Hey... you little bastard... what the hell are you doing pretending to be dead here?"
"Fuck, you're playing tricks here again..."
…
In a daze, Fang Qianan felt someone pulling his hair, kicking his stomach repeatedly, and slapping him.
Shit... who dares to do this to him?
Before his anger surfaced, the first thing he felt was a chill running down his spine and an unprecedented weakness.
Fang Qianan felt as if he had turned into a ball of cotton, and moreover, the kind of cotton soaked in ice water.
His body was so heavy, so heavy that he couldn't even move a finger. The feeling was so unfamiliar, but somehow, Fang Qianan felt that this was how he was supposed to be.
So weak, painful, and hopeless.
After exerting all his strength, Fang Qianan barely opened his eyes in pain. In his hazy vision, several people with blurred faces and wearing housekeeping uniforms appeared.
"Finally stopped pretending to be dead."
Seeing "Fang Qianan" open his eyes, the man sneered and then dragged him up by the arm.
"Stop pretending to be pitiful and stand up. Do you really want us to carry you away in a sedan chair?"
Amidst the harsh insults, "Fang Qianan" struggled to stand still.
He realized he had just been huddled in an incredibly cramped, cold, windowless room. Suddenly, he was thrust outside. The light streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows was so intense it made his eyes water. His body trembled uncontrollably.
"What are you dawdling for? The Madam wants to see you. Hey, I'm telling you, don't do anything here or you'll get us scolded—"
The housekeeper beside him grumbled in frustration. As she spoke, she slapped Fang Qianan hard. With that push, Fang Qianan nearly fell to the ground again.
How dare these people do this to themselves—
wrong...
Aren't they always like this?
Why was he angry? He was already used to it.
Two completely different emotions intertwined in Fang Qianan's heart.
"Fang Qianan" vaguely remembered that he had a very high status and everyone should have been praising him, but now, what surged in his heart was a strong sense of helplessness.
"I" can't even muster any desire to resist.
It was as if…as if his body had long been accustomed to being treated like this.
He also knew very well that any resistance would only lead to more brutal beatings and insults.
Yes, this is his daily life. Why does he think he can resist these people?
"Fang Qianan" bit his lip and staggered to his feet from the ground with an expressionless face.
Pushed by the housekeeper behind him, he dragged his feet into the living room of the luxurious villa.
A woman was sitting on the sofa, holding a cup of coffee, leisurely enjoying her afternoon tea.
"Fang Qianan" couldn't see her face clearly, he could only see the woman's bright red lips embedded in her pale face, like a false and terrifying mask.
After seeing "Fang Qianan", the corner of the woman's mouth turned down. It was an expression of extreme disgust and disdain.
"Tsk, I've been teaching you for so long, but you still don't have any manners. What's wrong? Can't you call out to me when you see me?"
A woman's shrill voice rang out.
"Fang Qianan" moved his lips slightly.
But after struggling for a long time, he still couldn't make any sound.
The housekeeper at the side was guessing the hostess's mood. She frowned and was about to slap the skinny boy in the living room again.
The woman sneered and signaled the servant to stop.
"...Forget it, just don't call me that. Being called 'Mom' by a little bastard is actually pretty bad luck. Oh, by the way, I called you here today to tell you something."
The woman put down the coffee cup, and the two dark, empty eyes on her white face stared at "Fang Qianan" without blinking.
"Your bitch mother is dead."
"…"
"I heard she died a tragic death, jumping off a building, her body barely shaped like a human. Tsk tsk tsk, she used to rely on her face to snatch men away, now she's getting her comeuppance, she's got no face left after she died."
The woman said with a smile.
In the villa, time seemed to suddenly stop. The surroundings were so quiet and so cool.
"Fang Qianan" was still standing quietly in the distance, staring blankly at the woman in front of him.
He didn't make any sound.
The woman kept staring at him.
"Fang Qianan" inexplicably had a strong feeling that the reason this woman was looking at him so intently was to see his expression of pain, despair and collapse.
However, he had no way to satisfy the woman's wishes because his heart was numb.
"Fang Qianan" unconsciously looked behind the woman.
In the sunny living room, there was a vague shadow behind the woman.
It looked vaguely like a person with his head down.
The child's silence made the woman frown in dissatisfaction.
"You're still looking so dead even after hearing your own mother's death. What else can I say? You're simply a born bastard, an ungrateful wolf."
The woman said coldly.
"If Xiao Weisi hadn't been unconscious, I would definitely not have let you into our house. Li Yu, if you were more sensible, you'd better be a better boy in the future. You should know that if I hadn't taken you in, you would have been an orphan now..."
