Li Xiu limped toward home.

He looked quite embarrassing now, with his body covered in dust from the old villa and his school uniform kneaded up and down until it looked miserly.

The corner of his mouth and his forehead were warm, distended and hot. He supposed they were swollen. There was a faint dampness flowing down his temple, likely blood. Because he was just walking on the street like this, Li Xiu could sense people looking at him from time to time. But at this moment, his entire body was practically numb from the pain, and he couldn’t care less about the looks of those people.

However, out of deep-rooted habit, Li Xiu subconsciously chose a more remote and uninhabited route on his way back. Dodging and evading, he clung to his strength and finally arrived downstairs at the familiar residence.

The small building where Li Xiu and his grandmother lived was actually not far from the school. The location was the sort of shantytown that existed in every city and gave city managers a headache. The narrow streets were rampant with sewage. On wires that stretched like spider webs, cheap underwear clamped to them dripped with water, and various illegal buildings filled the already narrow alleyways.

Li Xiu walked very slowly today. By the time he finally reached the downstairs of his home, the afterglow of the setting sun had completely vanished from the sky.

The light dimmed completely.

He was late.

Li Xiu looked at the time, and his already unsightly face became increasingly dark and somber.

He unconsciously sped up his pace, even though it caused his overburdened right foot to burn increasingly with pain.

In his panic, Li Xiu accidentally bumped into someone.

“I’m sor—”

“Aiyo, fuck your mother, will you grow a pair of eyes?!”

Before he could apologize, Li Xiu was greeted with a series of thickly-accented curses.

The person’s face was familiar. She was Li Xiu’s neighbor.

…..And their relationship was very bad.

The auntie was startled at first when she saw Li Xiu, clearly shocked by his miserable appearance. Then in the next second, her face scrunched up in disgust as if she was looking at something truly wretched.

“Li Xiu, ah, did you get in a fight? Tsk, you haven’t learned well at your age,” the auntie scolded. Then she raised the plastic dustpan and broom in her hand toward Li Xiu. “I can’t be bothered to go upstairs. You go up and tell your grandmother not to burn these messy things at the door. How many times have I said this? Yet it’s still like this, burning and burning every day. Your family may not be afraid of bad luck, but we still are—”

Another resident happened to pass by at this time. The auntie made a quick decision and raised her voice again, as if speaking to that person: “We live in a new society now, yet some people still have superstitions. If we hadn’t lived as neighbors for so many years, I would have long since called the police.”

“En, I’ll remind Grandmother.”

Li Xiu had already lowered his eyes when the aunt continued to yell, and didn’t pay attention to the other party for long. He responded in a toneless voice, then walked into the dark, narrow alley with a face like a board.

He left so neatly that when the auntie returned to her senses, she had no time to stop him. She could only lower her voice angrily: “Pretentious little cripple. He’s exactly the same as that ghastly old woman with one foot in the grave, so determined to engage in these mysterious things. Living with such people is enough bad luck for eight lifetimes…..”

“Isn’t the school uniform on that young man rather impressive? Wasn’t Auntie Tang too mean to him?” The person passing by couldn’t help but ask this as they listened to the auntie’s muttering.

When the auntie raised her eyes, she found that the person talking to her was a tenant who had recently moved in. Her stomach full of complaints suddenly had an outlet. Glancing toward the direction Liu Xi had gone in her peripheral vision, she quickly grabbed the middle-aged woman and began to speak: “Aiyo, Liu-meizi, let me tell you, you must not interact with that family. Their brains aren’t quite normal. The younger one keeps a blank face all day and doesn’t look at or speak to anyone when he meets them. The old woman in that house pretends to be in contact with the supernatural every day and burns things at the door, making the place all smokey.”

When she heard the auntie’s words, the tenant’s face became a bit stiff and she said, ill at ease: “Then she’s a fortune teller?”

