—————
"The guy named Bailiu is getting more and more weird recently..." The children touched their heads together and discussed in a low voice in fear.
After the dean said that Sheta ran away and left the orphanage, they transferred the fear that had been emptied from Sheta to Bai Liu's body.
The other children in the orphanage looked at the white willow sitting at the end of the long table with horror and curiosity, far away from the others, eating silently alone—this was the place where Sheta ate before.
"Newcomer, you call Lu Yizhan, right?" A child winked at another child who was more upright, and he pointed to Bai Liu. "The child sitting at the end is called Bai Liu, you Remember to stay away from him."
The young Lu Yizhan looked back questioningly: "Why? Did he do anything?"
"Because he is a monster!" The talking child gestured with his teeth and claws, and made a weird wailing sound in his mouth. "He ate his only friend. Of course, his friend is also a monster, a bloody needle. Weird Kong, if you make friends with him, he will eat you too!"
The child threatened Dao Lu Yizhan seriously.
Lu Yizhan frowned and looked at Bailiu at the end of the long table. Bailiu was a child who looked nothing unusual on the surface, and even was too thin. He didn't think there was anything to fear or beware of for this kind of child.
Bai Liu looked as if he had never eaten enough, the flesh on his cheeks was sunken, he looked really hungry, and he ate quickly.
But-Lu Yizhan's gaze fell on Bai Liu's dinner plate, and there was still a staple bread on his dinner plate that he hadn't moved. It didn't seem that he was going to move.
After Bai Liu finished eating quietly and quickly, he took a bite of the bread he hadn't touched and detoured from behind the church to the lake.
Lu Yizhan followed Bai Liu to the church and stopped. His eyes became more confused, or he looked at Bai Liu, the mysterious child curiously.
What is this person doing
Why do these children in the orphanage reject him so much
night.
Lu Yizhan, a new child from the orphanage, was assigned to the bed that Xieta had slept in before. When he was about to sleep, as soon as he lay down, Lu Yizhan turned his head and saw Bai Liu standing on his face holding the bedding blankly. bedside.
Lu Yizhan was taken aback, and sat up in a panic, covering his chest with the quilt: "What are you going to do, Bai Liu?!"
Bai Liu, who suddenly appeared from other children in the bedroom, was shocked and screamed and fled everywhere: "Bai Liu is here to eat people! He is coming to eat us!"
Lu Yizhan could barely maintain his composure. He looked at Bai Liu who was standing motionless on the side of his bed holding a pile of quilts. He tried to figure out what Bai Liu meant. Lu Yizhan pointed to his bed, then pointed to Bai Liu. Pointing to the bedding in Bai Liu's hand, he tentatively asked: "Are you... do you want to change the bed with me?"
Bai Liu looked at Lu Yizhan quietly. He seemed to be a little ill-spirited, his eyes were scattered, and there was a heavy blue and black right now. Hearing Lu Yizhan asking him, Bai Liu nodded slowly.
Lu Yizhan breathed a sigh of relief—I really came to change the bed.
Lu Yizhan didn’t care about the ownership of a bed. He kindly gave his bed to Bai Liu and reminded him to change it back tomorrow morning—because the teacher here recognizes people according to the bed, and the children can secretly change the bed, but Being discovered is not a good thing to follow the rules.
After discussing the time to change back tomorrow morning with Bai Liu, Lu Yizhan picked up his bedding and went to sleep in Bai Liu's bed.
Before leaving his bed, Lu Yizhan glanced back at Bai Liu. He watched Bai Liu make the bed silently, holding a strange and slender doll with a faceless face and quietly closing his eyes on the bed.
Bai Liu doesn't look like a child who would sleep with a doll at such an age, but he obviously cherishes this doll. Not only did he let most of his bed to sleep with this doll, but he also covered the doll with the quilt. Half of his body is exposed.
It was obviously cold at night, but Bai Liu didn't seem to feel hungry. He didn't seem to feel cold either, and he fell asleep soon after holding the doll.
But that is a doll that is judged by ordinary people's eyes, and there is no need to cherish and protect it like this-a lot of patches, rough workmanship, lines are cut off, and there is no face, just like a semi-finished product.
Bai Liu curled up into a small ball and slept next to this doll. The body of the doll was placed curled around him by Bai Liu. The two people were tightly attached to each other, as if—like a picture. Sleep in a very narrow, oval bathtub.
