Chapter 1
Edward Quan ·
My wife carried our baby for ten months.
Only on the day of the birth did I discover the child had been dead in her womb for a long time.
Afterward, strange things began happening around me.
Tiny footprints appeared in our home. A baby cried inside the walls. My wife gradually lost her grip on reality...
A month later, she died in a traffic accident.
Before she died, she sent me a message:
“Darling, our baby really is trapped in the wall.”
Our child was gone. My wife was dead.
Yet I smiled...
The most frightening thing in the world is the human heart.
On the day my wife gave birth, she struggled until midnight.
When the baby was delivered, she wasn't breathing.
Looking at the tiny body on the tray, I felt bitterness choke my throat.
A girl.
Curled into a motionless little bundle, her hands still clenched in the position they'd held when she was taken from her mother's womb.
“She died in the womb a long time ago. Her skin's even swollen from soaking. Didn't you have checkups?”
The nurse's words filled me with guilt.
“My wife throws herself into work. I should have made her rest. Then the baby wouldn't...”
I leaned against the wall and slid helplessly to the floor.
Pain came in waves through my chest.
The nurse covered the tray with a white cloth and told me to buy an energy drink and chocolate to help my wife regain her strength, and to arrange a death certificate.
I returned with the food and heard my wife screaming.
“She's moving! She's moving!”
The hospital lights flickered eerily.
Alarmed, I ran over.
Beneath the white cloth, the dead infant really was stirring.
“Nurse! She's alive!”
I shouted.
“That's impossible. She wasn't breathing when we took her out.”
The nurse lifted the cloth and checked the baby's vital signs with a monitor.
The result was unchanged.
Dead.
She really was dead.
My in-laws were furious when they heard.
My father-in-law slapped me on the spot.
“Useless! You can't even look after your wife and child!”
My mother-in-law hugged Tôn Đình and sobbed.
“My daughter must have been cursed for eight lifetimes to marry you!”
Holding my swollen cheek, I said, “Please, calm down...”
“Why weren't you the one who died?”
He slapped me again.
“Can't do a single thing right. Worthless!”
My head reeled. I nearly fell.
I didn't argue.
I lowered my head and said nothing.
They berated me often. I'd long since learned to endure it.
Tôn Đình controlled both our family company and the finances.
Her family had always treated me as useless.
My parents had died young. I'd been poor and married into her household.
Under someone else's roof, you had to bow your head.
“Dad. Mom...”
Tôn Đình cried weakly.
“The hospital wants to cremate her. I don't want my baby burned to ash.”
“Cremate her?” my mother-in-law shrieked. “Surely we decide what happens to our own grandchild!”
“She must be laid to rest in the earth. No cremation!”
My father-in-law was adamant.
“We're taking her away. The hospital isn't handling this!”
My swollen lips made my words slur.
“Is that really a good idea? Wouldn't we be ignoring hospital rules?”
“To hell with their rules!”
He kicked my knee.
“If they dare burn my granddaughter, you can die right here and ruin their reputation!”
My back struck the wall. Pain burned along my spine.
“Please calm down. I'll talk to them.”
Under my in-laws' relentless pressure, the hospital finally yielded.
My father-in-law put the baby in a specially made little coffin, nailed it shut, and told me to bury her in the hills behind my hometown.
A few days later, I took my wife out of the hospital.
We'd founded a medical-equipment company together.
She'd always been a workaholic, lively and cheerful.
The baby's death changed her completely.
She became withdrawn and despondent.
All the company's demands fell onto my shoulders.
Meetings filled every day. I entertained suppliers and hospital executives.
Out early, home late.
Exhausted.
Then, once I got home, my wife cried and begged me to take her to see our child.
I didn't know what to do.
See her how?
See what?
Dig her out of the ground?
Unable to withstand the pleading, I arranged the departments' work, postponed my upcoming business dinners, and handled things remotely through DingTalk.
Then I took her back to my hometown.
At least it was near the burial site.
Our first night there was the baby's seventh day after death.
By the time I'd finished on DingTalk and comforted Tôn Đình, it was almost one in the morning.
I finally slept.
I woke in the night, thirsty, and meant to get some water.
Half asleep, I touched a tiny arm beside the bed.
Cold.
Sticky.
It wasn't Tôn Đình's.
She was slightly plump. This arm was thin and small.
Like a newborn's.
Could it be...
Had our baby come looking for me?!
I jolted upright and switched on the light.
The bedside was empty.
“Must have imagined it.”
I reassured myself, though cold sweat soaked my back.
My wife wasn't in bed either.
“Đình Đình?”
In the dark living room, she sat on the sofa with her head bowed.
