Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Fang Zheng’s expression turned dark.
He stared at Sun Yushu, who clung onto him in anticipation. He did not move, awaiting Sun Yushu’s response.
Sun Yushu, who loved his family, found he had no choice but to tell his tale—a tale that launched a thousand words. None of them reputable.
‘F*ck! Can’t believe Sun Yushu was someone like that!’
Sun Yushu’s parents were entrepreneurs who owned a decently sized business. They had quite the reputation which meant they would not have to worry about money for the rest of their lives. This truth applied to Sun Yushu as well.
He had never had to lift a finger in his youth, and because of his good looks, girls flocked to him. He was the man of most girls’ dreams–tall, handsome, rich.
Sun Yushu, however, was not taken by their adoration. To him, they were shallow girls who were more boring than stimulating. Being a cultured man, of cultured tastes, he enjoyed the older girls, who were in their twenties. He enjoyed their intellect and their cultured well-bred manners.
And when he was in his twenties he enjoyed women who were in their thirties.
So the problem continued and worsened. Sun Yushu was now looking at women who were in their forties.
His parents, on the other hand, were getting rather worried at his lack of steady girlfriends. He was now 25 and unattached. It was time for arranged marriages.
They tried with many girls, but Sun Yushu found none of them appealing as all of them were too immature. Thus, his parents’ dreams of grandchildren and potential heirs were dragged on.
The new year rolled in with another arranged marriage, only this one proved to be a shock for Sun Yushu as well as the girl. She was the daughter of a woman he had been dating, and they were both astonished.
Her father was always away on trips, leaving behind a wife who had both too much free time and a bored wandering mind. They had been on dates multiple times.
Therefore he recognized the girl, and they were both flustered because of it. Neither of them could relax. Nonetheless, the irony of the situation was not lost on him. Imagine: marrying the girl whose mother you are seeing behind her father’s back. Even thinking about getting his blessings for their marriage would be extremely ironic.
As he was tossing the problem over in his head the next day, he walked into her cold frozen body, lying quite amicably for him on his operating table.
It was March 2nd; the last day of Chinese New Year celebrations.
His licentious lover (housewife) and her parents made their way back to their village for some glutinous rice balls. On her way back she drove off the bridge, by accident, and was killed.
He wound up performing the post-mortem in an ironic twist of events.
She had been alive just a few days ago, and now he was forever separated by yin and yang.
He cried silently that night.
It was a horrible blow to him, yet he had a job to perform. Stealing himself, he ignored her and focused on the task at hand, numbing himself to her and seeing her as just another body to be chopped up, prodded and examined.
It was all over, it was the past, he had the future.
Then everything fragmented, like the twinkling crystal shards of a fractured mirror catching at the slivers of a moon’s pale glow.
She had found Sun Yushu!
Ten o’clock was the end of his last shift; it was an extra shift that he had taken, and by the time he had gotten back and taken a shower it was half-past eleven at night.
That was when the knocking started, solid and real.
Knock…
Knock….
Knock…
They came in a soft rhythmic trio.
He doubted his ears, but he went and peered through the glass of his peephole. He could not see who was knocking, instead, the entire glass was coated in red.
He dismissed it as a prank; youths these days were always getting into trouble. He planned to lodge a complaint with management the next day and turned, when:
Knock…
Knock….
Knock…
Sun Yushu was mad. He spun around and pressed his face against the door. The glass was still coated in red paint and there was no one there. He decided to stay put, waiting for the vandals.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
Everything was silent, as he stared through the red glass. No more knocking.
He held his breath and it was dead silent. Sun Yushu continued looking through the peephole but there were no knocks.
Just as Sun Yushu was about to give up there was a flash of darkness. He pulled back. He stared at his peephole and a blood-red eye stared back at him. Veins engorged with blood pulsed around a white canvas as its black pupil focused on him.
He fell over.
Knock…
Knock….
Knock…
The knocks could be heard again.
“Who’s there? Identify yourself!”
Even through the pounding of his heart in his ears, Sun Yushu heard his voice waver. The responding silence was thick around him. Clumsily, he made a grab for his phone, almost dropping it as his sweaty fingers fumbled across the screen. Eventually, he managed to dial the front desk.
“Hello? I need someone to come up here now! Somebody’s been knocking on my door and staring into the peephole for the past hour!”
Exaggeration be damned–it had certainly felt like an hour. Unfortunately for him, the wait for a guard felt longer.
When one finally arrived, however, it was with confusion and a tinge of annoyance. There was no trespasser to be found, much less red paint strewn over the peephole.
