(4/5)
First, there was the harsh creaking sound of wood rubbing against wood.
Then came the louder sound of blood dripping steadily down.
Bang—Bang—Bang—
A heavy impact echoed from within the coffin, as if someone was repeatedly knocking from the inside.
The expensive white flowers gathered around the coffin were quickly stained, turning into sticky, strange clumps of black and red.
For some unknown reason, at this moment, the scent of lilies and white roses became even more intense, mixing with a strong, rotting, sweet, and foul smell that surged toward Yang Siguang like a tide.
Yang Siguang’s body began to tremble violently.
The cold air spread toward him like mud, gradually enveloping him, and the chill seemed to emanate from his very bones.
He knew he should be afraid, should scream, should quickly flee.
But at this moment, his brain completely lost control of his body, and he could only stand there in a daze, breathing heavily.
“Li… Li Chen?”
His throat moved, and a sobbing sound spilled from his pale lips.
“Is that you?”
…
Many people were like this.
Because of some special circumstances, they had fallen into deep shock, only to be mistakenly presumed dead by careless doctors. Then, during the funeral, they would accidentally come back to life, causing a huge commotion. Yang Siguang had heard such rumors before—not too often, but not exactly rare either.
He could hear the voice deep within him, continuously trying to explain what was happening.
His heartbeat began to race, fast enough that it seemed like his heart was wildly pounding against his ribs, causing a dull pain in his chest.
And as if to respond to Yang Siguang’s words, the next second…
Creeeak—
A sound like skin being torn came crawling into his ears.
Yang Siguang looked up in disbelief and saw the coffin lid slowly being pushed open from the inside.
Then, a few fingers appeared on the edge of the coffin.
The fingers were gray, with several of them having worn down to reveal the stark white bones from previous accidents.
Next, a deformed arm emerged.
It was evident that thick foundation had been applied to the corpse’s joints to conceal the intersecting suture lines, but now, due to the movement, large chunks of the foundation had fallen off, revealing the mottled purple bruises of the corpse and the slightly dried, shriveled, deep red stumps of severed limbs.
Creek…
Another sound of skin tearing echoed.
The “Li Chen,” who should have been lying peacefully in the coffin, slowly stuck his head out from one side of the coffin.
Yang Siguang’s eyes widened as he locked gazes with him—
The Li family was indeed very wealthy and had hired the best mortician in City A.
However, the car accident that took Li Chen’s life had been so violent, and his body was so severely damaged, that even the best mortician could not fully conceal the severe impact the young man had suffered before his death.
His skull had deformed; no matter how much cotton was stuffed into his mouth, the once handsome cheeks were now deeply sunken. To ensure the deceased’s eyes were closed, two copper coins were placed in his eye sockets, now greenish from corrosion.
The two copper coins remained firmly wedged in his eye sockets, and the small square holes appeared deep and dark. Some black-red blood was seeping out from behind the coins, washing away the white powder on his face.
Perhaps due to severe bone fractures, Li Chen’s movements were extremely uncoordinated. As he crawled out of the coffin, his movements were particularly slow.
…Clearly, if this was just a corpse mistakenly assumed dead due to shock, it would never have behaved like this.
—
“Sisi…” A vague, muffled moan leaked out from deep within Li Chen’s broken body.
As he moved, the stitches on his abdomen suddenly ripped apart, and his rotting internal organs fell out with a sickening noise.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, almost tangible.
“My eyes… you took my eyes… Sisi…”
Yang Siguang shuddered.
The overwhelming sense of fear surged back into his body, and he staggered backward a step.
“I… I…”
Instinctively, he raised his arm, trying to grab hold of the people who were lined up behind him to pay their respects.
He wanted to call for help, to scream.
But the next moment, Yang Siguang realized that the feeling in his hand was completely wrong—this wasn’t the touch of a living person.
What he held in his palm was brittle and hard, crumbling into a wrinkled mess with the slightest pressure.
And…
And there were so many people in the memorial hall. Why was no one screaming at this terrifying scene? Why was it so quiet in his ears, quiet enough that all he could hear were his own soft sobs and rapid breathing?
It was only when his fear-paralyzed brain finally started functioning again that he turned his head with great difficulty.
He was still in the memorial hall, the entire hall decorated with a solemn and dignified atmosphere.
It was exactly as Yang Siguang had seen before—people were crowded together, barely able to move.
But upon closer inspection, the figures standing in the hall were all paper effigies—each painted with bright red blush, smiling widely.
Their pupils were pitch black, their smiles radiant, and the corners of their mouths stretched almost to their ears.
