“Ge…..let him go,” Li Xiu pleaded in a soft voice to the monster before him.

Something seemed to flicker slightly in Lord Hong’s empty eyes, and he leaned toward Li Xiu.

Cold and wet, soft flesh and blood surged around Li Xiu, then slid into his mouth, nose, and ears like a mollusk…..also swallowing up Li Xiu’s desperate pleas.

A sticky sea of crimson blood thoroughly drowned Li Xiu’s consciousness. 

*

*

Dizziness.

When he woke up again, Li Xiu staggered. He subconsciously held onto the wall beside him and waited for a while as his eyes gradually focused.

What he saw put him at somewhat of a loss.

He found himself in a relatively antiquated hospital.

The long, narrow corridor was filled with the strong scent of disinfectant. The sky seemed dark, and the ceiling lights were old. Logically, it should be bright with so many lights, but the surroundings seemed dim to Li Xiu. Two doors faced each other every short distance down the corridor. The ward doors were tightly shut, and there were the faint, steady sounds of medical instruments running behind them.

Li Xiu was not alone.

People passed through the corridor occasionally, but if he looked closely, they all looked like illusions. The faces of the doctors, nurses, and patients were all blurry, and their clothing also looked slightly outdated.

“Where…..is this?”

Li Xiu stared blankly at everything before him. His body was still feeling of exhaustion from when he was completely enveloped by his “gege.” Nobody looked at the youth staggering in the corridor, and some people walked right through him.

Had he become a ghost?

This idea naturally occurred to him.

As Liu Xiu wandered about, he suddenly felt a cold sensation on his wrist. He lowered his head and encountered a face drenched in blood and swollen beyond recognition.

A thin child was standing next to him, wearing a bloodied T-shirt. A pair of red eyes were exposed between swollen eyelids as he stared at Li Xiu without blinking. There was a very serious injury on the child’s forehead, and a bit of white bone could be vaguely seen through the purple-red scalp.

He had stretched out his hand and taken Li Xiu’s wrist.

Terror pierced Li Xiu’s heart like a steel nail. Overwhelmed by fear, he froze in place like a wild animal illuminated by the high beams of a car — Li Xiu had no idea when this child had appeared next to him.

And during the time his brain was shut down, Li Xiu found that the child had done nothing but look at him silently from beginning to end.

Li Xiu suddenly remembered the past events told to him by Teacher Xu.

Li Xuelin, who was deceived and betrayed. The child with a miserable past, whom he should have called “gege.”

Li Xiu compressed his fear. Looking back at the child, he called his name.

“Li Yu…..Gege?”

His heart was still beating fast, but for some reason, after realizing that this child was most likely Li Yu, his panic gradually faded.

Li Xiu adjusted his breathing, and after a moment’s hesitation, he said to the child:

“I came.”

“I’ll stay with you from now on. Will you please let the others go?”

Although he didn’t know why he had inexplicably appeared in a hospital, since from previous experience, he would appear in the Xiao Family Haunted House, Li Xiu wasn’t too bothered. He seized this opportunity and pleaded with his “gege,” whose image had changed drastically.

But after hearing his words, Li Yu continued to stare at him expressionlessly.

“Quick, the patient is in urgent need of rescue—”

“This is bad, the patient’s heart has stopped—”

Just then, a rush of footsteps sounded in the corridor.

The wheels of a transport bed made a harsh scratching sound on the smooth floor. A group of people came in a hurry, rushing past Li Xiu and Li Xiu while pushing the transport bed.

Although it was only for a moment, Li Xiu clearly glimpsed the patient on the bed.

An emaciated child, his body a mass of bruises. His face was concealed by an oxygen mask, but it was clearly Li Yu, who was currently standing next to him.

Li Xiu stared at those retreating figures in shock, then turned his gaze back to Li Yu. 

Li Yu still didn’t speak.

The child, beaten so black and blue that he didn’t look human, noticed Li Xiu’s gaze. Slowly, he raised an extremely  thin hand and pointed at the emergency room at the end of the corridor.

Li Xiu followed the direction of his finger, thinking that he would come upon the scene of Li Yu’s death. But when he got to the emergency room, he found that the grievously injured child had miraculously recovered a stable heartbeat under the doctor’s emergency rescue.

