Completely soaked, Xuan Wen bore the weight of Gao Ming on her shoulder as they made their laborious journey through the slippery, mud-caked path. The darkness of the night seed unending before them.
“Should I take over and carry you instead?” Gao Ming offered.
“We’re almost at our destination,” Xuan Wen reassured.
The relentless rain whipped against their figures, making them appear almost trivial against the backdrop of the vast, enveloping night. The light they carried trembled in their grasp, its faint glow threatening to extinguish at any mont under the onslaught of the downpour.
Eventually, Xuan Wen maneuvered an electric scooter from its hiding spot behind a tree located at a crossroad. Gesturing to the rear seat, she encouraged Gao Ming, “Co on, quickly!”
Mounting the scooter, Gao Ming exclaid, “I never imagined you’d escort ho in this manner.” Holding onto the scooter’s backrest firmly, he asked curiously, “Do people of the shadow world also use electric scooters for transportation?”
Xuan Wen, spitting out the rain that had filled her mouth, explained while fixing her gaze on Gao Ming, “The main roads are inaccessible; larger vehicles can’t make it through.” She then instructed, “Hand over the raincoat and tuck yourself into the back.”
“Alright, as you wish,” Gao Ming complied.
After they exchanged raincoats, Gao Ming childishly lifted the back of his raincoat over his head for extra cover.
“You’re getting soaked at the back,” Xuan Wen observed.
“I’m painfully aware of it!” Gao Ming retorted.
As they navigated, the scooter bumped and jerked along the shadow-enshrouded outskirts and into a city devoid of light.
The city appeared lifeless and deserted as if they were the sole survivors in a post-apocalyptic world.
Reaching Li Jing Apartnt around midnight, Xuan Wen dropped off Gao Ming, looking utterly exhausted as though the journey had sapped half her life force.
“Why don’t you co upstairs? I can lend you so clean clothes,” Gao Ming suggested, grasping Xuan Wen’s arm. “My place is empty at the mont, but my parents might return later with a surplus of cake, more than I can handle alone.”
“Is this your first ti inviting a mber of the opposite sex over? What a feeble attempt at an invitation,” Xuan Wen quipped, shrugging off Gao Ming’s hand. She then redonned her muddy raincoat and climbed back onto the scooter.
As Xuan Wen prepared to depart, Gao Ming called out hastily, “Xuan Wen!”
“What’s the matter?” she inquired.
“Don’t proceed with your plan to eliminate the other eight female characters in the ga,” Gao Ming implored.
Xuan Wen turned slowly, her usually hidden intentions now exposed, “I’m just heading ho.”
Gao Ming, grasping the rear of the scooter, looked intently into Xuan Wen’s eyes and warned, “Those actions will inflict scars on you that won’t ever heal. They’ll haunt you for the rest of your life, and eventually, they will be the cause of your demise!”
Seeing Gao Ming’s reluctance to let go, Xuan Wen’s expression shifted, and she asked, “Why does it matter to you?”
Standing resolutely in the torrential rain, Gao Ming spoke with sincerity, “If it’s within my power, I care about you.”
Silent for a mont, Xuan Wen then accelerated away into the night, mud splattering in her wake.
Gao Ming tried to pursue but soon realized his physical weakness prevented him from keeping pace.
“I hope you, too, can alter your destiny; you’re the heroine of your own story,” he murmured to himself.
With these final words, Gao Ming turned back towards the Li Jing Apartnt complex, aware he still had an important task to attend to.
Bursting into his ho, he bypassed the usual routine of changing clothes and instead beelined straight for the dicine box hidden beneath a cabinet, hastily concocting so dication.
Not long afterward, the doorbell echoed through the house, prompting Gao Ming to rush to greet his visitors.
“Happy Birthday!” rang out the cheerful voices.
As Gao Ming welcod his parents into the living room, the space was enveloped in a cozy ambiance, accentuated by the pale-yellow tablecloth under the warm lighting. His father, clad in a sharp suit, stood tall and distinguished, while his mother, donning a white blouse paired with jeans, exuded a gentle yet capable deanor.
“Welco ho,” Gao Ming greeted them, a whirlwind of emotions swirling within him. Unlike before, he didn’t feel any fear or apprehension.
mories of being trapped by a ghost and the sheer hopelessness that accompanied it surfaced in his mind. It was these very parents, albeit creations of the shadow world and not his real parents, who had rescued him. Strangely, they seed to embody fragnts of his actual parents’ essence.
He pondered, “If this weren’t just a ga, but a real experience… If my existence has been a source of pain and despair for my parents… then perhaps…”
Amidst these thoughts, Gao Ming changed into fresh clothes, all while soaking in the fleeting happiness of his parents’ chatter, much like the epheral nature of soap bubbles, delicate and dreamlike, bursting upon re contact.
He yearned to ask them questions, but they resembled chanical dolls, programd for specific actions and responses.
The evening progressed with mundane activities: washing hands, changing clothes, preparing dishes, unveiling the cake, and lighting candles. But then, as if on cue, the lights in the house abruptly shut off, casting everything into darkness.
In this eerie gloom, his parents’ faces began to warp grotesquely. The candlelight flickered, illuminating their increasingly distorted features.
Gao Ming didn’t extinguish the candle. Instead, he faced his slowly advancing parents and inquired earnestly, “Are you truly my mom and dad? Even if there’s a sliver of their emotions in you, I apologize for my past actions. I’m willing to accept you as family and stay here. All I ask is for you to tell the truth.”