Now, all their faces were turned toward Yang Siguang, as if the painted eyes could truly see, staring unblinkingly at the pale-faced young man.
Yang Siguang froze.
Even breathing had become a luxury at this moment; he had completely lost the ability to move.
His body was so cold.
So cold.
It was cold enough that he had completely stiffened, unable to move even his fingers, and could only watch as the sticky, foul-smelling, blood-tainted “Li Chen” slowly dragged its broken body toward him, step by step.
The corpse grabbed his ankle.
The damaged fingertips pressed hard as if trying to pierce his flesh.
Then, that thing clung to his waist, wet and slippery, its bones broken, leaving only flesh to connect, and its soft, cold arms, like some kind of boa constrictor, slowly wrapped around his neck.
The scent of blood grew even stronger.
“You took my things… *%￥@…”
“Just… %￥@*… so dirty… stained…”
The whispers of the ghost in his ears became more garbled because of intense fear.
Yang Siguang couldn’t understand what “Li Chen” was saying, but he could feel the extreme resentment and hatred in the voice.
Cold tears involuntarily welled up in his eyes.
“I’m sorry…”
Yang Siguang murmured.
Although he wasn’t even sure if the apology actually came out of his mouth.
“I’m just… I’m just really… really sorry.”
He didn’t know when the paper people had begun to move on their own. They clustered around Yang Siguang, like the flowers on the spiritual platform surrounding the black coffin.
Their faces had subtly changed, their wooden, stiff expressions now marked with an eerie, familiar look.
At that moment, a faint “rustling” sound came from their paper eyes.
Seconds later, a long red snake pierced through the wet pupils of the paper eyes and began to crawl toward Yang Siguang.
One snake, then another…
At some point, a dense group of snakes had gathered on the floor, and without hesitation, they crawled up Yang Siguang’s body.
“I’ve always been watching you.”
The corpse clinging tightly to Yang Siguang slowly lowered its head, its grayish-white skull pressing against the young man’s face.
“Always… always…”
The next second, the corpse’s lower jaw suddenly loosened, and its swollen tongue fell out, slowly transforming into another soft, disgusting snake after leaving the mouth.
The snake directly pressed against Yang Siguang’s eye.
It crawled into his eye socket.
—
The moment he woke up, Yang Siguang vaguely felt as if a cold, damp hand was slowly tracing his face.
He seemed to have just broken free from a long nightmare, but he also felt like he was still immersed in the dream, entangled with evil spirits, paper people, and red snakes.
Yang Siguang let out a shrill scream, struggling to move back, but his body was empty, and he nearly fell to the ground.
“Careful—”
Someone caught him.
After calming down with great difficulty, Yang Siguang finally realized that he was now in a small, simple break room.
This should be for the staff of the funeral home, as there was a narrow military bed in the corner.
He had almost fallen off the bed just now.
Li Bo was now sitting by the bed, looking at him, his body curled up, his face as pale as a ghost.
The man’s hand was still stretched out in mid-air, holding a damp handkerchief.
“Uh, sorry,” Li Bo cleared his throat as he met Yang Siguang’s gaze. “You were crying just now, a lot of tears and cold sweat, so I…”
Li Bo hesitated and then quickly changed the subject.
“You fainted when you were offering incense.” He awkwardly explained, “I’ve already had the family doctor check on you. Have you not eaten for a long time? Your hypoglycemia is severe.”
Yang Siguang blinked hard.
He had to force himself to stop covering his eyes, even though he still felt something strange wriggling and twitching deep within his eye sockets, with a painful pressure behind his eyes.
He looked around in confusion, still feeling his heart racing.
“…Thank you.”
After hesitating for a long time, Yang Siguang murmured his thanks. When he spoke, he realized that his throat was unbearably hoarse.
“I really… had a nightmare.”
He replied somewhat dazedly, echoing Li Bo’s words.
What he had just experienced was surely a nightmare… right?!
The air conditioning in the funeral home was set to a very low temperature. Yang Siguang shivered again and noticed that his black suit had been taken off and was now covering him like a blanket. There was another men’s suit on top of it, made of a much finer material than his cheap suit, with a very high-quality and thick fabric.
It was Li Bo’s suit.
Yang Siguang didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt a chill running down his spine. He fumbled to give the suit back to Li Bo.
However, as he reached out, a bright red color caught his peripheral vision.
Yang Siguang then noticed that a series of prominent red rope marks had appeared on his wrist, just below his shirt cuff.
His skin had always been whiter and more delicate than others, and it was easier for marks to appear. Now, he could even see the raised texture of the rope’s surface on those red marks.