"I'm not an orphan."
"Fang Qianan" heard himself suddenly speak, and spoke to the woman word by word in a hoarse voice.
"I have a younger brother."
The weak boy's voice sounded unusually stubborn when he spoke.
"My mom took me to see him. My brother is very handsome and very well behaved."
"Huh? When did you—"
"I still have my grandmother, and she's with my brother."
Gradually, gradually, the child's voice was finally filled with tears.
"I don't want to be your child at all. Just throw me out. I'm going to find my grandma and my brother."
"I don't want to live with bad people like you at all-"
With a "crack", something was thrown at me by the woman.
The expensive bone china coffee cup shattered into pieces on Fang Qianan's forehead. The scalding hot coffee poured down, causing half of his face to feel burning pain. Even the blood that kept oozing from his wound became wet and cool in contrast to the hot coffee.
"You're still trying to piss me off at this hour! Lock this bastard up!"
"Lock him up until he becomes sensible!"
In severe pain, "Fang Qianan" heard the woman scream.
At the hostess's instruction, someone came forward and hesitantly lifted up the skinny body of the weak child.
Then, they threw "Fang Qianan", or Li Yu, back into the cold and cramped room at the end of the corridor.
As the lock clicked, darkness enveloped the child again.
…
"rustle..."
Suddenly, a faint scratching sound was heard in the room.
The child who remained unmoved when facing the beating was now curled up in the corner, with a look of fear on his swollen face. He raised his eyes and looked at the wall on the other side of the room - on the dirty wall, a small red door had appeared at some point.
A vague humming sound came from behind the door.
However, no matter how carefully "Fang Qianan" listened in his dream, he could not hear clearly what the voice was saying.
He only knew that "himself" was shaking his head and then hugging himself tighter.
Just like that, after an unknown amount of time, the door of the room was opened again.
"I just came in to see how he is doing. Don't tell my sister..."
"Fang Qianan" lay on the ground, shivered, but had no strength to lift his head.
He felt someone coming in.
However, the man did not push him or throw the smelly food in the stainless steel basin at him like feeding a dog.
The person who came just squatted beside him and started taking pictures of him.
"Wow, that's really sad."
It was clearly the voice of a young man, but it sounded particularly muddy.
The man made a clicking sound and after taking a few pictures, he reached out and fiddled with the child's body to make the wounds more clearly visible in front of the camera.
Gradually, his breathing became heavier.
Just like that, he grabbed the child's hair and turned his face over, and suddenly a low cry came out of his mouth.
"Fuck, you're still awake."
"Fang Qianan" blinked slowly.
He looked at the man, and a familiar yet unfamiliar face appeared in front of him.
It's Ouyang.
It was Ouyang in his youth.
Young Ouyang held a camera in his hand, and when he met the eyes of "Fang Qianan", his mouth grinned uncontrollably.
He looked like a wild dog that had been hungry for a long time and was drooling at a piece of meat.
A strange light flickered in the depths of his eyes.
"Hey, Li Yu..."
"Fang Qianan" heard Ouyang shouting this.
"It's easier now that you're awake, little one. I heard you haven't eaten for a long time, right? Are you very hungry?"
"…"
"Since you're pitiful, how about this? I'll start a video and you just take off your clothes according to my instructions. For every piece of clothing you take off, I'll give you a cookie. How about that?"
As Ouyang spoke, he took out a biscuit from his pocket and shook it in front of the child.
Although it sounded like he was making a suggestion, his hand was already on the thin child's collar while he was speaking.
The next second, Ouyang screamed.
"it hurts--"
He never thought that even though he looked like he was about to die, the child still had the strength to tickle him.
If he hadn't dodged quickly, his eyes would have been dug out by this bastard.
"You're looking for death!"
Ouyang lowered his head in disbelief and glanced at the blood on his palm.
His face contorted.
Then he kicked the child directly.
"Fang Qianan" whimpered and curled up his body.
He had no way of avoiding the man's beating. In the hands of a rich second-generation like Ouyang, an expensive SLR camera became a simple and easy-to-use tool for hitting people.
"Bang--"
"Bang--"
"Bang--"
…
In the severe pain, the child's consciousness began to blur.
The floor became wet, slippery, and a little sticky.
"Fang Qianan" wanted to speak, he was in so much pain, but just by opening his lips, a pungent fishy-sweet liquid kept gushing out of his mouth and nose.
He couldn't even utter a word to beg for mercy.
Finally, Ouyang stopped abruptly.
