“This stench is unbearable! Open the window and let in some fresh air. What kind of smell is this? It’s sour and salty…” Liu Laoshi spat as he waved his finger around, gesturing wildly as if directing the affairs of state, his finger passing through the little ghost.
Liu Dashao stared in disbelief for quite some time before realizing that his father couldn’t actually see the creature at all!
If it had been a woman standing in front of him, he could have swallowed his pride as a man, screamed “There’s a ghost!” and tightly embraced her.
But this was his own father. Liu Dashao thought for a moment and decided it would be better not to provoke him. After all, no one would believe him even if he did say something. To avoid having to explain too much, he simply laughed it off and sent his father away.
The dinner that night smelled delicious, and even included a rare bowl of pork belly. However, Liu Dashao merely kept his head down, pushing rice around his bowl. The pork belly, which usually smelled so enticing, now tasted like sawdust in his mouth, completely flavorless. His parents, puzzled by his unusual behavior, even wondered if their son had a fever or was ill.
After hastily leaving his empty bowl behind, Liu Dashao returned to his room and sat on the edge of his bed, lost in thought. Ever since he had visited that Five Manifestations Temple, strange events had kept happening. He tried hard to recall everything that had happened over the past few days. He felt certain there must be some secret behind it all. Each event had been so bizarre, so unbelievable, that it felt as if he had experienced everything that an ordinary person might not encounter in three lifetimes—all within two days!
A strong gust of wind blew in through the window, making the glass rattle noisily. He got up to close the window but had barely stepped off the bed when his legs gave way beneath him, and he fell heavily to the ground. From his twisted expression and the five fingers digging into his flesh, it was clear that he was in terrible distress.
Yes, the pain was unbearable! His waist and hips felt as though they had been torn in two by a wild beast, or as if someone had plunged an iron rod through his skin into his abdominal cavity and was stirring it around violently, churning his insides and twisting his intestines into knots. Liu Dashao prided himself on being extremely resilient. After all, being a street thug wasn’t easy—you had to be cunning, ruthless, and above all, able to endure.
Ever since the third grade, when he had started carrying a backpack full of bricks to hit people, he had been through countless one-on-one fights, group brawls, and weapon-wielding skirmishes. By this point, even if someone smashed a beer bottle over his head, Liu Dashao would merely yawn and smile. But now, this indescribable pain had completely shattered him within just two seconds.
“What the hell is going on? Why is my waist hurting so badly? I didn’t do anything unusual today!” Liu Dashao muttered through clenched teeth. Sweat poured from his pores, soaking his shirt completely and even leaving a faint outline of his body on the concrete floor.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to figure it out, he couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation: “It feels like… like maybe this afternoon, when I was carrying the statue of Guan Gong, something pushed me… and then… nothing.”
“Ugh, damn it, it’s hurting again… Could I be sick?”
With that, Liu Dashao trembled as he unbuttoned his shirt, wondering if the pain was caused by weeks of not bathing—maybe his body had become a cozy home for lice or other tiny creatures. Or perhaps he had developed scabies, which could be really serious if it got infected.
Although his trembling hands moved as carefully as possible, when he pulled them back, his elbow accidentally hit his waist, and the result was self-evident. The wave of pain nearly made him roll his eyes back and pass out. He only began to recover after taking three sharp breaths of cold air.
Turning his head to look at the painful area, Liu Dashao was completely stunned. On that patch of relatively smooth, pale skin was a clear, purplish-blue handprint, as vivid as an allergic reaction. But Liu Dashao knew this was no mere allergy—every fingerprint and palm line on the tiny handprint was so clear and detailed, as if someone had pressed ink onto it and then stamped it onto his body.
Instantly, a chill shot up from his feet to the top of his head. If his suspicions were correct, his waist pain was directly related to the incident at the department store when he had been knocked over. And the only possible owner of that tiny handprint was none other than that persistent little ghost boy.
“Finished. I’m completely finished.” Liu Dashao’s mind was on the verge of short-circuiting, his thoughts chaotic and empty.
“Medicine—I need medicine! Right, red flower oil—I should rub some red flower oil on it first!” In a panic, Liu Dashao yanked off the bedsheet. He remembered that the small medicine box he usually kept was hidden under the bed, so he quickly bent down to search for it. At that time, rural homes hadn’t yet been equipped with electric light bulbs, and the only source of illumination at night was an oil lamp.
Under the bed was pitch black, making it impossible to see clearly. The weak yellow glow could only reach Liu Dashao’s feet. Any attempt to extend the light further into the darkness was futile.
With no choice, Liu Dashao reluctantly half-crawled onto the floor, stretching his entire arm under the bed to retrieve the medicine box. But the entrance was empty—there was nothing there.
“That’s strange. I’m sure I left it inside. Could Mom have moved it somewhere else?” Liu Dashao thought as he pushed his hand deeper into the bed’s shadow.
Finally, he felt something—but something was off. Instead of the hard plastic he expected, his hand encountered something soft and elastic.
