A chill rushed from Yang Siguang’s heels all the way up to the top of his head.
He stood there, frozen, staring at the boy.
How could he not have recognized him?
Yang Siguang even felt a sense of disbelief. Why did the person seem so familiar? Of course, it was because the person had Li Chen’s face… No, no, no, it should be said that the person was Li Chen.
It was as if an indescribable barrier had suddenly been removed, and in an instant, Yang Siguang saw many details that had been right in front of him but he had completely overlooked before. He saw the thick black stitching on the boy’s neck, the pale cheeks, and the faint corpse spots under the heavy foundation.
He also saw the deformed skull and the black-red bloodstains at the boy’s temples that hadn’t been fully wiped away.
Li Chen lowered his head toward him.
It seemed like he was going to kiss him… or perhaps to bite into his flesh, tearing the living blood and flesh from his skull, bite by bite.
Yang Siguang let out a low scream, and before he could react, he had already placed his hand on the boy’s chest and pushed him hard.
Unexpectedly, “Li Chen” staggered, looking completely unprepared, and was actually pushed back by Yang Siguang.
“Hey, hey—it’s just a dare, not like I’m eating you. Take it easy,” the boy said.
He almost fell to the ground, but fortunately, he managed to steady himself by grabbing the edge of the booth.
A chill ran up Yang Siguang’s spine, all the way from his heels to the top of his head.
*
Yang Siguang seemed somewhat shocked, then raised his head helplessly and looked at the still-shaken Yang Siguang.
“Li Chen” was gone.
Yang Siguang’s heart was pounding so fast it felt like it might jump out of his throat, and everything around him seemed to be swaying. It was as though the heat was distorting the air. He looked at the person in front of him, and no matter how he looked at him, the boy had no connection to Li Chen. He was just a familiar-looking classmate from the same department.
But just now, he had clearly…
“It’s just a joke,” the boy said.
“Yang Siguang, calm down; don’t take it too seriously.”
“How can it be a dare without some difficulty…”
*
Following the whispers around him, Yang Siguang nervously looked around at the classmates who had been teasing. They all had confused expressions, clearly startled by Yang Siguang’s intense reaction just now. They could only force a dry laugh and try to smooth things over.
But no matter how they spoke, the atmosphere remained incredibly awkward.
And clearly, to them, everything seemed normal.
No one had noticed the changes in the boy earlier.
Except for Yang Siguang himself.
Was it just an illusion? Was it really… just an illusion?
The ceiling of the bar seemed to be slowly sinking, and the roar and screams of the band were deafening. To match the intense rhythm, the lights in the bar flickered more erratically. A flash of brilliance appeared in Yang Siguang’s vision, and he could vaguely taste a thin metallic blood-like flavor in his mouth.
“…Or you could choose truth instead? Forget the dare.”
The boy who had been pushed aside earlier didn’t seem really angry. He looked at Yang Siguang, who stood still, and smiled as he walked toward him.
“Sorry, I’m done playing; I don’t feel well… I think I’m going to throw up.”
Before the boy could finish speaking, Yang Siguang swatted his hand away.
As the words fell, he forcefully covered his mouth and, with his head lowered, stumbled out of the bar.
*
Yang Siguang really did throw up.
The cries and wails from inside the bar finally faded as he stood outside, leaning against the wall, looking down at the toilet. Inside, there was only the sour, bitter stomach acid he had vomited, along with a few unidentifiable lumps of food.
He thought for a moment and remembered that those were the snacks Li Bo had given him earlier at the funeral home.
Right, it seemed that since then, he hadn’t eaten anything else, and he hadn’t felt hungry.
So…
It was likely a result of low blood sugar causing that illusion; after all, he had fainted not long ago due to low blood sugar.
Yang Siguang thought seriously for a moment.
After finally getting rid of everything from his stomach, he felt a little better. He mustered the strength to get up and shakily walked out of the bathroom—
And just then, he bumped into Xu Lu’s surprised face.
“Yang Siguang? You’re here?!”
Xu Lu was holding his phone, seemingly dialing a number. When he saw Yang Siguang, he quickly turned off the screen and his face lit up with surprise.
“Great! I thought you were going to stand me up. I was just about to call you.”
Upon hearing this, Yang Siguang paused for a moment, forcing a faint smile.
“I’ve been here for a while,” he said calmly. “I greeted you earlier, but I saw you were chatting happily with your friends, so I didn’t join in. But I’m not feeling well today, so I won’t drink with you. You guys enjoy yourselves; I’ll leave first…”
But at that moment, Xu Lu interrupted him with a look of confusion.
