Xu Muchan could not see the moment the incense went out, but after turning his face to the side and waiting for a while, he noticed that the smoke from the burning incense was gradually becoming thinner.
Incense used for offerings could normally burn for at least ten minutes. The scent would not become faint so quickly.
Puzzled, he slowly traced upward along the bottom of the incense with his fingers. When he reached the top, he indeed felt none of the heat from burning incense.
Only then did he confirm that the incense had gone out.
This was not the first time something like this had happened.
Although he had called him Brother all these years, and the fact that he had been able to live and study peacefully all this time was indeed thanks to the other’s protection, the moods of a non-human existence were still difficult to predict.
He secretly sighed, relit the incense, and softly asked, “Was today’s meal not to Brother’s taste?”
“…”
The room was completely silent. No one answered.
However, the scent of the incense soon faded again.
Clearly, the incense had gone out once more.
Xu Muchan turned his face to the side and thought for a while. He did not insist any further. Instead, he put away the thin incense, then opened the window to ventilate the room and disperse the smell. Only afterward did he pick up the bowl of uncooked rice mixed with eggs, feel his way to the kitchen, pour it out, and wash the bowl while he was there.
“What a waste.”
“I shouldn’t have put the eggs in.”
Xu Muchan muttered softly as he washed the bowl. He had used three eggs. If he had not added the eggs, the uncooked rice could have been used again tomorrow.
After washing the bowl clean and covering the trash so that no one would notice anything unusual, Xu Muchan slowly made his way back.
Because he could not see and was still unfamiliar with the layout of his new home, he walked each step slowly and steadily. His white cane probed the path ahead, while the sound of his soles striking the floor was exceptionally clear in the quiet, spacious villa.
“Tap.”
“Tap.”
“Tap.”
Every sound seemed to carry an echo.
Xu Muchan stopped strangely.
The sound of “tap” continued, gradually approaching from behind.
It was not an echo.
It was another set of footsteps that did not belong to Xu Muchan.
The light perceived by his eyes was still dim, indicating that the villa’s lights had not been turned on. So it was not Xu Wangchuan, nor was it Xu Qingming and his wife.
Something else had come out.
Xu Muchan’s heartbeat quickened, and his limbs became slightly stiff. He took a deep breath and pretended that he had not noticed the extra footsteps behind him, continuing forward at his previous pace.
He did not dare walk too quickly. The moment he panicked, he would be discovered.
The kitchen was not far from his room. He had already walked halfway just now. There was only the other half left, perhaps a dozen or so steps away.
Xu Muchan maintained a slow and steady pace, leaning on his white cane as he walked toward his room.
The footsteps behind him drew closer. Whatever was following him was clearly walking faster than he was, or perhaps its strides were longer. In any case, after Xu Muchan had taken four or five steps, he felt an icy pressure above his head.
There was also an indescribable, prickling sensation, as though he were being scrutinized.
Xu Muchan was not unfamiliar with this feeling. He had experienced it when he was very young.
At that time, however, he had been young and ignorant, fearless because he knew no better. He had even treated the other party as a playmate for a time.
Of course, as it turned out, becoming friends with something that was not human would never end well.
If his memory was correct, Xu Muchan remembered that thing being two or three meters tall. Its head, covered in red cloth, reached the ceiling, while its thin, bony body was hunched over. The two hands that were exposed were thin and long, with hooked-claw-like fingernails, and its fingers had several more joints than those of a human.
The prickling sensation on his back was most likely because that thing was currently pressed against his back, bending its body down and lowering its head to stare at him.
Xu Muchan could not help wondering whether the red cloth was still covering that thing’s head.
He remembered that he had later been bewitched and lifted the red cloth…
But now, no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember what was beneath it.
His memory had always been excellent. He should not have forgotten.
What exactly did that thing look like?
Xu Muchan felt an unprecedented curiosity. He could not help turning his head to look behind him.
