Chapter 120
Chapter 120
“Oh, heavens. How frightening! All those chickens are dead.”
“And look how shriveled they are. It’s like all the blood’s been sucked out of them.”
“That dog over there too. It was such a fierce big yellow dog, and now it’s nothing but a dried-up skeleton wrapped in skin.”
“No chicken thief did this. Must’ve been some wild animal from the mountains.”
“A wild animal? You ever seen an animal do this? I think some evil thing did it. It’s downright unnatural.”
The villagers’ conversation outside the courtyard made Xia Degui’s heart pound.
He pushed through the crowd and reached the front.
Dead chickens littered the courtyard, with the dog lying among them.
Just as the villagers had said, every corpse was dry and shriveled.
Not a single drop of blood remained inside them.
The woman next door sat amid the pile of dead chickens, wailing. Her husband stood beside her, trying to comfort her and pull her to her feet.
Xia Sanjin, the village Party secretary, was there as well, doing his best to calm her.
A cold dread seeped through Xia Degui as he watched.
He suddenly remembered the footsteps pacing through his main room the previous night, along with the muddy prints left by a child.
Could it have been…?
A terrifying possibility entered his mind.
His gaze swept the neighboring courtyard, searching every inch.
There!
He found a trail of tiny footprints near the fence surrounding the yard. They were well hidden and would have been impossible to spot without deliberately searching for them.
Xia Degui’s scalp prickled. His entire body began to tremble.
He was almost certain that the thing pacing through his home the night before had killed every chicken and the dog in this courtyard.
But was that thing truly his daughter Xia Mi, returned from the dead?
Xia Degui couldn’t be certain.
After a noisy morning, Xia Sanjin finally managed to pacify the family.
He had just been preparing to go home and rest when Xia Degui approached him.
After Xia Degui recounted everything that had happened the night before, Xia Sanjin grew frightened too. He was almost certain that something unclean was haunting the village.
But he had no idea what to do and could only suggest that they wait and see.
Perhaps it had been a single, isolated incident and would never happen again.
Instead, something even more horrifying occurred that very night.
Xia Degui hadn’t slept well the night before and had spent the day mentally exhausted, so he fell asleep quickly.
Sometime after midnight, he suddenly woke for no apparent reason and discovered that his wife, Xia Dong, was gone.
Did she get up to use the bathroom?
At that time, even three-story homes in the countryside rarely had bathrooms in the main bedroom. There was no running water, after all.
The toilet was still outside the house. To reach it, a person had to leave the bedroom, cross the main room to the other side of the ground floor, and exit through a small side door.
Xia Degui lay in the darkness, waiting for his wife to return.
But nearly half an hour seemed to pass, and Xia Dong still hadn’t come back.
Even if she were constipated, surely she would have finished by now.
Xia Degui called tentatively, “Honey? Honey?”
No one answered.
On such a quiet night, Xia Dong should have heard him even if she were using the toilet outside on the far side of the house.
Yet there was still no response.
Xia Degui’s thoughts slipped beyond his control.
He remembered the previous night: the footsteps in the main room, the muddy prints all over the floor, and the dead chickens and dog next door.
“No. I have to check. What if something happened to her?”
Xia Degui cared deeply about his wife.
He hurried out of bed and headed toward the toilet.
The moment he left the bedroom, however, he heard a tearful voice speaking in the main room ahead. On the silent night, the sound was deeply unsettling.
Though afraid, Xia Degui listened carefully.
It sounded like Xia Dong.
Why was she sitting in the main room talking to herself in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?
Holding his breath, Xia Degui picked up a kerosene lamp from a table in the corner of the corridor.
He lit it and slowly approached the main room.
In the dim yellow glow, he saw his wife half crouching with her back toward him, laughing and weeping as she murmured something under her breath.
She didn’t even notice him approaching with the lamp.
Is she sleepwalking? I’ve heard people can develop strange conditions like that after severe emotional trauma.
Xia Degui frowned.
As though compelled by an unseen force, he stopped several yards behind her instead of going closer. Holding the lamp, he listened to what she was saying.
The words left his hands and feet icy cold and sent sweat pouring down his forehead.
Xia Dong murmured, “My sweet little girl. Xia Mi, you’ve gotten so thin in only a few days. Mommy’s heart aches for you.
“Is it cold underground? Are there any snakes, rats, or bugs in the dirt bullying you?
“No? That’s good. That’s good.
“You said you scared Daddy when you came home last night? It’s all right. Daddy loves you too. He won’t be afraid.
“You were hungry, so you ate some of the chickens and the dog next door? That’s all right. Auntie next door likes you too. She’ll let you eat them.
“Come here. Let Mommy hold her sweet little girl.”
Xia Dong spoke endlessly as though carrying on a conversation with someone invisible.
The more Xia Degui heard, the more his skin crawled.
Then Xia Dong leaned forward and wrapped her arms around empty air. Yet her hair shifted, and a crease pressed into the fabric at her shoulder.
It looked as though a little girl truly stood before her, returning the embrace.
Xia Degui’s scalp went numb with terror.
Summoning the last of his courage, he roared, “Xia Dong, what are you doing?! Why are you spouting nonsense? Are you sleepwalking? Xia Mi is dead. The dead can’t return to life, understand? Stop acting crazy!”
At the sound of his voice, Xia Dong slowly turned her head.
Her complexion looked normal, though her eyes were slightly red and swollen from crying.
Laughing and weeping, she looked at Xia Degui.
“Honey, our sweet girl came back. She really came back. Look! Look at our daughter!”
Xia Dong rose and reached one hand to her side as though holding a little girl’s hand, then began approaching Xia Degui.
“Stop! Don’t come any closer. Honey, stop talking nonsense and come back to bed. I…”
Before Xia Degui could finish, the kerosene lamp in his hand went out without a sound.
Boundless darkness swallowed the main room.
The lamp had a long oval glass chimney, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, with only a small vent at its tip.
Even strong winds couldn’t extinguish a kerosene lamp like that.
Yet there wasn’t the slightest breeze inside the house.
How could the flame have gone out?
Xia Degui was so frightened his knees nearly gave way.
At the same time, the stench of decay mixed with damp earth suddenly filled his nose.
Something had come right up to him.