Chapter 65 [Supplementary text and plot]

Everything was breathtakingly familiar.

The sweet, bloody, and metallic stench of decay, accompanied by cold, pale ghostly shadows, reached out and trapped Yang Siguang in an embrace.

Yang Siguang wanted to scream.

However, a bone-chilling cold seized his entire body even before fear could set in. He could neither utter a sound nor make the slightest struggle.

"Ding Xiaolong" tore off the intravenous needles on his body and then leisure-like ripped open the restraints by the bed.

He embraced Yang Siguang with a seemingly sweet closeness, walking step by step toward the window in the ward. Although the ghost-possessed Ding Xiaolong was still just a youth, his strength at this moment was shockingly great. When he picked up Yang Siguang and climbed directly onto the windowsill, his movements were as light as if he were catching a cat rather than an adult.

"Let's go together."

Yang Siguang heard "Ding Xiaolong" murmur to him in an utterly trance-like voice.

Then, "Ding Xiaolong" pushed him out toward the window.

"No—No—"

As his feet suddenly plunged into empty air, Yang Siguang finally mustered a sliver of strength. He let out a faint shriek, and at the very split second before his body was about to plummet, he thrust out his arms and grabbed desperately onto the edge of the window.

Amidst rapid, shallow breaths, he hung by a hair's breadth on the outside of the medical building.

This scene should naturally have drawn crowds of onlookers and gasps of shock.

Yet at this moment, the entire inpatient building exterior was as dead as a graveyard.

Even the flow of the wind was stagnant. Yang Siguang felt as though he had been forcibly shoved into a ball of amber made of time, where everything stood still... and the entire world seemed to leave behind only him, and the "Ding Xiaolong" at the windowsill lowering its head to stare deeply at him.

Li Chen's face shrouded Ding Xiaolong's original facial features like a thin layer of mist.

Sensing Yang Siguang's abruptly ignited will to survive, it tilted its head slightly.

"Click... Click..."

...

Accompanied by the subtle sound of dislocating bones, "Ding Xiaolong" bent its torso in a bizarre fashion. Its neck now appeared much longer than that of an ordinary person, and its ash-gray face pressed directly against Yang Siguang's.

"Don't be afraid."

The evil ghost's voice seemed to come from a very distant place. Yet, despite being so ethereal and wispy, it sounded exceptionally clear when it reached his ears.

The voice was like a tiny insect, drilling straight down the ear canal into the skull, swirling and wriggling in circles within the soft, warm brain matter, devouring Yang Siguang's last shred of sanity.

"Just keep walking with me..."

Departing from its previous gloominess, at this instant the evil ghost's voice sounded unexpectedly gentle.

"Siguang, isn't this what you wanted to do all along, isn't it? Why are you suddenly holding on now..."

"Ding Xiaolong" smiled, its icy fingertips sliding slowly down Yang Siguang's already pale fingers to land on the latter's wrists.

The skin there was delicate and fair, but upon closer inspection, one could find several crisscrossing, faded scars branded across Yang Siguang's wrists.

The scars stretched from his wrists all the way to his elbows. Under the evil ghost's touch, those long-healed scars began to split open bit by bit, oozing crimson blood and reverting to the exact appearance they had when they first appeared on Yang Siguang's body.

Returning to Yang Siguang alongside the blood was an extreme despair as heavy and ice-cold as a swamp.

He had thought he had long since overcome those emotions, but only until now did he realize that they had actually never left... They were merely hiding, buried in the deepest recesses of his heart, lingering stubbornly, haunting him like his own shadow.

Yang Siguang's vision was blurred with moisture, and it took him several seconds to realize that tears had unknowingly welled up in his eyes.

"The world is so big, yet every day when you wake up and look out the window, you can feel that you simply have no place in this world. There is not a single place that belongs to you... nor is there anyone who genuinely wants you to appear in their lives..."

"Your father abandoned you when you were so young, and he didn't think of you at all when he left... You were worthless to him. And your mother? Yes, she raised you, but you've always known, haven't you? Deep down in her heart, she never wished for you to exist. She only kept you grudgingly out of constraint to worldly morality, and you were such an eyesore in her new family."

"You knew, you've always known, that in that household, you were merely an irritating burden, a huge trouble—a piece of garbage that she couldn't conveniently take downstairs and throw away."

"Therefore, your mother must have just let that man do whatever he wanted, right?"

"He kept beating you, didn't he?"

...

Hearing this, perhaps because he was utterly exhausted, or perhaps because he could no longer control his emotions, Yang Siguang's body began to tremble. Gradually, gradually, the fingers gripping the window frame began to slip.

"No, no, no, no, shut up! Shut your mouth—"

Yang Siguang growled in a hoarse voice.

Yet "Ding Xiaolong" of course refused to shut up. It continued in a dreamy tone, dripping with a sickening pity.

