Cardboard boxes were stacked in the innermost shelf of the storage room. When opened, dust rose into the air.
Xin Hexue watched as a tea beetle with two long antennae on its head crawled out of a box and quickly disappeared into the dark space beneath the shelves with a rustle.
This species possessed astonishing vitality and reproduction rate, when you find one in the light, it means the darkness is already overcrowded.
“Ah.” Gu Mifeng pressed his forehead, looking troubled. “I should have listened to Xiao Huang and cleared out all these boxes.”
Xiao Huang was the dropout university student assistant working at the clinic to pay off his debt.
“…” Xin Hexue was silent for a moment.
“In Beidao’s humid and hot environment, they survive and reproduce easily.” He said to Gu Mifeng.
Gu Mifeng found the target box and moved the entire box down from the shelf. “I’m from the north. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve seen cockroaches this big.”
In the Big World, there was no strict north-south distinction. Highly advanced technology had infinitely reduced the climatic differences and seasonal changes brought by latitude, especially in the Central City. Rainfall here was almost entirely artificial, and the plants in green belts were either 3D projections or modified species that were even more durable than artificial plants.
Gu Mifeng didn’t seem like a local.
Xin Hexue glanced at him sideways.
“What’s wrong?” Gu Mifeng looked at him.
“…Nothing.” Xin Hexue just found him very strange.
Gu Mifeng lifted the lid covering the cardboard box, patting the dust off the layers of documents inside. “You took Tan E’s medical record book?”
Xin Hexue took out the medical record. “Here.”
Gu Mifeng didn’t take it back. Instead, he pulled out a thick diary from the bottom of the box and placed it in Xin Hexue’s hands. It felt heavy and substantial.
“Start reading from July 1988.”
He read quickly, reading almost ten lines at a glance.
Both the handwriting and the content were like mental pollution, and Xin Hexue felt a nauseous urge to vomit.
Gu Mifeng didn’t keep these cardboard boxes to provide a home for all the tea beetles in the Walled City.
After moving into the Walled City, the first question he received was:
[Who was Doctor Eric’s beloved?]
When people in the Walled City disappear, they just disappear; no one would report them missing to the police station.
So all the belongings of the clinic’s previous owner, Eric, were still kept inside, while the door was already plastered with notices for unpaid water and electricity bills.
To solve the question, Gu Mifeng found Eric’s diary in a clinic cabinet.
If you started reading from the diary entries in early July, the first line was about a woman who had just moved back to the Walled City.
He wrote about her long flowing hair, how her long skirt carried the scent of lavender laundry powder when she passed, her skin like a peeled hard-boiled egg under the sun.
When Eric wrote, he didn’t write this woman’s name. His diary used “you” and “I” for reference more often.
It was like a letter from a stranger.
A diary of unrequited love in epistolary form.
[1988/9/10, your husband died in a shipwreck. You must be starving.
You’re sad, right? How I want to hold you as you cry over the bedside.
1988/10/2, that repairman stayed at your place too long. Even though you did nothing, I’m so jealous, so jealous. How could you let a strange man into the bedroom?
1988/11/3, is the gossip troubling you? Are you constantly on edge, afraid someone will stab you behind your back?”
You finally came to see me. This is our first face-to-face communication. You seemed startled by the decor in the consultation room. It’s special, right? I replicated it based on your bedroom. Lying in this identical bed every night feels like you’re sleeping with me.
But to you, I’m just a stranger meeting for the first time.
I refuse to accept it!
If it was just the first meeting, how could I know your every move at home and everything in your house so clearly?]
He was practically a ghost living in Tan E’s home.
He stood coldly in the room, watching Tan E’s every move.
The further Xin Hexue’s read, the more chaotic Eric’s handwriting became. The characters were scribbled, and the writing force penetrated the paper.
Xin Hexue suddenly realized that it was as if these papers were soaked through with water; if you wrung them, they would drip like rain.
