Xie Xishu’s entire body’s blood seemed to completely freeze in that instant.
There wasn’t time to think. Before his brain could catch up, his body had already moved on its own.
He suddenly turned around, raising the fruit knife in his hand high and swinging it with force toward the sticky, thick darkness behind him.
“Crack—”
The thin blade of the fruit knife struck the door frame of the security door, and then, due to Xie Xishu using too much force, it flew right out of his hand, landing on the marble floor and sliding far away.
The next moment, the noise Xie Xishu made caused the sensor light in the hallway to turn on once again.
The not-too-bright light immediately illuminated Xie Xishu’s field of vision and the area in front of him: the entryway behind him was completely empty, without a single person in sight.
There couldn’t have been anyone there in the first place.
Xie Xishu heard a voice in his head mock him softly.
Yes, even though it had been so dark just now, humans aren’t purely reliant on their eyes to sense the world. If someone had really passed by Xie Xishu and gotten behind him, it would’ve been impossible for him not to notice.
As for that faint breeze he had felt just now… no matter how he thought about it, the only conclusion he could come to was that “Xie Xishu was overly tense, and in extreme anxiety, he hallucinated.”
*
Although he thought that, Xie Xishu still couldn’t calm down. He didn’t pick up the knife from the floor; instead, like a frightened rabbit, he dashed inside.
With a bang, Xie Xishu slammed the security door shut, then hurriedly locked it.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
His palms had unknowingly become soaked in cold sweat, and even locking the door was a bit slippery.
“Huff…”
Xie Xishu could hear his own heavy, rapid breathing, which sounded especially loud in the pitch-black house. Before this, he had never realized that his house was so big, to the point where even his breathing would echo.
After locking the door, the darkness in the house caused Xie Xishu to shiver uncontrollably. Panting heavily, he dashed into the living room and turned on every light in the house.
The soft, bright lights filled the whole house, far more gentle than the sensor light outside, yet Xie Xishu’s face was still as pale as a ghost.
Step by step, he paced back and forth in the home he was so familiar with. He opened and closed every cabinet door, neurotically checking every nook and cranny of the house, even in spaces so narrow that not even a cat could hide.
And after such a meticulous inspection, the only conclusion he could come to was…
Everything was normal.
The only thing abnormal in the entire house seemed to be Xie Xishu himself.
Even Xie Xishu felt that he looked ridiculous right now, but he couldn’t control his actions at all.
That indescribable fear was like a dam breaking in a flood, spreading uncontrollably. When Xie Xishu dragged his wobbly legs and struggled to the bathroom to take a shower, he felt as if a faint shadow was always standing outside his frosted glass shower door, watching his every move without blinking.
When, in his daze, he forgot to bring his pajamas and had to return to his room wrapped only in a dripping wet towel, he felt that his wardrobe was a bit strange. Even though it was filled with clothes he had personally folded and organized, many small details seemed slightly different from how he remembered seeing them that morning—those neatly folded clothes gave off a subtle, unsettling sense that they had been moved.
It wasn’t until Xie Xishu could no longer resist the extreme exhaustion and weakness in his body and had to lie back in bed to rest that he left every light in the house on.
But at the same time, he locked his bedroom door tightly, even dragging a chair over to wedge it under the door handle.
Afterward, he hid under his blanket, pulling it tightly over his head.
The small lump under the blanket trembled slightly for quite a while before it finally stilled.
Before this, Xie Xishu had sat on the edge of his bed, taking several deep breaths. He didn’t want to keep going on like this, so paranoid and overly suspicious.
He only hoped that deep breathing could calm him down, but in the end, it didn’t work out as he’d wished.
Xie Xishu thought he smelled a strange odor.
A strong, musky scent, like that of a male animal in heat, filled with intense hormones.
That smell felt oddly familiar to Xie Xishu and made him even more anxious.
He didn’t understand why, even after showering, that smell belonging to Qi Wu still lingered, refusing to dissipate.
“Rustle…”
Suddenly, Xie Xishu perked up his ears and turned toward the bedroom door, his heartbeat gradually quickening.
He felt like he had heard some sort of sound, a sound that was indescribable, moist and sticky. And that sound, theoretically, came from the living room, which should have been empty by now.
However, when he perked up and held his breath to listen carefully, there was no longer any movement outside the door. It was as if the faint, wet sound he had just heard was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by his excessive nervousness.
But Xie Xishu did not feel relieved at all.
He involuntarily fixed his gaze on the doorknob he had wedged shut, unable to stop himself from imagining the scene outside his bedroom door.
He seemed to see a tall figure silently wandering around the quiet, bright, silent living room… No, that’s not right. Maybe that shadow had appeared long before, while he was still checking around the house. Like a scene from a movie, that shadow had always been stuck to him, hiding in the blind spots of his vision, openly following him, watching him, mocking his paranoia and mental breakdown.
Xie Xishu knew this was a ridiculous delusion, but he couldn’t stop.
He could even imagine the face of that shadow and the way it looked at him.
Qi Wu.
He seemed to meet Qi Wu’s dark, sticky, oppressive gaze again.
That disgusting desire burned and flickered in those beast-like eyes.
…
Xie Xishu thought he would stay awake all night in this state of extreme tension and fear, but he had underestimated the side effects of his high fever.
