CW: Dubcon
The weather during the day had actually been very nice.
But by nightfall, the weather in Fengjing Village suddenly changed, and it started to rain.
At first, the raindrops were light, pattering softly, but it didn’t take long before they came down like soybeans, crashing from the dark clouds above, forcefully washing away the silent, dark night of the village.
A pale flash of light streaked across the sky, and after a few seconds, the muffled sound of thunder echoed from behind the dark, undulating mountains.
And Gan Tang’s sobs mixed with the sound of the thunder and rain.
He could no longer remember how long he had been lying in bed, nor did he know what time it was now.
After Cen Zibai had brought him into the room, he took away his phone and didn’t turn on the lights.
To ensure that Gan Tang would “cooperate” better, he took a professional red rope from his luggage and bound him into a very uncomfortable position.
Gan Tang’s elbows were tightly bound behind him, his knees bent, and his calves and thighs pressed together, opening in a very awkward manner. This made Gan Tang feel like a frog specimen pinned with steel needles in biology class, being dissected by the tall shadow in the dark room.
He soon gave in.
As with many times before, Gan Tang didn’t last long and completely gave up his dignity as an ordinary person, or rather, as an ordinary man. He sobbed, biting his lip, and softly begged Cen Zibai for mercy.
He was afraid of waking up his grandmother who was sleeping in the other room, and trembling, he suppressed even his muffled groans and moans.
In the end, even Gan Tang himself felt pitiful.
However, Cen Zibai still had no intention of letting him go.
In fact, the moment Cen Zibai placed his hand on Gan Tang’s neck, Gan Tang realized that the anger Cen Zibai had been building up inside him for all this time would be poured out on him tonight.
Gan Tang’s tears flowed uncontrollably.
Cen Zibai’s body temperature was very high, like molten lava, covering him with intense heat.
He forced Gan Tang to do many things, some of which Gan Tang had experienced before and others that he had previously refused to do based on basic human decency—
As for the latter, Cen Zibai had indeed reluctantly backed off before.
But this time, Gan Tang’s “escape” gave the boy the chance to make those disgusting things happen one by one on his body.
There were no raindrops in the closed room, but soon, Gan Tang’s whole body was soaked.
He was very uncomfortable and irritable. Every time the lightning flashed, he could see Cen Zibai’s twisted face in the brief white light.
It was like a wicked ghost.
He couldn’t help but think.
…
Finally, after what seemed like an incredibly long torment, Gan Tang, in a daze, realized that Cen Zibai had, surprisingly, released him out of mercy.
By then, he was completely exhausted, his body drenched in cold sweat.
However, judging by the gleam in Cen Zibai’s eyes, the boy, still in a state of excitement, had not yet had enough.
“What do you want to do…”
Gan Tang curled his body weakly in the corner, looking at Cen Zibai, who had turned around and was rummaging through his luggage.
His heart was pounding fast, and as soon as he saw Cen Zibai’s actions, he had a very bad feeling.
And this time, his premonition wasn’t wrong.
Soon, Cen Zibai took out one by one the “things” he had brought with him, placing them beside him.
To anyone unaware, these items could probably be considered instruments of torture.
The blood drained completely from Gan Tang’s face.
“You… what else do you want…”
He trembled as he asked Cen Zibai.
Cen Zibai didn’t turn around, but when he replied, there seemed to be a hint of a smile in his voice.
“Naturally, I’ll use these things to ‘punish’ you properly.”
As if sensing Gan Tang’s fear at this moment, Cen Zibai slightly tilted his head and glanced at the boy behind him.
“…Wait, you didn’t think that what just happened was enough, did you? Don’t worry, your grandmother won’t wake up tonight, so we still have plenty of time.”
Gan Tang’s pupils instantly constricted.
“You… to my grandmother…”
“Shh—” Cen Zibai chuckled, “Don’t be afraid, it’s just some sleeping pills.”