The madness and malice hidden between the strokes condensed into droplets, seeping out in a flood.
A large portion of the content was about delusions, stalking, spying… and later it became increasingly unrestrained and explicit.
“When I first moved in, I also found a large quantity of Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate in the medicine cabinet.” Gu Mifeng’s voice pulled Xin Hexue’s mind back.
Surgeries are not carried out in the clinic, and if surgery was needed, you would be referred to an outside hospital.
This was the consensus among all doctors in the Walled City.
Drugs like Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate that are used for surgical anesthesia had no use at all in a clinic.
But besides anesthesia and sedation, they also had hallucinogenic effects. And there was no doubt that they were used in Eric’s hypnotherapy.
This devil was probably both cautious and insane. He didn’t write a single word of this woman’s name in his diary, yet he clearly described his methods, gloating and very pleased with himself.
Several shopping receipts fell out from the diary, for items listed as miniature cameras with foreign names.
The last day recorded in the diary was near the end of 1998.
[You invited me to your home for hypnotherapy. My dear, I am so happy.]
And there, everything ended.
Eric disappeared, Tan E died, and rumors ran rampant.
The entire diary was practically a criminal record. If one looked further back, they would find Tan E wasn’t the first; she just happened to be the last.
[Who was Doctor Eric’s beloved?]
This was the answer to the question Gu Mifeng had received.
Generally, for someone who had been in love multiple times, the lovers who left the deepest impression were the first love and the last one, as the brain’s memory capacity is limited.
Even though this was a crime, not a romance, the first and the last victim inevitably leave the deepest impression on the perpetrator.
The current situation was that this missing doctor was hiding in Room 511.
“But, how did you know Eric was hiding in your home?”
Gu Mifeng leaned against the shelf.
“The day I moved into the Walled City, when the landlord gave the keys to Zhou Liao, he said Room 511 had been vacant for nearly two years.”
“We spent an afternoon hiring people to throw out all the furniture, moved in new home furnishings, and decorated it cleanly and completely, except for one thing.”
The next morning after waking up, Xin Hexue discovered they had missed the ceiling during cleaning. In the center of the bedroom ceiling, a large patch of the white coating had peeled off, and a messy bundle of wires were hanging down.
It looked as if an electrical appliance had once been suspended there.
Before Zhou Liao went out, he reminded him to remember to find someone to re-apply putty and finish the ceiling.
And the old woman from the dessert shop said Tan E was hit by a falling ceiling fan while asleep, fell into a coma, and died from excessive blood loss.
When Xin Hexue heard that story, he deduced they were living in a murder house.
The unscrupulous landlord had even hidden the truth and didn’t offer any rent reduction.
Lei Nianqiao reminded him that when he fell asleep, something wearing white clothes hung down from the ceiling, with eyes covering its feet. The white clothes could be a white dress, or it could be a white lab coat.
Usually, strange beings have characteristics related to their life. After Mingzhu became a strange being, almost everyone within the strange domain appeared as animals in her perception. When Lei Nianqiao jumped from the building, she got stuck in a tree, and after transforming into a ghost, her neck could stretch exaggeratedly like a rubber band. And the strange being in his home, from the sound of it, had many eyes.
Eyes, in a way, symbolized “spying.”
Therefore, Xin Hexue leaned towards the thing in his room being Eric, not Tan E.
He loaded ammunition into his pistol.
Also holstered on his thigh was a dagger.
“Let’s go.”
Xin Hexue said.
Gu Mifeng asked, “Where are we going?”
“To have an affair.”
Xin Hexue glanced at the night sky outside the window, the corners of his eyes curving slightly as he gave Gu Mifeng a fox-like look.
“He Qinghong isn’t around tonight.”
Gu Mifeng’s throat felt dry, and his Adam’s apple rolled.
……….
The house was silent and empty, as peaceful as the blue-toned night sky.
