Xin Hexue lay curled up against him,his warm body rising and falling with each breath.
Zhou Liao felt like he was being treated as a warm, thick blanket.
But obviously, he was also happy to be such a blanket. He carefully placed his hands on Xin Hexue and patted him gently. He didn’t know what Xin Hexue had experienced outside. Perhaps for his wife, he only needed to be a nice, clean blanket that smelled like it had been sun-dried…that was enough.
To provide a safe corner for the tired little cat.
They listened to each other’s heartbeats and remained motionless for a long time.
After some thought, Zhou Liao still felt uneasy. He fumbled for the phone on the bedside table and typed rapidly.
[Are you very short on money? Are you not recovering well? Was the three thousand last time not enough?]
He handed the phone to Xin Hexue to see.
Xin Hexue lifted his eyelashes lazily, glanced at him, grabbed Zhou Liao’s phone, and rolled over.
When he slept on his side, his waist curled up slightly, lying on Zhou Liao’s bed like a cute comma.
“Hmm… no signal.”
He muttered sullenly.
—The signal in the village is unstable. Sometimes there is, sometimes there’s not even one bar.
Zhou Liao explained, but his painstaking hand signs were pushed away by Xin Hexue. “Don’t bother me.”
Zhou Liao obediently stopped moving.
Xin Hexue turned on his phone and, naturally entered a string of unlock codes. Satisfied to find it was his own birthday, he then clicked on the communication app on the desktop, like a wife checking up on her husband.
Oh, in fact, he had indeed lived with Zhou Liao under the name of husband and wife for a period of time. So what did it matter if he checked this deadbeat husband’s phone now?
According to his rules, not only Zhou Liao, but also Zhou Liao’s phone, every egg laid by the hens in Zhou Liao’s house, all had to be counted into his property.
He checked the message logs on Zhou Liao’s phone, but to his surprise, Zhou Liao’s QQ app had only one contact.
The message history was so short you could see the top at a glance.
[Verification Message: I am Xin Hexue.]
[You have accepted the friend request from [Universe’s No.1 Little Snow Cat ^ ^].]
[You are now friends, let’s start chatting!]
[Universe’s No.1 Little Snow Cat ^ ^]: Send money, three thousand.
[Universe’s No.1 Little White Cat ^ ^]: Account number is *********.
[Zhou Liao: Are you really Xin Hexue?]
[Universe’s No.1 Little Snow Cat ^ ^]: Less nonsense, transfer quickly.
[Zhou Liao: The money has been transferred.]
[Zhou Liao: Where are you?]
[Zhou Liao: Do you urgently need money recently? What happened?]
[Universe’s No.1 Little Snow Cat ^ ^]: I’m getting an abortion. The child isn’t yours.
[Universe’s No.1 Little White Cat ^ ^]: Don’t bother me, I’ll block you if you message again.
“You believed it just like that?”
Xin Hexue shook the phone at Zhou Liao.
Just one sentence, “I am Xin Hexue, send money”?
No wonder he was marked as the honest person scammed out of three thousand in an online relationship.
But strangely, based on his understanding of himself, he would neither set his own nickname as Universe’s Number One Little Snow Cat, nor would he give Zhou Liao such a long remark like “Honest man I met online, tricked him out of three thousand for an abortion (No education, not considering)
Although he approved of the text within the brackets.
But it was impossible that someone was impersonating him, because this account was indeed his.
[I don’t understand.]
Zhou Liao shook his head.
[I’ve been dreaming constantly since I returned to Nanwan Village. I dream of you, and of me.] His sign language slowed down, as if carefully recalling the dream’s content. [I dreamt you were my… wife.]
[In the dream, I wasn’t a student at Beidao University, but a gunman who made a living by killing.]
[I brought you back here with me.]
[But this place wasn’t Nanwan Village, it was a walled city formed by tall buildings. We lived in room 511 of one building.]
[Later, I went out on a job, fell into the sea from a boat, and when I woke from the dream, I was back in Nanwan Village.]
As Zhou Liao explained more about the dream, Xin Hexue’s expression gradually became solemn.
For Zhou Liao, what happened in the other worldline was a dream?
And this side was reality?
[The dream was very real. For a while, I couldn’t tell them apart. I wanted to find you. Then I dialed the phone number of a colleague from the dream.]
It was the landline number of He Qinghong’s home.
Because Xin Hexue and Zhou Liao’s room 511 didn’t have a phone installed yet.
[I heard your voice on the other end of the phone.]
Zhou Liao was very happy.
He called He Qinghong by phone with the intention of asking him to help find his wife in case the person was not a dream but actually existed.
But unexpectedly, it was his own wife who answered the phone. How lucky.
“…”
Xin Hexue looked at him with a deep gaze.
Zhou Liao didn’t understand, but the wife from his dream now only left him a solitary, cold back.
“I’m leaving.”
Zhou Liao raised his hand in a daze and waved at his wife’s retreating back.
With a “creak,” Xin Hexue closed the door with his back hand.