In the next second, she watched as the auntie slapped her thigh fiercely, raising her voice again: “Ptooey—”

The auntie spat and cursed: “What fortune teller? That old woman is a notorious fraud. If you don’t believe me, just ask, everyone knows. Even that family’s girl said that her mother only knows how to defraud people outside every day…..”

The tenant listened to that family’s story with great interest: The fraudulent witch and her daughter had a falling-out because of this deception. In the end, the daughter severed ties with her, to the point that the lying old woman had no choice but to pick up a crippled baby from the street to support her in her old age.

In the auntie’s words, both the fraudulent witch named Qi Po and the boy named Li Xiu were the same sort of bizarre people who couldn’t tell the good from the bad.

But when the tenant thought of the boy she had seen just now, she couldn’t help but murmur to herself that having been beaten like that, the Li boy looked rather pitiful…..

*

Li Xiu, who seemed rather pitiful to outsiders, was nearly out of breath when he climbed the steep, narrow stairs to his home.

When opening the door, he accidentally kicked something placed there.

It was a pair of beige women’s high heels that looked slightly old. They fell crookedly after being kicked by Li Xiu.

It looks like Grandmother has a guest today, Li Xiu thought as he opened the door with a pale and expressionless face.

With the door open, the familiar scent of low-quality sandalwood instantly enveloped Li Xiu. The entrance hall of Li Xiu’s house (if this place could truly be regarded as an entrance hall) faced the narrow, lightless kitchen. To the right was a small hallway that connected the so-called “living room” to the same narrow kitchen on the left.

Past the kitchen and behind the skewed dining table was a narrow and slightly crooked hallway connecting different rooms. Obviously, such a layout made the home look extremely cramped and depressing. But Li Xiu had lived here as long as he could remember, and didn’t think he had anything to complain about.

If there was anything that really bothered Li Xiu…..

It was that his grandmother didn’t like to turn on the lights much. He couldn’t remember when that had started.

It was the same at present.

The sky was pretty much completely dark, but there were still no lights on at home. There was only the red light emitted by the electronic candle in the shrine place deep in the living room, adding a weak glimmer to the residence.

“Wuuu…..wuwu…..”

A continuous faint cry sounded from the living room.

Li Xiu glanced toward where the crying was coming from and saw his grandmother sitting behind the square table as usual. Another middle-aged woman was hunched over, facing away from Li Xiu as she suppressed her sobs.

Li Xiu thought of the women’s shoes at the door and didn’t pay much attention to her. There were not many customers who came to see his grandma, and this middle-aged woman seemed to be the one who came most often. In any case, Li Xiu would hear her crying at his grandmother’s place from time to time.

“I’m back,” Li Xiu whispered toward the living room with his head lowered.

Since he was a child, he had developed the habit of never disturbing his grandmother when she had guests.

He had initially thought that his grandmother would ignore him like she usually did. But this time, his grandmother stood up directly and tottered over to open the beaded curtain at the door of the living room, poking her face out at Li Xiu.

“Why are you back so late?!” The old woman’s voice was particularly sharp amongst the shadows.

“I…..”

Liu Xiu took an unconscious step back, fearing that his grandmother would see the injuries on his face.

Of course, he soon discovered that his nervousness was unnecessary.

Although the pair of cloudy eyeballs wrapped in fine wrinkles were pointed directly at Li Xiu, his grandmother didn’t ask about Li Xiu’s injuries at all.

“Hurry up and deliver food to your gege!”

“Quickly, quickly!”

“What will you do if your gege is hungry?!”

“You told me you would get out early at the new school and come home to deliver your gege’s meal! But look at you, only coming back just now—”

Li Xiu pursed his lips under his grandmother’s rapid urging.

“En, I’ll come back early in the future,” he said in a low voice.

The light in the room was dim and his grandmother’s eyesight wasn’t good, so she probably couldn’t see the injuries on his face.

Li Xiu told this to himself as he dragged his feet, limping into the kitchen.