Suddenly, hot panting sounds rang out, and someone slammed against the door. The sudden noise shattered the quiet, like a football hitting glass.
Their kisses were inseparable, and a large hand slid down from the spine to the waist.
“We’re still outside, don’t be so impatient.” A soft hoarse voice escaped from between lips and tongue, whispering lowly, “Open the door first.”
The voices were intermittent, and the rustling sound of clothing was subtle and intermittent. Someone fumbled through a keychain for the right key anxiously, inserted it into the lock and successfully opened the door.
“Click.”
The light inside the house turned on, spilling into the corridor. Soon, as the door closed, the corridor returned to darkness, and the Room 511 sign above grew lonely.
Inside the door, however, it was heated like oil boiling over.
Breaths intertwined.
Black hair tangled like clouds, the usually light pink lips pressed into a gorgeous red, and there was a faint tooth mark on the chin.
Gu Mifeng was honest; he really was a virgin with a purity score of full marks, who hadn’t even held hands with another eligible human, let alone kissed. So he unsurprisingly scored zero in the matter of kissing.
He either recklessly kissed Xin Hexue’s philtrum right away, or bumped into his teeth.
Xin Hexue had to spend some time rehearsing, to make their act more realistic, and not let the strange being watch a joke.
He opened his eyes slightly, his eyes shimmering with moisture as he secretly scanned the room.
There was nothing unusual, as if the thing wasn’t here.
In this short moment, Gu Mifeng’s hand had almost slipped beneath the hem of the cheongsam, his palm lines heated by body temperature. Xin Hexue’s skin was white and soft, so sensitive that a slight rub would bring a flush.
“Go…go to the couch.”
Xin Hexue exhaled, pushing against his chest.
“On the couch? So exciting.” Gu Mifeng took a deep breath to calm his heartbeat, but the cold fragrance haunting his nostrils captivated him, “Xin Hexue, this is my first time.”
“Doctor Gu, this is what you should do.”
He pushed Gu Mifeng onto the sofa, straddling the man’s tense waist and abdomen. This area of muscle was lean and hard, and if Xin Hexue sat back further, it was frighteningly hot.
With a slight frown, Xin Hexue had no extra patience and directly pulled off the man’s troublesome tie.
The buttons on the diagonal front of his cheongsam had already been unfastened by Gu Mifeng during the kiss. Now, a section was exposed to the light, revealing beautiful collarbones, skin so fair and delicate, and the hollow of a collarbone holding a pool of pink.
“What about the child?”
Gu Mifeng pressed against his waist.
“…..Don’t worry about it.”
He seemed impatient, and his ears were tinged with unbearable sensuality.
Their shadows on the floor entangled like swans necking.
Passion mounted, layer upon layer.
“….Hmm!”
Suddenly, Gu Mifeng raised his hand, and a small syringe needle pierced the side of Xin Hexue’s neck. Cold medication flowed into his bloodstream.
The young man slumped softly onto Gu Mifeng, breathing rapidly.
Gu Mifeng brushed through the soft hair at the back of Xin Hexue’s head, “Alright, it will be over soon.”
The sound of breathing grew increasingly rapid and heavier.
But this sound didn’t come from either of them.
Providing stimulating content sufficient enough to satisfy the desire to peep was a bit like putting bait on a fishing hook; the fish would bite eventually.
“Mother…hungry…”
The prompt was correct.
Xin Hexue suddenly propped himself up, held the gleaming blade high, and stabbed down with air-splitting speed. Gu Mifeng tilted his head slightly, the dagger just missing him and piercing into the sofa below.
“Ah!”
A sharp scream erupted from under the sofa.
Gu Mifeng immediately rolled aside. Xin Hexue followed the blade’s momentum and broke through as if splitting bamboo, tearing a large gash across the sofa’s surface.
The strange being exposed under the fluorescent light made his breath stagnant.
