Li Xiu was stunned for a moment before realizing what had happened.
Looking at the rice scattered all over the ground, he just felt tired.
The rats are here again.
He thought.
This was not the first time Li Xiu had seen mice in the room - in a place like an urban village, if you put a bowl of rice under the bed every day, it would only attract mice if it didn't, then ghosts would.
Several times before, while delivering food, Li Xiu would glance down and see something darting through the shadows beneath the bed. Initially, Li Xiu wanted to fight it off, but after several attempts, he gave up. If he didn't clean up the clutter in this house, even if he were a cat, he'd be powerless to stop the mice, let alone Li Xiu himself.
Speaking of which, seeing rats in Li Xiu's neighborhood is a rare occurrence. Urban villages are known for their poor sanitation, and the area where Li Xiu and his grandmother live happens to be the dirtiest and most chaotic of them all. Even Li Xiu, a self-conscious teenager who rarely interacts with others, has heard countless complaints from neighbors about rats and cockroaches invading their homes.
However, a few years ago, when the neighbor's house was in a mess due to a rat plague, Li Xiu's house was always very clean.
Not to mention mice, there are not even many mosquitoes in summer.
Now that I think about it, it was the previous situation where no mosquitoes entered the house that was abnormal.
I'll buy some rat poison some other day.
In a daze, Li Xiu vaguely realized that something was wrong, but his health was so poor that he couldn't muster the energy to think about anything else.
Li Xiu walked out of the room, and after perfunctorily dealing with his grandmother, he secretly took a broom and went back to the room. After cleaning everything, he tiptoed out of the room.
Li Xiu put the rice mixed with incense ash in the dustpan into a red plastic bag and was about to dispose of it when an old and hoarse voice suddenly sounded behind him.
"A Xiu, why are you back so late?"
Li Xiu's hands trembled, and she subconsciously hid the plastic bag in her schoolbag.
When he turned around, he met his grandmother's wrinkled face.
As people get older, their eyes become cloudy. In the dim light, my grandmother's eyes looked empty, like two frosted glass beads.
She stood there, not knowing how long she had been looking at Li Xiu.
Li Xiu curled her fingertips and tightened the strap of her schoolbag.
"grandmother..."
Just as I was about to start talking nonsense, my grandmother's voice became high-pitched and rapid.
"You're back too late, he must be hungry... Bring food, Xiu, you have to hurry up and bring food to your brother."
Li Xiu's voice suddenly got stuck in his throat.
"Well, don't worry, I've already delivered food to my brother."
After a brief pause, he took a deep breath and spoke calmly.
When grandma heard Li Xiu's answer, a trace of confusion flashed in her eyes. After a long while, the old woman seemed to understand what he said and forced out a trembling smile.
"That's good, that's good. You must remember to deliver meals on time next time."
The old woman kept repeating it, and after she let out a long sigh of relief, her shoulders hunched over, her whole body suddenly shrank, and she staggered out of the kitchen.
Li Xiu looked at her grandmother's back, her lips moved briefly, and she said nothing more.
Grandma's confusion has become more and more serious.
This is also the reason why Li Xiu hid the spilled rice.
According to the rules she had followed since she was a child, Li Xiu would obediently deliver food to her brother every night, and then take the bowl back from under the bed before going to school the next day.
My brother would collect the leftover raw rice in a red cloth bag and regularly take it to the park to feed the fish. Of course, according to my grandmother, it was best to burn the raw rice, including the red bag, until it turned to ash.
"That way it's less likely to attract dirty things."
Li Xiu remembered that her grandmother had once said this to herself.
But after burning it a few times, the neighbor lady thought that burning things produced smoke and was unlucky. In order to avoid further trouble, Li Xiu later used a compromise method and directly threw it to the koi in the park to eat.
The first time the mouse spilled the rice, Li Xiu was at a loss as to what to do with it.
He didn't think too much about it and just told his grandmother what to do. Even with such a simple question, his grandmother became very strange after hearing it.
It was just a matter of the rice being kicked over by a mouse, but the old woman started crying and making a fuss for a long time, as if she had gone mad. Her words were all incoherent, saying that she had wronged Li Xiu, that she had been greedy and had brought an evil ghost home, and now she was going to kill Li Xiu...
Li Xiu was almost stunned by the old man's excitement at that time.
He didn't even have time to ask his grandmother why she was so scared, and the old woman fell into a coma. When she woke up, she had completely forgotten her previous madness.
"Send food, Xiu, don't forget to send food to your brother."
She just kept reminding Li Xiu over and over again.
"You must not let your brother starve."
…
Out of some intuition, Li Xiu did not continue to ask.
And from that day on, Li Xiu never dared to let her grandmother know that the "meal" belonging to her brother that was placed under the bed was occasionally knocked over by mice.
He felt that his grandmother might have Alzheimer's disease.
*
Every time Li Xiu thought of this, she felt like a stone was pressing on her body and she could hardly breathe.
