The voice was low, carrying a trace of restrained anger.
Gu Yi was choked so hard that he could not speak.
In this man’s hand, he was lifted around as casually as a cat. In an instant, because he could not breathe, his face flushed red.
So uncomfortable.
Gu Yi half-opened his eyes and looked at the man in front of him.
The man’s figure was tall and slender, a black windbreaker blending into the night. He looked… very good-looking. Forgive Gu Yi for only being able to describe him with such abstract, impoverished language. His Chinese had never been good to begin with, and with his introverted personality, at this moment, he could only say that this man was the best-looking person he had ever met.
His sharp features, his neat short hair, he looked to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, but that pair of eyes filled with anger made him feel the illusion that he seemed to have known him for a long time already, and had even passed through countless years with him.
“Let…”
Gu Yi struggled in pain, but the sounds he made were only fragments, unable to form a sentence.
Blue veins bulged on his forehead, and his pupils gradually scattered.
No good… his strength was not the least bit a match for this man… struggling was futile…
When his consciousness blurred, he heard the man say again, “If you want to die, I’ll grant you that.”
It was a very cold tone.
The force on his neck increased again.
Just when Gu Yi thought everything was about to end, the man suddenly let go.
Gu Yi fell to the ground, gasping, and in a sorry state, he drew in great mouthfuls of air.
Air filled his lungs. His awareness returned, and he breathed almost greedily.
His entire face was red, and breathing was completely an instinctive action.
Seeing him like this, the man laughed. “I thought you really were not afraid of death.”
“Who are you?”
Gu Yi panted as he raised his head to look at him. “Are you… a soul-snatching envoy from the underworld?”
The man laughed twice, lazily walked toward him, lifted a foot, stepped on Gu Yi’s chest, and pressed him back to the ground again. He said, “I’m not a soul-snatching envoy, I’m your own second uncle. If you want to die, you have to get my permission first.”
“You…”
“Do you know how your life came about? Your mother used her last breath to give birth to you. You little brat, is this how you repay her?”
The man stepped down harder. Gu Yi frowned in pain. The next moment, the man bent over and crouched down in front of him. Gu Yi felt a hand lightly cover his left eye, and then came a scorching pain like fire.
Gu Yi could not endure this pain. He cried out, both hands reaching up in the air, wanting to touch his left eye, yet not daring to touch it.
A warm liquid flowed out from his left eye, sticky, as if it were blood.
In the hazy red of blood, Gu Yi fell into a strange dream.
At a rainy crossroads, flashing traffic lights, a car accident, a pregnant woman lying in a pool of blood. The pregnant woman’s face was full of tears, and she was clutching her belly, crying in despair over and over, “Baby… my baby…”
The pregnant woman was obsessed with giving birth to her child, and around her neck was also hanging that jade pendant, the same jade pendant as the one on his body.
Gu Yi jolted awake. At this moment, the foot the man had on his chest had already moved away. He walked to the spot where Gu Yi had jumped down, took a cigarette from his pocket, lit one, and smoked.
Smoke swirled around, making the man’s side profile even more unreal.
“That pregnant woman… was my mother?”
Gu Yi stood up from the ground in a daze.
His body still swayed a little. Too much shock made it impossible for him to accept it for the moment.
“Still want to die now?”
The man glanced sideways at him.
“Who exactly are you, human or ghost?”
The man did not answer him, but instead unlocked his phone and held the screen up in front of him.
Gu Yi walked over and made out the picture on the screen.
His eyes widened. “This is…”
The picture had been processed to be blurry, but he still recognized it at a glance. The man and woman in the picture, the man had no face, only a silhouette, and the woman was precisely Bai Nuo.
Bai Nuo looked terrified, being pulled by that man, forcibly dragged into the small grove behind the school, and it was broad daylight too.
The blood in Gu Yi’s whole body seemed to run backward.
Although that man had no face and was turned away from the camera, he was clearly wearing the same clothes as him. Even his build was extremely similar.
“Where did this photo come from? The person in the photo… is not me!” Gu Yi was full of shock.
The man said, “This is a photo posted on your campus forum, you didn’t know?”
Gu Yi shook his head. “I didn’t know, I don’t have a phone.”
“…”
The man rubbed his forehead and said, “Anyway, someone posted this photo on your school forum. If the boy in the photo is not you, then it must be someone impersonating you. No need to say it, the person who killed your little girlfriend is also definitely him. How is it, do you want to let that guy live comfortably, and then you die for love, while your little girlfriend dies without a clear reason? Are you willing?”
“She is not my girlfriend.”
Gu Yi lowered his eyes, paused, and then said, “I also never dared think that way.”
The man frowned. “Are you a man?”
“No.”
Gu Yi answered very simply, “I’m not a man, I’m just a monster. I can’t do anything for Bai Nuo. Even if I find the person who killed her, I’m still powerless.”
At that, the man laughed once. “But if you dare go die, that’s still very brave.”
He held the cigarette in his mouth and beckoned at him. “Come here.”
“… What for?”
“I told you to come here, so come here. You’re not even afraid of death, what are you afraid of me for?”
Gu Yi thought about it, and that made sense. He also wanted to know whether the person standing in front of him was human or ghost.
He walked over. The man smiled in satisfaction, reached out and rubbed his hair, like rubbing a puppy’s fur. “I’m called Bo Si. From now on, you’ll follow me. I won’t let you starve to death.”