Her arms were curved before her chest as though cradling someone.
Her stiff body rocked from side to side.
A prepared bottle of milk stood on the coffee table.
“Đình Đình.”
I was about to call again when she pressed a finger to her lips.
“Shh. Don't talk. She's just fallen asleep. Don't wake her.”
My heart ached. I held her tightly.
“She's gone... We'll have another child someday.”
She pushed me away.
“Nonsense. She's right here in my arms.”
She raised her hands as though showing off a treasure.
“Look!”
There was nothing in them.
“Where is she?”
Tôn Đình suddenly seemed lucid.
She rubbed her eyes and looked at me.
“Darling, am I haunted? I saw her just now.”
I sighed.
“I buried her myself. How could she be here? You're confused.”
She said nothing.
Barefoot, she dragged herself back to the bedroom.
My heart hurt for her.
Midwinter, and no socks or slippers?
Wait.
Where she'd walked...
Why was there mud?
The sofa and floor were speckled with it.
Sticky yellow-red earth with a faint bloody smell.
My scalp prickled.
That soil only came from the hills.
The soil I'd buried our baby in.
Had she missed the child so much she'd gone up the mountain while I slept?
I ran into the bedroom.
“Đình Đình, did you go out today?”
“No.”
She shook her head wearily.
“Why?”
I pointed at her feet.
“Then why are they muddy?”
She looked down. Her face went white.
“How? I've been in bed all day. I didn't go anywhere.”
True.
She'd always been within sight.
Besides, she was recovering from childbirth. She couldn't have managed the climb.
“Darling, she really came to find me.”
Tôn Đình touched her slack, wrinkled belly. Tears fell.
“She came in a dream. Said she felt stifled and miserable. She wanted company.”
“When I woke, she was standing in the bedroom doorway. I picked her up and rocked her to sleep.”
“You must have been sleepwalking.”
I tried to comfort her.
“Think about it. She's a newborn. She couldn't talk or walk here by herself.”
Tôn Đình fell silent.
In the dim yellow light, the children in the Hundred Children painting on the wall had unnaturally large eyes and frighteningly pale faces.
She'd bought it.
She'd always loved children and wanted one of her own.
Now she'd had a stillbirth.
“Don't be sad.”
I stroked her hair and only then noticed she was staring at me without blinking.
Her gaze was unfamiliar.
Even a little frightening.
My heart jumped.
“What... what's wrong?”
Her mouth moved slowly, mechanically.
“The baby's here.”
I patted her shoulder.
“You're exhausted. You're imagining things.”
She picked up some earth and rubbed it between her fingers.
“Then explain this.”
Fine particles slipped through her fingers and drifted onto me.
The bloody smell intensified.
“Don't overthink it.”
I took a tissue and scrubbed her fingers hard, raising my voice.
“My shoes were muddy from burying her. I accidentally brought it inside!”
The louder I spoke, the less certain I felt.
I remembered clearly.
While burying her, I'd suddenly heard a muffled cracking beneath the earth, like breaking bones.
Looking down, I'd found mud and blood around my soles.
Disgusted, I'd left the old shoes unwashed at our city home.
Here, I wore a new pair in the same style.
In other words, I hadn't brought those dirty shoes.
Where had this soil come from?
An indescribable fear crawled up my spine.
Tôn Đình's voice was cold.
“She's here. I saw her footprint beside the shoe cabinet. She came home to see us.”
Trembling, I went to look.
A faint red, bloody footprint marked the cabinet's edge.
Small.
About three centimeters.
The size of a newborn's foot.
It was two in the morning.
The night was so quiet I could hear my heart pounding wildly.
Could she really have returned?
Impossible.
A dead baby couldn't crawl out of the ground.
I quickly rejected the thought.
There had to be a scientific explanation.
It wasn't a child's footprint.
A stray cat, perhaps. Some mountain animal.
Our hometown house was beside the hills and had a courtyard.
Small animals coming in to forage were perfectly normal.
I comforted Tôn Đình for ages.
She finally slept in the latter half of the night.
I tossed and turned, filled with inexplicable dread.
Then the door gave a soft creak.
Instinctively, I looked.
A naked, blue-purple baby crawled across the floor.
Little by little, she approached, her oversized head bowed so low her scalp scraped the ground with a horrible rustle.
White eyes stared at me.
Her mouth giggled.
“Don't come closer!”
I tried to sit up.
My whole body was rigid.
Something invisible seemed to pin me down.
Sleep paralysis?
The little girl kept crawling closer.
I struggled.
Even blinking was almost impossible.
Cold sweat ran into my eyes and stung.
“Hee hee.”