………
After leaving Zhou Liao’s room, Xin Hexue sighed softly, leaned against the wall, and lowered his eyes in thought.
He was sure this Zhou Liao was the Zhou Liao he knew.
But why did Zhou Liao think Nanwan Walled City was a dream?
Zhou Liao remembered the events of Nanwan Walled City and also had memories of being a student at Beidao University. Was this the effect of the two worldlines merging?
Xin Hexue’s thoughts were chaotic. He was even dazed and disoriented for a moment, wondering if perhaps he had dreamed about Nanwan Walled City, then woke up on a bus in a town and was told they were going to Nanwan Village.
Bzzzt…
A faint electric current sound passed through. The fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered at a low frequency and suddenly went out.
Zhou Liao had mentioned on the way that water and power outages happened here often. Water outages weren’t a big deal, they wouldn’t delay showers since they still had a firewood stove, and hot water was boiled from well water drawn from the yard.
But once the power went out…
The entire corridor was plunged into darkness, so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
When he went to shower earlier, Xin Hexue had left his phone in the room, so he had no means of illumination.
Fortunately, his memory was good. He could quickly memorize the layout after entering a new environment. Finding his way back to his room in the dark wasn’t a big problem.
But he wasn’t sure if there were any obstacles on the way, so he walked slowly, his footsteps echoing faintly in the corridor.
“Tap… tap… tap…”
The night was quiet. Since he could only hear his own footsteps, it made his heart inexplicably uneasy.
Xin Hexue pursed his lips slightly, realizing what was wrong.
It was too quiet.
There were ten people living in this old house, yet when the power went out, no one shouted. Just one loud yell would be heard throughout the entire old house, but no one made a sound.
He couldn’t help but quicken his pace.
The large old house located at the edge of the village and near the sea felt like it had moisture seeping indoors. The red bricks showed branch-like damp stains, and the air carried a musty smell mixed with dust.
He had glanced outside when he came out of the shower room earlier. A heavy fog had risen at night, so thick he couldn’t even see the outline of the mango tree at the neighbor’s house.
Wait…
Xin Hexue remembered.
Was the courtyard gate locked?
“Xin Hexue.”
In the darkness, someone called his name from behind.
A chill ran down his spine. Perhaps it was a symptom of his paranoia, but Xin Hexue couldn’t control the multitude of strange and supernatural associations that came to mind.
Many folk tales mentioned that living people have two Yang Fire Lamps on their shoulders, which were manifestations of the body’s external Yang energy.
These two lamps are very important when walking at night. When a person suddenly turns their head, the movement of the shoulders can extinguish the lamps.
Therefore, when walking at night, if someone calls your full name, you must never turn your head.
If you turn your head and the lamps go out, ghosts will take the opportunity to climb onto your back.
“Xin Hexue.”
He stood still in place, his nails almost digging into his palms to maintain composure. Xin Hexue should have asked at the pharmacy in town if they had any sedative medications.
Cold water droplets from his still-damp hair dripped into his collar.
Xin Hexue took a deep breath and, with a movement that involved turning his entire body simultaneously, slowly turned around. It was as if he really had two Yang Fire Lamps on his shoulders and had to avoid turning his head alone and accidentally extinguishing them.
A flame suddenly “whooshed” up.
Matsukawa Masato blew out the match he had just used to light the brass wall lamp.
Golden-red firelight flickered warmly, and suddenly, all the noisy sounds from the house rushed into Xin Hexue’s ears.
“Why is the power out!!! I was halfway through washing my hair! Help…”
“I brought a flashlight in my suitcase, wait, I’ll get it for you!”
Shouts and running footsteps came from the front yard, chaotic and noisy.
“What’s wrong? Did I scare you?” Matsukawa Masato asked worriedly, explaining gently, “I just discovered the power was out. I went to ask Senior Zhou Liao for matches. I heard your footsteps in the corridor and called you, but you didn’t seem to hear.”
Xin Hexue shook his head and instead posed a question to him: “Is the courtyard gate locked? It’s almost nine.”
Matsukawa Masato: “I’ll go check.”
He handed the matchbox in his hand to Xin Hexue. “There are several brass lamps along the corridor, and also in everyone’s rooms. It’s better to light them when the power is out.”
“Mm.”
Xin Hexue tilted his head slightly, watching Matsukawa Masato’s retreating back.
His gaze swept downward. The corridor had wooden floorboards. Matsukawa Masato was only wearing socks, making his footsteps silent.
No wonder he hadn’t heard a second set of footsteps in the corridor earlier.
………
After a dreamless night, Xin Hexue woke up to find himself drenched in sweat.
Perhaps he had covered his head with the blanket. The climate here made the nights humid and hot, lowering sleep quality. There was an old-fashioned standing fan with green blades in the room, but because of the power outage, it couldn’t be used.
“Ah!”
A scream rang out.
Xin Hexue abruptly sat up in bed, hastily changed clothes, and tossed his white nightgown onto the bed.