In fact, he had heard a lot of talk about his grandmother and him from the neighbors. From the outside, it seemed that his grandmother didn't really like Ah Xiu.
The reason why grandma adopted Li Xiu was simply because her own biological daughter broke off relations with her.
In order to have someone to take care of her in her old age and see her to the end of her life, my grandmother adopted the lame boy Li Xiu.
She has a bad temper and rarely takes care of Li Xiu.
But...
Even though she was a strict and cold grandmother, she was Li Xiu's only relative in this world.
Li Xiu also didn't know what he would do when his grandmother completely forgot about him because of Alzheimer's disease.
*
By the evening, Li Xiu's low-grade fever became severe.
My head hurts, and my vision keeps going black.
Li Xiu realized that her health was not good, so she quickly grabbed some pills from the drawer and swallowed them whole. After lying in bed for a while, Li Xiu broke out in a cold sweat, soaking even her pajamas.
A biting chill spread from his bones, while the swelling on his skin radiated heat like a branding iron. Li Xiu tossed and turned in bed, feeling cold and damp beneath the quilt. As soon as his consciousness faded, a stale, dusty, and rusty odor rose from deep within the quilt, creeping up and tangling around him.
...That was the unique smell in the old room of the Xiao family villa.
Li Xiu felt so uncomfortable that she couldn't sleep well.
In the end, Li Xiu really couldn't bear it anymore. Even though he was about to faint from the discomfort, he still gritted his teeth and went into the bathroom to take a shower.
*
The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was cramped, dark, and damp.
"Click".
Turning on the switch, a dim light came on, gradually dyeing the moist steam rising from the bathroom yellow.
Li Xiu's breathing was heavy, and he felt so weak that he had to lean against the wall to barely stand. The hot water was already turned up to the maximum, and the temperature was also adjusted to the highest. However, in the steamy bathroom, he still felt cold.
Especially his right leg, which he had washed back and forth many times. Even after washing it back and forth with soap for a long time, Li Xiu still felt that it seemed to be still covered with the sticky thin sweat that the group of boys had smeared on his calves and knees in excitement in the afternoon.
"vomit..."
The boy's suppressed retching sounds echoed in the bathroom.
After a long time, Li Xiucai turned off the water.
He stood under the shower for a long time with his head down.
All he could see was his disgusting, deformed legs.
So weak that he didn't even have the strength to kick.
Unable to run or jump.
This is a useless leg.
*
"Tick…"
Water vapor condensed on the ceiling and then fell down.
The cool water droplets slowly flowed down Li Xiu's bony back.
Li Xiu suddenly felt a chill.
*
Just now... it felt like cold fingertips were sliding across his skin.
*
Li Xiu turned his head and looked at the tile wall behind him, which was already covered with cracks. His shadow was reflected on the yellow tiles.
He felt a little flustered for no apparent reason.
It was still because of the low fever. As soon as the hot water was turned off, the coldness that penetrated into the bone marrow swept over me again.
Li Xiu's body trembled continuously, and he wiped himself with a dry towel hastily. His eyes accidentally swept across the bathroom mirror, and at the same time, he felt as if he had touched something through the towel.
He seemed to... touch a pair of hands.
Li Xiu's pupils suddenly constricted.
He saw at a glance that there was a tall and slender shadow standing behind him.
The shadow's arms were pressing on his shoulders.
His own hand just happened to cover the shadow's hand.
*
"hiss--"
Li Xiu threw away the towel and staggered back.
With a thud, he slammed into the wall. A sharp pain erupted from the area where he had been beaten that afternoon, and Li Xiu nearly passed out.
My heart was beating so hard it was about to jump out of my chest.
After standing there for a while, Li Xiucai held the towel and looked around.
Of course, Li Xiu didn't see anything. All he saw was the old bathroom that he had seen for countless years and was familiar to him.
After calming down, Li Xiu's face turned pale as he casually wiped off the mist on the mirror. Only then did he realize that he had mistaken the marks on the old tiles caused by water stains for human figures.
As for what he had just touched through the towel, well, it was himself.
The places where he was beaten were covered with horrible bruises, and his skin was completely numb. It felt like another person's skin to the touch.
Li Xiu was thinking hard. The low fever made his mind a little confused, but it did not prevent him from making judgments.
"Really?"
In a trance, Li Xiu felt a little ashamed for this little mistake.
But he had to admit that at that moment, he did feel an unspeakable horror.
It must be because of the fever.
The young man tried hard to calm himself down. Although he had come to his senses, Li Xiu's heart was still beating wildly.
He was getting more and more dizzy.
Without giving it much thought, Li Xiu hurriedly put on his clothes and left the bathroom. He knew he should get some rest as soon as possible, otherwise, he would have even less energy to deal with the blatant bullying at school tomorrow.
It was this kind of panic that made Li Xiu completely unaware that after he left the bathroom, the bathroom door that had been closed slowly opened again, revealing a gap.
Above the door, something flickered in the crack.
...It was like a pair of eyes, looking deeply at Li Xiu's back through the crack in the door.