Yu Huai climbed over the wall in the heavy rain and followed Gan Tang back to the room.
Just like when Gan Tang had left, Cen Zibai was still lying face down on the ground, with a dark red pool of blood spreading from his head, staining the floor.
Although Yu Huai had already learned the situation from Gan Tang’s incoherent murmurs, seeing the gruesome scene with his own eyes still left him stunned for several seconds before he could calm himself down.
Gan Tang gripped him tightly, his grip forceful.
It was summer, yet the boy’s hand was as cold as ice.
“…I never thought it would end up like this. I was just so angry.”
It sounded like an explanation, but also like he was talking to himself.
Gan Tang’s eyes were hollow, and he kept mumbling.
Yu Huai took a deep breath.
“You… calm down for a bit.”
After a while, Yu Huai said dryly.
“Maybe this guy isn’t dead yet.”
He said, then struggled to free his hand from Gan Tang’s grip. He swallowed nervously and cautiously approached Cen Zibai, reaching out to turn him over.
His intention was to check for Cen Zibai’s breath, but upon seeing the boy’s face, he couldn’t help but curse.
“Damn—”
Cen Zibai’s once handsome face was now horribly disfigured.
The flesh around his left eye socket was a mess of blood and tissue, and his eyelid had been completely torn open, now resembling a bloody little mouth, silently screaming at Yu Huai. His eyeball had already shriveled up—Cen Zibai had indeed been extremely unlucky; when he fell, his eye had directly hit the brass corner of a cabinet.
Moreover, he was already breathless.
“Damn it, what the hell did you do?”
Yu Huai muttered to himself.
Gan Tang’s shoulders trembled as he let out a low sob.
The boy was clearly on the verge of breaking down.
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
The boy collapsed to the ground, his body limp, nervously repeating his words.
“He just bullied me too much… I was so angry… I didn’t want to kill him… I can’t become a murderer…”
“But this guy is already dead, completely dead.”
Yu Huai couldn’t help but say.
“What are you going to do now—”
He suddenly locked eyes with Gan Tang.
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
Sure enough, the next moment, Gan Tang tightened his grip on Yu Huai’s sleeve. “I have a way.”
Gan Tang’s expression twisted, but his voice was soft: “…I can solve this. As long as we bring him back to life, it’ll be fine. Uncle Zhang was resurrected, so he can be too.”
The boy spoke in a hollow voice, his eyes burning with two eerie, phosphorescent glows.
“I really can’t be a murderer. I don’t want to…”
Yu Huai ran his hand through his hair, his heart pounding in panic.
“You’re not serious, are you?” He instinctively rejected Gan Tang’s suggestion. “Didn’t I tell you before? Anything that crawls out of a well after being resurrected is totally messed up—”
He was about to continue persuading Gan Tang when the latter abruptly interrupted him.
The boy looked at him with tear-filled eyes, his whole body trembling.
It was then that Yu Huai vaguely realized that Gan Tang’s extreme despair and fear didn’t seem to be solely because Cen Zibai had died.
“I… I’ve been in contact with Cen Zibai’s family before…”
Gan Tang’s voice was hoarse, and in this moment, he strangely began talking about the past.
He said that, unable to bear Cen Zibai’s harassment and finding no other way to seek help, he had gone to ask Cen Zibai’s mother for help. However, a family capable of raising a madman like Cen Zibai could never be normal.
The young, beautiful woman, who didn’t look like she had already given birth to a child, had been as gentle and patient as a saint when facing Gan Tang.
However, after listening to Gan Tang’s crying confession, she would gently embrace him, and then speak kindly:
[“I know you don’t want to, but my Zibai really likes you. He rarely likes anyone this much, so just bear with it.”]
[“Don’t worry, we’ll definitely treat you well in other ways. All you need to do is make him happy.”]
[“As long as you behave and listen, you won’t suffer. I know my child. As long as it’s someone he likes, he’s always very caring and won’t harm them.”]
[“If you want anything, just tell Auntie. Auntie and Uncle will make sure to help you.”]
[“…But you mustn’t upset him. I know you’re a smart child, you won’t refuse to drink when offered, right?”]
…
“They’re very rich, very powerful… They definitely know Cen Zibai’s whereabouts. If they find out that Cen Zibai… is dead…”
Gan Tang was almost driven mad by his own imagination.
