Azure Heart Horror Short Story

Chapter 19

As Liu Zihu spoke, a muddy, earthy taste rose from his throat. Zhou Yu felt nauseous and wanted to vomit.

Seeing that the slug was about to crawl onto Zhou Yu's face, Zhou Yu gritted his teeth and bit down.

It bit off the heads of two slugs in one bite.

"Ah...ah..." Liu Zihu was caught off guard and screamed as he staggered back a few steps. He also let go of Zhou Yu's hand.

Zhou Yu quickly spat out the disgusting thing in his mouth, stretched out his leg and tripped Liu Zihu, causing him to fall onto the doormat at the entrance of the morgue.

"Consider this electric blanket a gift for your burial!" Zhou Yu didn't dare to delay for a second and quickly pressed the power button on the wall.

He had already coiled a copper wire mesh under the floor mat and plugged in a power outlet. He was just waiting for Liu Zihu to step on it.

With a crackling sound, Liu Zihu, who had lost his eyesight, twitched incessantly on the electric fence, emitting blue smoke.

It turned charred in no time.

Fearing he might not be dead, Zhou Yu waited five minutes before calling the police, and only turned off the power when the sirens sounded.

By this time, Liu Zihu had turned into a lump of charcoal.

Because the matter was so bizarre, the city decided to keep it strictly confidential.

The hospital granted Zhou Yu a month-long paid leave.

When he returned to his post after his rest, the dean personally received him.

"Comrade Zhou Yu, we are very sorry that you had to go through such a terrible ordeal due to the hospital's negligence," the hospital director said kindly to the young man. "As compensation for your emotional distress, the hospital has decided to pay you 20,000 yuan. Of course, if you would like to continue working at our hospital, you are still very welcome."

Zhou Yu was flattered and surprised. He never expected that such a lowly worker could be received by the dean. He had a feeling that "he who survived a great calamity is bound to have good fortune in the future".

"Yes, of course I'm willing!" Zhou Yu rubbed his hands together excitedly.

The dean stood up and slowly turned his back: "That's good, that's good. There's something else I want to talk to you about..."

"Dean, please speak!" Zhou Yu thought the dean would probably instruct him to keep this matter a secret.

He was looking directly at the back of the dean's head when he saw the dean's hair twitch and then fall down.

It was a wig.

Zhou Yu wanted to laugh but couldn't.

What happened next made him stop laughing.

Because he saw a giant slug covering the back of the dean's head, and the slug transformed into a woman's face: "The other thing is, you killed my husband. Here, take the 20,000 yuan to buy a coffin!"

The dean suddenly turned his head 180 degrees, spat out a slug, and instantly covered Zhou Yu's face.

Then, the slug split into dozens of smaller slugs and crawled into his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

In an instant, Zhou Yu heard the sound of his brain being eaten away.

Cluck, cluck.

Second-hand houses

Fang Qing decided to buy a house in this provincial capital city when she was in college, and then settle down here for the rest of her life.

Right after graduation, she was determined not to become a despicable freeloader, so she was determined to earn money to buy a house herself. Who knew that she would be caught in the gestation period of a distorted real estate bubble, where houses that were originally priced at around 3,000 yuan per square meter suddenly soared to 7,000 yuan per square meter and were in high demand.

Her monthly salary of 3,000 yuan is simply a drop in the bucket.

There was no other way; her family called her and said that her parents could pay the down payment, and she could make the monthly payments herself.

Fang Qing did the math and realized it was alright.

Renting a house from a bank means you won't have to move every year or two.

So she began the long and exhausting process of choosing a house.

After much consideration, I've decided that secondhand homes offer mature amenities and more convenient transportation. Aside from being older, they offer significantly greater convenience in daily life.

For someone living alone, convenience is of course the most important thing.

Moreover, the new house would require an investment in renovations, and after the renovations were completed, it would need to be left unused for a period of time... After much consideration, her family agreed that she should buy a second-hand house as a temporary measure.

"This is the building, on the third floor. Look how good the natural light is, facing southeast, directly opposite the courtyard, no obstructions. The community has great landscaping, birdsong and fragrant flowers." The real estate agent, Deng Chao, led Fang Qing upstairs while introducing the property. "The landlord just renovated it. Although it's a 1990s building, the construction quality is excellent. Look, even after last year's earthquake, there wasn't a single crack in the walls. If the landlord weren't short of money, he definitely wouldn't be selling a house in such a good location at this price..."

Fang Qing went inside and saw that it was indeed quite nice.

The brand-new renovation gives no sense of the dilapidated state of a second-hand house. The gleaming floor tiles, the bright windows, the white walls, and the elegant chandeliers all seem to be welcoming her new owner.

The neighborhood is mostly populated by long-time residents, which makes me feel safe. Plus, older buildings have the advantage of being fully enclosed with security windows, so she, a woman living alone, won't have any safety concerns.

These were the words Fang Qing's mother said after seeing the house.

Fang Qing slept soundly and peacefully for the first time in this first house of her own.