At a glance, it looked like a red snake with scales was coiled around his wrist.
Yang Siguang’s movements instantly froze.
Li Bo had clearly noticed those conspicuous marks, his gaze flickering for a moment before he casually turned his head away.
“I’ll go check if there are any snacks outside. You need to eat something because of your low blood sugar.”
The man cleared his throat and then stood up, walking steadily out of the break room.
—
Yang Siguang was incredibly grateful for Li Bo’s consideration at this moment.
As soon as the man left, he forced himself to quickly put his suit back on. The ill-fitting black sleeves covered his wrists again, but it didn’t make him feel any relief.
On the contrary, Yang Siguang couldn’t help but keep looking at the marks on his wrist.
Since Li Chen’s death, Yang Siguang had been in a state of confusion. He didn’t clearly remember whether he had checked the marks on his body before leaving home today, but just a short while ago, he had indeed tried that dangerous game in his room—perhaps these binding marks were left then.
After all, his body was quite special, and this kind of thing had happened often before.
On the day of “relieving stress,” there wouldn’t be many marks, but a few days later, those distinct binding marks would slowly appear under the skin and stay for a long time.
So there was nothing to be surprised about.
Even if someone accidentally saw them… it didn’t matter because he and Li Bo wouldn’t have any other connections, right?
No need to be afraid.
No need to panic.
No need to be anxious.
Yang Siguang bit the inside of his cheek and wrapped his arms around his shoulders.
He had done everything he could to try to calm himself down, yet the nightmare from earlier still lingered in his mind.
Li Chen’s vengeful, rotten corpse… the paper people tightly binding him… and the snakes.
Countless thick, red snakes.
Those snakes tightly coiled around his joints, rendering him immobile.
They greedily gnawed at his skin, tearing at his flesh, then slithered, their cold, slippery bodies entering his body through the blood-soaked wounds.
They twisted and tangled, moving inside his internal organs, writhing, mating, laying eggs.
The pain and sensation were so vivid that even now, Yang Siguang still trembled at the thought of that dream.
*
Perhaps, this was the punishment Li Chen’s soul had given him.
*
Suddenly, Yang Siguang jumped up, grabbed his backpack, which had been hanging on the back of a chair in the break room, and shakily unzipped it.
The embalmed glass jar containing Li Chen’s eyeball still lay safely at the bottom of the bag.
The grayish-white eyeball floated in the formaldehyde liquid for a moment, like a living thing. When it settled again, the iris flipped upward, and it stared directly at Yang Siguang from the opening of the bag.
It seemed to give him a meaningful gaze.
Yang Siguang’s throat tightened.
“Is it you?”
He mumbled.
“Because I stole your eyeball, you’re angry, aren’t you…”
…
But I still don’t want to return it.
What should I do?
*
“…There’s nothing much left on the snack table, but I’ve got some packaged little cakes. I don’t know if you can eat something sweet. If not, I can have something else you like brought over.”
When Li Bo walked back into the break room, he saw Yang Siguang hastily closing his backpack.
Considering the marks on Yang Siguang’s wrist, this action seemed somewhat suspicious.
Deep inside, in some soft corner of his heart, it felt like something lightly scratched at him.
Li Bo rarely felt any curiosity toward another person, but years of self-discipline had allowed him to act with composure and indifference.
He didn’t ask any more questions.
However, occasionally, he would glance at Yang Siguang out of the corner of his eye.
Compared to the man in the photos, the real-life young man looked incredibly thin and frail.
When Li Bo had carried the unconscious Yang Siguang in the funeral home, he had even had a strange illusion—that if he exerted just a little more force, the other person would crumble into dust in his arms.
At this moment, Yang Siguang had already taken the small cake Li Bo handed him. After unwrapping it, he quietly began eating.
In stark contrast to the hints revealed by the rope marks on his wrist, the person with his head lowered eating the cake seemed exceptionally obedient, shy… and cute.
Very cute.
When Li Bo realized this thought, his gaze darkened slightly, and a subtle ripple stirred in his heart.
He almost brutally suppressed that odd thought deep in his mind. After Yang Siguang finished the cake and his complexion had recovered slightly, Li Bo glanced at the time and said calmly, “How do you feel? If you’re okay, I can have the driver take you home now.”
“Go home…”
Yang Siguang’s heart skipped a beat.
He finally realized that the silence outside the door meant the earlier noise had ceased because Li Chen’s memorial service had already ended while he was unconscious.
