Libro Celestial El Gran Vacío

Capítulo 1

"The Corpse Raising" (Published Edition)

Main characters

Duan Lin: The protagonist of this book, though his position is weak... A taciturn man whose ordinary life is disrupted by his arrival in a strange city. A young man who can see ghosts and has the ability to make them take form—how many secrets lie hidden behind this taciturn young man?

Mu Zi: A mysterious and handsome young man. He suffered a near-fatal injury but miraculously recovered. He observes everything with a cold eye, and his occasional unintentional remarks always hit the nail on the head. For reasons unknown, he stayed by Duan Lin's side. Is such a person friend or foe to Duan Lin? His purpose is…

Han Xinnuo: Duan Lin's half-brother. He has been secretly seeing his brother behind their parents' backs. He is a bit too enthusiastic and puts his brother in danger again while almost losing his own life.

Cheng Rui: An excellent doctor and Han Xin Nuo's senior. He is a meticulous planner. However, after witnessing his friend's suicide, a series of inexplicable and bizarre events began to unsettle this calm man.

Bo Xiaoxue: Han Xinnuo's senior, she was secretly in a relationship with the first victim, and she was also an eyewitness to the suicides of the next two victims. What is her connection to this incident?

Jin Zi: A police officer in City C. He became acquainted with Duan Lin and his group because he was in charge of the investigation of this case. He is a man who seems strict but is actually gentle.

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We will be happy to have a baby.

Give him a name and bless him

He called me "your mom" and "my dad".

I will be his best friend and play with him in the mud.

My dear, you just watch from the sidelines.

You will appreciate him

Chapter 1 Clogged Drain Pipe

The man gritted his teeth and forced the iron rod deeper. The dark liquid oozed out from the black hole in the drain, spreading... and turning into a glaring red!

When the man returned from the bar drunk, he was immediately stopped by the building manager on the first floor.

"Mr. Xu, please stop for a moment."

"W-what are you doing?" Holding his head, the man felt slightly dizzy. He had just returned from his training and then been called out for drinks. He had planned to go home and get a good night's sleep, but that old bastard had stopped him... Damn it! He had to get some sleep early tonight; he had surgery tomorrow...

"Speak quickly if you have something to say!" Taking advantage of his drunkenness, the man's tone was rude and impolite.

As if he had seen many such people, the administrator did not take it seriously at all, and simply took out a stack of papers.

"Mr. Xu, you haven't been home these past few days, so you don't know, but it seems there's a problem with your water pipes. Many residents on the 27th floor have already reported it, saying there's a leak in the pipes. Everyone thinks it's a problem with your water pipes, but since you haven't been here, so..."

"Okay, I'll fix it tomorrow!"

His mind went blank for a moment, and before collapsing, the man blurted out something, then staggered to the elevator in front of him, entered at the last second, and leaned heavily against the elevator wall.

There was more than one man in the elevator; there was also a woman. The woman kept glancing at him furtively and deliberately kept her distance, shrinking into the corner of the elevator, which annoyed the man. Fueled by alcohol, the man deliberately leaned towards the woman, and watched as she screamed, frantically pressed the elevator button, and ran away without saying a word. The man laughed out loud.

"Woman... Hmph!"

In the empty elevator, a man sang an old, off-key ballad.

The elevator finally arrived at the 28th floor just before the man fell asleep. He staggered out of the elevator, swaying all the way.

Damn it! My apartment is at the very back, why did that bastard elevator have to be designed right in the middle? Those damn designers…

Muttering curses under his breath, the man staggered forward, the voice-activated lights gradually lighting up with each step until the last one appeared.

The man hummed a song as he took out his keys and opened the door.

"Ugh... Wow!"

A pungent stench hit him! The man, already feeling unwell from being drunk, suddenly felt his stomach churning and couldn't stop vomiting. He couldn't help but vomit in the entryway.

"It stinks...my stomach...it hurts so much..." The man touched his stomach and turned on the light with a livid face.

The room was just as messy as it had been before he left. The man had never liked tidying up; his girlfriend used to do it, but she had broken up with him recently. Not liking outsiders in his space, he hadn't hired a housekeeper, resulting in a chaotic mess.

