry detergent.”
After a long silence, Xie Xishu lowered his eyes and replied flatly.
Then he pulled out his phone, casually opening the page for a certain brand of laundry detergent and sending it to Cheng An.
Immediately after, he could no longer tolerate it. He moved his chair further away from Cheng An.
“Whoa, are you really mad?”
Cheng An, as if just waking up, widened his eyes at Xie Xishu’s movements.
“I just got over a fever,” Xie Xishu said quietly, not looking at him. “You’d better keep your distance, or you might catch it too.”
“Tch, I don’t care about that…”
Cheng An licked his lips, mumbling under his breath, but there was a trace of reluctance in his expression.
And that look made Xie Xishu even more terrified. In the end, he didn’t even wait for school to end; he packed his bag, used the excuse of seeing a doctor, and left school early.
*
During working hours, the road from the school to his residential area seemed even more deserted compared to the usual morning and evening rush hours.
The entire street felt empty, with a faint layer of smoke-like haze lingering in the air. Looking into the distance, the gray road seemed to melt and vanish into the horizon.
A gust of wind blew by, stirring a few dried yellow leaves that swirled past Xie Xishu’s feet.
Even the buses seemed to have stopped running. He waited for a long time, but none arrived. And on the ride-hailing app, there were no drivers responding.
With no other choice, Xie Xishu steeled himself and began walking quickly toward home, clutching his bag.
But as he walked, he started to feel as if there was another sound accompanying his footsteps, a faint shuffling noise.
Or more precisely, it sounded like someone else’s footsteps.
…Ever since that terrifying night, Xie Xishu had become more sensitive to sounds than usual, and in this quiet street, even the smallest sound was unmistakable.
“Shush-shush—”
“Shush-shush—”
“Shush-shush—”
…
That faint, almost imperceptible sound carried by the wind reached Xie Xishu’s ears.
Whenever he walked forward, the other person also moved closer, and when he stopped, they immediately stopped as well.
Someone was following him.
Xie Xishu swallowed dryly, his heart tightening painfully in his chest, swelling and contracting rapidly. He forced himself to slowly turn his head. To his side was a large glass display window of a clothing store that had long since gone out of business. The interior was pitch black, with only a few scattered plastic mannequins visible. In the smooth surface of the glass, the gray and white street scene reflected clearly.
Xie Xishu leaned against the window, and in the reflection, he saw a vague shadow behind him.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
“Who’s there?”
He couldn’t think clearly.
He couldn’t understand what was happening.
Clutching his backpack tightly, Xie Xishu whirled around to face the empty gray-white street behind him.
There was no response.
Yet, the feeling of being watched was undeniable.
Someone was staring at him from some hidden corner, the gaze so intense it felt tangible.
Xie Xishu took a small, trembling step back.
“…I see you.”
He called out again.
And this time, he got a response.
A figure slowly emerged from behind a tattered old billboard. The person tilted his head slightly, pulling his lips into a grin as he looked at Xie Xishu.
“No wonder you’re the top student. I was being so careful, but you still caught me.”
Cheng An waved cheerfully at Xie Xishu.
“I was planning to give you a good scare…”
As he spoke, Cheng An strolled leisurely toward Xie Xishu.
If one ignored the extreme strangeness of his expression, just from the sound of his voice, it seemed like he was merely engaging in the playful teasing of young friends.
But Cheng An’s face— that grin that seemed like it could stretch all the way to his ears— clearly spelled out “something’s wrong.”
The moment Xie Xishu saw Cheng An’s face, cold sweat immediately broke out.
He had only seen that kind of expression on the faces of mental patients.
“Ch-Cheng An, why… why did you follow me?”
Xie Xishu stammered, trying to calm Cheng An.
As he spoke, his eyes darted around desperately, looking for anyone—any passerby would do. At the very least, he didn’t want to face this version of Cheng An alone.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the heavens hadn’t received Xie Xishu’s prayers at that moment.
The street was still completely empty, with not a single person in sight.
“What are you looking at? You’re so distracted.”