At the exact moment he turned his head, a faint, genderless voice that was impossible to distinguish as male or female called his name.
“Xu Muchan…”
An icy current of air brushed against his cheek.
Xu Muchan jolted awake. His eyelashes trembled violently, and for the first time, he was immensely grateful that he was blind.
That thing was currently face-to-face with him.
The muscles in Xu Muchan’s cheeks twitched. He clenched his teeth, adjusted his slightly disordered breathing, and laboriously turned his head back.
Then he continued walking forward.
His hand hanging at his side clenched tightly into a fist. He relied on the pain of his fingernails digging into his palm to keep himself alert.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps…
Every time Xu Muchan took a step, that thing took one as well.
The footsteps in front and behind him almost overlapped completely.
Xu Muchan’s jaw was taut. He desperately suppressed his wildly pounding heart and finished the remaining distance.
But the hand he extended to search for the doorknob grasped nothing.
Xu Muchan refused to believe it. He took two more steps forward and reached out again.
There was nothing in front of him.
Under the intense tension, a faint dull pain developed in his chest. Xu Muchan took a deep breath and repeatedly told himself not to be nervous, not to be afraid. Then he carefully recalled whether there had been any deviation in the route he had taken back.
He had already walked the path from the kitchen to his room three times, so he was fairly familiar with it. When he had made the final turn, his white cane had also touched the wall. After touching the wall at the corner, he only needed to take four or five more steps to reach his room.
He was certain he had not taken a wrong turn.
Most likely, he had encountered a ghostly wall.
Things like this were particularly good at using such methods to confuse people.
Xu Muchan bit his lip and stood still without wandering around randomly.
Since he was certain he had not taken the wrong path, the door to his room should be nearby.
There was no movement inside the room, and his brother had not appeared either. He did not know whether his brother simply did not intend to help him or whether he was not there at all.
Xu Muchan’s stomach spasmed.
He held the white cane in his right hand, while he curled the index finger of his left hand and bit down on it.
He bit very hard.
The tip of his tongue immediately tasted the metallic flavor of blood.
The intense pain made his entire body tremble. It also made him more alert and helped him break free more easily from the illusions created by those things.
Sure enough, when Xu Muchan reached out again this time, his fingers touched the familiar wall.
And beside it was the familiar doorknob.
Xu Muchan forcibly suppressed his fear and did not dare show too much abnormality. He opened the door at a normal pace, stepped inside, quickly closed it, and locked it from the inside.
Yet he was not certain whether that thing would follow him in.
Therefore, after locking the door, he stumbled toward the cabinet where the shrine was kept.
The cabinet door was not yet closed. Xu Muchan easily touched the shrine. He had no time to care about his bleeding finger as he tremblingly grabbed the deity statue placed on the shrine and held it tightly.
The blood from his finger smeared all over the statue, but Xu Muchan did not know it.
He slid down against the cabinet door and sat on the floor, turning his face slightly to the side while his ears remained intensely focused on the sounds at the door.
There were no footsteps.
It seemed that thing had not come inside.
But Xu Muchan did not dare relax so easily.
His chest rose and fell violently. He pressed the deity statue against his forehead and murmured, “Brother, are you here?”
There was no response.
Xu Muchan also did not sense the familiar presence appearing.
He could not help feeling disappointed.
Sure enough, he should not place too many expectations on anyone other than himself.
Especially when the other party was not even human.
He was merely a sacrifice offered to the mountain god by ignorant villagers.
In order to pray for rain, the villagers of Leigong Village had followed the customs of the past and dressed him as a bride before offering him to the mountain god.
It was said that long ago, the villagers of Leigong Village would sacrifice to the mountain god every few years, selecting young and beautiful women and sending them to the mountain god as brides.
None of the women who entered the mountain god’s cave ever returned.
They all died.
Xu Muchan was the last mountain god’s bride.
At the time, many of the younger villagers no longer believed in such feudal superstitions and were even reluctant to offer their own children to the mountain god. But they could not overcome the older generation of villagers.
