Ghost Shadow I

"Yi Yi."

"Yi Yi."

A faint call roused the little girl in bed from her sleep.

The dark dead of night.

In the cramped square bedroom, a little girl with long black hair slept on a yellow wooden bed.

A gray-white quilt covered her up to the shoulders, faintly revealing the lotus-root-colored lace edging of her washed-faded nightdress.

The little girl looked only seven or eight. She had delicate features, a slightly high nose bridge, and two red pimples sprouting on her chin. She looked to be at the age when she had only just begun to understand things.

Hearing the voice, she slowly opened her eyes, sat up, and looked left and right.

The room was pitch-black. Only a little moonlight faintly cast in through the window, hazily illuminating the foot of the bed.

At the foot of the bed.

There.

A black figure stood there.

The figure's upper body was swallowed in darkness, its face blurred beyond recognition.

Yet she could feel that it was quietly watching the little girl.

"Mom?"

The little girl cautiously spoke up and asked.

She clutched the quilt tightly with both hands, her expression tense as she vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

The surroundings were deathly still. Only her voice was especially harsh and conspicuous, faintly echoing through the room.

"Remember, Yi Yi. No matter what sounds you hear, you must hide in the secret altar. Don't come out until the White Stone turns black."

The figure spoke softly.

"Absolutely."

"Don't come out."

After saying this, she slowly turned around and walked soundlessly toward the door, one step at a time.

The wooden door opened without a sound. Outside was a stretch of darkness that, as though welcoming her, soon swallowed her whole.

"Mom—Mom!!" The little girl seemed to sense something and abruptly threw off the quilt, rising to chase after her.

Bang!!! A deafening crash, accompanied by a tremendous tremor, exploded beside her ears.

Hiss!!! The little girl suddenly opened her eyes, her chest surging up from the bed as she drew a deep breath.

It had actually been a dream.

Her eyes were filled with terror, her pupils dilated as consciousness slowly returned from the murky dream.

Bang!!

Another deafening crash.

The entire room seemed to tremble and sway.

The wooden door shook violently, sending out one impact after another, as though a giant beast outside was ramming it in a frenzy.

Bang! Bang! Bang!!

The tremendous impacts seemed about to smash the wooden door to pieces.

Fine cracks slowly appeared and spread across the door's surface.

The little girl abruptly came to herself, recalling the voices she had heard in the dream.

"Mom." For some reason, tears suddenly filled her eyes, and an indescribable pain rose in her heart.

But hearing the crashes and recalling those words, she threw off the quilt, jumped down from the bed, and glanced at the commotion at the wooden door.

Crack!

A section of the wooden door suddenly broke open. Splintered wood flew inward, scattering across the brown earthen floor.

The little girl's whole body broke out in gooseflesh. Her heart pounded violently, her face deathly pale as she quickly bent down and crawled beneath the bed.

She crawled several times beneath the bed until she found a concealed black mud board. Grabbing its ring, she laboriously pulled it upward.

Beneath the board was a square little space just large enough for her to curl up in.

White stones of various sizes were embedded all over the walls of the space.

The stones were all different shapes, but they shared one thing in common: each had a complex red symbol carved into its surface.

The little girl quickly crawled inside, covered the mud board over her head, and, as darkness closed around her, trembled in the little space, curling herself tightly into a ball as she listened to the noises outside.

Strangely, after she hid inside, the impacts outside vanished completely.

It was as though everything she had heard just now had been an illusion.

Silence.

Not a sound.

All around her, there was only the sound of her own breathing.

The little girl clamped both hands over her mouth, afraid that breathing too loudly would cause the thing outside to discover her.

The exhaustion brought on by immense fear and tension slowly invaded her small body.

As time passed.

Slowly, the girl fell asleep.

No one knew how much time had passed.

An hour, or perhaps two.

"Yi Yi." A familiar call roused the little girl from her sleep.

She shifted her body, seemingly trying to curl up more comfortably.

"Yi Yi?"

"Yi Yi, where are you? Mom's back."

The voice from outside came again, faintly.

Warm and familiar.

The fear in the little girl's heart seemed to ease considerably after her nap.

Hearing the voice, she quickly moved, wanting to go out.

But she suddenly remembered something. Looking at the White Stones embedded in the wall, she used the faint light entering through the ventilation hole in the mud board and saw that they had not turned black.

According to her mother, only when the White Stones turned black would it be completely safe.

The girl's eagerness to go out immediately came to a halt.

"Yi Yi, it's light outside now. It's all right. You can come out."

The voice sounded again.

"Don't worry. There's light, so those things don't dare come in anymore. Mom's here. You can come out."

The little girl calculated the time. Usually, her mother should have returned around now.

Every time she hid in this little space, she would see her mother after waking from a nap and coming out.

The timing was about right this time, so it should be no different.

As for the White Stones embedded in the wall, perhaps too much time had passed. During the day, the stones were white as well.

The little girl thought for a moment, then raised her head and looked outside through the mud board's ventilation hole.

She discovered that there really was a faint white light outside.

It really was dawn.

Only then did she finally relax.

"I'm coming!"

She answered.

"Mom, I'm coming."

She began to move, raising her little hands to push against the mud board above her head.

Soon, she pushed the board open and laboriously poked her head out of the little space, returning beneath the bed.

Then she peered outside.

"!!??"

Outside.

It was still pitch-black.

Wasn't—wasn't it dawn already?

The little girl's scalp went numb.

Knowing that something was wrong, she gritted her teeth and quickly crouched down, trying to shrink back into the little space.

Plop.

Plop.

Suddenly, a pair of fair feet wearing her mother's cloth shoes walked up to the edge of the bed and stopped.