Cheng An tilted his head, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Xie Xishu. He sighed and muttered with dissatisfaction.
“I’ve known for a long time… you actually don’t care about me at all, do you? Every time I talk to you, you’re always like this—distracted and not paying attention… It’s so infuriating. I’ve practically become your lapdog, and yet your attention is never on me…”
With every step Cheng An took toward Xie Xishu, Xie Xishu involuntarily took a step back.
Suddenly, his heel hit a broken brick on the ground, and Xie Xishu fell to the ground.
As he braced himself with his hands, the skin on his palm broke slightly. The sharp pain made Xie Xishu shiver, and when he looked up again, he saw that Cheng An, who had been a few steps away, was now eerily right in front of him.
The boy’s neck hung at an unnatural angle.
His eyes were bloodshot, and his nose twitched rapidly like an animal’s.
“So fragrant, so fragrant, so fragrant—Xie Xishu, why are you so fragrant—”
The neurotic murmurs kept spilling from Cheng An’s blood-red lips, his eyeballs trembling unnaturally, but his pupils remained fixed on Xie Xishu.
A sense of danger screamed relentlessly in Xie Xishu’s mind.
He let out a short scream and tried to escape, but Cheng An quickly grabbed him from behind.
Xie Xishu had never known that Cheng An could be this strong. As he struggled, he felt as if the arm locked around his neck wasn’t human but more like some cold, hard metal.
His airway was being squeezed, and Xie Xishu began to feel the onset of suffocation, his strength fading away.
“Wh-what… are you doing… Calm down… Cheng An…”
Choking and gasping, Xie Xishu was dragged by Cheng An into a narrow alley.
The alley was a narrow gap between two buildings, filled with construction debris and discarded items, with dim, gloomy light.
Then, Xie Xishu felt a heavy weight on his chest as Cheng An pressed him to the ground, leaving him unable to move.
“Huff—huff—”
“So fragrant—”
“It’s your fault. If I hadn’t smelled your scent, I wouldn’t have turned into this—”
Cheng An gripped Xie Xishu’s throat with his hands, straddling his chest, his head tilted at an eerie angle, his expression twisted in a terrifying manner.
He seemed eager to bury his whole face in Xie Xishu’s chest, breathing deeply while rubbing his face against it.
“You’re crazy, Cheng An… cough cough…”
Xie Xishu stared at his deranged and unrecognizable desk mate, speaking while his hand reached for the backpack he had never let go of.
Inside, he had a small knife.
To be honest, Xie Xishu didn’t know why he had put the knife in his bag. Perhaps, deep in his soul, he had long sensed an ominous fate.
But he certainly hadn’t expected to need the knife this soon.
Quickly, Xie Xishu’s fingers touched the smooth, cold handle of the knife—just as Cheng An’s hand moved from his throat to his collar. Judging by his movements, the boy seemed highly displeased with how tightly Xie Xishu’s school uniform was buttoned. He appeared ready to rip the fabric apart.
Xie Xishu wasn’t sure if it was due to his extreme fear, but for a moment, it seemed like Cheng An’s fingers had elongated.
No, it wasn’t that Cheng An’s fingers had grown longer. His nails had abruptly shot out from the nail beds, transforming into something akin to daggers.
In that instant, Xie Xishu gripped the knife tightly.
Just as he was about to draw the knife, Cheng An suddenly froze.
“Huh—”
He threw his head back, a sharp gasp escaping from his throat. The next moment, a dull thud sounded, followed by the sickening crack of bones breaking beneath soft muscle, a sound that made Xie Xishu’s teeth ache.
Xie Xishu didn’t know what had happened. All he knew was that, in an instant, Cheng An’s foul-smelling body had been violently thrown aside.
When it hit the ground, Cheng An’s body tumbled like a lifeless sandbag, rolling far before slamming into a wall, where it came to a stop, motionless.
Gasping and coughing, Xie Xishu looked up in horror, squinting at the figure standing before him, silhouetted against the light.
He saw a face that was all too familiar.
It was the face that often haunted his nightmares.
The person who had saved him was Qi Wu.