It's a... very strange sleeping position.
Lu Yizhan wanted to laugh a little with this peculiar sleeping posture with a sticky doll. After taking another look, he retracted his gaze and walked to Bai Liu's bed.
Lu Yi stood in his heart to judge-Bai Liu is really a strange child.
But it seems that it's not as uncomfortable as other kids say, and it's quite reasonable.
Lu Yizhan paid more and more attention to Bai Liu, a child who was strange and gloomy in the eyes of others.
On the seventh day after coming to Lu Yizhan, Bai Liu almost fainted at the dinner table. It was Lu Yizhan who discovered that something was wrong with him for the first time, gave him a piece of candy, and forced him to eat half of his meal—Bai Liu obviously It's low blood sugar.
This person didn't eat well at all. Every day there was a lot of food left before secretly leaving. He didn't know what to do, and his mental state got worse and worse every time he came back at night.
Lu Yizhan was a little worried about Bai Liu, and he began to distribute his food to Bai Liu consciously or unconsciously.
But most of the time, Bai Liu refused with a cold face and said, I don't need it.
At the same time, a weird and gloomy atmosphere began to pervade in the orphanage. More and more children fled. Some really fled, and some were "forced" to flee. Lu Yizhan keenly sensed something wrong with the atmosphere—this welfare. The courtyard does not seem to be as glamorous and safe as it looks.
As more and more children disappeared, Lu Yizhan’s worries became heavier and heavier. After he discovered that Bai Liu also began to carry the bloody scent that seemed to have been drawn from blood, Lu Yizhan finally made up his mind and he wanted to take it. Fleeing with Bai Liu and other children.
One time before going to bed, when Bai Liu came to find Lu Yizhan to change the bed, before leaving, Lu Yizhan held Bai Liu's arm with an unmoving expression, pressed it to his ear and whispered to him what he had discovered, reminding Bai Liu for welfare. The courtyard was unsafe and asked him if he wanted to run with him
"I know a public welfare institution is safer than here. We can go there." Lu Yizhan said softly. "It is very close to the police station. Someone will protect us."
Bai Liu replied indifferently: "Don't go."
"Why?" Lu Yizhan was a little anxious, "There is really something wrong here!"
Bai Liu looked down at him, his pupils had no focus at all, and his tone was dull: "I'm waiting for someone to wake up, and when he wakes up, I will take him along."
Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was Lu Yizhan’s eagerness to take away Bai Liu. After another baptism, Lu Yizhan finally broke his principle of not spying on other people’s secrets easily. He followed Bai Liu into the back of the church where Bai Liu would not go. .
The back of the church has always been a restricted area in the orphanage. The dean strictly forbids any of their children to go there, saying that it is not safe. It is undeveloped bushes and small lakes. It has not been built or remodeled. The children were easily drowned or trapped in the past. In the mud pit, the church is also locked on weekdays to prevent these children from passing by.
But Bai Liu seems to have found a remote path that leads directly to the back of the church.
Lu Yizhan followed Bai Liu. He watched Bai Liu move in through a broken window behind the side door of the church with skill and ease. In the grass.
Bai Liu skillfully bypassed the shrubs and stone obstacles that cut his feet, and finally he came to a small lake full of duckweed, or stopped by the pond.
Lu Yizhan hid behind the vegetation with doubts—what did Bai Liu do in this pond? Swimming
If it was normal, Bai Liu would definitely be able to spot Lu Yizhan behind him, but the long-term hunger made him seriously deteriorated and his attention was exhausted, so he didn't notice that someone was coming with him not far away.
Bai Liu took off his clothes unsuspectingly with his back facing Lu Yizhan, revealing a sharply white back with distinct ribs. He bent down and put the bread in his arms on the clean clothes, then turned and dived into the pond.
Lu Yizhan was hiding in the grass. He watched quietly. He felt it. He would immediately understand what Bai Liu was doing these days.
But Lu Yizhan waited and waited. After waiting for almost several minutes, Bai Liu did not float up. Lu Yizhan found that something was wrong. He couldn't even take off his clothes. A fierce boy plunged into the lake and searched for Bai Liu everywhere in the dark bottom of the lake. Finally He saw a white willow whose feet had been swallowed by mud, and his hands were suspended in the water. The white willow was obviously drowning.