He was supposed to be delivering food to his gege, but Li Xiu didn’t start the kitchen fire.

He just deftly scooped two handfuls of uncooked rice from the rice bucket and placed them in a porcelain bowl.

Then he took an inconspicuous jar from the shelf, and after opening it, shook the bottom of the jar to take out some fine black powder.

This was the incense ash he had prepared beforehand.

When he had mixed the incense ash and uncooked rice evenly, Li Xiu held the bowl in one hand and walked through the long, narrow hallway to the small room at the end.

Creak—

It was pitch dark in the room, which had no lights or open windows all year round.

However, the neighbor next door had turned on a light, and faint illumination came from above the old window at the corner of the wall that had been plastered into opaqueness.

The room was messy and filled with all sorts of things. There were some plastic bottles and cardboard boxes that his grandmother collected from the community, as well as some cheap incense burners, evil-suppressing Bagua mirrors, and so on.

In the shadows, the crude and exaggerated deceptive props of the past inexplicably gained a slightly genuine and sinister feel.

In the corner of the room was a double bed that had been picked up some time ago. It was also full of clutter.

Li Xiu lowered his eyes and walked to the bed.

He halfway knelt and placed the rice bowl in his hand under the bed.

As he did this, his injuries flared up. His entire body shook with pain, and he almost lost all strength and fell to the ground.

Fortunately, at the last moment, he managed to maintain his balance. “Ge, eat.”

Because it hurt so much, he was a little perfunctory when greeting his gege for dinner today, and just gave a low mutter.

The boards of the old bed were covered in dust.

The shadows under the bed were dark.

The room was very quiet, so quiet that he could faintly hear the conversation between his grandmother and the guest in the living room.

“Ai, tell me about it. He really doesn’t like to talk…..and also has a lame leg…..”

“What can be done about this? I told you back then, and it’s you who didn’t listen…..”

“Forget it, forget it, I don’t actually expect him to take care of me in my old age…..”

Maintaining his previous position, Li Xiu placed his hands on the ground and slowly slid down to sit next to the bed for a moment.

The places where Wang Rongfa’s gang had beaten him before were getting hotter and swollen. Li Xiu couldn’t care less about the pain right now, and could only pray desperately that no bones were broken. After all, there would be a mock test soon, and according to the contract he signed with Qiming, he would have to reach the top five in his age category before he would be guaranteed living expenses and award money.

If there was really a break, it would delay his exam too much.

The family next door must have finished their meal and turned the TV on. Inane soap opera dialogue was accompanied by laughter and talking from time to time. It was clearly audible, but was so far away that it seemed like it was coming from another world.

Li Xiu himself was unaware that his face was as pale as a sheet of paper gradually soaked with water.

At last, he no longer had the strength to support himself. His bruised body hunched over, and he fell silently to the room’s dirty floor.

Turning his head, he could only see the dark shadows under the bed.

And the bluish outline of the bowl of white rice amongst those shadows.

“Ge…..” Li Xiu murmured in the lowest possible voice.

“I was bullied by those guys again today.”

……

“I tried to fight them, but I couldn’t.”

……

“It hurts so much.”

……

No one responded to Li Xiu’s tremulous whispers.

There was still only dead silence in the room.

Due to the extreme fatigue and pain, Li Xiu unknowingly began to lose consciousness.

It was the sound of the door closing when the guest left that suddenly woke him up. Only then did he realize that he had accidentally dozed off in the room.

Damnit—

Li Xiu cursed inwardly, and was about to get up when he heard his grandmother’s aged voice chiding sternly: “Li Xiu, why are you still in there?! How many times have I told you, come out once you deliver the food, come out once you deliver the food! Your gege is most afraid of noise, what are you doing in there?!”

His grandmother never liked Li Xiu spending too much time in this room—the room that belonged to his gege.

In fact, Li Xiu himself was the same.

