DDT - Chapter 86
Chapter 86: Female Ghost × Little Pitiful One (16)
She was surrounded by a vast, white mist, so thick she could barely see her own body.
Yi Shuhan didn't know where she was, or even how she had gotten here. Something was drawing her forward, as if by an unseen force, yet she felt a sliver of unease.
Something in the mist felt threatening.
She tried to raise a hand to rub her head, but her arm was so heavy she could barely lift it.
With great difficulty, she took a step, heading deeper into the mist. Why were her damn legs so heavy?
A similar experience seemed to echo in the depths of her mind, but her muddled brain couldn't recall why her feet felt too heavy to move.
Chi Junluo was floating in the air, lost in thought, when she heard a rustling sound from the bed. She turned her head to see the blanket fallen on the floor and Yi Shuhan, lying on her side, kicking her legs with great effort.
Chi Junluo: …
It looked like Shuhan was dreaming about walking or running.
Chi Junluo pulled the blanket back over Yi Shuhan, then floated back into the air.
Unaware she was in a dream, Yi Shuhan walked for what felt like an eternity before she finally pushed through the fog and saw a desolate ruin.
Her hand felt heavy. She looked down and saw that she was clutching a black, bone-shaped object with a single golden pattern running along it. Next to her feet lay a dark black skeleton.
Yi Shuhan stumbled back two steps in fright. Seeing the missing hand bone on the skeleton, she realized what she was holding. Horrified, she tried to throw it away, but the bone seemed stuck to her hand, refusing to be shaken off. Her vision blurred. Yi Shuhan reached up to rub her eyes, only to feel a dampness on her fingers.
Why was she crying?
The scene beneath her feet changed. She was standing on a high city wall, surrounded by the smoke of battle. Not far away, a woman with a slender figure waved at her, then turned and leaped off the edge.
In that instant, a sharp pain seized Yi Shuhan's heart. She forced herself forward, only to see a dark black skeleton lying on the distant ground below.
The mist thickened once more. She took a step forward, her foot found nothing but air, and she began to plummet. Before she could even scream, she fell into a warm embrace.
She was lying in bed, a warm chest enclosing her from behind, filling her with a familiar sense of security.
Who could give her such a feeling of safety? In her heavy, muddled mind, Chi Junluo's image appeared.
Yi Shuhan turned, wanting to see the person behind her, but the moment she moved, she was transported to another scene.
She stood before a large building, surrounded by a cacophony of noise she couldn't quite make out. She shifted her feet and noticed a strange sensation beneath them, like the sound of water, but not quite.
Yi Shuhan looked down and saw blood flowing across the ground. A little further ahead, a short-haired girl lay on the ground in a twisted posture, the source of the spreading blood.
The girl's face was indistinct, but a wave of panic and grief instantly overwhelmed Yi Shuhan. It was the sorrow of losing someone important. Yi Shuhan was sure she had never lost anyone important, but when that grief washed over her, she immediately recognized the emotion within it.
Yi Shuhan walked forward. It was a horrific way to die, but it was as if she were already accustomed to it, feeling no fear.
Kneeling down, Yi Shuhan reached out a trembling hand to touch the girl. The endless sorrow and sadness welling up from the bottom of her heart was nearly maddening.
I know this girl, Yi Shuhan thought.
She must be very important, right?
Yi Shuhan's vision blurred as something hot spilled from her eyes.
Wiping away her tears, Yi Shuhan looked closely at the still-warm body. On the girl's left wrist, she saw two beautiful golden patterns. One of them was identical to the pattern she had seen before.
When she gently touched the pattern, the girl's body vanished. From the noisy crowd behind her came a terrified shout, "Oh my god! Someone's going to jump!"
Yi Shuhan reflexively looked up. Atop the tall building before her, a girl stood on the edge, her school uniform flapping wildly in the wind. Yi Shuhan opened her mouth, but before the word "Don't" could escape her lips, the girl took a step forward. Losing her balance and support, she plummeted from the sky, crashing right in front of Yi Shuhan with a sickening thud, accompanied by the sound of breaking bones that set one's teeth on edge.
"C…" Yi Shuhan's mouth was open, a name on the verge of spilling out, but it was lost as the world spun and the scene changed once more.
A massive ice bed, radiating a chilling aura. Before her was a woman dressed in gorgeous ancient clothing. Her long, beautiful hair was spread across the ice bed, and Yi Shuhan was lying on part of it.
A thin mist seemed to cover the woman's face, obscuring her features.
Yi Shuhan tried to get closer, but she accidentally touched the woman's body. Even through the fabric, she felt a bone-piercing chill.
This was not the temperature of a living person. Yi Shuhan's hand froze. She slowly backed away a little, examining the body before her. Then, on the woman's left hand, she saw three golden patterns!
The patterns again! And on a girl's left wrist again. What was going on?
Where in the world was this place?
Yi Shuhan took the ancient woman's left hand and gently stroked the golden lines. There was no uneven texture; it didn't feel like a tattoo, but more like a birthmark she was born with.
But why did these two girls and that skeleton all have these patterns?