Curled up in the corner of his bed, anxious and uneasy, he slowly closed his eyes, gradually succumbing to his terrifying imaginings. It wasn’t long before his breathing became slow and heavy.
The boy was completely defenseless, dragged into a near-comatose state of deep sleep by exhaustion and fever.
Thus, Xie Xishu didn’t hear the sharp police sirens and ambulance wails that echoed through the city at night, making City A unusually noisy and chaotic.
“Boom—”
He also wasn’t woken by the loud roar on the outskirts of the city, and even after the mysterious explosion, the brightly lit city gradually extinguished all its lights within a few seconds.
Xie Xishu’s room, too, was once again engulfed in darkness due to the blackout.
“Rustle, rustle…”
The sleeping Xie Xishu didn’t notice at all as a shadow slowly crawled out from under his bed.
That shadow was unusually tall and strong, every muscle wrapped around its bones trembling and bulging from tension.
There is a stereotype about muscular, robust beasts: people assume that, while immensely strong, they must be clumsy and unwieldy.
This shadow’s movements completely defied that foolish stereotype.
Every move it made was smooth, silent, agile—like a deadly snake or lizard.
As it crawled bit by bit from the foot of Xie Xishu’s mattress onto the bed, the thick, springy mattress didn’t make the slightest sound or wobble. And the uninvited guest quickly scuttled on all fours to the side of the bed’s rightful owner.
The boy’s body, curled up as it was, appeared even thinner and smaller. The intruder could easily engulf the pale-faced boy beneath him.
Just the thought of this made “his” eyes gleam with ghostly light in the darkness.
He lowered his head, his skull hanging unnaturally from his long neck, drooping beside Xie Xishu’s face.
Hot breath brushed against Xie Xishu’s earlobe and cheek, raising goosebumps across the delicate skin.
Even in his deep, dark sleep, Xie Xishu seemed to sense that something was off.
As “he” drew closer, the sleeping boy furrowed his brows, his black eyelashes trembling uncontrollably. Through the thin eyelids, flushed pink from the fever, one could clearly see his eyeballs moving rapidly, but throughout it all, he couldn’t struggle to open his eyes.
The only thing Xie Xishu could do was curl his shoulders tighter, his body trembling as he tried to retreat further under the blanket.
[Drip—]
Just at that moment, the police sirens blared again outside, and red and blue lights flashed through the curtains, casting a thin glow on the side of the boy’s face on the bed.
A crystal-clear droplet of water slowly slid down the curve of his cheek, reflecting a faint glimmer of light.
[Drip—]
Then another drop of sticky liquid fell from above Xie Xishu, landing on his face.
The enormous shadow looming over him, its pupils glowing even brighter with reflected light, gazed obsessively at the boy right in front of him. A low, guttural murmur escaped his throat, and it seemed that every pore on his body was opening and contracting in delight, absorbing the enticing fragrance in the air.
And his saliva, uncontrollable, dripped from the gaps between his sharp, jagged teeth, covering Xie Xishu’s neck and cheek with a layer of sticky, foul-smelling wetness.
So sweet.
So sweet, so delicious, so tempting—
The intense desire and overwhelming scent had turned “his” brain into a thick porridge filled with lust and instinct.
Even he didn’t realize that, before Xie Xishu, his jaw had begun to open involuntarily. His entire mouth had completely broken free from the limits of human bone structure, stretching wider and wider, ever wider…
Finally, his chin nearly touched his chest, and from the fully extended depths of his mouth, countless anemone-like soft red tongues began stretching out, straight toward the oblivious Xie Xishu.
At this moment, “he” only needed to lower his head slightly to completely swallow the sick and unconscious boy on the bed, from head to toe, into his own body.
“Bang—”
Just then, a dull thudding sound came from the ceiling of the bedroom, not to be underestimated.
Normally, making such a noise in the middle of the night would be enough to make the homeowner storm upstairs to confront the person responsible. But Xie Xishu was too weak today, so he remained peacefully in a deep sleep, not waking up.
“What the hell are you doing? I’m just staying up late to play a game; how does that bother you? If you want to sleep, then go sleep.”
“Damn it, if we’re going to end it, let’s end it. If not, then let’s get divorced. I can’t stand this for another day.”
“Dear, what’s wrong with you… Damn!”
“Wait, it’s me, honey?! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts; let go, let go!”
“I know I was wrong, honey; don’t scare me, please let go, I’m bleeding… It hurts, it hurts so much, let go!”
“Help, help—”
Immediately after, a man’s muffled screams squeezed through the cracks of the window and into the bedroom.
The air gradually became tainted with the smell of fresh iron.
Unlike sound, changes in scent are subtler and more complex. Theoretically, it would take at least two or three days before Xie Xishu could smell the rotten stench of blood.
But for “him,” the smell of blood permeating the air had already become so thick that it was nauseating.
The figure, almost completely overtaken by animalistic instincts, paused in place.
In the next moment, “he” swiftly and silently crawled off Xie Xishu’s bed.
Before leaving, “he” uncontrollably circled the bed several times, his red eyes fixed on Xie Xishu’s pale, weak sleeping face.
After a few more seconds, “he” finally panted heavily and reluctantly moved away from Xie Xishu. Then, squeezing through the window crack, “he” crawled up toward the neighbor’s apartment upstairs.
Soon after, it became completely quiet up there.