He panted heavily and crawled up beside the boy who had stopped moving. He looked in shock and confusion at the bloody mass of flesh on the ground that was no longer in human form.
"Fuck, are you kidding me—"
He scratched his hair, a trace of fear flashing in his eyes.
"Hey, little bastard!"
Ouyang swallowed his saliva and tapped the child on the ground with his toes...it was soft.
As soft as mud.
Now Ouyang's face turned really ugly.
He picked up the SLR camera on the ground, held it in his arms and wiped the blood off, then rushed out of the room in a hurry and slammed the door.
Through a door, he could vaguely hear the conversation between others and him.
"Master Ou, what happened to you... Oh my god, why is there so much blood?"
"What nonsense are you asking? It has nothing to do with you. By the way, don't tell anyone about what happened here today."
"…"
"Talking too much won't help you save more money. Anyway, don't tell anyone about this, or you'll be in big trouble. Do you hear me..."
"Okay, okay, Master Ou."
…
The other people's voices began to become hazy and distant.
"Fang Qianan" lay quietly on the ground, the intense pain gradually fading away from his body.
The body begins to cool down.
"I" am about to die.
Although he was just a young child, "he" was extremely clear that he was going to die.
In stark contrast to the gradually fading flame of life was the intense hatred that continued to rise in the child's heart.
"It hurts so much…"
"it hurts..."
"These bad guys…"
…
It was at this moment that he heard a wet friction sound in the darkness.
The originally extremely vague sound now became extremely clear.
"Oh, are we going to kill all these people?"
"So, what do you plan to give me in exchange?"
"Everything about you?"
…
["Okay… Although I've been hungry for so long…"]
"Then from now on, everything you have belongs to me."
"Your name."
"Your body."
["And your very existence."]
Something slowly covered his body.
The chill that can almost penetrate deep into the soul brings pain that is even more unbearable than death.
It was like something was chewing on him.
Before his consciousness completely disappeared, "Fang Qianan" struggled to open his eyes and looked at the things on his body.
It was an evil, filthy, and disgusting mass.
It was eating him.
It is very hungry.
*
"Ugh—cough cough cough—"
Fang Qianan woke up screaming.
The fear left in the nightmare penetrated deep into his bones, and he was so scared that he kept gasping for breath.
Then he began to cough violently.
Countless tiny hard particles spurted out of Fang Qianan's mouth. Fang Qianan covered his mouth and was dazed for a moment before realizing that he was spitting out rice.
Raw rice.
His mouth was now filled with raw rice.
After half-kneeling on the ground and coughing for a long time, Fang Qianan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
It was only then that he realized he was squatting in the kitchen. However, the kitchen, which had always been kept tidy by Aunt Su, was now in a mess. The sealed rice box had been roughly turned inside out and was now dumped on the ground.
In front of Fang Qianan, there were scattered rice grains.
Some of them were actually spit out by him and were still soaked with his saliva.
"What the hell is this..."
Fang Qianan looked around in horror, completely bewildered.
What is he doing now?
How...how could he be here?
At this moment, a hoarse question came from behind him.
"Is it delicious?"
Fang Qianan felt a chill down his spine and stood up subconsciously.
The only person who would come to the kitchen to check on the situation at this time would be Aunt Su, who had been taking care of him.
"Aunt Su, I feel like I'm dreaming—"
The young school bully explained in panic.
I seem to be sleepwalking.
However, Fang Qianan's words came to an abrupt halt before he could finish them. He looked behind him in shock and realized that the person standing upright in the corner of the kitchen was not the Aunt Su he was familiar with, but an elderly lady who looked somewhat familiar.
The old lady's face was pale and her eyes were a cloudy gray.
She was wearing a white shroud and looked extremely stiff.
The smell of disinfectant mixed with a very faint stench of corpse came over.
Fang Qianan was trembling all over.
"Grandma?"
Fang Qianan's mind went blank and he staggered backward.
He had already recognized her. Wasn't the old lady in front of him the same one who brought him and Li Xiu out from another world that day?
He later heard that Li Xiu's grandmother died in order to save them.
But now, the body that was supposed to be lying in the funeral home actually appeared in his kitchen?
Is this a nightmare?
Am I having another series of nightmares?!
Fang Qianan bit his tiger's mouth tightly. However, the pain from the wound made him realize with despair that he was not dreaming.
But Fang Qianan would rather he was really dreaming——
Because just as he was retreating in panic, he saw the old man walking towards him on tiptoe and staggering.
"Eat more, good boy...eat more..."
Incomprehensible mumblings came out of the corpse's mouth.