“You lunatic, psycho, pervert!” Gan Tang couldn’t control himself anymore and cursed at the boy, “I’ll report you to the police; I’ll definitely report you! You should be locked up in jail! I don’t believe your family can buy off all the police!”
“Well, that’s true; my family really can’t buy off everyone. But, Gan Tang, your uncle and aunt’s workplace, hasn’t changed for so many years, right?”
Cen Zibai said.
All of Gan Tang’s curses instantly got stuck in his throat. His eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Cen Zibai.
However, after casually making a veiled threat, the boy simply shrugged indifferently, turned around, and continued reaching into his luggage to retrieve the tools he had prepared.
Behind him, Gan Tang became quieter than ever before.
This made Cen Zibai feel very pleased, very—
“Bang—”
*
A few days ago, when Gan Tang had a high fever, his grandmother had placed a copper statue of a deity on his bedside table to help him recover.
Actually, the statue was only the size of a palm, and holding it in his hand felt only slightly heavy.
When Gan Tang threw the copper statue at Cen Zibai, he never thought that the statue could cause any fatal harm to Cen Zibai…
In fact, when Gan Tang later recalled that moment, his mind was still blank.
He could only vaguely remember that a flash of white light seemed to appear in the sky at that moment.
After a while, the sound of thunder rumbled.
Also, when the statue hit the back of Cen Zibai’s head, it made a muffled thud.
*
Of course, to Gan Tang at that moment, everything that happened seemed to have been intentionally slowed down.
He watched as Cen Zibai’s body swayed slightly, and then the whole person was knocked forward by the statue.
Then, his head struck heavily against the corner of a cabinet.
In rural areas, cabinets are usually made of solid, heavy wood, and the one in Gan Tang’s room was no exception.
It was even his grandmother’s dowry, a pitch-black paulownia wood cabinet with shiny brass corner fittings nailed to its edges.
A pool of scarlet blood stained the brass fittings.
Soon, Cen Zibai’s body crashed to the floor.
“Boom—”
The thunder rumbled, and the rain outside grew heavier.
“Ha… ha…”
In the darkness, Gan Tang’s breathing became unusually rapid.
He stared blankly at the still body on the ground, frozen for a long time.
From his current position, he couldn’t see Cen Zibai’s head, but he could see a pool of dark red blood slowly, slowly, flowing into his line of sight from the corner.
He had fantasized about similar scenes countless times.
He had thought about it so thoroughly that many details seemed vivid and real.
At this moment, he even doubted whether this was all just his imagination…
But the faint smell of rust began to rise in the air.
“…Cen, Cen Zibai?”
After a long time, Gan Tang tentatively called out.
He waited for a while longer.
The body on the ground didn’t respond in the slightest.
The rain outside was getting heavier.
*
“Damn… what kind of terrible weather is this? I say, how about I let you go out for a walk tonight? At least it’ll save me from having to bathe you in a few days; you stink so bad…”
On the night of the heavy rain, Yu Huai had been chatting with his crazy father.
The emaciated, frail man, whose clothes hung loosely on him, had eyes that bulged out as if they might fall out of their sockets. He stared fixedly at Yu Huai by the bed, his body shaking violently, making a series of unintelligible “huh-huh” sounds from his throat.
However, his hands and feet, along with his body, were tightly bound to the hard bed frame with several frayed hemp ropes. No matter how much he moved, all he could do was knock out a series of “thud-thud” sounds on the wooden planks.
Murkily, saliva dripped from his slightly open mouth, wetting his gaunt ribs.
Yu Huai, half of his body already inside a wooden box at the foot of the bed, spoke to his father in a half-hearted manner.
The box, which could be considered the only decent piece of furniture in the house, was said to be a part of his father’s belongings before he went mad. It had once neatly held stacks of yellowed notebooks, but now it had been completely rummaged through by Yu Huai.
His father, now delirious, was no longer capable of basic self-care, but upon seeing Yu Huai’s actions, some remnants of chaotic awareness in his deteriorating mind sparked briefly, causing him to go into a frenzy.
