MLV Ch 7

“Is anyone home?” There was a knock on the security door. 

“Your food delivery is here.”

With his mouth covered, Jin Feize couldn’t speak. He could only hold up his phone for Jiang Ye to see. It was the Meituan delivery app interface; Jin Feize had ordered bone broth rice noodles, and the map showed the delivery rider was only five meters away.

It really was a delivery rider outside.

Li Miaomiao clutched her chest and let out a sigh of relief. She had been so scared that tears had welled up in her eyes.

“Anyone home? Hello?” the rider called out again from the doorway.

Jiang Ye let go of Jin Feize’s mouth.

“You can just leave it at the door, thank you,” Jin Feize said.

“Alright, let’s open the door and get the food,” Li Miaomiao said.

“Wait.” Jiang Ye took out his phone and turned it on. 

“The previous tenant in my apartment installed a smart doorbell. We can monitor the hallway in real-time on the app. Let’s take a look first.”

He opened the app, and both Jin Feize and Li Miaomiao leaned in to look. The screen showed the image of the hallway. The motion-activated light was off, leaving the corridor in pitch darkness. Jiang Ye switched to night vision mode, and a faint green glow washed over the screen, creating an eerie atmosphere. He adjusted the angle of the doorbell camera, left—right—up—down—the image froze. All three of them fell silent.

They saw a spider-like human figure clinging to the ceiling.

The figure was motionless, its head pressed against Jin Feize’s front door. If they opened the door, they would come face-to-face with its upside-down face.

The thing seemed to notice the light from the smart doorbell turn on and slowly turned its head. The angle of its turn was terrifyingly exaggerated; if a normal person twisted their neck that far, it would have snapped long ago. The phone screen flickered, and the thing’s grotesque face appeared magnified multiple times in the lens. Its two eyes glowed with a sinister green light in the night vision, radiating an unspeakable malice.

“Open the door, let me in.”
“Open the door, let me in.”
“Open the door, let me in.”

“If you want me to open the door, fine,” Jiang Ye said. 

“Tell me, where is my mother?”

He had a feeling these things weren’t very intelligent. Maybe he could trick them.

It was silent outside. They waited for a while, but the thing didn’t reply.

They checked the camera feed again; the hallway was now empty. The thing seemed to have left, but something had been placed at Jin Feize’s door. It was square, like a delivery box, and its shape didn’t look like the bone broth rice noodles Jin Feize had ordered.

Jiang Ye frowned and closed the app. He then opened WeChat. The Witch hadn’t replied to his message. He opened the chat with his mom; the last message was from the day before yesterday, where his mom had asked him to call her back as soon as possible.

A sense of unease washed over Jiang Ye. Where on earth had his mom gone? Was she still alive?

Jin Feize smiled faintly. 

“That was truly frightening just now. It scared me.”

He said this with a beaming smile, not looking the least bit scared.

Li Miaomiao said guiltily, “I’m so sorry, Senior. We didn’t mean to trouble you, we just had nowhere else to go.”

Jin Feize shook his head. 

“It’s alright. I quite enjoy helping Jiang Ye.” He then asked, “Should we get the thing outside?”

“Let’s wait until morning,” Jiang Ye said, turning off his phone.

He had a feeling that ghosts and monsters wouldn’t dare to cause trouble in broad daylight.

Jiang Ye and Li Miaomiao entered the apartment. The fifty-square-meter place was kept very clean. In the trash can was Jin Feize’s blood-stained white t-shirt; he hadn’t washed it, just thrown it away. The t-shirt was a new summer style from Prada, costing at least a thousand yuan. For Jin Feize to toss it without a second thought showed he wasn’t short on money. If he wasn’t short on money, why was he living in such a run-down place?

There was no dining table in the home. A bookshelf stood against the wall, neatly filled with many medical books on human anatomy. What was most conspicuous was the large freezer in the living room, which was packed with popsicles of various flavors. Jiang Ye glanced over; the most numerous were hawthorn popsicles.

Seeing Jiang Ye staring at the popsicles, Jin Feize said, “I like sweet things. My dad never let me eat them when I was little, so now I want to indulge all at once. Do you want some? Help yourselves.”

Jiang Ye nonchalantly rummaged through the bottom layer of the freezer. It was indeed filled with popsicles, all frozen solid, indicating they had been in this freezer for a long time. This meant there was no room in the freezer for a body. Perhaps Li Miaomiao was right; he really was too paranoid. Jin Feize was just an ordinary high school student who loved popsicles and had a passion for medicine.

Jin Feize took out some of the popsicles to make space for the woven sack.

“Sorry for the trouble. Are the rest of the popsicles still edible?” Jiang Ye asked.

Jin Feize smiled and shook his head. 

“It’s fine. Once we’ve dealt with the body, I’ll throw the freezer out and buy a new one.”

“I’ll pay for the freezer,” Jiang Ye said.