And since Xu Muchan was an orphan with no one to rely on, everyone compromised and “married” Xu Muchan off.
At the time, someone had even secretly comforted Xu Muchan, saying that it was merely going through the motions of a ceremony. There was no mountain god at all. Once the ceremony was over, he could come back.
But when Xu Muchan was carried in a bridal sedan chair to the mountain god’s cave and felt the cold, sinister aura coming from deep within the cave, he knew that the legend of the mountain god’s cave was real.
Whether that thing was actually the mountain god or not, Xu Muchan did not know.
But from the moment he saw it inside the mountain god’s cave, he knew that it was definitely not human.
In order to survive, young Xu Muchan had pretended to be stupid and recognized a non-human entity as his older brother.
That was how he had been fortunate enough to survive.
But this could not change the fact that the thing he had always called Brother was of the same kind as the thing currently wandering outside the door.
Xu Muchan repeatedly warned himself of this.
He bit his lip hard, forcing himself to calm down. He put the deity statue back, then held onto the cabinet and slowly stood up, feeling his way back to the bed.
He pulled the blanket over his head and desperately forced himself to fall asleep as quickly as possible.
Based on his past experiences, the existence of these things was highly dependent on the mind. The more afraid you were of them, the stronger they became.
That thing indeed did not leave.
Dragging footsteps could be heard outside the door, along with that faint, eerie voice, calling Xu Muchan’s name again and again.
After hearing it so many times, an irresistible urge to respond would gradually arise in one’s heart.
Xu Muchan curled up on his side and covered his ears, refusing to listen. He concentrated on counting sheep to hypnotize himself.
Therefore, he did not see the cabinet door, which had not been completely closed, silently being pushed farther open.
A dense shadow slipped onto the floor, crept toward the bed, and gradually stretched into a twisted humanoid figure more than two meters tall.
It bent down and stared at the mound beneath the blanket.
“A-Chan is so pitiful.”
“Not obedient.”
The black shadow produced a sound that human ears could not hear. It overlapped with the faint, eerie calls outside the door, melting together into a twisted and nauseating tone.
The locked doorknob suddenly began turning on its own.
Click.
Click.
It sounded as though an invisible hand was twisting the doorknob, trying to open the door.
Xu Muchan curled his body into the shape of a shrimp. He could barely continue counting sheep now. He bit down hard on his index finger so that fear would not overwhelm him.
The black shadow suddenly became furious.
The place resembling a head turned toward the door. Its neck instantly stretched extraordinarily long, almost pressing against the door.
“Get lost.”
The turning doorknob stopped.
Then it sprang back into place.
Xu Muchan, beneath the blanket, soon noticed that the sound of the doorknob turning had disappeared.
The persistent, haunting calls had also stopped.
He immediately released his teeth and tilted his head, listening carefully to the sounds outside.
The “tap tap tap” of footsteps seemed to be moving farther away.
Judging from the direction, it seemed to have gone next door.
Xu Muchan finally breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed weakly onto the bed, drenched in cold sweat.
Once his tense mind relaxed, he quickly fell into an exhausted sleep without even needing to hypnotize himself.
The black shadow beside the bed climbed onto it and slipped beneath the blanket.
Its slender limbs twisted into a contorted posture impossible for a human being, wrapping and entangling the young man on the bed so tightly that not even a gap remained.
Then it lowered its head and licked the place where Xu Muchan’s index finger had been bitten open.
The bright red blood entered its throat.
The black shadow seemed to have tasted an incomparable delicacy. Unable to restrain itself, it stuffed the entire finger into the part resembling a mouth and made urgent, strange swallowing and sucking sounds.
Occasionally, indistinct words such as “A-Chan” and “Smells so good” could be heard mixed among them.
The strange sounds in the room did not die down until a long time later.
If anyone had been there, they would have discovered that the non-human entity had embedded the sleeping, beautiful young man into its own body.