However, Yu Huai clearly didn’t care.
He continued to “communicate” with his father in his own way.
“Well… flesh… what was it called again…”
Yu Huai didn’t know many characters. He had only learned a few words from a government-appointed teacher who came to teach at the village. But after the teacher left, the few words he had learned were mostly forgotten. Now, he could only quickly flip through the notebooks, searching for the few characters he recognized. When he found a notebook related to “well” or “flesh,” he would pull it out, set it aside, and then flip to the relevant paragraphs, holding them up in front of his father, indicating for him to look.
As before, when the madman’s gaze fell on the writing, his eyes would tremble slightly.
The man would instantly fall silent.
“Heh… Fengjing Village… disappearances… investigation records… Day 103, we… we couldn’t find any useful clues in the village; those people seem to have truly ‘vanished,’ just like the absurd rumors say…”
The man’s lips moved as he muttered the words from the notebook.
However, Yu Huai didn’t know that with each few lines he read, the man would unconsciously mumble many more words that weren’t even written in the text.
“…We carefully investigated… villagers who had personally interacted with the ‘resurrected’… From the feedback from those villagers, the actions of all the resurrected were no different from when they were alive…”
“Li Erhua, female, 23 years old. She has an older sister, Li Dahua, who married into Xianjing Village four years ago. Li Dahua’s husband, Zhang Tieniu, was proven to be a ‘resurrected’ during the investigation. After successfully undergoing the resurrection ritual, on the seventh day, Li Erhua went to visit her sister and brother-in-law in Xianjing Village…”
“After repeatedly questioning her, the only unusual thing Li Erhua mentioned was Zhang Tieniu’s extreme excitement in his body.”
“Her exact words were—’My sister told me she couldn’t stand it, felt a lot of pain in her lower body, and it was swollen badly. After Tieniu came back, he didn’t want to do anything but keep dragging my sister to do that thing. My sister thought it was shameful and didn’t dare to tell anyone; she only told the old woman that she wanted her to control Tieniu. But the old woman scolded my sister, saying she came there just to do that, calling her delicate. That night, I slept with my sister, trying to let her rest. But in the middle of the night, I woke up and found Tieniu standing by the window, staring at my sister. His eyes were red, and he was panting heavily with his hands doing that dirty thing below, scaring the hell out of me.'”
In the dark, dilapidated house, the madman, with a hoarse voice, vividly recited the words of a village girl from many years ago.
But as he spoke, Yu Huai’s father’s expression gradually shifted from dazed to ferocious, and his voice suddenly became piercingly sharp and shrill.
“No, no… no, no—”
A trace of indescribable fear appeared in his murky eyes.
“They’re dead! They’re all dead! I saw it! I’m sure! Chen Qiao, I’m sure they were all dead! Dead! Dead—”
The man began to scream in agony.
However, Yu Huai clearly wasn’t fazed by this.
He curled his lip in annoyance, scratched his head, and then casually tossed the notebook back into the wooden box.
Just then, amid the rumbling thunder, he heard loud knocks on his door.
Yu Huai frowned and shouted, “Who is it?”
But no one responded from outside.
Only the thin door panel was being knocked mechanically, one knock after another.
Yu Huai cursed under his breath, grabbed a sharp axe from the table and tucked it into his waist, then slowly moved to the door and yanked it open.
“Damn it, who the hell is knocking in the middle of the night—”
His vicious curse suddenly caught in his throat.
Yu Huai’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked at Gan Tang standing outside the door…
It was pouring rain outside, and the boy was drenched, his face as pale as a ghost.
Even though Yu Huai had already opened the door, Gan Tang still stood motionless, his hand raised in the position of knocking.
After a while, he groggily raised his head and met Yu Huai’s gaze.
“……%￥”
His lips moved slightly.
“What?”
Yu Huai furrowed his brow, not hearing clearly, and asked again.
Then he heard Gan Tang speak.
“I killed someone.”
The boy murmured desperately to him.
“Please, help me.”