It was a miracle. Even Li Xiu, who knew nothing about medicine, could see that. Li Yu was horribly injured. And everyone around Li Yu, including the doctor who resuscitated him, had pretty much the same idea as Li Xiu. They looked extremely confounded upon seeing that the child’s vital signs had stabilized again.

“God, he came back? With these injuries?! Damn, Dr. Liu, you’re amazing!”

“This kid is truly blessed.”

“So lucky.”

Everyone involved in the rescue breathed sighs of relief.

But as Li Xiu looked at the scene in front of him, his heart palpitated. He remembered very clearly Teacher Xu saying that Li Yu had died after being sent to the hospital due to long-term abuse. But now, Li Yu had obviously been saved…..

“Wuwu…..Director Song, I really have no choice but to beg of you.”

Li Xiu suddenly heard the sound of crying.

Following the sound, he instinctively walked toward the waiting room. Very soon, he saw a young woman outside the operating room, along with a vaguely familiar man.

From Li Xiu’s perspective, he could only see the word “Song” written on the man’s nameplate.

At this time, he had his head lowered to look anxiously at the woman crying in his arms.

“It’s not that I won’t help you with this matter.” The man’s voice was very low, but Li Xiu could hear it clearly. “…..It would be fine if the child had died, but now he’s been saved. What’s more, asking for a double kidney transplant, d-do you want me to kill someone? It’s impossible for me to do such a thing.”

The woman’s back trembled slightly.

“I know, I’m aware of everything. But Xiao An is my child. I don’t want anything, just for his life to be saved and for him to grow up healthy and happy. That child is the illegitimate son of my brother. Li Xuelin died a long time ago. Don’t worry, no one will investigate, and I’ll handle the rest of the matter. And if something so big happens, the Ou family will definitely help — you saw the condition of that child when he was delivered. No one would believe that he survived. Even if he was temporarily saved, isn’t it natural for something to happen again later?”

“…..”

Seeing that the man wasn’t speaking, the woman immediately lowered her voice.

“Director Song, you know that I’ll do whatever it takes for Xiao An’s future. It doesn’t matter how much money you want, as long as you’re able to do this…..”

Director Song’s eyes flickered.

“Mrs. Song, this isn’t a matter of money. Li Xuelin was also my student. Asking me to do such a thing, how will I be able to sleep in the future—”

Mrs. Fang suddenly leaned toward the man’s ear and whispered a number.

Li Xiu saw clearly how after hearing the number, the hesitant man’s eyes lit up.

Intuition surged toward Li Xiu in a wintery wave. The truth that was about to be revealed made his stomach turn. Something cracked in his heart, causing every breath and every heartbeat to carry with it a sharp pang.

Soon, he watched helplessly as the child, who had finally crawled back from the brink of death, was secretly pushed into the operating room for the second time.

When the child was pushed out again, his emaciated body was wrapped in a body bag.

“No…..”

Li Xiu subconsciously went to stop in front of the corpse gurney, but at this moment, there was a weight on his wrist. He lowered his head and saw that the child was holding his hand again.

The scene in front of him changed abruptly. The blood-covered child and Li Xiu suddenly appeared in a sunny hospital ward with high-end equipment.

Li Xiu couldn’t look away. He saw Li Yu raise his hand — there were horrific unhealed wounds and corpse spots on that arm, and his blue fingertip pointed directly at the lively, cheerful pampered child on the hospital bed.

The other child had similar facial features but a completely different destiny.

Although the child was still very young, Li Xiu recognized him at a glance.

That child was Fang Qian’an.

“Mama!”

Fang Qian’an nestled in his mother’s arms.

“I still want to go out and play tomorrow!”

“You kid, didn’t you play outside for a while today? I’ve told you many times that you must take care of your health. When you fully recover, you can naturally play outside.”

“But I’ve been getting better for so long. You say that every time.”

The boy was still a little unreconciled.

The woman gave him a tender look, an uncontrollable smile spreading across her face.

“This time is different from before. You can really get better this time…..”

“Really?”

“Really, Mama promises. You’ll be fine in no time.”

“Wa, that’s great!”

Li Xiu’s body felt so heavy that it didn’t seem like his own.