Sun Yushu insisted that there had to be some sign of an intruder, and fought his case relentlessly, but, after a half-hour investigation was conducted under his supervision, even he had to concede that there did not seem to be any trace of anyone having been outside his door.
As he watched the security guard’s figure vanish into the elevator, his heart began pounding relentlessly once more.
He could not shake the feeling of dread welling up inside him.
Back inside his apartment, Sun Yushu shuddered as a chill descended upon him. Suddenly, he found it difficult to breathe, as if a heavyweight was pushing down on him.
He lifted his gaze slowly to the ceiling, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw nothing.
He let out a hysterical chuckle at his own foolishness, patting the damp of his back away with his shirt. He was behaving erratically. The guard had already confirmed that no one had visited him tonight. He was probably just tired.
Screee…
Sun Yushu froze. He listened, his breath quickening.
For a moment, there was nothing; then, again–
Screee…
His eyes darted to his window. Something was unhinging his windows.
Screee…
He dashed to the window and yanked the curtains apart.
The night sky greeted him, umbrous and foreboding.
Sun Yushu stumbled backward, fearful of the still shadows and what they hid. The quiet that had returned to his apartment taunted him; he felt like a child, frightened by imaginary sounds and darkness, but he could not slow his breaths. His nerves were on fire, waiting for the next sound, the next shift in the lull. He did not have to wait long.
Knockknockknockknockknockknockknockknock
He flung the door open with a slam.
There was nobody there.
Sun Yushu let out a sigh. He stepped back into his apartment, about to close the door, but then something caught his eye.
He almost screamed.
A pair of human eyes, dangling by the sinewy thready of their nerves, hung over the peephole of his door, staring straight at him.
Sun Yushu’s legs gave way beneath him, and he fell to his knees. He choked on gasps of air, tears streaming down his face. The eyes’ pupils followed him, watching his trembling body on the ground in silence.
Right then, Sun Yushu’s phone rang.
Somehow, he found the presence of mind to answer the call. It was from his colleague. Before Sun Yushu could utter a word, his coworker broke the horrible news: Liang Jianan had been found dead.
Instantly, Sun Yushu was struck dumb.
Liang Jianan had been a veteran forensics doctor who had worked in the same lab as him. He had been the one who had brought Sun Yushu into the industry, and had mentored him like a father. In all his thirty years of work, Liang Jianan had never once had an altercation with his peers, and was seen as a pleasant and patient man by all who had known him. He and Sun Yushu had been working on the post-mortems for the victims of the Tongjian Bridge tragedy together, so Liang Jianan had been staying under company accommodation for the past month.
His body had been found in the public bathroom of his accommodation with his eyes gouged out. All his killer had left of them were a pair of bleeding eye sockets.
At this moment, a bloody pair of eyeballs, connected to each other by nerves, were found hanging over Sun Yushu’s peephole!
Thinking back to the red thing blocking the peephole before this moment… Sun Yushu began having difficulty breathing. His palms were sweating, and he had chills all over his body.
Sun Yushu no longer dared to stay home alone — he ran into the lift with cold limbs without closing his door. He wanted to escape from his apartment as soon as possible.
Sun Yushu was about to exhale while watching the lift doors close. At this very moment, he heard “Ka! Ka!” from outside the lift.
Sun Yushu’s eyes widened in fear. He watched half an arm squeeze through the lift doors, followed by one shoeless foot, and the face of a woman covered in black hair. It was a pale, calm face, and her eyes were staring at Sun Yushu coldly in the lift.
It’s her!
It’s that woman!
Sun Yushu recognized this face. Half a month ago, she was lying on his operation table; she was a swollen body.
However, at this moment, the dead came back to life.
She was clinging onto Sun Yushu.
Are you… here to kill me as well? Did you kill my mentor!
Sun Yushu shouted “Why!” in desperation.
The woman was still trying her best to squeeze herself into the lift — however, before she could get herself through the doors, the lift began moving down. She was pushed out of the lift through the doors.
Sun Yushu was absolutely terrified. He did not dare to go home again. It was as if he was a lifeless body walking through any crowded places.
He only felt slightly relieved when he was in these places.
He walked towards Wen Zhuo Road during the day.
He followed people to the entrance of housing areas at night and sat there.
It was the case until!
He received a call from home saying that the mother of the girl he was set up with was with his family at that moment!
That was followed by what had happened at the entrance of Fang Zheng’s housing area.
Sun Yushu was just a normal forensic doctor — he did not know much about the Tongjiang Bridge.
He was nowhere near the secrets.
Fang Zheng was a little disappointed. He had to go to Sun Yushu’s parents’ place to kill that ‘clingy’ female ghost before anything else.