Chapter 50

"Ding-dong—"
"Ding-dong—"
"Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong—"

The harsh sound of the doorbell pierced through the chaotic, sultry dream, startling Yang Siguang awake abruptly from the bed.
His head felt terribly heavy.
His back was soaked, long since drenched in cold sweat.

Pressing against his throbbing head, Yang Siguang struggled to sit up. A glass jar rolled heavily from his embrace, sinking deep into the soft mattress.
Li Chen’s eyeball drifted within the formaldehyde solution, faintly retaining a watery, glistening gleam.

Even though he had temporarily regained consciousness, sitting on the bed and listening to the doorbell ringing from outside the door, Yang Siguang remained in a daze for a long time before he could barely gather his wits.
The sky outside the window had already grown dim.
Yet the living room remained very quiet. He guessed his parents had other arrangements today, and Ding Xiaolong had not returned since Yang Siguang caught him stealing in his room that afternoon and he bolted out the door.

Through the tightly closed bedroom door, he could still hear the incessant ringing of the doorbell at the entryway.
"Ding-dong—"
"Ding-dong—"

Yang Siguang had originally thought that after so long without a response, the doorbell would stop automatically.
However, after waiting for quite a while, the doorbell continued to ring tirelessly, irritating Yang Siguang and making him feel increasingly dizzy. Finally, he had no choice but to pull himself together, leaning against the wall as he staggered toward the front door.

"Coming, who is it—"
he called out toward the tightly shut security door, immediately pressing his eye against the peephole.

The apartment Yang Siguang currently lived in was a second-hand home purchased by his mother and stepfather a few years ago. The price was very low, but the property management was correspondingly terrible. The lights in the hallway had been broken for a long time, yet no one ever came to fix them.
Consequently, as soon as skin darkened, the hallway would become exceptionally gloomy.

Through the peephole, Yang Siguang vaguely saw a skinny, short figure flash past, looking like a child.
At the same time, the doorbell stopped abruptly.

Yang Siguang froze for a moment.
*A child's prank?* That was his first thought.
Yet for some reason, the emaciated figure that had just flashed past so quickly gave him an indescribable sense of familiarity. However, as an unsociable college student, Yang Siguang had barely interacted with any neighbors since moving into this apartment; it was even less likely for someone of his age to have any connection with such a young child.

"Click."
Yang Siguang pushed the door open.

He leaned his upper body out into the hallway, gazing intently in the direction the boy had left... That area was further away from the light-gathering window, and the entire passageway was plunged into a dense shadow at this moment, with only the eerie green exit sign at the very end emitting a faint, sickly glow.

Yang Siguang did not know if it was his imagination, but he always felt as though that child was hiding within that cluster of shadows, staring at him unblinkingly right now.
He could sense that overly stagnant, lifeless gaze.
He could not help but shudder.

Clearly it was summer, yet the temperature in the corridor was exceptionally low. Yang Siguang rubbed his temples, preparing to close the door, when his peripheral vision caught sight of an envelope lying on the welcome mat at the threshold.

"?"

The paper of the envelope was quite exquisite and very thick, and he could faintly catch a hint of sandalwood fragrance drifting from the inside of the pitch-black envelope.
Right in the exact center of the envelope was written a neat line in regular script:
[Personal delivery to Yang Siguang]

Other than that, there was nothing else.
No address, and no delivery slip.

Staring at the completely dark envelope, Yang Siguang hesitated for a moment before slowly opening it.
An even more intense sandalwood fragrance, mixed with a slightly suffocating scent of paper ash, suddenly rushed toward Yang Siguang as the letter inside was unfolded.

*

[Dear Mr. Yang Siguang:
Hello.
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you Mr. Li Chen unfortunately passed away in a car accident on June 11, 20xx.
I will be holding a funeral ceremony for him at Biyun Mountain Cemetery on June 17, 20xx.
The specific arrangements are as follows:
Date: June 17, 20xx
Time: 10:00 AM
Location: Biyun Mountain Cemetery
Address: 456 Yunling Road, City A
Contact Person: Li Bo, Phone: 138-0011-2233
If you have any questions or require further information, please feel free to contact the above person.
May Mr. Li Chen rest in peace, and thank you for your support and care during this difficult time. He would be deeply grateful and will forever cherish this bond in his heart.
With this obituary]

*

His nerves felt as though they were being gnawed fiercely by venomous bugs, and an even sharper, searing pain spread all the way from his neck up to his brain marrow.
Staring fixedly at the obituary in his fingertips, Yang Siguang remained in a trance for a long time before he could barely force his vision to focus on those dark, neat lines of handwriting.

It felt as though something was not quite right...
He could not help thinking.

The cold wind in the corridor kept howling in through the gap in the door into the entryway, chilling his hands and feet to the bone.
As a young college student, Yang Siguang had not yet reached the age where he would frequently receive obituaries.
Yet he still felt that the phrasing and wording of the obituary in his hand possessed an indescribable oddness.

Furthermore, he had to admit that he did indeed feel flustered and panicked after receiving this notice.
His relationship with Li Chen had always been shallow and distant; he could not understand why such an obituary would be sent to him—especially when he tentatively inquired with others at the school whether they had received notification of Li Chen's memorial service, the answers he received only made him feel increasingly uneasy.