Lu Yizhan suffocated his breath and swam over quickly, grabbing Bai Liu's shoulder and lifting it up.
Bai Liu seemed to be dragging something, but his strength was too weak. With the help of Lu Yizhan, Bai Liu managed to drag it out. In the end, Lu Yizhan held one in each hand and pulled out both Bai Liu and the thing he was about to drag out. Under the water.
Lu Yizhan lay on the edge of the lake, panting.
Bai Liu was all physically convulsing. He retched a few mouthfuls of lake water, and after a while, he got up from the ground sideways.
Just now, Bai Liu almost drowned at the bottom of the lake. Because of low blood sugar and weakness, Bai Liu is already very reluctant to do physical activities of this intensity.
"What are you thinking about?!" Lu Yizhan scolded Bai Liu as he breathed breathlessly, "You can't drag it out all at once, don't you know if you come up and catch your breath and drag it down? You have to drown yourself in the water? !"
After speaking, Lu Yizhan turned his head to look at the thing dragged out by himself and Bai Liu-this made Lu Yizhan stand up subconsciously, his face became difficult to look.
Lying next to Bailiu was a corpse with a clean face and a rope tied to an ankle to prevent it from sinking.
"You hid the corpse in this lake?!" Lu Yizhan was really going crazy. "You are brave enough. No one will find out here. What kind of corpse is this?! What are you dragging him out every day?!"
Bai Liu knelt beside Sheta in silence, as if he hadn’t heard Lu Yizhan’s words, he broke the untouched bread he had put on his clothes, just like feeding a fish. After crushing it, he rubbed it with his fingertips. Into Sheta's cold lips.
He used his actions to tell Lu Yizhan what he was doing here—he was here to feed the underwater corpse.
Lu Yizhan fell into a terrifying silence, his eyes straightened as he watched Bai Liu calmly finish feeding the bread.
Bai Liu clapped the crumbs on his hands. He then raised his eyes to look at Lu Yizhan, and lightly explained: "He is a monster, but not a corpse. He is not dead. He will come back to life, so I can't let him starve."
"Do you know Bai Liu?" Lu Yizhan's expression and tone were incredibly complicated, "You are more like a monster now."
As he said, Lu Yizhan's gaze fell on Xieta's corpse. The right hand of this corpse had already begun to rot. One can imagine how long Bai Liu had been "feeding" it.
"Whether he is a corpse or a monster, you have to let him go." Lu Yizhan felt that his brain was about to explode. He squatted down and held Bai Liu's shoulder to look at him, trying to explain the present situation in words that Bai Liu could understand. The status quo, "You can avenge him when you grow up, you can find the culprit who killed him, but now, you can't bury yourself with him in the bottom of the water."
"He has no breathing, no heartbeat, and he doesn't know when he will wake up." Lu Yizhan sighed, "Bai Liu, you can't sleep with him."
Sheta was still lying quietly on the ground. The pinholes on the back of his hand hadn't healed yet, but in a trance, Bai Liu seemed to see Sheta opened his eyes and said to him, leave here, Bai Liu, we will one day Will meet again.
We will meet again in endless horror games and stories we have seen, played, and shared.
So now, let me leave, and let you leave by yourself. There is a reunion only if you say goodbye, Bai Liu.
Bai Liu muttered to herself: "You swear we will meet again?"
Sheta smiled lightly. He held Bai Liu's hand with his right hand that had rotted bones: "I swear."
Lu Yizhan turned his head in doubt. He looked at the motionless corpse of Sheta with a little furry: "Bai Liu, who are you talking to?"
Bai Liu slowly let go of his hand holding Sieta. He looked down, and the water on his body kept dripping down the soles of his feet. Then Bai Liu took a knife from his pocket and cut off the rope tied to Sieta’s ankle. Bai Liu laboriously picked up Sheta's body with difficulty, walked to the pond step by step, and then calmly put Sheta into the water.
Sheta's hair swayed and sank into the water.
Bai Liu looked at him nicely. Lu Yizhan just breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Bai Liu's eyes blinked twice, and there seemed to be two drops of water on his eyelashes.
Then Bai Liu took a deep breath and jumped into the pond again.
"Bai Liu!" Lu Yizhan cried out in shock, and he jumped right after him.
