Ich bin von Natur aus schön und unübertroffen

Kapitel 15

"Hmm? Is the stone too big...?" The old man frowned, stepped closer, and examined the size of the stone.

A strange thing happened...

He had chosen the perfect stone; his estimation was correct—it was the perfect size that would roll away with a push. But now, the stone was hovering steadily, as if suspended in mid-air, above the cave entrance!

The old man stared wide-eyed in disbelief!

This is so eerie. This floating rock seems... as if... someone is supporting it from below...

Swallowing hard, the old man deliberately spoke in a light tone, "Mu Zi, is that you? Come out quickly..."

As he spoke, the old man gripped the dagger at his waist. It was this very dagger that had killed that fat boy a few days ago. He had stabbed him in the back at an angle, piercing through the left lung from the right lung, so that the man would die without even uttering a sound.

Highly tense, the old man stared intently at the small hole. Sure enough, the stone shook slightly after hearing his words, and was then thrown back out. The force wasn't great; it was just an ordinary throw. The stone rolled a bit and landed at his feet.

The old man gripped the dagger tightly in his hand. No one came out of the well; it was pitch black, and he couldn't see what was below.

Reflexively, the old man took a few steps back, his eyes still fixed on the well opening. Suddenly…

The old man's eyes widened!

A hand! A human hand reached out of the well!

As if deliberately showing off, the hand made a grasping motion in the air, then groped around until it reached the edge of the well and gripped it tightly.

Then, another hand reached out, and then… the boy's fat back appeared palely before the old man. It was just a back view, but the old man recognized it…

It was him! Looking at that figure, a smiling, round face suddenly appeared in the old man's mind.

"Principal! I'm so sorry! We'll never skip class again. Could you please take me to find my friends? They...they..."

For the first time, anxiety appeared on that face that usually wore a憨憨 (simple and honest) smile. It pleaded with him, and then he smiled… “Okay, I’ll take you there, to find them…”

The child was very well-behaved; he died without making a sound or struggling.

He shouldn't be so fat and heavy; it took me a lot of effort to move him.

He shouldn't have bled so much, soaking his beloved car. He almost died trying to clean it himself...

I only stabbed him once, but I might have missed, causing the boy to bleed profusely. Blood soaked his entire back, just like now…

The old man stared at the boy's increasingly visible back. The boy was wearing an oversized T-shirt that he had chosen as Qi Lan's uniform. The T-shirt was supposed to be light blue, but it was now black!

That was blood… Swallowing hard, the old man found himself trembling uncontrollably…

The boy finally crawled out, and his clumsy body slowly turned around. Upon seeing the other person's face, the old man knelt on the ground!

That's the child!

He couldn't remember the faces of the dead, the faces of almost none of the people he had killed. But for some reason, the faces of the two children he had recently killed were exceptionally clear...

The boy's fat face was expressionless. He just stood by the well and looked at him. There was no resentment or gloom in his eyes. He just looked at him.

Slowly, the boy began to walk towards him, his steps very slow and heavy.

"Don't come any closer!" Finally, the old man lost control! Instinctively, he knew it was a ghost! Instinctively, he knew he should run away, but...

My feet seemed to be frozen in place, and I was completely unable to move!

No! I have to run! With only this one thought in mind, the old man began to push himself backward with his arms, his eyes never leaving the boy opposite him. The boy was getting closer and closer, close enough to clearly hear the sound of blood dripping from his body…

Staring intently at the boy ahead, the old man's arm, which was reaching back, suddenly encountered resistance—stiff...cold, but not the feel of grass, nor stone, that feeling...

With his eyes wide open, the old man slowly turned his head away...

A corpse?! Lying face down on the grass, brain matter mixed with blood still oozing from the back of its head...

It was him! The other boy he killed that night!

The old man then realized that the current situation was so similar to that night!

That night, I threw the fat man's body into the well, and then...

He followed the short boy who went to call for help across the grass, and as the boy turned around, he chopped him on the head with an axe...

To his surprise, the old man found the murder weapon he had used that night—the axe—right beside him!

I already dealt with it!

But it's all good... With cold sweat dripping from his forehead, the old man grabbed the axe and chopped heavily at the boy who hadn't yet gotten up from the ground!

One! Two! Three...

Blood gushed out violently, spraying onto the old man's face and blurring his vision, but the old man paid no heed, frantically swinging his axe. The axe, chipped and no longer sharp, continued to hack away...

But no matter how much you cut...

"Why aren't you dead yet? Why aren't you dead yet? Why..."

How was he able to stand up again?

In despair, the old man watched as the boy he had so brutally hacked at staggered to his feet, stiffly rising from the ashes of his axe...

On the face that had lost its human form, two large eyes stared at him, just like the fat man behind him...

Wait! Only then did he remember there was a "ghost" behind him. The old man turned around tremblingly and saw that the fat boy was now... right next to him!

"We must escape!" Caught between two forces, the old man roared and, upon seeing the well in the distance, charged towards it like a madman!

Standing at the bottom of the well, the old man gasped for breath, sweat dripping onto his hands. He habitually wiped his sweat, but… it was red?! The old man stared wide-eyed upwards, and above the dark opening, he saw what appeared to be two blurry faces, expressionless, peering at him from the hole. Blood dripped from their heads…

"Ah—" With a scream, the old man fainted!