["Memorial service? Oh, you mean the campus idol Li Chen... I'd love to go, but it seems this whole thing blew up quite a bit. A bunch of local news accounts and bored influencers posting all sorts of photos of him when he was alive..."]
["And wasn't that driver who caused the accident super superstitious? That drunk dared to claim he didn't mean to do it, that ghosts had blinded his eyes and he didn't see anyone at all... Anyway, the rumors are especially infuriating, with all sorts of people coming out to analyze and debunk things, it's super disgusting."]
["Isn't his family super rich? They're probably trying to calm things down. Right now, this whole matter is being suppressed heavily. Forget the memorial service, nobody even knows when the campus idol is actually going to be buried..."]

Faint sounds of gunfire from a video game drifted from the other end of the receiver.
Li Chen's former roommate sounded somewhat surprised by Yang Siguang's call, but his attitude was still considered cordial.

["Speaking of which, someone in our grade originally wanted to gather classmates to go lay flowers for him, but as soon as the word got out, the head of the grade urgently put a stop to it... I heard the Li family specifically gave a heads-up to the school too. Anyway, anyone who dares to talk about this now, whether on or off campus, will face disciplinary action once caught!"]
["You must be a fan of Li Chen's too, right? Take it from me, don't go obsessing over any funerals or memorial services. Those are just for the Li family's own people to attend; there's simply no way people like us, mere classmates, could ever get in."]

...

Lowering his eyelids, Yang Siguang thanked the person on the phone and then hung up.
He had asked around among almost everyone who had a decent relationship with Li Chen, and without exception, those people were completely unaware of the fact that Li Chen was about to be cremated.
At least, for now, the only person in University A who had received an invitation was him, and him alone.

*

Yang Siguang nibbled on his fingertips.
He could not figure out the reason why the Li family had intentionally sent someone to deliver this memorial service notice.
Did they check the surveillance footage and discover that Li Chen's eyeball was with him?
Were they trying to use this method to inform him and make him return Li Chen a complete body?

...

Lost in thought, Yang Siguang unconsciously tightened his grip on the jar filled with formaldehyde.
*I don't want to go.*
A voice inside his body screamed willfully.
*I don't want to return it!*

Those people already possessed Li Chen's corpse.
And all he possessed was merely something that could be pinched between three fingers, something that could be completely enclosed in the palm of his hand with a gentle closing... a single eyeball.
All he needed was just this tiny bit.

He wanted to keep it.
That way, even after Li Chen's body entered the incinerator and turned into a pile of grayish-white ashes under the high temperature, at least he would still be able to look through the glass bottle and once again see that exceptionally desolate and cold gaze of the once arrogant and aloof young man.

...

A gloomy, heavy sense of bewilderment and pain spread upward, making Yang Siguang find it increasingly difficult to breathe, as if he were drowning.
Even he himself knew that his thoughts were utterly ridiculous, yet he simply could not control his own greed and madness.

*

Yang Siguang had originally thought that he would follow his heart, ignore that notice, and leave his fate to chance while waiting for the Li family to find him with the surveillance footage to demand Li Chen's eyeball.
However, when the day indicated on the notice finally arrived, Yang Siguang still put on an ill-fitting black suit and hailed a cab to Biyun Mountain Cemetery.

Before his taxi even reached the entrance of the cemetery, it was stopped with a cold expression.
"Sorry, this place is not open to the public today."

The person who came forward to stop the vehicle belonged to a specialized security company. The suit he wore was even sharper and more high-end than Yang Siguang's, and beneath his plain face, his pair of eyes beamed with sharp light.
As his gaze landed on the pale-faced Yang Siguang through the glass window, his intense scrutiny and suspicion felt like small daggers, pricking Yang Siguang's entire body with a dull pain.

Yang Siguang remembered the news Li Chen's roommate had leaked earlier.
In fact, prior to this, Li Chen's photos leaked several times every year, sparking small-scale trending topics.
Not to mention, a person like this possessed astonishing family background and undisputed handsomeness, yet ended up dying in such a miserable manner, with the driver who caused the accident even spewing such bizarre and bizarre claims.

Li Chen's death gathered all the elements required to become a trending internet topic. However, this also meant that his death directly turned into after-dinner gossip for others...
It was no wonder the Li family was furious.
At a special juncture like a memorial service, it was naturally normal to specifically hire a security company to vet personnel.

What was truly abnormal was himself, coming to attend the memorial service while carrying Li Chen's eyeball.

*

Yang Siguang got out of the car.
The ride-hailing driver seemed to sense that the atmosphere was wrong as well, stepping on the gas pedal and driving away in a panic.
Only Yang Siguang was left standing in place, meeting the security guard's increasingly stern scrutiny.

"Hello, I already told you, it's not open to the public today—"
"I'm here to attend the memorial service."

With a hoarse voice, Yang Siguang handed the envelope from his embrace to the security guard.
The man flipped open the envelope, and upon seeing the letter inside, he was visibly stunned.
"This really is a notice sent exclusively to family members."

The man picked up the envelope and sniffed it, the space between his brows tightening further, and his gaze toward Yang Siguang growing more and more suspicious.