Xin Hexue froze for a moment, then was pulled back by a strong force from behind.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
A series of bullets shot into the eyeballs one after another. The hit eyeballs exploded like plump grapes, juices splattering everywhere.
But the firepower was far from enough; it had far too many eyes, as many as its thousand legs.
This was a giant centipede with a half-human form, like the centaurs often seen in animations. But the horse part was replaced with a millipede, which was quite fitting.
Each walking leg was covered in tumor-like eyeballs.
It was precisely these walking legs that allowed it to crawl on the ceiling and take photo after photo.
It was coiled up inside the sofa, the original stuffing having been hollowed out by it.
Losing just a few eyes was simply an insignificant loss.
The gunshots agitated it. The centipede raised its upper body upright like a cobra hearing a flute.
It was still wearing the white lab coat from its lifetime, which was disgusting enough.
The centipede was clearly furious now.
Xin Hexue was its new prey. How dare this person!
How dare he occupy its clinic, how dare he learn its tricks, and mate with its prey!
It pounced swiftly, wrestling and tangling with Gu Mifeng, its thousand legs constantly tightening, as if trying to crush him to death.
Its head, now just a dry, thin layer of skin, was smashed sideways by Gu Mifeng’s punch.
Thanks to the small dose of sedative Gu Mifeng had just injected, Xin Hexue managed not to have a panic attack.
But the man and the centipede were fighting too close. Xin Hexue gripped the gun with both hands, his eyes constantly shifting with their movements, and adjusting his aim.
There was no way he could guarantee that he wouldn’t accidentally hit Gu Mifeng.
Suddenly, the centipede paused, giving up on this tough nut to crack.
It gathered strength in its thousand legs and pounced towards Xin Hexue.
Against the fluorescent light, it cast a large, deformed shadow.
“Mother…!”
Xin Hexue’s shadow suddenly detached from his feet, its form gathering like a pool of mud, then, in an instant, molded into a new shape.
At the critical moment, a black dog surged up along the ground, pouncing and biting the centipede at the waist.
Sharp teeth completely pierced through the part where the human body connected to the centipede.
Although shaped from shadow, drool dripped from the black dog’s sharp teeth, and regardless of its composition, the centipede shrieked and struggled, flapping like a fish out of water.
“Spare me! Spare me!”
At the final moment, the centipede’s life flashed before its eyes like a revolving lantern. Finally, its eyes fixed on Xin Hexue, and mistaking him for another person, screamed in agony, “Damn woman, you actually dared to drug my drink!”
The feeling of being watched, the rape disguised as hypnotherapy, the false accusations posted on the bulletin board… Under long-term mental torture, the woman gradually became neurotic, but she didn’t take a single one of the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed. In the end, they all became her weapons to exact revenge.
Xin Hexue walked into the bedroom. The ceiling hadn’t been re-plastered by a worker yet.
Perhaps Tan E’s mental state had deteriorated to the extreme after the rape, or perhaps she feared the incident would be exposed. In the end, she chose to hang herself.
Under the weight of gravity, a screw loosened, and that was how the three-bladed ceiling fan fell and shattered.
She had killed her doctor in return.
This was Tan E’s secret.
His identity card grew warm; his answer was correct.
“How did you guess Eric was hiding under the sofa?”
Gu Mifeng stood by the bedroom doorframe.
Xin Hexue shook his head, “I didn’t guess; I was sure it would be under the sofa.”
The peeper was a strange being with no fixed abode. According to Lei Nianqiao, it “clung outside the window, crawled into the bathroom, hid under the bed, squeezed its body into the closet.” It would appear anywhere that could satisfy its peeping desire.
“What a pity.” Gu Mifeng sighed. His clothes were stained with the sticky fluid from the burst centipede eyeballs, and his elegant air was gone. “This was supposed to be a wonderful night. I even picked out ribbed condoms.”