“They won’t let me go, and they won’t let my family go… They’re very powerful… I went to the police, I went to the teachers, but nothing worked… Wuwu…”
Yu Huai stared at Gan Tang for a long time.
After a mental struggle, he held his head and muttered a vague curse.
Then, he pushed the already mentally broken Gan Tang aside. Compared to Gan Tang, Yu Huai’s voice was unusually calm at this moment.
“Lift your head, I’ll lift your feet.”
He said.
“Since there’s a lot of noise outside and even if the villagers aren’t asleep, they won’t hear us, let’s… let’s move this guy to the well on the back mountain.”
*
That night, the sky seemed to have torn open.
The rain poured down like never before. The thunderstorm had reached directly above Fengjing Village, and the huge rumble sounded as if it was brushing past Gan Tang and Yu Huai’s heads.
In the flashes of lightning, the ground seemed to tremble slightly.
Gan Tang’s eyes were nearly blinded by the dense raindrops, and he could only struggle, dragging the heavy, lifeless body, stumbling through the muddy and slippery mountain path.
They hadn’t brought any lighting tools.
The only thing that illuminated their path was the occasional flash of lightning across the sky.
In the blinding light, the surrounding mountain forest appeared pitch black and eerie. Several times, Gan Tang mistook the dry branches swaying in the wind for hunched, strange human figures.
The air was filled with the damp, fishy smell of water, and the dense flow of water ran like a small stream down the mountain road.
Gan Tang’s hand, dragging the corpse, gradually became numb and weak.
Earlier, Yu Huai had asked Gan Tang to lift the body’s head simply because it made it easier to carry.
But at this moment, this “favor” had, in a way, turned into torment.
Cen Zibai’s head hung limply in Gan Tang’s arms, swaying slightly with his movements.
The raindrops beat against the corpse’s face, washing away the bloodstains, leaving only the deathly pale cheeks.
Cen Zibai’s intact eye would occasionally flutter under the impact of the rain, as if he were still alive, using his cloudy eye to glance at Gan Tang from time to time.
However, Cen Zibai’s right eye constantly reminded Gan Tang that this person had already been killed by his own hands.
That empty eye socket had become a small, black-red hole, into which rainwater flowed, mixing with the pink and then trickling down Gan Tang’s hand.
[“Tang Tang…”]
As they moved, the corpse’s lips brushed against Gan Tang’s cold elbow.
In his panic, Gan Tang thought he heard Cen Zibai’s whisper. His foot slipped, and he suddenly fell to the ground.
Cen Zibai’s body dropped onto the ground, most of it submerged in the murky mud. Gan Tang hurriedly lifted him up again, noticing that his hands felt unusually slippery.
Another flash of lightning struck, and in the pale light, Gan Tang slowly lowered his head, just in time to see the back of Cen Zibai’s head, which now had an unnatural indentation.
The skull had been struck by a stone on the ground, leaving a large hole from which some white matter leaked out.
The thunder was deafening, and at that moment, Gan Tang even experienced a ringing in his ears from the intense sound above.
For a brief moment, his ears buzzed, and theoretically, he shouldn’t have been able to hear anything at all.
[“It hurts so much.”]
However, Cen Zibai’s voice echoed deep within his ear.
Gan Tang gasped in panic, staring blankly at Cen Zibai’s body.
The already dead boy seemed to move slightly, and the creases carved into his face made his gaping mouth look like a malicious cold smile.
“Hu… hu…”
Gan Tang couldn’t move, only staring blankly at that face.
“Tang Boy? Gan Tang—”
After a long time, he finally heard Yu Huai’s voice.
Through the rain curtain a meter away, Yu Huai’s figure appeared unusually blurry.
“Are you okay? Why aren’t you moving?!”
Gan Tang heard him asking.
“I… I’m fine.”
After a moment, Gan Tang hoarsely called out.
He staggered to his feet again, gripping Cen Zibai’s neck tightly with his hand, dragging the heavy corpse up the mountain.
For Gan Tang that night, the journey to the flesh-well seemed endless.
However, just when he felt like he couldn’t hold on any longer, another thunderclap struck, and in the pale light, a familiar scene appeared in his vision.
The simple bluestone slab.
And the narrow, pitch-black cave in the stone slab.
*
The flesh well, had arrived.