"...That woman always told you that men are just like that, and at least he was supporting the family, especially supporting you, a tag-along burden."

"When you were little and went to the hospital several times with fractured bones from beatings, that woman always claimed you were just too mischievous and fell down the stairs."

"Fortunately, after you grew up, that man could no longer beat you, but then you discovered he was still beating your mom. With no other choice, you had to move back home... You only wanted to protect your only remaining kin. Yet compared to your protection? That woman still wanted the man who beat and humiliated her... She was that man's wife, and Ding Xiaolong's mother... They were a real family..."

"And you, you were merely an outsider."

"You never learned how to get along with others. You tried so hard to put on a disguise, but you never learned how to interact with people like a normal person. In the end, everyone thought you were weird... Yes, you were just a freak."

"You were completely out of tune with the whole world; you had no friends and no family. You had no idea what the point of living in this world was. You wanted to escape, to become strong, to shed this weak personality, but you couldn't do it... Like a cruel child, you kept yearning for someone to love you..."

"Yet you knew that no one would ever love you."

"No one would ever need you."

"If you truly died, those people would merely feel a bit annoyed, and simply bury you as if they were disposing of a trouble. Then, after a few days, a few months, or perhaps not even a year, everyone would forget you."

"You wouldn't leave a single trace behind in this world."

"Ding Xiaolong's" arms, like snakes, had already climbed up Yang Siguang's neck, and then it gently cupped his cheeks.

"Don't cry, my darling, don't cry. I feel so sorry for you. I've been watching you all along, watching you get bullied, watching you crash and bleed in this world. My heart aches for you."

"So, I want to take you away."

As it spoke, the evil ghost extended its slender tongue and licked away Yang Siguang's tears bit by bit.

"I like you... I like you so much I'm going crazy..."

The evil ghost whispered tenderly into his ear.

"Let's go together, shall we? Siguang."

"To a world where there are only the two of us."

"I will be there to love you properly."

"I will love you forever."

...

I don't know when it started, but the evil ghost's voice gradually morphed into Li Chen's affectionate murmurs from memory, devoid of any spine-chilling eeriness, leaving only sincere yearning and anticipation.

Yang Siguang's arms ached to the point of numbness, and the evil ghost's whispers hammered away at his skull. He could feel that something inside his body was loosening.

Indeed.

There really wasn't much point in holding on anymore.

He thought.

In this world, he originally...

[“Si... ￥#@... Sisi... mine...”]

Just at the very moment when Yang Siguang was about to let go, he suddenly heard a muffled and eerie whisper.

The next second, he saw a pale arm violently thrusting out from behind "Ding Xiaolong".

Its elbow was fractured; its fingertips were worn down.

The hard finger bones dug directly into Yang Siguang's flesh, sending a piercing, bone-deep pain shooting through him.

*

"Siguang!"

In the next instant, "Ding Xiaolong" was grabbed by someone and violently hurled straight out of the window.

Literally hurled, in the truest sense of the word.

Yang Siguang even heard a dull "thud" as Ding Xiaolong crashed onto the ground. Immediately following that, Li Bo's pale face appeared at the edge of the windowsill. Seeing Yang Siguang swaying precariously by the window, the man's pupils constricted violently before he grabbed him and yanked him forcefully back inside the room from the outside ledge.

Everything happened in a flash.

So fast that Yang Siguang didn't even have time to react. The chilling cold left behind by the evil ghost still lingered on his wrists, and his mind remained completely blank.

After a dizzying spin that finally brought him back indoors, before he could even catch his breath, he was pulled straight into a tight embrace by Li Bo.

"Siguang... Siguang..."

Li Bo rested his head on Yang Siguang's shoulder, breathing raggedly, repeating his name over and over again. Clearly, the one who had been in mortal danger teetering on the edge of life and death just moments ago was Yang Siguang, yet the one suffering from profound shock and a nearly崩溃 (collapsing) state of mind seemed instead to be Li Bo.

...

With Li Bo's appearance, the oppressive restriction that had shrouded the hospital ward seemed to dissolve invisibly.

Time began to flow once more.

The people who rushed into the ward right behind Li Bo were several medical staff members, who had happened to witness Li Bo kicking Ding Xiaolong flying with a single blow.

That youth was currently lying in the corner of the room, crying out miserably with a muddled consciousness.

And the next second, when Li Bo hauled Yang Siguang up from the windowsill, they were frightened out of their wits—none of them had expected that Ding Xiaolong could so easily break free from his restraints, and moreover, he had looked as though he was about to push his own older brother straight out of the window.

This already counted as a major accident, didn't it?

All the color drained from the faces of the medical staff.

"Th-This, what is going on here?"

"Is anyone injured? What happened—"

"Sir, please let go so we can check the situation?"

"Ding Xiaolong? Ding Xiaolong, how are you feeling..."

...In the blink of an eye, the ward plunged into utter chaos and uproar.