“… Huh?”
“What do you mean, huh?”
“You mean you want to adopt me?” No way, he did not even know this person.
Bo Si exhaled a ring of smoke and lazily said, “Then call me daddy and let me hear it.”
“…” Gu Yi was somewhat speechless. “You as a daddy… are too young, aren’t you?”
An eighteen-year-old son, a twenty-eight-year-old daddy?
“Young?”
As if these two words had struck Bo Si’s funny bone, the corner of his pretty lips curved, but he immediately lowered his eyes and nodded. “Fine, if you say young, then young. Let’s go, it’s the middle of the night, it’s way too cold here, there’s yin qi all around.”
“… Go? Where to?”
Gu Yi was still full of confusion.
Bo Si glared at him and said, “Home.”
“Home?”
Gu Yi was practically becoming one of the ten thousand whys. “But… I don’t even know you. How do you know about my things? Also, why can you fly? You’re not the soul-snatching envoy from the underworld, then who are you? You want to take me home, and home is…”
“Why do you have so much to say? Can’t you just take me for someone who knows everything?”
“But…”
“Less nonsense!”
Bo Si grew impatient, and with a point of his fingertip at Gu Yi’s glabella, Gu Yi immediately lost consciousness.
He could only feel the scorching pain from his left eye.
He could not sort out the things that had happened recently.
Bai Nuo in the red dress who had committed suicide, the moment she jumped from the teaching building, was beautiful like a ball of flame.
The boy on the forum wearing the same clothes as him, dragging Bai Nuo into the small grove.
At the crossroads, the pregnant woman who had been in a car accident and bleeding, yet stubbornly wanted to give birth to her child, and who had the same jade pendant as him. That was his mother.
The mysterious man in a black windbreaker, unbelievably good-looking, who insisted that he follow him.
He was like he had fallen into a long dream.
In the dream, countless images flashed by, then froze on the times he had been bullied before.
The person bullying him was Lin Ming. He snatched his jade pendant, peed on the jade pendant in front of him, accompanied by arrogant laughter.
The scene shifted again, and he saw Bai Nuo once more.
It was Bai Nuo after death. She wore a red dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face was deathly pale, blood kept flowing down from her head, mixed with those white, mushy bits of brain matter. She was holding a bright red little lump of flesh in her arms, and that was her child.
She stood in front of him, her eyes carrying terror and despair, her bloodless lips opening and closing. At first Gu Yi could not hear clearly what she was saying. When that faint voice came closer and closer, he finally heard her words.
What she kept repeating was only one sentence.
“Why didn’t you save me… why didn’t you save me…”
At first the voice was still normal, and later it was like a broken machine, emitting the same ugly, horrifying tone as if malfunctioning, “Why didn’t you save me, why didn’t you save me, why…”
The sound grew farther and farther away, as if it came from beyond the heavens, ethereal and piercing. Bai Nuo’s face gradually blurred, but the little lump of flesh in her arms revealed a baby’s small face. The baby opened its eyes, its blood-red pupils looking straight at Gu Yi. Then the baby bared its mouth and let out a “gege” laugh.
Gu Yi’s left eye suddenly hurt fiercely again.
The pain made his body curl up, both hands covering his eyes, large beads of sweat pouring from his forehead, his hair completely soaked.
Bo Si grabbed his hand and moved it away from his eye. He sat by the bed, looking at the painfully suffering Gu Yi on the bed. He lightly patted his face and called, “Boy, can you get up and take medicine?”
Gu Yi kept his eyes closed, his brows tightly locked together.
Forget it.
Seeing him like this, Bo Si guessed he probably could not take medicine himself either. He held a celadon bowl in his hand, and in the bowl was a light red liquid. He helped Gu Yi sit up and let his head lean against his shoulder, but Gu Yi’s consciousness was unclear, deeply trapped in a nightmare and unable to pull himself out. Bo Si had no choice. With a smile, he softly murmured, “Wake up and don’t blame me.”
He took a mouthful of the medicine in the bowl, lowered his head, and accurately fed the medicine into Gu Yi’s mouth.
The instant their lips touched, Gu Yi tasted that slightly fishy flavor. He very much disliked it, and struggled to retreat backward, but Bo Si held his body and forcefully pried open his lips, quickly letting the liquid flow into his throat.
Gu Yi coughed a few times before slowly opening his eyes.
His left eye seemed not to hurt as much anymore.
The touch on his lips had not disappeared. Gu Yi was startled and pushed him away abruptly.
“What are you doing?” Gu Yi said weakly.
Seeing him wake up, Bo Si set the bowl aside and said, “Feeding you medicine. Better now?”
Gu Yi looked around and asked, “Where is this?”
“Can’t you tell? My home.”
“…” Gu Yi felt that everything was a bit of a mess. “I never said I was going to follow you.”
“Then there’s nothing to be done. You’ve already drunk my medicine. My medicine is very expensive, I can’t let you drink it for nothing, right?” Bo Si pointed at the little celadon bowl.
Speaking of the medicine, Gu Yi thought of that fishy taste and still felt a little uncomfortable. “What medicine is this? Why does it taste so strange?”
Bo Si smiled and said, “This is my blood.”
Gu Yi was shocked. “Your blood?”