“By the way, what about this thing?” Gu Mifeng tilted his head, gesturing for Xin Hexue to look towards the living room, “I mean, it looks like my stepson is about to eat it.”
He had completely placed himself in the stepfather role, and his stepson was a black dog that would eat garbage everywhere.
Xin Hexue frowned and quickly stepped past Gu Mifeng to walk out.
The situation wasn’t as terrifying as Gu Mifeng made it sound, but the black dog was indeed drooling over the centipede’s corpse.
The little monster remembered to let its mother eat first.
It carried the prey in its mouth, came to Xin Hexue’s feet, and wagged its tail incessantly.
“Mother….ear…”
From some of its mother’s memory fragments, it had seen an image that its mother might like, so it molded itself into this shape.
Xin Hexue stared at the little monster for a moment.
Was Zhou Liao also a dog?
This conjecture made his eyelid twitch.
The black dog before him had erect ears, and it looked somewhat like a jackal.
It made Xin Hexue think inexplicably of Seto-Anubis.
“No, I won’t eat it.”
Xin Hexue refused.
The little monster did not understand why Mother wasn’t eating. Mother usually ate some unpalatable food that was also not nutritious, which really left it very malnourished. It had to exert a lot of effort to restrain itself, even forcing itself into dormancy, just to suppress the desire to devour the organs inside Mother’s body.
It knew it couldn’t eat them. If it ate them, Mother would get hurt.
To have more strength to protect Mother and store energy, the little monster ate heartily. Each bursting eyeball was like a crispy milk tea pearl in its mouth.
Xin Hexue felt a surge of warm heat in his lower abdomen, and a feeling of fullness came from that new organ called the “uterus.”
“Its main body is still in my belly,” Xin Hexue said.
Gu Mifeng observed the shadow dog devouring food. “Is this an ability that allows it to manifest externally?”
Xin Hexue: “I’m not sure.”
No matter what, this dog son still had its uses.
Gu Mifeng lay on the ground, teasing the dog, “Woof, woof woof?”
Unable to stand the sight, Xin Hexue asked, “What are you doing?”
Gu Mifeng pointed at the black dog. “I’m building a rapport with it. Since ancient times, they say it’s hard to be a stepmother. In this new era, it’s the same for a stepfather.”
“Don’t worry, for the harmony of our family, I will definitely make the child accept me,” he declared righteously.
The remaining corpse on the floor was now only human-shaped. The little monster had stopped, perhaps thinking the dried out corpse with only a layer of skin left wasn’t tasty, so it had only eaten the juicy and delicious eyeballs.
“Shh.” Xin Hexue quietly raised his index finger.
Steady footsteps came from outside the corridor.
He Qinghong was back.
His eyes flickered. He grabbed Gu Mifeng by the collar, lifted him, pushed him into the room with a backhand motion, and said in a low voice, “Hide.”
Gu Mifeng grumbled internally, dissatisfied, “Why? Am I so unwelcome?”
Wait, no.
He Qinghong was the mistress, while he was the man Xin Hexue was having a secret affair with tonight. The ancient saying goes: a husband is not as good as a lover, and a lover is not as good as the illicit lover.
So He Qinghong was inferior to him, that was one victory. He had secured one win, that was the second victory. So,if the victories are multiplied continuously, he has won in a great triumph.
Gu Mifeng, feeling both gloomy and triumphant, hid under the bed.
However, smelling the enemy’s scent, the black dog started barking at the door. “Woof woof woof!”
The silly child, who initially kept saying “Mother is hungry” and “Mother eat,” had now learned a new phrase: woof.
Xin Hexue patted the black dog’s head and warned in a low voice, “Xiao Hei, go back.”
The black dog whimpered, then dispersed again into a shadow, returning to the soles of Xin Hexue’s feet.
When the barking started, the footsteps in the corridor paused for a moment before continuing forward.
He Qinghong knocked on the door. “Xin Hexue?”