"Yi Yi. My good daughter, where are you?" The gentle, familiar voice came again.

The little girl did not dare make a sound. She covered her mouth tightly, and tears suddenly streamed down her face.

But she did not dare move. At such a close distance, the slightest motion would make a faint sound in the silent surroundings and expose her to the other party.

She suddenly remembered that her mother could not possibly be unaware of the little space beneath the bed.

Therefore, her mother could never have asked where she was.

Only then did she realize that she might have been tricked.

Plop.

Plop.

Soon, having received no reply—or perhaps because the girl's response from inside the little space had been too soft for the other party to hear—the pair of feet slowly left the bedside and calmly walked elsewhere.

The other party walked very slowly, making scarcely any sound. Soon, with a faint click of the door closing, she disappeared.

Everything returned to silence.

The little girl endured it. She kept enduring it.

Only after she had heard nothing for who knew how long did she slowly exhale and relax, shrinking back down.

The prolonged tension left her body limp. A faint buzzing filled her ears, and her vision blurred.

At this point, she could hold on no longer. She leaned against the inner wall of the little space and gasped for breath.

After discovering that the danger was gone, the little girl waited a while longer. Only after confirming that there truly was not the slightest sound did she laboriously crawl out of the little space, then inch her way out from beneath the bed.

Puff.

Suddenly.

Her shoulder bumped into something.

The little girl's entire body stiffened as a foreboding feeling rose in her heart.

Slowly, very slowly, she raised her head and looked toward the upper right.

A long-haired woman in a tattered white dress sat quietly on her wooden bed. Her left leg happened to hang down, resting on the girl's right shoulder.

The woman's long hair covered her face as she lowered her head to stare at the girl. Through the faint reflection of moonlight, the pale corners of her mouth could be seen, marked with traces of decay.

Whoosh!!

The woman's rotting face suddenly lunged close, enlarging before her eyes.

"You didn't die this time."

A blurred voice came from the darkness.

It seemed to be a woman.

"He's still alive. Mm, he's only injured and very weak. I'm not saying this to criticize you, but you're always bringing people back after rescuing them from the woods outside. There isn't much food around here, and you still have to support one sick person by yourself." The woman spoke as she talked.

"N-no... problem, Mom... Mom. Tell me..." another young female voice stammered severely.

"Don't bring up your mother. Just listening to you talk is exhausting. All right, I've stitched up the wound. Be careful not to get it wet afterward, or it'll become infected. I'll be leaving first." The woman seemed to be tidying things up with a clatter.

"Th-thank... thank you." The stammering girl let out a foolish giggle like a gasp.

"Stop thanking me. If it really doesn't work out, remember to drag him outside and throw him beyond the door. He should be gone by morning." The woman sounded helpless.

"Thank... only you... help." The stammering girl spoke gratefully.

"That's how the world is now. Everyone struggles just to survive; no one has the energy to care for anyone else. It's only you. If it were someone else, they probably would have thrown him back into the wilderness long ago." The woman said.

Yu Hong slowly gathered his strength and struggled to open his eyes in the darkness.

He saw a short, filthy little girl with disheveled black hair talking to a middle-aged woman with yellowish skin.

The yellow-skinned woman wore glasses and a gray-white long-sleeved coat covered in various stains and marks.

He only remembered that he had been exhausted from work, returned home, and collapsed straight into sleep. Then, in the middle of the night, he suddenly heard some commotion. Right afterward, pain struck his forehead, and he knew nothing more.

"Where... is this..." He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat felt as though it had been cut by a knife. He could not make a sound; only ragged wheezing drifted out.

At the same time, he could feel that his forehead was burning hot. His body was feverish, and the corners of his eyes were clogged with hard, dried eye discharge.

It was inflamed. Some part of his body was definitely inflamed—possibly his throat.

"Medicine." The girl's voice came at that moment.

After a clear sound of the door closing, everything fell quiet.

The filthy girl moved with difficulty and took a blackened metal box from the corner of the room.

"Take medicine. Get better." She carried it over to Yu Hong.

With a click, she opened the lid. Inside the metal box lay a great deal of charcoal. In the middle of the charcoal, wrapped in paper, were three pale-yellow capsules.

However, fine mold had already grown across the surfaces of the three pills. Green mold fuzz could be seen on the pale-blue mold spots.

"These pills... can't be taken anymore, can they?" Yu Hong's face stiffened as he looked at her. Now that he had woken up, his throat seemed much better too, and his speech was smoother, though it still hurt.

"And what medicine is this? What's wrong with my body? You're giving me medicine without even knowing what illness I have. It won't cure me."

"First tell me who you are and where I am. What exactly is going on now?"

The girl holding the medicine looked a little dazed. She opened and closed her mouth, babbling anxiously, but no matter what she did, she could not produce a voice.

Now that he was close, Yu Hong could finally see what she looked like.

Her skin was dark, covered everywhere with patches of dull yellow grime. She wore layers of clothes from summer, autumn, and winter all piled together. Her collar was black and greasy, and a heavy stench of sweat rose from her.

She was a beggar.

Perhaps many beggars were cleaner than she was.

From a distance, she had looked like a moving cart piled with black clothes.

Only after getting closer did one notice that the girl's body was somewhat deformed. One leg was crippled, and a huge tumor had grown behind her right shoulder, its distinct outline visible even through her clothes.

She was less than five feet tall, short and filthy, and moved very slowly.

Yet her eyes were like clear gems, almost entirely free of impurities.

The book was finally launching. As usual, updates would come around five in the afternoon. If there was any delay, it had nothing to do with me~~lol.

This time, it's a cruel, horrifying world. I hope everyone enjoys it.