“Friends? What friends? I’ve been waiting outside the bar for you.”
“But don’t you have plenty of friends? They’ve been crowding over there…”
Yang Siguang instinctively opened his mouth, but as he spoke, his voice involuntarily dropped.
Looking past Xu Lu’s shoulder, he saw the bar in the distance.
The lights were dim, and the music was soft.
Couples huddled in the high chairs, whispering to each other. Only the lights near the bar counter were a little brighter, and the bartender was softly recommending cocktails to the solo customers waiting to be approached…
It was more like a salon than the noisy, chaotic bar he had been in before.
Or rather, this wasn’t the bar Yang Siguang had been in at all.
That place had been filled with shadows and wails, and when he walked in, the lights had been so blinding he could barely see, only managing to greet Xu Lu weakly… No, wait, was Xu Lu really the one standing there with a group of people, laughing loudly, when he first walked in?
Yang Siguang’s cold sweat suddenly soaked his back, but Xu Lu, standing beside him, remained oblivious, still babbling on with explanations.
“How could I be with a bunch of people? I wasn’t going to karaoke, and I only drank because I failed the CET-6. I’d never invite a bunch of friends to watch me make a fool of myself. Siguang, are you making excuses or mistaking someone for me? Seriously, I’m totally being wronged here…”
After a while, when Xu Lu didn’t get a response from Yang Siguang, he turned around and finally noticed that the person beside him was as pale as paper, with no color in his face at all. Only then did he realize something was wrong.
“Uh, I didn’t mean to blame you; I just… Are you okay? You look like…”
Xu Lu’s words faltered as he seemed to finally remember that Yang Siguang had told him earlier that he wasn’t feeling well.
“Tch. Forget it; if you’re not drinking, then fine. You look too scary like this.”
He abruptly changed the subject.
Yang Siguang watched as Xu Lu looked at his watch, hesitated for a few seconds, and then, with a visible hint of nervousness, Xu Lu forced a calm expression and spoke to Yang Siguang.
“Well, it’s pretty late. You look like you might faint any moment. I’m not comfortable leaving you alone. How about… how about you come back to my dorm with me tonight?”
Xu Lu said dryly, his gaze flickering slightly.
“No need—”
According to his usual habit, Yang Siguang almost blurted this out.
But just at that moment, the glass door at the entrance of the bar seemed to shake.
Yang Siguang couldn’t tell if it was his mind being overly tense or a hallucination caused by low blood sugar. Of course, it could also be that he had really encountered a ghost. At that moment, he definitely saw a tall, familiar figure flash past in the reflection of the bar’s glass door.
A chill ran down his spine.
Then he realized that, at least for this night… he didn’t want to be alone.
“Alright.”
He then heard himself say to Xu Lu.
*
It was clear that even Xu Lu hadn’t expected Yang Siguang to agree to go back to the dorm with him.
On the way back, Xu Lu seemed overly excited.
It was as if he feared Yang Siguang might change his mind halfway. As soon as they left the bar, Xu Lu quickly hailed a taxi and had both of them sent to the dorm building of A University.
Since it was the senior year, the management of the dorm building was relatively lax. Soon, Xu Lu had led Yang Siguang to the lower bunk of their dorm room.
According to Xu Lu, his other roommates had hardly been coming back to stay recently, so the whole dorm was left with just him, and he was quite happy about it.
“…Those guys are either dating or working as cheap interns in some company. Anyway, I haven’t seen them in a while. Don’t be too shy; just pick a place you like and sleep. Oh, by the way, the bedding is all new; I’ll make it up for you!”
Xu Lu seemed a bit excited when he first came in, but when Yang Siguang actually arrived at his dorm, he seemed somewhat at a loss. He took the blanket and sheets from the wardrobe, hugged them to his chest, and looked at Yang Siguang eagerly.
At this point, Yang Siguang didn’t care about being reserved anymore.
As soon as he left the bar, his headache started to return, and his eye sockets ached as well.
At this moment, he just wanted to find a place to lie down and sleep properly.
Ideally, he wouldn’t have any nightmares and wouldn’t be haunted by the person he had once hoped for.
So, in the end, he casually pointed to the lower bunk near the door. After grabbing the blanket and sheets, he collapsed onto it.
Xu Lu, acting quite attentive, brought him water and seemed full of energy, unlike the sadness he showed earlier when crying about failing his English proficiency test.
Seeing him act like this, Yang Siguang could only force himself to chat with him for a bit. But while he was in a daze, he suddenly heard Xu Lu’s serious tone asking.
“Hey, Siguang… if I ask you something, don’t get mad, okay?”
