DDT - Chapter 85
Chapter 85: Female Ghost × Little Pitiful One (15)
That night, Yi Shuhan carried Chi Junluo back to her own Room No. 1 and slept soundly all night. What she didn't know was that when the Yellow-haired Man woke up in the latter half of the night, he was completely terrified into madness by a room full of ghosts. The police officers guarding the door didn't get a wink of sleep. The Yellow-haired Man cried and screamed about ghosts, but the officers just looked at the empty room with expressions of contempt.
In their view, the Yellow-haired Man was either faking insanity to escape legal punishment, knowing he couldn't get away, or he had committed so many sins and taken so many lives that the vengeful spirits of the unjustly dead had returned as fierce ghosts to find him.
If it was the latter, the police officers only had one thing to say: he deserved it.
Like most people, they felt that simply giving the Yellow-haired Man a bullet and letting him die so easily would hardly quell the public's outrage. But in a society governed by the rule of law, they had no right to carry out private punishments. Therefore, if ghosts truly existed in the world and would haunt the Yellow-haired Man for the rest of his life, it might actually be a good thing that everyone would be happy to see!
Public opinion continued to rage. After lying in the hospital for two days, the Yellow-haired Man and his accomplices were escorted by police cars to a detention center to be held in custody.
In his solitary cell at the detention center, the Yellow-haired Man may have truly gone mad. Under the torment and terror of the ghosts, unable to bear the humiliation, he snapped his own member off.
According to the police officers at the scene, the Yellow-haired Man had castrated himself during the night. It wasn't until the officers made their rounds at dawn that they saw the floor covered in blood. Although the Yellow-haired Man was a heinous criminal, he couldn't be allowed to die on their watch; he still had to await the judgment of the law.
They rushed the Yellow-haired Man to the hospital. The doctor had clearly been following the recent news. Looking at the man's injuries, he shook his head. "The severed limb has been detached for too long. It can't be reattached. We can only perform an amputation."
Though the doctor maintained his professional composure, he couldn't help but let a faint smile show on his face. Tearing it off himself, what a feat.
Serves him right for all the evil he's done.
When the reporters got the news, they scrambled to write their articles, all competing to be the first to announce the joyous tidings to the public.
The topic #SerialKillerCastratesHimself# instantly shot into the top ten. Many netizens who had previously been clamoring for the beast to be physically castrated were now cheering.
Before the first trial, the Yellow-haired Man was sent for a psychiatric evaluation due to his abnormal behavior. The hospital's conclusion was that he had developed schizophrenia due to extreme psychological trauma and other unknown factors.
Yi Shuhan and Chi Junluo sat on the balcony, listening to a circle of fellow patients discussing the final verdict of the Yellow-haired Man's serial murder case under the sun. The patients didn't have phones, but their families had visited and brought in news from the outside world, giving the bored patients something to talk about.
Of the Yellow-haired Man's accomplices, four were sentenced to death, two to life imprisonment, and one to twenty years. Because the Yellow-haired Man's schizophrenia was severe—in layman's terms, he had completely lost his mind—he was given a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve. It was said that his mother had spent the family fortune just to save his life, paying over a million to each victim's family to seek their forgiveness. As for the final outcome, the patients weren't entirely clear.
However, they had heard that the Yellow-haired Man's father and mother had divorced. Wang Mingcheng had filed for it, claiming that the Yellow-haired Man was not his biological son but the product of his wife's affair. The patients clicked their tongues in amazement. That Wang Mingcheng had worked so hard to raise a useless piece of trash for the guy next door; he'd been thoroughly cuckolded.
Yi Shuhan reached out and touched Chi Junluo's cool hand, which was draped over her chest, as she leisurely enjoyed the sunbath.
The patients' conversation drifted to neighborhood gossip, and Yi Shuhan had no intention of joining in. She quietly carried Chi Junluo, who loved to hang on her back, back to Room No. 1. The room had already become a cozy little nest for the two of them.
Yi Shuhan also learned from a few nurses that the two who had deceived her and led her to the old building in an attempt to help the Yellow-haired Man commit his crime had been fired and detained for fifteen days. As for what happened to them after that, Yi Shuhan didn't care to know.
Ever since meeting Chi Junluo, Yi Shuhan felt that time wasn't so hard to endure anymore. The medicine she had to take every day wasn't so bitter, and the indifferent doctors and nurses weren't so annoying.
It seemed that as long as Chi Junluo was by her side, she could ignore everything else.
With her back to the surveillance camera, Yi Shuhan took out the drawing she had kept carefully hidden.
Carefully unfolding the paper, Yi Shuhan studied the exquisite, hand-drawn lines. A pleasant female voice suddenly sounded by her ear. It was Chi Junluo speaking to her. "What's this? It's been a while since we've seen each other face-to-face. Does Shuhan miss me?"
A faint, cool stream of air brushed past Yi Shuhan's ear. She felt her ear grow warm and shook her head slightly. Then she realized Chi Junluo had just asked a question. Wasn't shaking her head a denial?
So she quickly said, "It really has been many days since I've seen Chi Chi. Shall we meet in the bathroom tonight?"
Seeing Yi Shuhan shake her head slightly and then immediately suggest a bathroom meetup, Chi Junluo found it rather amusing.
Hearing Chi Chi's soft chuckle by her ear, Yi Shuhan's ears turned red. "What are you laughing at?"
