"Maybe that 'Calamity' was just too weak... One swing of the axe killed it completely." Li Xiuchun proposed another possibility.
Chen Tan did not answer. He stared at the figure in the pool of blood for a long time, then turned and fetched a kitchen knife from the kitchen.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm cutting open his chest to see whether his heart is still there." Chen Tan's voice was hoarse. "At least I need to know... whether I killed a monster, or the salvation God gave us."
He knelt beside Chen Ling's corpse and laboriously cut open his chest with the blade. Li Xiuchun's face went pale beside him. She turned and rushed into the kitchen, vomiting violently.
A few minutes later, Chen Tan slowly stood up.
"Well?" Li Xiuchun asked.
"Empty." Chen Tan looked at the bare inner walls of the chest cavity, seeming to let out a sigh of relief. "He didn't have a heart."
"No heart? Then how did he..."
"I don't know."
Chen Tan paused. "No matter what it was... it's dead now."
"What do we do with the body?"
"Hide it in the cellar... The Enforcers are everywhere outside. We can't move it out."
Chen Tan dragged the corner of the living room table aside and opened the heavy wooden boards on the floor, revealing a dark, cramped underground space.
In an age without refrigerators, using the cellar's natural insulation to store food was the best option. He was about to toss Chen Ling inside when he saw the savage wound on his neck and stopped.
"Go get A-Yan's opera costume," Chen Tan said. "No matter what it was, this was still A-Ling's body... We don't have a coffin to bury him in, but at least let him wear something decent."
At the mention of that costume, Li Xiuchun gave a slight shudder.
"But last night... he came back wearing that outfit..."
"It's only clothing." Chen Tan was about to argue, but when he recalled the horrifying sight of Chen Ling returning home last night, he did not insist. "Forget it. We'll do it this way."
Chen Tan threw Chen Ling's body into the cellar, covered it with the wooden boards, then pushed the table back over them. Only then was it truly done.
Next, Li Xiuchun began cleaning the blood from the house. Though it made her nauseous beyond endurance, she still pinched her nose and kept going.
Knock, knock, knock—
Urgent knocking suddenly rang out.
Li Xiuchun, who was cleaning the room, felt her heart skip a beat and abruptly turned to look at Chen Tan.
"Someone's here?"
"Ignore them for now. Pretend no one's home."
Li Xiuchun nodded. The two held their breath in the living room, with only the dull, unceasing knocking echoing through the house.
But the knocking showed no sign of stopping. Instead, it grew heavier and more forceful. Then a low voice came from outside the door:
"Enforcer inquiry! Open the door immediately!"
At the word Enforcers, both their faces turned white. After hesitating for a moment, Chen Tan gave Li Xiuchun a look, quickly changed his clothes, and headed for the door before even fastening all his buttons.
Creak—
The door opened a crack.
Chen Tan slipped outside sideways and shut the door behind him. "Officer, what can I do for you?"
A light drizzle fell from the gloomy sky. Two figures in black-and-red uniforms stood outside, their expressions somewhat grim.
"Why didn't you answer after we knocked for so long?"
"I was asleep just now. It took me a while to get dressed." He gave an awkward smile.
The two Enforcers glanced at his unfastened clothes, their expressions easing slightly. "Is this Chen Ling's home?"
"...Yes."
"Where is he?"
"He went out this morning and hasn't returned yet."
"When he comes back, give him this notice." One Enforcer pulled a document from his coat. "The Second District and Third District are now under total lockdown. All reserve Enforcers who passed the written examination are being temporarily called to assemble. He is on the list as well.
"At seven tomorrow morning, report to Third District Enforcer Headquarters on time. Failure to appear will be considered a voluntary forfeiture of his position."
Chen Tan's heart lurched, but he accepted the notice without changing expression and nodded.
"Alright. I'll make sure he gets it."
The two Enforcers turned and left. Chen Tan breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.
He pushed open the door and entered the house.
Screech—screech—
The moment he entered, an ear-piercing sound of metal scraping reached his ears, like sharp fingernails raking across a blackboard. Chen Tan's scalp instantly prickled.
Li Xiuchun was huddled in the corner, trembling all over.
When she saw Chen Tan return, her nearly broken gaze finally lifted. Slowly, she raised a hand and pointed toward the kitchen...
In the kitchen, a vermilion figure stood with its back to them, head lowered as though chewing something.
At the sight of that back, Chen Tan's mind went blank!
It was a boy whose neck had nearly been severed. Scarlet flesh was healing at a visible rate. In his left hand, he held a kitchen knife; in his right, a bloodstained axe. He was stuffing both into his mouth at once...
As if sensing Chen Tan entering the house, the figure in the kitchen, draped in a bright red opera robe, slowly turned around.
It was Chen Ling—Chen Ling, who had lost his heart and nearly been decapitated.
His cheeks bulged slightly as he chewed hard on scraps of metal and wood. His unfocused pupils resembled a beast's eyes, strange and chilling.
"Dad."
A voice sounded from behind him. "I'm hungry..."
Chen Ling had a dream.
It was an afternoon beneath dark clouds.
As usual, after working out at the training grounds in the outskirts, he pushed open the front door drenched in sweat.
It was not his birthday, yet a cream cake sat on the family dining table... Orange candlelight flickered in the dim living room, and two figures sat at the table with reddened eyes.
A cream cake cost two hundred copper coins—something their family could never ordinarily afford.
He was confused, so he asked what day it was.
His parents told him that today was the day his younger brother A-Yan was to undergo surgery.
He was delighted to hear it. His brother's congenital heart disease had been the nightmare haunting their family. To cure A-Yan, his parents had run everywhere with him, begging for help, but every clinic had been helpless.
A few days earlier, his parents had said they had found a hospital in the Second District and sent his brother there. They were confident they could cure him.
Overjoyed by the news, he finished the cake. But soon, his consciousness began to grow hazy, and he collapsed onto the table. The last thing he saw was his mother, Li Xiuchun, covering her mouth as tears streamed down her face.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," he heard his father murmur. "A-Yan's illness needs a heart... You'd be willing, wouldn't you?"
He opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something, but ultimately lost consciousness.
Then, he felt himself being stuffed into a bag. Rain pattered against its surface. After a long time, he was finally lifted onto some kind of table.
He felt someone cut open his chest and take something from inside.
After that, someone dressed him in an outfit and moved him somewhere through the heavy rain. Thick earth gradually buried his body, and everything around him sank into darkness and deathly silence...
In the darkness, Chen Ling's eyes suddenly flew open.
Spotlights lit up one after another overhead, illuminating the red-clad figure lying at the center of the stage. After a brief daze, Chen Ling braced his hands against the floor and staggered to his feet.
"Damn it... Why am I back here again?"
Chen Ling's face was somewhat pale. His gaze instinctively fell upon the screen at the center of the stage, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
[Audience Expectation +1] [Audience Expectation +1] [Current Expectation: 67%] [Actor connection lost. Performance interrupted.] [Audience Expectation -50] [Current Expectation: 17%] [Warning! Warning!] [The Audience has begun intervening in the performance!]
Before you continue