Their once-gentle faces now twisted into sothing monstrous, their understanding seemingly incapable of processing Gao Ming’s question. Their smiles grew unnerving and sinister, hinting at impending violence if Gao Ming failed to adhere to the script of making a wish and blowing out the candle.
“Did the shadow world’s monsters transform into my parents, or did my parents beco monsters at the hands of the shadow world?” Gao Ming pondered, sensing the looming threat.
His heartbeat escalated, reminiscent of a torture chamber filled with instrunts of agony and demise.
Blood-soaked mories beckoned him as the doors of this taphorical chamber creaked open. Behind him materialized a massive, ghostly entity with eight arms and four faces, terrifying yet distinct in its resemblance to the Flesh Immortal’s statue.
Receiving no response, Gao Ming sighed, “I wish for everyone’s safety and happiness.”
As if by magic, the lights flickered back on, revealing his parents sitting at the dining table, calm and normal as if the nightmarish episode had been nothing but a fignt of imagination.
As Gao Ming gazed at the solitary candle flickering atop the cake, his parents nonchalantly remarked, “Wishes won’t co true if you say them out loud. Just think them in your heart next ti.” At the sa ti, they began to partake in their al.
Rising slowly from his seat, Gao Ming’s mind was elsewhere. He was acutely aware that in just a few hours, Brother Zhao Xi would succumb to despair and choose suicide. Ti was of the essence for Gao Ming to escape the shadow world and return to the reality he knew before this impending tragedy unfolded.
“I know you both care for deeply, but I’m pressed for ti right now,” Gao Ming spoke to his parents, his voice tinged with a mix of urgency and sadness.
Amidst this tense atmosphere, a subtle scent of at perated the air, and the lights in the house began to flicker uncertainly. Gao Ming understood that the power his parents wielded in this realm was limited, yet they seed indomitable in their eerie persistence.
Resolutely, Gao Ming restrained these strange, altered versions of his parents, confining them to the bedroom. He then thodically repeated this process upon opening the living room door.
With each iteration, the number of candles adorning the cake increntally increased. The ga of fostering familial bonds, which previously took three days to complete, was now accomplished in a re three hours.
Finally, the sound-activated light in the stairwell flickered to life, banishing the encroaching shadows and causing his parents to vanish, leaving behind only a morial photo on the bedroom floor.
Gao Ming studied the familiar photo, feeling a surreal detachnt. He read the inscription on the back once again, “To my dear child: You are an adult at eighteen. From today, you are the new head of the family, and you will have the key to open our ho.”
“Our ho exists in a realm between reality and non-reality… as the head of the family…”
The ssage on the photo slightly echoed the words of the stranger he encountered in the tunnel, yet the underlying anings diverged significantly.
The tunnel stranger seed to imply that Gao Ming’s life was a product of fate, urging him to beco a guardian of the city, leading the living to avert the rise of uncontrollable horrors.
However, the inscription on the photo simply inford Gao Ming of the location of his familial ho, emphasizing his new role as the family’s leader and his newfound autonomy.
Weighing the two ssages, Gao Ming found himself more inclined to trust the words inscribed on the photo.
As the clock chid in the background, Gao Ming slid the photo into his backpack, his resolve firming. “One step at a ti. First, save those who need to be saved, then go after those who deserve retribution!”
The na Situ An flashed ominously in his mind, and a surge of determination filled his eyes, now tinged with bloodshot lines.
“The most dangerous individual must be confronted first.”
Donning his raincoat, Gao Ming hastily gathered the sedatives and other dications before descending the stairs with purpose.
He plunged into the relentless downpour, intent on reaching Building 2 to find Zhao Xi. However, his course abruptly halted when he spotted a familiar silhouette in the courtyard of the apartnt complex.
The figure was stealthily maneuvering, positioning himself outside a first-floor balcony.
Bathed in the pouring rain, Gao Ming watched intently as the individual peered through the heavily rusted security net, fixated on the sleeping woman inside.
Gao Ming’s throat tightened as he observed the stalker’s body language — pupils dilated, fingers quivering with a mix of anticipation and unease.
His mind was swirling with wild, feverish excitent, his fingers clenching the edge of the security net with an intensity that betrayed his inability to control his emotions. This wasn’t his first ti here; in fact, every ti the night skies opened up and the rain poured down, he found himself irresistibly drawn to this very spot.
His eyes were locked onto the cozy and neatly arranged interior of the room, a stark contrast to the dark, chaotic desires swirling within him. An overwhelming urge to shatter this serene tableau consud him, the anticipation of the destruction feeding his growing eagerness.
With deliberate, almost ritualistic movents, he opened his toolkit and carefully extracted the tools of his sinister intent. The pounding rain outside provided a natural cover, muffling the sounds of his preparations. His gaze never wavered from the woman inside the room, his smile twisting into a grotesque representation of joy, increasingly malevolent and unsettling.
“Sleep well, have a good sleep. This should be your last warm night,” he whispered to himself, his voice barely audible above the rain.
“Qi Yan?”
The sudden sound of his na, spoken so close it was as if the speaker was whispering directly into his ear, jolted him. The unexpected intrusion into his private, dark reverie caught him off guard, the unfamiliarity of the voice sending a shock through his already heightened senses.
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