It's finally done.

As time went on, Fang Qing gradually noticed something strange that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

There were no obvious signs, but she would be suddenly awakened at night by the movement of air.

It sounds like someone is moving around inside the house.

She hurriedly got up, turned on the light, and checked. The doors and windows were intact, and there was no one else there.

At first, she thought she was just imagining things, but several times in a row, she felt in her sleep that the air in the room was being stirred by a stick, blowing across the fine hairs on her face.

After a while, she'll come home to find books that were on the shelf now open and on the bed. Or, her face towel will be lying on the floor. And a bottle of face wash will be empty in less than a month…

Fang Qing was so frightened that she quickly found a locksmith to change the lock.

There are some things she can't tell whether it's a problem with her memory or whether someone really did enter her house.

Until she began to smell a faint, unpleasant odor in the room.

The smell wasn't strong, but it was very pungent.

It smells like protein putrefaction.

But Fang Qing couldn't tell where the smell was coming from. It seemed to be coming from under the bed, or maybe from the wardrobe, or perhaps... the wall?

She guessed that it was because she was too busy with work at the end of the year and was hallucinating.

A girl living alone is sensitive, yet fragile. She's afraid to think about many things, because the more she thinks, the more frightened she becomes. Perhaps it's better to pretend they don't exist.

Besides, this house had cost her family all their savings, so she had to grit her teeth and stay there.

However, this idea might work for hallucinations, but if the thing is real, avoiding it is definitely not a good solution.

When a colleague came to Fang Qing's house and pointed out an unusual smell in the air, Fang Qing realized that it wasn't just her hallucination.

"Maybe it's a dead rat. We'll help you look for it." Mei Lin was closest to Fang Qing at the company, so she got several male colleagues to search every nook and cranny of the room, and even moved the wardrobe.

But the "mouse" was nowhere to be seen.

Meilin felt that the smell seemed to be coming from the wall, but she didn't dare to say it, afraid of scaring Fang Qing.

The colleagues, having accomplished nothing, ate their meal in frustration and then dispersed.

Before leaving, Meilin suggested that Fang Qing open the room doors and windows more often to ventilate the room.

Maybe it's the musty smell of the old house.

Even Merlin herself didn't believe what she said.

Fang Qing began to wonder why the landlord sold the house to her at such a reasonable price. Could something bad have happened here? Like a murder... Thinking about this, Fang Qing became more and more convinced that the corpse was inside the wall.

The stench seems to be getting stronger.

Should we call the police? Will they believe us?

Smash the wall? The neighbors would think I'm crazy.

Fang Qing carefully examined the base of the wall and found no signs of reconstruction. Besides, it wouldn't be practical to demolish a load-bearing wall and hide a corpse in such an old house.

She spent some time in this cycle of suspicion and reassurance.

Soon, even this balance was broken.

That night, Fang Qing had just fallen asleep when she heard a series of urgent knocks on the door.

Is it the utility bill collector? Why are they so late...?

Fang Qing peeked through the peephole and saw several middle-aged women and men.

He shouldn't be a bad person.

She opened the door hesitantly: "Excuse me, is there anything I can help you with?"

"You vixen, is it you? You seduced my niece's husband and caused my niece's death!"

Before Fang Qing could understand what was happening, she was pushed aside by a group of people who rushed into the room.

The middle-aged woman leading the group pointed at Fang Qing's nose and asked, "Where is Zhang Tao! The murderer! Hand him over right now!"

"A life for a life!" someone in the crowd echoed.

Fang Qing was stunned and looked aggrieved: "Auntie, you must have the wrong person. There is no one named Zhang Tao here. This is my own house."

At this moment, an older man shoved Fang Qing, saying, "Stop talking nonsense. So many of us saw Zhang Tao come in, how could I be wrong? Open the bedroom door and hand over that beast!"

Tears welled up in her eyes, a mixture of grievance and despair. Fang Qing wanted to scream for help, but was intimidated by the group of people. She could only open the bedroom door to prove her innocence.

To her surprise, as soon as she opened the bedroom door, she saw a man in pajamas standing by the bed, covered in dried blood.

Fang Qing screamed and backed away. But the crowd behind her pushed her into the room and made her fall onto the bed.

"Zhang Tao! You'll pay for Fangfang's life!"

A group of people immediately rushed up and beat the man.

The bedroom wasn't big to begin with, and occasionally those blind fists would land on Fang Qing's body and face.

In the chaos, Fang Qing was both shocked and frightened. She actually fainted.

Before she lost consciousness, she seemed to see the man pick up a bucket and pour some liquid on it...

In a daze, I seemed to see flames, followed by a wave of heat.

After an unknown amount of time, Fang Qing woke up in bed; it was already broad daylight.

She jumped out of bed nervously and looked around, but the door was securely closed, and there were no signs of a struggle in the room. However, a faint smell of smoke lingered in the air…

Fang Qing felt uneasy. She also felt a dull ache in her body.