He quickly finished dressing, but his body stiffened the moment he opened the door.
The scream of the female student with glasses had attracted everyone, and they all looked toward Xin Hexue’s doorway.
The smiling sunny faces of the dolls were all too familiar. One, two, three…
The white porcelain dolls were lined up in a neat formation, standing at his doorway.
………
They now stood on the courtyard wall.
They had moved from Xin Hexue’s doorway to the courtyard wall. No one had moved them, they just reappeared suddenly on their own.
Beads of sweat rolled down from the village chief’s graying temples.
“Why are there so many?”
The muscles on his aged face twitched strangely, making his mustache quiver.
“Village Chief, is there any way to stop these things from following us?” Xing Ming frowned, “They’re really creepy.”
The trembling village chief leaned on his cane and distributed small paper cut-out figurines to them.
Each small paper figurine had the corresponding name of the teacher or student written on the back. He had asked Teacher Zhang for the list last night.
“These wild children have no parents and want to find parents for themselves. They like single-child families. If you already have a child, they won’t harass you.”
The village chief said as he finished distributing these small paper figurines.
“Drip a drop of blood onto your own small paper figurine. Treat these paper dolls as your own children.” He urged and muttered. “You must treat them as your own, satisfy the child’s needs, protect the child from water, fire, and high places, ensure they don’t die young, stay safe and healthy…”
“They will also protect their parents, keeping them away from the white porcelain evil spirits.”
The village chief took out a case of silver needles from his pocket. Before everyone could react, he had already pricked each person’s little finger, one by one.
Crimson blood dripped onto the paper figures.
Xin Hexue frowned. He saw that after soaking with blood, the paper figurines tremblingly stood up, moved their paper limbs, and just like the mud droplets flung by Nüwa turning into humans, began familiarizing themselves with their limbs, jumped to the ground, and walked unsteadily, swaying left and right.
After getting familiar, they started pushing and shoving each other, emitting crisp giggles.
“Holy shit, is this real or fake? Am I seeing things?!”
Someone rubbed their eyes, trying to confirm it wasn’t a hallucination from drinking fake alcohol.
“When parents love their children, the children will love you too.”
The village chief looked at them with his dark eyes.
“Ah!”
Zhu Jiyue cried out in pain as her paper doll bit her. Blood seeped from the web between her thumb and index finger. If she hadn’t slapped the paper doll away in time, it would have bitten off a piece of her flesh.
Her doll laughed and ran away.
Luo Liangming wasn’t as lucky. A small piece of flesh on his arm was directly torn off by his paper doll. Meanwhile, his doll grew a bit larger at a speed visible to the naked eye, and one hand grew a layer of skin.
It was a really abrupt and eerie sight. The rest of its body was still paper, only covered with a little human skin, like a stitched-together doll.
Its dark hollow eyes widened, and it pointed at Luo Liangming, laughing so hard it collapsed backwards.
“You…!”
Even the good-tempered Luo Liangming was provoked into chasing it.
Xing Ming reacted, his anger flaring. He rushed up to the village chief. Only the traditional virtue of respecting the elderly stopped him from grabbing the old man by the collar and lifting him up. “What kind of idea is this?! Do these look like normal paper dolls?”
“Ahem, ahem, ahem…”
The old village chief suddenly started coughing violently, as if his lungs were tearing.
Xing Ming could only assess him hesitantly, suspecting the other party might be trying to scam him.
“Don’t be so impulsive, young man. I’m old and can’t take fright.” The village chief smoothed his chest and said, “I told you, you must treat the paper dolls well. If you want to leave Nanwan Village alive, you must rely on them to resist…”
The white porcelain dolls stood on the courtyard wall, watching intently like tigers eyeing their prey as two paper dolls started fighting.
A strange smile crept across the village chief’s face as his gaze swept over each of the outsiders present.
“Treat the paper dolls well. Remember what I warned you.”
“You should listen to the words of the elderly. If you don’t want to become the ghost mothers of these white porcelain dolls…”
When he mentioned “ghost mother,” the village chief’s moving eyes lingered on Xin Hexue for a moment with a deep look.
However, this outsider wasn’t as frantic about the paper dolls as the others.
Just as the paper doll was about to bite its “mother,” Xiao Hei squeezed into this vessel, taking control of the paper body by force.
With a new vessel, it no longer needed Xin Hexue’s shadow as an external medium.
This white paper doll instantly turned into a little pitch-black paper doll.
“Woof, woof, woof!”
It crawled on the ground on all fours and then realized how extremely uncoordinated it was.
It was a paper doll cut in the shape of a Homo sapiens that walked upright, so Xiao Hei wasn’t used to it. It wasn’t until Xin Hexue picked it up by the neck with two fingers and made it stand.
“Mother!”
It took a few steps unsteadily, happily showing off its new limbs to Xin Hexue.
The baby has grown hands!
Xin Hexue lifted Xiao Hei to weigh it in his hand, looking thoughtful. “It seems like… it can learn addition and subtraction within ten now.”