However, vomiting was good for him. He felt much more awake. The vomit he made on the room and his coat made him frown. He took off his coat and went into the bathroom, but covered his nose the moment he opened the bathroom door!

The aroma is coming from here!

After opening the door and windows, the man waited until the smell dissipated a little before re-entering the bathroom. Staring at the drain hole on the floor, he was certain the smell was coming from there.

"Mr. Xu, you haven't been home for the past few days, so you didn't know, but it seems there's a problem with the plumbing in your house..."

The man suddenly remembered what the administrator had just said. Was this what the old man was talking about?

He hadn't taken it seriously at first, but then he rolled up his sleeves and started checking his home's drainage system.

The man slowly poured water onto the ground with the showerhead turned on. Instead of flowing away through the drainpipe, the water accumulated at his feet, gradually submerging his heels.

"It really is blocked..." Thinking to himself, the man inevitably got wet, and the cool liquid revitalized his previously tired spirit.

After all, he was a doctor. Although men can tolerate a messy house, he still possessed the fastidiousness common to most doctors. If the drain was clogged, and that filth had been blocked for too long, who knows what kind of dirt might have loosened and floated to the surface?

The thought of that scene made the man feel uncomfortable, and unable to wait until tomorrow to call a repairman, he decided to try to fix it himself. After all, he was a man; these things were nothing to him.

The man started looking around for something to unclog the drain. He finally spotted a toilet plunger and decided to try it out. He pressed the plunger a few times, and after hearing a gurgling sound from the drain hole, he quickly moved the plunger away. Sure enough, the water in the bathroom went down a little.

However, it was only a small amount; soon, the drain hole became clogged again.

"Damn...it seems pretty big...what could it be..." the man muttered, pressing down a few more times, unwilling to give up.

To his disappointment, the water level didn't drop any further, and the situation didn't improve; in fact, it worsened. After the repairs, the once quiet drain hole was now making a gurgling sound, which was quite unpleasant to hear.

"Damn it! How am I supposed to sleep like this?" The man, who was always a light sleeper, rubbed his hands together, feeling even more frustrated.

Suddenly, the man stopped all movement.

No! There's another sound! It sounds like...

The man held his breath, staring at the dark drain hole...

"Squeak...cough..." Although it was very faint, the man was certain that he had indeed heard a certain sound.

"Oh no, could a rat have climbed up the pipe?"

The man suddenly remembered the old apartment he lived in when he was a child. Rats often crawled up the drainpipes, and the stench that was unique to the sewers would spread as soon as the rats came in, creating a suffocating stench!

That was a nightmare for men when they were young.

Thinking of this, the man felt the hairs on his body stand on end, as if he were smelling again that putrid stench unique to parasites in the sewers, a smell he had smelled in his childhood… As if deliberately intensifying the man's disgust, he saw a slightly yellowish liquid seeping out of the drain and spreading in the bathroom…

Although the man's rational mind told him that this was the 28th floor, and few rats could be so clever as to climb over the 27th floor waterway to reach his home, the more he suspected this, the more real his feeling of disgust became.

The man seemed to see, in the night, a disgusting, black rat, reeking of foul odor, emerge from the pristine white tiles of his bathroom, then wriggle across his floor, roll onto the suit he was going to wear to work the next day, and leave repulsive teeth marks on the apple he had left in the kitchen…

Frowning and grinning, the man felt a shiver run through his body, making him even more wide awake.

The man found an iron clothes hanger on the windowsill and tried to reshape it with pliers into a long, thin iron rod. He decided to try poking it, hoping that if he was lucky, he could push the thing down, or... there was a more disgusting but seemingly more feasible method: hooking the thing out.

Regardless of the method, the man decided he had to clear the drainpipe today; otherwise, he would definitely suffer a nervous breakdown.

Having prepared for the worst, the man forcefully plunged the thin iron rod in his hand into the hole...

Huh?! It's in!

Feeling a soft, fleshy texture in his hand, the man thought with annoyance that his premonition seemed to have unfortunately come true.