Bai Liu stroked his limbs vigorously, and he reached for the submerged Shita.
He watched the mud and sand quickly overwhelmed Sieta's face like the night that could not resist the arrival.
The black sand climbed up the bridge of Sieta's nose like vines, Sieta's lips, then Sieta's chest, arms, and finally only a shockingly white hand was loosely exposed out of the mud.
Bai Liu furiously grabbed that hand.
The touch of that hand was cold and warm. He felt Sheta's hand squeezed him tightly, then released it, and finally disappeared completely to the bottom of the lake.
Bai Liu reached into the mud and sand. He stubbornly wanted to open the mud and look at those eyes again, but Lu Yizhan firmly grasped his shoulder, gritted his teeth and began to pull him up.
Bai Liu’s lungs are already running out of oxygen, and the air quickly disappears to the bottom of the water as if being sucked away. There is constantly rising foam in Bai Liu’s nose and mouth, but he doesn’t seem to feel the suffocation, he just opens his eyes with diffusing pupils. Mechanically digging the mud and sand under the water, looking for the person whose life was completely swallowed by the darkness.
The picture book that was pieced together after being shattered, is full of patched doll suits, the promise that has not been fulfilled, and the face that is always covered by hair.
What Xieta left to him is always incomplete and incomplete.
These imperfections are like reminding Bai Liu that Sheta is not real.
Will this person really come back
Does this person really exist
Has this person... really appeared
Or is it just him, Bai Liu, a phantom that a child judged to be mentally troubled by everyone in order to fill his own loneliness, self-deception, and willing to hold his hand
There is no god in this world, so why is there a monster who will always wait for him in the church to read a book, play with him a horror game that no one likes, make him a doll, and embrace him
[Bai Liu, why are you willing to believe in the existence of monsters, but not willing to believe in the existence of gods? 】
[Because God didn't treat me well. 】
Bai Liu opened his eyes and looked at the pitch-black water bottom. He opened his mouth unconsciously, and air bubbles poured out of his mouth.
He said, "Xieta, I'm leaving now, goodbye."
Bai Liu felt that before Shita left, he seemed to have not officially said goodbye to him. Without saying goodbye, there would be no reunion. This was what Shita had just said, so Bai Liu jumped down and he wanted to bid him farewell seriously.
The water pouring into Bai Liu's mouth and nose caused him to suffocate, and snow-like foam rose from both sides of his mouth.
Bai Liu slowly drooped his eyelids, his limbs lost strength and opened back, suspended in the water like dead duckweed.
He fell into a dizziness of white light.
In the white dizziness, Bai Liu saw countless memory fragments flashing back. At the end of the brilliant white light, someone was sitting quietly and upright in the first row of the church, wearing a lanky ghostly shabby doll costume with seven and eight in his hand. The picture book of "Long and Long Ghost Murder", which was pieced together, was slowly turned page by page and read.
The man seemed to see Bai Liu who was sitting diagonally behind him. He raised the book, as if he wanted to ask Bai Liu who was sitting next to him if he wanted to read together.
But in fact, before that person turned his head, Bai Liu was ready to agree to this person's request to read a book together.
Because Bai Liu liked the book very much. Although the book looked a bit tattered, Bai Liu didn't care. He had already sat behind that person, accompanied him, peeking page by page for a long, long time.
But the moment the person turned his head, the white light disappeared.
Lu Yizhan's worried face appeared in front of him. He patted Bai Liu's face while calling his name: "Hey! Hey! Bai Liu!"
Bai Liu coughed and spit out a lot of water. He woke up faintly. He lay on his back on the ground, his eyes distracted, his chest undulating silently, and Lu Yizhan, covered in water, stood aside, his hands on his knees, tired. Panting as hard as possible.
"Bai Liu, if we want to leave here, we have to change your name." Lu Yizhan said, "to prevent the teacher from this orphanage from discovering you again. You made a lot of trouble before, and if other orphanages recognize you, Under the obstacles of the teachers in this orphanage, it will be more difficult to accept you."
Bai Liu was silent for two seconds, and said, "I don't accept changing too many names."
Lu Yizhan was startled: "Why?"
Bai Liu turned sideways, his eyes were dumbfounded and looked towards the water pool, his voice hoarse: "... I don't know, I always feel that maybe someone... will come to me with my original name."