Yi Shuhan lowered her head to think, and suddenly noticed that her own right hand was wrapped in bright yellow cloth strips.
Curiosity drove her to remove them. The strips fell away on their own, revealing three golden patterns on her right wrist, identical to the ones on the woman's left hand. Startled, she reached out to touch them and felt a slight, uneven texture. This felt like a tattoo.
Recalling the name that had been stuck in her throat but never came out, Yi Shuhan felt a tightness in her chest, as if the truth was right in front of her, but she had no idea how to grasp it.
The increasing number of patterns on the left wrists, the tattoo on her own right wrist—a huge mystery enveloped her. The scene before her began to shatter, piece by piece. Yi Shuhan reached out and grabbed the ancient woman's hand. The icy touch was just like…
Just like…
The scene shattered completely. Yi Shuhan felt her eyelids grow incredibly heavy. She tried to force them open, but it was no use.
A warm stream flowed down her cheeks. Yi Shuhan woke with a jolt, sitting up abruptly. Her head was spinning, and the world felt like it was tilting.
She was sobbing quietly. After a long moment, she finally came to her senses. A slightly worried female voice sounded by her ear, "Shuhan, did you have a nightmare? Why are you crying?"
She was crying???
Yi Shuhan belatedly raised a hand to her cheeks and eyes. The traces of warm tears stained her fingers. She silently got out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. If she didn't deal with all these tears, she'd probably have panda eyes tomorrow.
Seeing Yi Shuhan's poor state, Chi Junluo quickly latched onto her back and followed her to the bathroom.
Yi Shuhan splashed her face with the cold night water, the cool liquid stimulating her nerves.
They say you quickly forget your dreams after waking up, but even after splashing her face with cold water for so long, everything from the dream remained. On the contrary, the bloody, terrifying scenes were deeply seared into her mind, impossible to erase.
"Shuhan?" Chi Junluo looked worriedly at Yi Shuhan's pale face. She gently touched her cheek and asked again.
"Chi Chi, I'm fine. I just had an unpleasant dream, but I can't remember it clearly now." Yi Shuhan looked up at Chi Junluo's concerned face in the mirror. For some reason, she felt that Chi Junluo strongly resembled the faceless girls from her dream.
Shaking her head slightly, Yi Shuhan looked at Chi Junluo with pitiful eyes. "Chi Chi, you didn't even sleep with me tonight…"
"Chi Chi, can you hold me when we go back to sleep? I'm afraid I'll have another nightmare."
Chi Junluo looked at Yi Shuhan's teary-eyed gaze in the mirror, and her heart nearly melted.
Chi Junluo: Eee! The heroine is so cute!
"Then let's go back. It's getting late. We need to rest so you'll have the energy to learn how to paint tomorrow," Chi Junluo said, gently ruffling Yi Shuhan's hair. Seeing her own hair being messed up, Yi Shuhan felt no discomfort at all. On the contrary, she was very happy that someone—or rather, a ghost—was willing to be so intimate with her.
She wanted to be even more intimate.
In the bathroom, the girl and the ghost reluctantly said their goodbyes. Yi Shuhan then returned to her room with a happy swagger. She flopped onto the mattress, curling up on her side. A warm sensation enveloped her from behind. Yi Shuhan knew it was Chi Junluo, holding her.
In Chi Junluo's gentle embrace, Yi Shuhan quickly fell asleep. This time, no strange scenes appeared in her dreams. She slept soundly through the night.
Neither the girl nor the ghost noticed that when they left the bathroom, the auntie who had gotten up to use the toilet at midnight—having drunk too much water—had woken up again. The terrified auntie hid in a dimly lit stall, not daring to make a sound.
The auntie had heard two different female voices chattering by the mirror. It was safe to say she was truly terrified, almost to the point of losing control of her bowels.
Only after Yi Shuhan and the ghost had left did the auntie stumble out of the stall, letting out a strange cry to bolster her courage as she fled back to her room. The auntie was now certain: Yi Shuhan had dissociative identity disorder. She had to tell the doctor!
Meanwhile, Chi Junluo quietly held Yi Shuhan, bargaining with the Heavenly Dao in her sea of consciousness.
"Heavenly Dao, Heavenly Dao! Can you transmit the memories of a master painter from this world to me? I have to teach the heroine how to paint tomorrow, and you know I cheated with the Power of the Heavenly Dao the last two times."
The Heavenly Dao dithered, not wanting to deal with Chi Junluo.
Chi Junluo threatened, "You're still hiding a lot of things from me. If you don't give me the memories, then we just won't collect the Power of the Heavenly Dao and won't form a contract with the heroine's fragments. I'm a ghost in this world anyway, I can't die. We can just drag this out."
The Heavenly Dao grew anxious. "You dare?!"
"Why wouldn't I dare?" A corner of Chi Junluo's mouth lifted.
The Heavenly Dao was silent for a moment before saying, "Fine, I'll give them to you. But you have to speed things up. This Deity does not wish to waste time."
As Chi Junluo waited for the Heavenly Dao to search the world's timeline, her mind replayed the recent events. What exactly was the Heavenly Dao hiding from her?
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