As he spoke, the old man actually put his skinny hand, which was like a chicken claw, into his mouth.
First the palm, then the wrist, and finally the arm...
The corpse's neck stiffened.
The unusual movement caused the corpse's cheeks to burst.
Sticky black blood dripped down along the gap of the wound.
The old man took something out of his stomach bit by bit.
Then it turned and smiled at Fang Qianan.
If, that can still be called a "smile".
The previous action had completely torn the old man's jaw apart, and his gray-red tongue fell out of his mouth. Black blood continued to flow out, and in the corpse's palm covered with black blood was a mass of broken bones mixed with flesh.
"Eat, eat, you are so hungry."
The old man kept repeating.
"Grandma is hiding it for you. Eat well. Only when you are full can you grow taller..."
…
I watched as the old man's body raised his hands and got closer and closer to me.
Fang Qian'an was so frightened that he grabbed the knife rack on the sink and smashed it at the old man.
The heavy knife holder hit the old man with a dull sound.
The arm strength that Fang Qianan was so proud of finally had some practical use at this moment. Unlike those ethereal ghosts, after being hit by the knife rack, the old man's body shook and then fell heavily backwards.
Taking this opportunity, Fang Qianan screamed and ran out of the kitchen directly over the old man's body.
He instinctively pressed the alarm in the house, wanting to call the security guard in. However, before his hand even touched the screen, several familiar figures appeared before his eyes.
When he saw them, Fang Qianan's pupils suddenly constricted.
"Are you kidding me..."
The boy whimpered desperately.
Those people were Aunt Su and other housekeeping staff who were on duty in the room tonight.
The people were still the same, but Fang Qianan knew something was wrong with them the moment he looked at them. Were they still alive? Fang Qianan wasn't even sure.
Because each of them walked in a strange and stiff manner, and their eyes were rolled back and their faces were gray.
Fang Qianan keenly noticed that there was a deep tooth mark on Aunt Su's neck, as if it had just been bitten.
"Eat, eat well"
"Don't be afraid…"
"You're hungry."
The most terrifying thing was that when they approached Fang Qianan, they repeated in unison the words that the old man's corpse had said before.
Without any hesitation, Fang Qianan picked up the chair beside him and threw it at those people.
Several people were knocked down by Fang Qianan, but Fang Qianan was not able to escape as easily as he did in the kitchen - the reason was simple, there were just too many "people".
The most terrifying thing was that after being hit, those "people" were clearly covered in blood, and some of them even had obvious fractures and breaks in their shoulders and arms, but they seemed to be completely unaware of the pain and still approached Fang Qianan in that extremely strange way.
"Eat."
"It's time to eat."
They urged Fang Qianan.
Before he knew it, Fang Qianan had been forced into the corner of the house.
The former school bully was now so frightened that his face turned pale and his voice was trembling.
"Don't come over here..."
Fang Qianan screamed and kept waving the only weapon in his hand, a broken chair leg.
At this moment, he suddenly felt something itchy on his neck. When he touched his neck, Fang Qianan found that his neck was covered with sticky, smelly black blood.
"?!"
A chill ran up his spine, and Fang Qianan raised his head stiffly.
A distorted and broken face came into his sight.
The old man, whose body had been deformed, was now standing upside down on the ceiling, with his hands hanging straight down.
The cracked mouth now looked like a pitch-black hole.
"It's time to eat..."
The old man spoke to him earnestly.
The skinny and stiff fingers reached down and firmly gripped Fang Qianan's jaw.
"Hmm—"
No matter how hard Fang Qianan tried, he couldn't move at all.
He opened his eyes helplessly and watched the old man slowly bring the thing in his hand to his lips.
"No..."
"Help…Help…"
Fang Qianan cried.
His whole body was cold and his face was covered with tears and snot.
At this moment, the whole world seemed blurry, only the old man's deformed body and cloudy eyes were incredibly clear.
Just as he was about to be forced to eat the unknown object that had just been taken out of the corpse's stomach, a loud noise suddenly came from the door of the room.
The door was violently broken open.
"Grandma! Don't—"
A clear and frightened voice suddenly exploded in Fang Qianan's ears.
Fang Qianan trembled violently, and his consciousness suddenly returned to his body.
At this time, Li Xiu was kneeling breathlessly in the luxurious entrance hall of the Fang family. When he looked up, he saw the tragic scene in the corner.
With tears on his face, he shouted at the familiar yet unfamiliar corpse by the wall.
"Grandma! Grandma, please don't do this! Let him go——"
The ghostly and eerie corpse paused slightly after hearing Li Xiu's call.