Chapter Eleven: Meeting at 3:15

"Mu... Mu Zi... did you hear anything?" In the darkness, the monkey trembled as it tightly gripped the arm of the person next to it.

"Of course I heard it. It was so loud, it sounded like someone screaming in agony." Mu Zi replied in her usual calm tone.

"Hey! Can you please stop talking like that all the time? That's the principal's voice, isn't it? Did you... run into..." the monkey said, trembling, tightening his grip on the other person's arm.

"Monkey, stop grabbing people so tightly!" Chen Jiaming's gloomy voice came from the darkness.

"I'm sorry! I'm scared..." the monkey answered tremblingly, but its hands didn't loosen their grip at all.

They went deeper and deeper, and found themselves in a long, secret passage—something none of them had known at the beginning. The unknown future, pitch black and completely obscure, filled all three except Mu Zi with trepidation.

"Ouch!" the monkey suddenly cried out.

"What are you yelling about again?" Mu Zi asked, displeased. In this enclosed tunnel, any sound would be amplified many times over and enter one's ears, enough to kill a person!

"Mu Zi, you hit me! Don't turn around so easily!" the monkey complained.

"...I..." Mu Zi's voice hesitated for a moment before breaking through, "I didn't turn around."

"Huh?!" The monkey was stunned. He clearly felt someone suddenly turn around and leap past him!

"Is that you?" The monkey gripped Chen Jiaming's hand tightly.

"...No, it's not..." Chen Jiaming's voice trembled. Monkey suddenly realized... Chen Jiaming's voice... was behind him... and the person he had grabbed...

It runs parallel to itself!

In the darkness, a small flame suddenly ignited, and Mu Zi's calm face appeared opposite it—it was a lighter. Mu Zi moved the lighter towards the monkey, and with just that tiny light, the monkey and Chen Jiaming's eyes widened in astonishment!

What I'm holding in my hands isn't the other person! It's...

In the darkness, two black hands were clasped together by the monkey and Chen Jiaming. Only then did the monkey realize that what it had been tightly holding was actually a pair of charred arms!

I looked up at the other person in horror... the flames had gone out.

"Ah!" The monkey's scream immediately echoed through the secret passage!

Duan Lin slowly opened his eyes. Before him stood a hospital. A very old-fashioned hospital.

Patients with IV drips hung in the corridor, dressed in clothes from the last century. Nurses walked back and forth expressionlessly. Duan Lin walked forward, watching doctors in white coats wheel patients out of the operating room. The patients on the trolleys were covered from head to toe with white sheets. As they were wheeled out, their waiting family members burst into tears. Children ran and bumped into him, but no one looked at them.

The child was crying, and no one paid any attention. Duan Lin instinctively wanted to comfort him, but his hand pierced through the child's body...

A nurse noticed and gently picked up the child, softly comforting him until he stopped crying and started to smile. She was a nurse with long hair, arched eyebrows, apple-shaped cheeks, and cherry-like lips; her smile was incredibly gentle.

Duan Lin noticed the name on her nurse identification card... Qi Lan?

Duan Lin saw her glance at him…glance at him?!

The nurse's gentle expression vanished instantly, and the original hospital scene around him disappeared as well. Duan Lin was surprised to find himself standing once again in the dark corridor of Qi Lan High School's student dormitory, with nothing in front of him!

Only the nurse remained standing in front of him, dressed in white, gracefully standing in the middle of the corridor, looking at him expressionlessly, then turning around nonchalantly and walking towards the end of the corridor.

As Duan Lin walked, he heard the nurse seemingly calling someone's name...

What are you calling out? Duan Lin couldn't hear clearly.

The nurse walked around knocking on the door until she reached the door of number "143"...

That's her! Duan Lin swallowed hard and chased after her.

It would be a lie to say I wasn't scared, but I was determined to get to the bottom of this with her!

Duan Lin stood behind the woman and gently patted her shoulder. "Excuse me..."

The woman slowly turned her face, and Duan Lin's eyes widened instantly!

Where was the gentle nurse with the apple-shaped face from just moments ago? Looking at the face before him, now charred black with only his eyes visible... if that could still be called a face... Duan Lin swallowed hard.

"You came to see me?"

Duan Lin's heart pounded as he heard the woman across from him speak.

"Is it you?" The woman's charred hand touched Duan Lin's face...

"It's been too long...it's been too long..." The woman's hand left five charred marks on Duan Lin's face.

Duan Lin felt the woman gripping his neck tightly. The woman's strength was incredible, unlike anything a woman should possess. And yes… she was a ghost…

But Duan Lin found himself no longer afraid. Ghosts are people too, or perhaps they were people in life, and as people, they retain human emotions. Duan Lin believed this. A ghost with human emotions isn't a ghost... A person whose heart has become a ghost is more terrifying than a ghost; the most terrifying thing isn't a ghost, but a person.

Duan Lin thought that he would never be afraid of ghosts again. As long as he was willing to face anything, he would definitely be able to get through it.

Gently touching the charred hands that were gripping his neck, Duan Lin struggled to speak: "Tell me... who... are you looking for?"

Who is it that makes you search for them every day, every night, and every 3:15 AM?

Who was it? What kind of agreement was it? Duan Lin suddenly felt a pang of heartache…

“Yes…” A hint of anxiety suddenly appeared on her charred face, and Duan Lin sensed the woman’s anxiety.

"It's him... We agreed to run away together at 3:15..."