What was this? Liu Dashao’s heart skipped a beat, and his fingers involuntarily loosened their grip.
At that moment, something incredible happened. The oil lamp, which had previously failed to illuminate far into the darkness, suddenly flared up. The trembling light caused the entire room to flicker, and the faint halo of light at Liu Dashao’s feet seemed to come alive, slowly spreading forward. Gradually, half of the space under the bed was illuminated, bringing clarity to Liu Dashao’s confused vision. In the dimness, he saw that the medicine box was actually lying in another direction, while directly in front of him, his hand was resting on the face of a little boy. The boy’s gaze was still blank, his eyes like those of a dead fish, piercing Liu Dashao’s soul with a stare that held no trace of human expression.
At that moment, time seemed to freeze, and the second hand of the clock jammed in place. The temperature in the entire room dropped by more than ten degrees in an instant, and a chilling, sinister atmosphere surged in from all directions like a tide. Liu Dashao’s mouth was open, but his throat was dry and silent, as if his voice had been cut off. His arm, still under the bed, neither advanced nor retreated but simply trembled in place, as if it no longer belonged to him.
“Giggle… giggle…” The little boy stared at Liu Dashao and let out a chilling laugh. The sound was piercing, like nails scraping against glass, making Liu Dashao’s heart pound and his skin crawl.
At the same time, Liu Dashao suddenly felt as though he had sunk into an endless swamp. He tried to struggle, but his body had no strength left. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank.
Then, he felt countless sharp blades suddenly emerge from the swamp, each one slicing violently at a vital part of his body.
The pain was unbearable. His muscles convulsed violently. He desperately tried to scream, but again, he found that he could no longer hear his own voice.
He could only feel his throat straining to scream and vibrate.
The blades continued to slash at his body, each strike delivering an intense, searing pain. These points of unbearable agony spread across his body. Rather than numbing him, each new strike felt as fresh and painful as the first.
Then, the flesh sliced by the blades seemed to be forcibly pulled away by some unknown force. Normally, once flesh was cut from the body, it would no longer feel pain—but for some inexplicable reason, Liu Dashao continued to feel the agonizing sensation of being forcibly torn apart.
At the peak of his endurance, he realized he had his eyes tightly shut. He struggled to open them wide, but he still couldn’t see anything…
“Am I blind!” Liu Dashao was on the verge of madness.
The pain of the blades tearing at his flesh, the suffocating darkness, and the helpless feeling of being trapped in a swamp flooded his nerves.
It felt as though he were beginning to lose something—or about to lose something vital.
His head grew heavy, and he knew he had reached the end of his life. He had given up all resistance.
Then, the blades struck directly at his chest…
Was this the end of his life? That was Liu Dashao’s final thought.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself no longer at home but standing in a completely unfamiliar environment. Looking around, he saw rows of tombstones and locust trees scattered haphazardly. The entire scene was shrouded in a thick darkness, mysteriously surrounded by faint, cold mists that seemed to possess a life of their own, dancing around Liu Dashao in the night and giving him an eerie sense of unease.
“Is there anyone here? Is anyone there?” Driven by a growing sense of dread, Liu Dashao cautiously stepped forward and shouted, hoping that in this ghostly, underworld-like place, there might be someone—anyone—present.
As he continued walking silently forward, Liu Dashao’s heart began to race. Perhaps at first he had felt only a little curiosity, but after walking for so long without sensing even the faintest sign of life, he was beginning to panic.
In the pitch black, the only sounds he could hear were his own footsteps and the pounding of his heart.
“Drip… drip…” Suddenly, from somewhere unknown, came the sound of dripping water, rhythmic and eerie, slowly seeping into Liu Dashao’s ears, carrying with it a sinister chill.
Without even noticing the strangeness of the dripping sound, Liu Dashao felt as though he had spotted a lifeline. He quickly identified the direction from which the sound came and sprinted toward it, moving faster than he ever thought possible. Perhaps at that moment, all he wanted was to find something—someone—to cling to in this lifeless void.
His footsteps echoed in the darkness as Liu Dashao’s figure moved steadily forward. The faint, ghostly dripping sound grew closer, as if the source were just a little farther ahead.
“Slap…” Suddenly, he came to a dead stop, his entire body frozen in place, his eyes wide with disbelief. In the pitch blackness, a weathered signboard jutted out abruptly. The black characters on it had faded, but he could still faintly make out the words: “Naihe Bridge.”
Dense woods stretched along the path, winding endlessly forward, seemingly without end. Shadows danced eerily across the ground. This place was seriously creepy.
A cold wind blew from somewhere unknown, sending a chill down Liu Dashao’s spine. Sparse paper lanterns by the lakeside emitted a ghostly green glow, as if mocking him with sinister laughter.
As he approached, he realized that the lake’s surface was greenish in color, but deeper down, it gradually turned into a blood-red hue. The water was clear, so clear that he could even see unknown aquatic plants swaying beneath the surface.
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