After witnessing the many tricks his grandmother used to fool her guests, Li Xiu didn’t actually believe in the supernatural from a rational point of view. But he also didn’t know why he still couldn’t adapt to the overly silent atmosphere in this room after delivering meals to his “gege” for so many years since childhood.

Li Xiu attributed his maladjustment to the psychological shadow of his childhood.

He still remembered the first time he came to the room to deliver food as a child. He was so frightened that he cried all night, and then had a fever due to the fright. In the end, even when his fever reached 40 degrees and he could hardly walk, his grandmother would still drag him out of bed regularly every day and force him to deliver food to his gege.

Li Xiu no longer remembered what frightened him into such a terrible state when he was young, but that feeling of trepidation and fear that made his internal organs tighten up still remained deep-rooted in his heart.

It was just that today…..

After being beaten to such a horrible state, perhaps he wasn’t right in the head. So he huddled there inexplicably, airing his grievances like a madman to a nonexistent “gege.”

Li Xiu seemed to hear a voice within him make a self-deprecating sound.

Thinking of his weak actions just now, Li Xiu couldn’t help but scoff. He raised a hand to wipe the corners of his eyes, then stood up and walked toward the door.

Li Xiu knew better than anyone that this “gege” would never be able to help rid him of the bullies in his class like a real “gege.”

Because Li Xiu’s gege was just an urn placed under the bed.

His grandmother once said that if she had any other choice, she would never make Li Xiu deliver food to his “gege.”

“Only that child is so fierce…..ai…..”

Li Xiu no longer remembered the specific day his “gege” arrived home.

He had a vague impression from when he was very young. One day, a group of people suddenly came by in a grandiose manner, crying and kneeling, and his grandmother was forced out the door that day.

A few days later, when his grandmother came home again, she brought back his “gege.”

—For the sake of wealth and fame, these rich people who already had great influence did not hesitate to use crooked methods, and in the end, they even sacrificed their innocent child in a frenzy.

However, it was just as depicted in many stories.

What awaited the greedy and powerful was not just the overwhelming power they had dreamt of, but also an extremely cruel and tyrannical evil spirit.

“……Evildoers.”

His grandmother never spoke of those days again, but every time she mentioned his gege, she couldn’t help but lament.

She placed the urn under the bed in the corner of the room, and Li Xiu was given such a seemingly bizarre task.

Every day, he would come home on time and bring a bowl of rice mixed with ashes to the dusty urn under the bed.

Back then, his grandmother was much more energetic than now, and her temperament was far less eccentric. So on occasion, she would still patiently explain some things to Li Xiu.

His grandmother said that placing a bowl of uncooked rice under the bed was actually making an offering to the ghost and eliminating its hostility and bad karma.

She said that since Li Xiu was a boy, there was no need to worry about the ghost getting into his belly.

“…..And if you bring him food every day, he will recognize you and treat you as family.”

“Right, and according to age, you should actually call him ‘gege’ since he’s older than you.”

“From now on, when you deliver meals each day, call him ‘gege.’”

“A-Xiu, ah, listen up. Once you become family, not only will he not harm you, but he will protect you always.”

When exactly would that be? Li Xiu had never asked his grandmother.

He just repeated the act of delivering food to his gege day after day.

For him, “gege” represented the shadows under the bed and the darkness of the room.

As for the rest, Li Xiu felt nothing.

He also didn’t understand at all why, as the years passed, his grandmother became increasingly afraid of this room to the point that she didn’t even dare to open the door. Even moreso, he was unable to understand the fear that flashed in her eyes when “gege” was mentioned.

The “gege” that didn’t exist at all.

Clack—

The moment Li Xiu was about to open the door and leave the room, he suddenly heard the crisp sound of porcelain colliding with the ground.

Startled, he turned his head in bewilderment.

Then, he saw an empty bowl spinning out in an arc from under the bed.

The rice under the bed was scattered all over the floor.

---

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Chapter 3 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 5