In fact, from the bits and pieces of information Li Bo had let slip, not only had the memorial service ended, but even Li Chen’s body had been sent to the crematorium and had already turned to ash, now placed in an expensive urn and sent to the costly family cemetery.
It took more than ten years for a frail child, who could barely walk and could only wait under a bed with open eyes for his friends, to grow into a handsome, intelligent, cold young man.
But transforming from such a beloved son of the heavens to a handful of ashes only took a few minutes.
So… is that it?
Then, what about the eyeball?
Li Chen had lost one of his eyes. When he was sent to the crematorium, he wasn’t even a whole corpse.
Did these people not care at all?
Why didn’t they ask about the eyeball?
…Or perhaps, they hadn’t noticed?
Yang Siguang raised his head and stared intently at Li Bo’s calm face. He saw a slight hint of confusion in the latter’s eyes but never received the question he was waiting for.
Finally, Yang Siguang couldn’t help but mutter to himself.
“I never got to see him one last time.”
He said.
Li Bo’s gaze flickered.
“He did die in a car accident, and even though everything was done to save him, his body wasn’t in a state to be shown to others,” he said, his tone neutral. “But I didn’t expect you to be this upset.”
Yang Siguang felt that there was something strange in Li Bo’s words, but just as he was about to ask more, the door to the break room suddenly slammed open.
“Hehehehe—”
A manic laugh echoed.
A strong smell of alcohol followed.
Yang Siguang and Li Bo both looked toward the door, just in time to see a woman with a beautiful face stumbling in, leaning on a man’s shoulder as she entered the room.
It was Li Ailing.
Under the alcohol’s influence, her eyes appeared a bit dazed, and her words carried a certain meaning.
“Li Bo, you’ve done well… hic… I heard you came to my son’s funeral and brought along a little boyfriend… hehehehe… I always thought you were a robot with no flaws at all. But now that my son’s dead, you’re finally starting to show your true colors… hehehe… come, come, let me see which little thing has made you fall for him…”
The person who had brought Li Ailing seemed quite uneasy, trying to smooth things over in response to the woman’s sharp words, but he couldn’t stop her from suddenly lunging forward, almost stumbling right in front of Yang Siguang.
“Ah, Ailing…”
Li Bo’s expression darkened. He was about to step forward to help Li Ailing, but the woman had already pressed her face close to Yang Siguang’s, staring at him for several seconds.
“Ah, not bad looking.”
Li Ailing mumbled.
“But why do I feel like… I’ve seen you before…” As she spoke, her gaze slowly moved downward, landing on Yang Siguang’s chest.
Everyone who attended the memorial had a pin on their chest.
It was a white rose tied with a black ribbon, with the name of the person embroidered on it.
“Yang, Si, Guang…”
Li Ailing squinted through her drunken haze, reading the letters on the ribbon one by one.
“Ah,” her eyes suddenly brightened. “Yang Siguang, it’s you!”
The woman’s alcohol-laden breath sprayed over Yang Siguang’s face.
“I remember you,” she said cheerfully, “My son always talked about you, said you were his only friend, that he wanted to be with you forever! He really liked you so much. Those old folks took him away and wouldn’t let him see you, and that made him…”
Li Ailing got cut off as Li Bo’s expression suddenly turned dark.
He furrowed his brows and gave a signal to the men outside.
The men, who had hesitated to be rough with the drunk woman, immediately followed his cue and forcibly grabbed Li Ailing, dragging her out of the break room as if she were a piece of luggage.
Luckily, Li Ailing seemed used to this treatment, and as they dragged her out, she kept laughing.
“Hehehe… good child, so good. My son will be happy that you came to see him… hehehehe… he’s really so happy, hehehehe…”
…
Li Ailing’s voice gradually faded as she was taken away.
The break room grew quiet. Li Bo took a deep breath, barely regaining his composure.
“Sorry, Ailing’s been drinking heavily for years, and it’s taken a toll on her nerves,” he said, tapping his temple, his gaze darkening.
“You don’t need to pay attention to what she said—”
Before he could finish, he saw Yang Siguang smile faintly in a daze.
The smile was so bitter that it made Li Bo’s chest tighten slightly.
“I know,” Yang Siguang whispered.
“He wouldn’t be happy. He hated me so much. How could he be happy to see me?”
After so many years of fighting in the strange family struggles, Li Bo thought he had mastered controlling his emotions.
But hearing Yang Siguang’s words, he nearly lost his composure.
“No, that’s not true,” Li Bo denied, his voice dry as he spoke to the young man in front of him.
“It’s only you… Li Chen would never hate you.”