“Hmm?”
“Well, it’s about that… you and Li Chen, you really don’t have any relationship, right?”
Yang Siguang was startled. His wandering soul suddenly returned to his body, and he turned to look at Xu Lu. He saw that Xu Lu was sitting on the bed opposite him, and the shadow from the upper bunk cast on his face, making his expression hard to read.
“Why do you ask that suddenly?” Yang Siguang mumbled.
“Ever since Li Chen passed away, it seems like you… you’re the only one who’s completely lost. I saw his brother come to school the other day, and he seemed way more composed than you. Speaking of which, you haven’t been to Professor Chen’s class these past few days, right? Didn’t your thesis pass through him? You weren’t like this before.”
Yang Siguang briefly snapped out of his daze and then remembered that he had indeed missed a few classes recently.
And he had completely forgotten about it.
“Also, I’ve always felt like you seemed to care about Li Chen a bit. That guy, how should I put it… I’ve always felt like he had some unspoken feelings for you too. He always seemed to glance at you for no reason. I remember once when we were in the library together, he even gave you a glare.”
“…”
“Ah, forget what I just said… Anyway, if you really have any problems, just tell me. After all, we’re friends.”
Xu Lu stammered through his words and then fell silent.
The dorm was silent for a long time.
Xu Lu awkwardly laughed and went to turn off the light.
However, just as darkness enveloped the room, Yang Siguang, in a daze, spoke up.
“I want to ask you…”
“Ask, ask me what?!”
Xu Lu immediately became alert.
Yang Siguang’s voice was as ethereal as ever.
“If, I mean, if one day, you died, and someone secretly took a part of your body and kept it with them… would you be angry?”
“Uh, does that person have some kind of grudge against me?”
Xu Lu asked.
Yang Siguang didn’t answer.
He continued, “So they didn’t even leave me a complete body? Isn’t that a bit too much?”
Upon hearing Xu Lu’s answer, Yang Siguang felt as if his insides were being twisted.
“The person who took the body didn’t really think too much about it. They just wanted to keep a memento, and actually, they had a lot of things they wanted to say to the person who died.”
Faintly, Yang Siguang felt a gaze fall on him in the darkness.
It should be Xu Lu.
“I think your question is a bit over the top…”
Xu Lu hesitated for a moment before quietly answering from the other bed.
“However, now that you mention it, I do remember something from my childhood. When my grandmother passed away, my mom took me back to our hometown for the funeral. Actually, I used to go back there every summer and winter vacation, so I was really familiar with the place. My grandmother also treated me really well, you know? But that time, when I went back, I was so shaken that I had a seizure, and I even sleepwalked and talked in my sleep… After I returned to the city, I still wasn’t well, and it really worried my mom.”
“Later, there was no choice but to find someone who could deal with it. Guess what? I almost kicked the bucket because my grandmother came to haunt me during the funeral…” Xu Lu’s voice was soft and calm in the darkness, completely different from his usual loud and boisterous self.
“They say my grandmother wanted to take me with her.”
But what he said made Yang Siguang shiver involuntarily.
“The medium said that it was lucky we found him in time, or else my grandmother might really have taken me to the underworld… You can’t say, even my mom wasn’t happy about it. After all, everyone knew how much my grandmother loved me. She treated me like her precious jewel. You’d think, such a loving, caring person—why would she want to lead me to my death?”
“Then the medium told my mom that when a person dies with deep attachments, they turn into a ghost. But a ghost is different from a person. A ghost is just the lingering attachment of the deceased in the world. So they don’t care about anything. Greed, obsession, madness, anger… those are their tribulations.”
“Once a living person dies, everything ends. The living and the dead are never from the same world. Death is death. The ghost is a completely different existence from the person it once was. So no matter how many things the person wanted to say when they were alive, if they didn’t speak up then, those words won’t reach after death… Even if the person can hear, they won’t understand.”
“Like this…”
Yang Siguang, of course, understood Xu Lu’s cautious and subtle warning.
He responded dryly, resting his elbow on his eye to ease the soreness in his eye sockets.
A ghost and a person are not the same.
At this point, Yang Siguang vaguely began to realize this.
Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but sigh deeply, feeling a heavy, suffocating weight in his chest.
He didn’t speak further. Unconsciously, he was already so exhausted that he fell asleep.
*
In his dream, Yang Siguang vaguely returned to the noisy, flickering “bar.”
The surroundings were still crowded, but this time, Yang Siguang finally saw the “true faces” of the people around him.
They were finely crafted paper figures.
One paper figure after another hung in midair, swaying with the air currents, their limp limbs hanging down. Their necks drooped weakly, with ink-painted faces that were deep and hollow, their smiles stiff.