This thing doesn't feel like a bottle, hair, or even a sanitary napkin; it feels like real flesh.

The man gritted his teeth and forced the iron rod deeper. The dark liquid oozed out from the black hole in the drain, spreading... and turning into a glaring red!

Blood!

Damn it! Even though he told himself it might be a rat inside, the man still felt a strong sense of nausea at the thought of poking a rat. As more and more red blood appeared, the man smelled a foul stench!

That thing must be dead, right? It died in the pipes, its body clogging the drain, that's why the drainage system is acting up. Damn it!

Without hesitation, the man decided to take the thing out.

In summer, corpses decompose very quickly, and water accelerates the process. It already smells terrible; it will likely get even worse in the future…

The man carefully adjusted the angle of the iron rod, slowly rubbing the thing up. As the iron rod gradually lengthened, the man knew that the rotten flesh hidden under his pipe, which had been decaying for who knows how many days, was finally about to be picked out. Although he had mentally prepared himself, the man still couldn't help but hold his breath and swallow.

Okay... one, two, three... choose!

Perhaps he used too much force, for the man felt the thing fly towards him with his flick. Before he could dodge, the foul-smelling, dark object flew into his arms...

Ugh... The man trembled as he tried to shake the thing off, but... he couldn't!

The man closed his eyes and strained, but instead of rolling away on the ground as he had expected, the thing actually…

My hand... was grabbed by something like a tiny claw... Could it be... that thing is still alive?

Suppressing his disgust, the man slowly opened his eyes, meeting the gaze of the object in his hand, which was barely a slit in his eye…

"Ah! Ah! Ah... Ah—"

The man's terrified roar instantly pierced the bathroom.

The next day, the news that "a man in an apartment in City C found a rotting infant's body in a drainpipe" became the headline of all the major newspapers in City C, and the whole city knew about it.

Halfway through summer vacation, Duan Lin received a phone call.

"Brother, it's been so long! Could you... come and see me?"

Duan Lin was taken aback by his younger brother's hesitant and stammering voice. His voice seemed to hold back something… This wasn't like his brother. Without thinking much of it, Duan Lin softly hummed in agreement to his brother's request. After a day's drive, Duan Lin arrived in City C, where his brother lived.

City C is a major transit hub, with people coming and going at the station. Duan Lin searched for a long time but couldn't find his younger brother who was supposed to pick him up. In the end, it was his younger brother who found him.

Seeing the young man waving at him from afar, Duan Lin quickly walked over.

My younger brother hasn't changed much, except for his height. He seems to have grown quite a bit taller. The last time I met him, he was about the same height as me, but now he's far ahead, standing half a head taller.

Noticing his younger brother's gaze constantly fixed on what was behind him, Duan Lin briefly introduced the boy behind him to his brother.

"My friend, Mu Zi; this is my younger brother, Han Xin Nuo."

The following words were addressed to Mu Zi, although Mu Zi seemed indifferent to whether or not he was introduced. However, the younger brother sized her up for a while, then smiled and nodded at Mu Zi, saying, "It's nice to meet you. I didn't know you had a friend like this, brother. By the way, brother, are you staying at your place or mine this time?"

Hearing his younger brother ask this, Duan Lin thought for a moment and said, "Let's go to your place. I'll visit Dad another day."

The younger brother nodded and then hailed a taxi.

It's strange that he has a different surname from his brother, and that he doesn't visit his parents first when he returns home. But Mu Zi didn't ask anything; that person probably wasn't interested in these things either! Sitting in the back seat, quietly watching the scenery rushing past the window, Duan Lin thought to himself.

My family situation is rather complicated. My father was my mother's son-in-law who married into her family. However, my mother passed away after giving birth to me, and my father, who was still young, remarried quickly. So I was raised by my maternal grandfather.

Duan Lin doesn't remember much from his childhood, and his maternal grandfather rarely talks about his son-in-law, so he has little impression of his father.

His father was very busy with work and rarely came to visit him. Only after he was admitted to university did his father, without his maternal grandfather's knowledge, come to visit him at school once with his stepmother and a boy.