"I'm just laughing at how peculiar our meeting spot is."
Indeed, who else would have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night just to see someone? It was hardly ideal.
"Chi Chi, when will I be able to see you without having to be in the bathroom?" Yi Shuhan asked, vexed, as she twirled a lock of her bangs around her finger.
Then she felt a cool, soft hand gently take hold of the little hand that was fidgeting by her head.
The cool sensation gradually spread from her hand to the rest of her body. Yi Shuhan also noticed that, starting a few days ago, the constant warmth from Chi Junluo hanging on her back had begun to cool down.
She vaguely remembered that at the very beginning, the warmth had been almost scalding hot. But now, it could no longer be called warmth. It had become very mild, and was even trending towards becoming cool. For some reason, Yi Shuhan felt a faint sense of unease in her heart.
Room No. 1 suddenly fell silent. Yi Shuhan felt Chi Junluo's hand gently squeezing hers, over and over again.
"Chi Chi, will you always be with me?" Yi Shuhan suddenly spoke, breaking the silence in the room.
The soft, boneless hand squeezing hers paused for a moment, then resumed. The Chi Junluo behind her said nothing.
"Chi Chi?" Yi Shuhan called out softly again.
Chi Junluo, on Yi Shuhan's back, hesitated for a moment before slowly speaking. "I don't know."
Seeing that Yi Shuhan didn't respond, Chi Junluo added, "Who knows what the future holds?" It sounded like both a sigh and an evasion.
Yi Shuhan put down the drawing and reached back to hold Chi Junluo's hand. For a long time, neither the human nor the ghost spoke again.
After an unknown amount of time, Yi Shuhan suddenly turned her head to the side. "Chi Chi, will you teach me how to draw?"
But Chi Junluo suddenly pulled her hand away. Yi Shuhan froze for a second, then heard Chi Junluo say, "Okay."
Hearing Chi Junluo agree to her request, Yi Shuhan pushed aside the unhappiness from her hand being suddenly pulled away and began to study the drawing closely again.
What Yi Shuhan didn't know was that Chi Junluo had been resting her head on Yi Shuhan's shoulder. When Yi Shuhan turned her head, her lips brushed against the corner of Chi Junluo's mouth. The soft touch made Chi Junluo's mind explode. Startled, she floated backward in an instant, reaching up to touch the corner of her own lips.
That night, Chi Junluo floated in mid-air, replaying that not-quite-a-kiss brush of contact. She was so dazed that when midnight arrived and Yi Shuhan called for her to go to the bathroom, she didn't even hear, remaining absentmindedly in the air.
It wasn't for any other reason than that, in that single moment, the action and the feeling seemed incredibly familiar, as if in some forgotten memory, someone had done the exact same thing to her.
This wasn't right, was it?
Chi Junluo racked her brain but just couldn't remember who had done such a thing with her. The more she thought, the longer she thought, not only did she fail to remember, but her head began to ache faintly. She quickly asked the Heavenly Dao what was happening. The Heavenly Dao, bored, swiped its light screen in her sea of consciousness. "This Deity doesn't know either."
A woman's sixth sense told Chi Junluo that the Heavenly Dao definitely knew something, but it just wasn't telling.
An extremely blurry figure gradually appeared in Chi Junluo's mind. She couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, just a vague shadow. Shaking her head, Chi Junluo decided to stop dwelling on it for now. Sooner or later, she would remember! For some reason, she had this mysterious self-assurance.
When she came back to her senses, she found that Room No. 1 was empty.
Oh no! Yi Shuhan went out by herself!
Chi Junluo reflexively floated towards the door, only to be bounced back by that invisible wall. She was annoyed. What if Shuhan got bullied outside?
Fortunately, a moment later, Yi Shuhan pushed the door open and came in. Her eyes were slightly red, but Chi Junluo didn't notice because the moment Yi Shuhan entered, she latched onto her back.
"Chi Chi… are you still there?" Yi Shuhan asked softly.
"I'm here, I'm here."
Hearing the familiar voice and feeling the slight warmth on her back, Yi Shuhan let out a small sigh of relief.
Heaven knew, when she had gone to the bathroom just now and saw no sign of Chi Chi in the mirror, she had been completely terrified. She had called Chi Junluo's name several times, but Chi Junluo hadn't appeared. Instead, she had badly frightened an old lady who had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. The lady didn't even wash her hands, just stared in horror as the red-eyed, disheveled Yi Shuhan stumbled back to her own room.
Yi Shuhan had stood dumbfounded in front of the mirror for a while before it occurred to her: could it be that Chi Chi hadn't followed her? She hastily splashed cold water on her eyes, which looked a bit red and swollen, before rushing back to Room No. 1.
Thankfully, Chi Chi was still there.
Yi Shuhan's heart had grown cold with fright. Only after feeling that familiar sense of security did she lie down on the bed, somewhat exhausted. She wouldn't go to the bathroom for their meetup tonight; she was afraid Chi Chi would see how unnatural she was acting.
She clearly thought of Chi Chi as just a friend, so why did even a brief separation send her into such a panic?
Was she too dependent on Chi Chi?
With a heavy heart, Yi Shuhan wished Chi Junluo goodnight and fell into an exhausted sleep.
That night, Yi Shuhan had a bizarre and fantastical dream.
Comments
Post a Comment