Tears filled the youth’s vision, and the warm, harmonious scene in the ward was gradually submerged in blood. 

He understood everything.

“I’m sorry—”

He lowered his head to look at Li Yu.

The child’s appearance was still miserable, but when Li Xiu looked at him, he no longer felt afraid.

“I’m sorry, Ge…..I didn’t know anything…..”

“You’re so heartbreaking…..”

A bone-chilling coldness spread to Li Xiu from where their skin was touching. That cold was like an invisible quagmire that wanted to swallow Li Xiu whole, but even so, Li Xiu hugged the child tightly in his arms.

Tears fell from his eyes.

“Ge…..”

‘Li Yu’ raised his head in surprise to look at Li Xiu.

Thin, blood-stained fingers slowly touched Li Xiu’s face.

A tear fell on his hand, and he abruptly retracted it as if he’d been burned.

“A-Xiu.”

The scary child, who had been silent all this while, opened his mouth for the first time.

“A-Xiu-didi,” he repeated.

The child huddled in Li Xiu’s arms began to grow larger by increments. Soon, the thin, battered child transformed into a tall, terrifying monster.

Lord Hong raised his twisted arms and looked at Li Xiu. After a moment’s hesitation, the monster, a bit clumsily, hugged Li Xiu back gently.

“Don’t cry,” it said to Li Xiu softly.

“It…..doesn’t hurt anymore…..”

The monster wearing a paper mask carefully wiped away the tears in the corners of Li Xiu’s eyes.

Unconsciously, the posture between the two changed from Li Xiu holding Lord Hong to Lord Hong holding Li Xiu.

The weak boy simply fell obediently into the monster’s arms, as if he had finally become the property of this horrific, inhuman thing.

“A-Xiu—”

Within the flesh and blood-covered ghost, a hoarse roar suddenly sounded.

“Wake up!”

“Please wake the fuck up, ah!”

A figure struggled out, tearing apart pieces of stinking scarlet flesh to reveal a small section of their body.

Li Xiu trembled. Turning his head, he met Fang Qian’an’s bloodshot eyes.

The over 1.9 meter tall boy looked extremely thin and weak under the restraint of Lord Hong. Li Xiu could barely see any intact flesh on his body. He was covered in blood, with horrific wounds everywhere.

When he shouted at Li Xiu, he could even see raised veins on his forehead.

“That guy is a fraud – he’s not Li Yu at all!”

“Li Yu was swallowed up by it a long time ago! It’s just a ghost that stole Li Yu’s identity and memories!”

Perhaps because his injuries were so serious, or because he was so scared, Li Xiu saw that Fang Qian’an was crying as he shouted.

“Fang Qian’an…..”

Li Xiu automatically stretched a hand out toward him.

He grabbed hold of the other boy and tried to pull him up.

But in the next second, Lord Hong reached out from behind him and put his cold fingertips on his wrist, forcing him to let go.

The monster’s eye sockets were cavernous, its odor strong.

Its move to surround Li Xiu’s body revealed a desire for exclusivity that was visible to the naked eye.

The scene in front of him obviously collapsed Fang Qian’an’s remaining sanity even more, and the boy’s face twisted into a ferocious look.

“You fucking let A-Xiu go, ah! I was the one who stole Li Yu’s kidneys! I’ll give them back to you, just take them!” Fang Qian’an roared like a dying beast. “But A-Xiu doesn’t owe you!”

As he shouted, he fell to the floor and struggled desperately to crawl to Li Xiu.

“A-Xiu doesn’t owe you, he’s always treated you as his brother! How can you leave him in such a hellish place! How could you be willing to make him stay with a thing as disgusting as you—”

How weak Fang Qian’an looked struggling in this world controlled by ghosts, ah.

Li Xiu saw Lord Hong lift his fingertips slightly.

Innumerable rotting, deformed ghosts that had been wandering in the darkness for an unknown length of time suddenly appeared around Fang Qian’an. Their cold bones seized the boy and were about to drag him into the darkness again…..

“I don’t want this!” Li Xiu screamed.

He clamped his hands in a death grip on Lord Hong, cold, slender, nailless fingers.

“Please don’t hurt him, okay? Ge, I’m begging you…..” Li Xiu whimpered.