And Yang Siguang was standing face to face with one of them, the cold hand of the figure holding his face, ready to lean down and press its icy lips against his cheek.
“Li Chen.”
Yang Siguang stared directly at the deceased in front of him.
He softly called out the person’s name.
Then, he took a deep breath, mustered his courage, and slowly raised his hand to wrap it around the person’s waist.
“Li Chen…”
Yang Siguang could feel that many steel nails had been driven into the person’s body, and the torn corpse had rough stitches.
In the moment when Yang Siguang hugged him back, Li Chen’s movements seemed to hit the pause button, freezing.
“I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
Yang Siguang’s voice was hoarse as he spoke to the ghost in front of him.
“I don’t even know why I kept your eyeball. You were angry, so you scared me, right?”
“I will return your eyeball, I will, so… so please rest in peace, okay? I think, you should have already forgiven me, right? That’s why you came to help me, to take me away from those annoying people without me knowing…”
“I’m so sorry, Li Chen.”
“So, please don’t scare me anymore… I already know… I already know I was wrong.”
After waiting for a long time, Yang Siguang didn’t get a response from Li Chen.
He only felt Li Chen’s head slowly lowering, heavily pressing onto his shoulder.
[No… $@forgive…*&%￥…]
Yang Siguang’s blood instantly froze.
[I %$#*… you…]
[Forever…]
The evil ghost murmured indistinctly, speaking to him endlessly.
*
A strong chill made Yang Siguang shiver in his deep sleep.
His consciousness slowly floated up from the murky, eerie nightmare. After a moment, Yang Siguang’s eyelashes fluttered.
He unconsciously opened his eyes. Through his blurry vision, he could see that the surroundings were still dim, clearly still in the dead of night.
Was it because it was so late that the temperature had dropped?
Yang Siguang turned over, curling his body in the heavy drowsiness.
At that same moment, he heard the upper bunk creak, as if someone was also turning over in the cold of the night.
For a moment, he didn’t pay much attention to the small sound.
However, just as Yang Siguang was about to drift back into a deep sleep…
“Creak—”
The wooden board of the upper bunk creaked again.
This time, Yang Siguang vaguely felt that someone seemed to be slowly getting out of bed from the edge of the upper bunk.
Yang Siguang furrowed his brows, feeling a slight unease.
Because of his bad relationship with his roommates, he had moved out of the dorm a long time ago, so he hadn’t experienced the feeling of someone moving around in the upper bunk for a while… Didn’t Xu Lu say his roommates basically wouldn’t come back to stay anymore?
“Creak—”
Then, another sound.
The person in the upper bunk seemed to be moving too slowly.
The time it took to get out of bed had been delayed for quite a while. At this point, the person was hanging directly on the stairs, casting a hazy shadow over Yang Siguang’s lower bunk.
Yang Siguang’s brows furrowed even tighter.
There was a familiar but unpleasant smell on the person from the upper bunk. He instinctively pulled his shoulder up and shrank into the corner of the bed. However, he couldn’t move.
It seemed like something was blocking him from behind, preventing him from retreating any further.
This time, Yang Siguang finally woke up.
He suddenly opened his eyes and found himself face to face with a deathly pale face.
It was Xu Lu.
“Ugh—”
Seeing someone suddenly appear in his bed, Yang Siguang was so frightened that he almost screamed. But Xu Lu seemed to have anticipated this. Before Yang Siguang could make a sound, Xu Lu quickly reached out and covered his mouth.
[“Shh—”]
Xu Lu’s hand was as cold as ice, and his entire body was trembling.
In the blurry vision from just waking up, the boy’s face, filled with extreme tension, even looked a bit distorted.
[“No, don’t move.”]
Yang Siguang watched him struggle to gesture at him, something in his eyes seeming to flash for a moment.
It looked like tears, as if he had been frightened to the point of crying. But what could possibly have made Xu Lu look like this…
“Creak—”
Another sound of wood scraping.
This time, Yang Siguang’s body froze completely.
Because the sound wasn’t coming from the upper bunk anymore, but from… from the bed he was lying on.
The “thing” that had been hanging on the stairs between the upper and lower bunks had already crawled up.
Yang Siguang was facing away from it at this moment, but without a doubt, Xu Lu could see it. So, the same Xu Lu who had been signaling Yang Siguang to stay quiet earlier, now trembled uncontrollably, as if he were shaking like a sieve.
Yang Siguang unknowingly held his breath.
Then, a cold hand slowly reached out from behind him and climbed onto his shoulder.
