Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
His candles burned for a very long time.
Even after hours, most of each candle remained.
Enough to last until dawn.
Kỷ Quy Hoằng and I sat a few paces apart, drowsily nodding off.
Suddenly, a sinister wind rose from the floor.
Like a bucket of ice water thrown over me.
The cold jolted me awake.
The red candlelight had turned a sickly green.
The entire room was dark and dreadful.
I reached over and shook Kỷ Quy Hoằng awake.
The coffin seemed to come alive.
It shook violently.
From inside came the retriever's screams, distorted by bottomless darkness and despair.
Full of terror and grief.
The coffin had a sliding lid.
Quite modern.
I could easily open it alone from outside.
Inside, though, the surface was painted smooth. It would be hard to get a grip.
I was about to help when Kỷ Quy Hoằng blocked me.
“Have you forgotten? He said not to open it, whatever happened outside!”
Panicking, I didn't know what to do.
“But it isn't outside! It's inside!”
He pushed me toward the door.
“If you can't bear it, go out! Don't ruin this!”
I sat in the outer hall, listening to the muffled sounds.
After a while, everything went silent.
Alone in that empty hall, I grew more uneasy by the minute.
Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt was still streaming.
I opened the video.
She happened to be tilting up her chin, discussing the wound from surgery on a fractured jaw.
Had the retriever known I'd asked her for help and deliberately slandered her first?
My thoughts were a mess.
I immediately joined the stream.
After hearing my account, Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt gave a cold laugh.
“Kỷ Quy Hoằng has directed this entire affair. What does he gain? Three hundred and eighty thousand in retrieval fees? Does he need that money?”
It hit me.
I sprang to my feet, trembling.
“You mean they're working together? They sent me away so they could skin her?”
She tilted her head.
“Did it never occur to you that the retriever might just be a puppet?”
Her words terrified me.
Before I could turn, a heartrending scream erupted from the room.
Kỷ Quy Hoằng sat in the coffin, engulfed in fire.
My mother's corpse was in his arms.
In less than thirty seconds, his clothes burned away.
His flesh blackened.
His hands beat helplessly at the air. His mouth twitched as he screamed.
“Save me! Save me!”
“Come out! Get out of there!”
His eyes locked on mine.
His body writhed in agony.
For a moment, I thought he would stand.
Then my mother's corpse suddenly rose.
Like a water snake, it climbed his waist and coiled tightly around him.
Heat exploded in front of me.
A scorching wave swept the air away.
Kỷ Quy Hoằng reached out in despair.
Then the flames swallowed him completely.
I lay on the ground, struggling for breath.
Outside the window, a rooster crowed three times.
Dawn was beginning in the east.
...
The mortuary issued its findings.
They said grief had driven Kỷ Quy Hoằng mad.
He'd secretly taken kerosene used in handling bodies, then burned himself and my mother in a suicide born of love.
The strange phenomena I'd witnessed were explained as natural contractions during cremation.
They said there had been cases of bodies standing, moving, or making sounds in cremators.
Nothing to surprise them anymore.
The examination report was entirely in order.
As for my insistence that they inspect her skin, both bodies had burned together into charcoal.
There was no way to tell whether Mom's skin remained.
The matter was dropped.
Only one thing had vanished in the fire.
The retriever.
Security footage showed only Kỷ Quy Hoằng and me entering and leaving.
No tissue belonging to a third person was found.
The retriever seemed to have appeared from nowhere and disappeared into nothing.
Watching the footage, I felt every hair stand on end.
No one believed me.
They even thought I had schizophrenia.
Only I knew he'd been there.
Only I knew Kỷ Quy Hoằng hadn't wanted to die.
I bitterly regretted not joining Tần Nguyệt Nguyệt's stream sooner.
At least thousands of viewers could have confirmed I wasn't lying.
Or mentally ill.
Kỷ Quy Hoằng had legally married my mother.
He had no immediate family.
He'd even left a will.
Everything went to me.
That became another important piece of evidence for the conclusion that he'd died for love.
The fortune was much larger than I'd imagined.
Certainly more than enough to cover a three-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-yuan retrieval fee.
The whole affair felt like a nightmare.
An enormous inheritance and countless mysteries had fallen into my hands.
I couldn't eat or sleep.
I inventoried the assets and planned to donate most of them to charity.
Thẩm Nghiêu flew into a rage.
He dragged up every decision I'd made since we started dating and attacked them all.
Called me crazy.
A month later, a female streamer appeared at my door.
She switched on her camera and thrust it into my face.
“Look carefully, everyone! Take a good look!”
“This is that old woman's daughter!”
“Who knows what spell these two put on my uncle!”
“Greedy murderers, both of them!”
Her name was Đỗ Ngọc Mai.
She claimed to be Kỷ Quy Hoằng's distant niece.
She'd approached me before, demanding his entire estate.
I hadn't been able to verify her identity.
We'd parted on bad terms.
Now she'd come to force the issue.
Every word was vile.
One moment she accused Mom of indecency.
The next she called me so vicious I'd killed my own mother.
I tried to push her outside.
She immediately flung herself to the ground, wailing.
Blood filled her mouth.
Two middle-aged men rushed over and held me down.
She got up, took out electric clippers, and shaved my hair.
The blades skittered across my scalp with a shrill buzz.
Neighbors came out to watch.
Hands over their mouths.
Not one intervened.
I cried until I had no strength.
“Call the police! Please, someone call the police!”
“You want the police? Fine.”
Đỗ Ngọc Mai called them herself.
Then turned everything upside down.
“She hit me first. My two uncles were so angry they taught her a lesson.”
“Look. She's only lost a few hairs.”
“She nearly knocked my teeth out!”
During mediation, she demanded ninety percent of the inheritance.
“How long did your mother even know my uncle?”
“Letting you keep ten percent is more than generous.”
“Otherwise, we'll see you in court!”