“I’ll go with you. I’ll go voluntarily. I’ll go to that world and be with you forever.”

Lord Hong stared deeply at Li Xiu.

Li Xiu had cried until his vision was blurry.

“You let Fang Qian’an go.” The smell of blood filled the boy’s throat as he spoke.

“You let him…..he…..he’s my only…..friend.”

“Ge, don’t make me sad, okay?”

There was a long silence that seemed to last forever.

Then a sigh came from the depths of Lord Hong’s throat.

Fang Qian’an found that his surroundings were becoming a little hazy.

“Li Xiu, don’t be crazy—”

The former school bully let out a broken scream.

“I don’t care about you saving me. Who the hell do you think you are? I don’t care—”

The boy’s rough, strangled cries finally vanished into the darkness.

Li Xiu stiffened. Breathing heavily, he looked in the direction Fang Qian’an had disappeared.

He looked at that spot for a long, long time, until there was a spot of coldness on his face. Li Xiu shuddered when he realized that Lord Hong’s fingertips were touching it.

Lord Hong wiped the tears from his face.

“Is A-Xiu happy?” Lord Hong asked softly.

Li Xiu looked back at him. After a long silence, he raised a shaking hand and lifted the paper mask off Lord Hong’s face little by little.

…..There was no sight of indescribable rotting teeth or erratic red eyes.

Under the perpetually blood-soaked mask was the face of a young man. Pale cheeks, very dark eyes, and thin, sharp lips.

There was something familiar in those facial features, because he actually looked somewhat similar to Fang Qian’an.

If Li Yu had survived, this was what he would look like.

Lord Hong met Li Xiu’s gaze, then lowered his eyes and whispered:

“This is the first time you’ve seen me, but I’ve seen you since a long time ago. A-Xiu-didi.”

“At that time, Mama wanted to take me back to Grandmother’s house. I saw you downstairs.”

Li Xiu’s pupils narrowed slightly.

“Grandmother took you to learn to walk, but you were always unsteady, falling all the time. You looked really pitiful.”

Lord Hong caressed Li Xiu’s cheek. The distance between the two grew closer and closer.

“Mama hid in the corner with me and watched for a long time. Then, she took my hand and left.”

*

*

Many years ago, in the old alleyway.

The haggard young woman had a pallid appearance. Clutching the child in her arms tightly, she turned with difficulty and walked toward the outside world step by step.

“Mama?”

The young boy looked at his mother in confusion.

“I want to play with my didi. Mama, you said I would have a new didi when I meet Grandmother.”

As he thought pretty child just now, the boy’s eyes filled with anticipation.

“He’s so pretty, but so stupid. He can’t even walk well. Mama, when the time comes, I’ll teach my didi how to walk! That way he won’t cry all the time…..Mama? Why are you crying?”

“I’m sorry, Xiao Yu.” The woman suddenly leaned down, saying word by word, “We’re not going back.”

“Ah? Why? Why, ah? Mama, but I want my didi—”

Seeing that the child was about to make a fuss, the woman hugged him tightly.

“Shhh, don’t make trouble. Xiao Yu, listen to Mama. Did you see your didi? It’s hard for your didi to walk, right? So he needs a lot of care.” As she spoke, the woman’s initial hesitation turned to firmness. She explained seriously, “Mama will be very busy in the future, so busy that she won’t be able to stay by Xiao Yu’s side. But Grandmother is getting older. If you’re sent back to your grandmother’s house, she will only be able to take care of you, and not your didi. If you go back, your didi might be sent away.”

The woman stroked the tender child in her arms and took a deep breath.

“That would be too pitiful for him, wouldn’t it, Xiao Yu?”

“Even if Xiao Yu loses his Mama, he still has his daddy…..but your didi has no relatives except for Grandmother. So Xiao Yu should go live with his daddy, okay?”

The boy pursed his lips, tears glistening in his eyes.

“I don’t want to go to my daddy, I want to play with my didi—”

The woman smiled.

She said soothingly: “It’s alright, when Xiao Yu grows up, he can come and play with his didi!”

“Really?”

“Really. If Xiao Yu likes his little didi so much, his didi will also like Xiao Yu very, very much.”

---

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Chapter 56 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 58