How to deal with the body parts was still a problem, giving Jiang Ye a headache. He opened the smart doorbell app again. The camera had captured the creepy image of the “delivery rider” on the ceiling. Perhaps it could serve as evidence when he reported the case.

Jin Feize seemed to guess his thoughts and said, “I’ll go with you to the police station tomorrow. I suppose I count as an eyewitness, right? Even if the police don’t believe in headless corpses, your mother’s disappearance is a fact. We can at least file a missing person report.”

Jiang Ye nodded, his eyes lowered to the sack, his heart heavy. He always prepared for the worst when considering things. With events having developed to this point, what were the chances of his mother still being alive? He had been so intent on leaving his mother’s home, but he had never imagined that one day, she would be the one to leave him first.

It was time for bed. Li Miaomiao, being a girl, would sleep in the bedroom. As she climbed into bed, Jiang Ye stood at the door to turn off the light for her. Clutching the blanket, she suddenly asked, “Brother, Mom will come back, right?”

“…” Jiang Ye didn’t know how to answer. He gave a stiff nod. 

“Yes, she’ll come back.”

Li Miaomiao looked at him, and it was unclear if she believed him or not. After a long silence, she said, “Goodnight, brother.”

“Goodnight.”

Jiang Ye closed the door. Through the thin wood, he could hear Li Miaomiao’s suppressed sobs. She surely wanted to wail, but she was afraid he would hear. The events of the night had been too terrifying, especially her stepfather becoming a headless walking corpse. He didn’t know how to comfort her for the sudden loss of her father. He stood there for a while with a frown. When he came to his senses, he realized Jin Feize had already laid out the bedding on the floor.

Jiang Ye and Jin Feize slept on the floor in the living room. The air conditioner was on, blowing cool air onto their heads. It was the first time Jiang Ye had shared a bed with someone, and it was extremely uncomfortable. Jiang Ye turned his back to him, facing the entryway. Jin Feize slept behind him, and he could almost feel Jin Feize’s light breathing, like feathers tickling the back of his neck with each exhale.

They were too close. Jiang Ye wanted to ask him to move further away. Before he could say anything, Jin Feize spoke first. 

“It’s so cold. Can I move a little closer to you?”

“No,” he said.

“Alright.”

The thin blanket was trembling slightly. Jiang Ye noticed Jin Feize was shivering from the cold.

Jiang Ye raised the temperature on the air conditioner, but no matter how high he set it, Jin Feize kept shivering. Finally, Jiang Ye just turned the AC off. June in Shen City was unbearably hot. The living room felt like a steam basket, and Jiang Ye was sweating all over, like a bun in the steamer. He couldn’t take it anymore and turned the air conditioner back on.

“It’s okay,” Jin Feize said softly. 

“I can handle it. I’ve had poor health since I was a child and got sick often. I even spent time recuperating in the mountains. But one night of AC is nothing. I won’t catch a cold.”

Jiang Ye sighed inwardly. He and Li Miaomiao were the ones imposing on him. If they also caused him to get sick, it would be truly inexcusable. Jiang Ye relented. 

“You can move closer.”

“Is that really okay?”

“Yeah.”

Jin Feize moved a bit closer.

“Can I get even closer?”

“…You can.”

He moved closer again. Now he was pressed against Jiang Ye’s back, without even room for a piece of paper between them. He had a unique scent, cool and clean, like a winter pine. The blanket was also filled with Jin Feize’s scent, and Jiang Ye found himself enveloped in it. Jiang Ye’s body was stiff like a wooden doll’s, forcing himself to remain perfectly still.

Jin Feize chuckled softly behind him. 

“Classmate Jiang Ye, you’re really cute.”

Jiang Ye didn’t know how to respond, so he simply met the comment with silence. He felt that Jin Feize was strange, yet he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. The darkness enveloped them like a womb as they lay together like conjoined twins, drifting off to sleep. The room was quiet, utterly silent. Jiang Ye couldn’t sleep. The back of his head tingled, feeling as if the person behind him was watching him. He quietly turned his head to look. Jin Feize was already sound asleep, his profile bathed in the dim light. The lines of his features were soft, without sharp angles, like a sleeping sprig of beautiful artemisia.

I’m overthinking things again, Jiang Ye thought. He slowly turned back and drifted into dreamland. He didn’t see that behind him, Jin Feize’s eyes opened again.

He didn’t know how long he had slept before he was shaken awake. Thinking something was wrong, he quickly sat up to find Li Miaomiao squatting beside him, barefoot. Jin Feize also sat up; his expression was clear, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

“I just got up to use the bathroom and I think I heard a sound outside the door,” Li Miaomiao whispered.

The three of them exchanged a look, tiptoed to the security door, and pressed their ears against it to listen. Someone outside was whistling. The ethereal whistling sound drifted through the cold, gloomy hallway, making it exceptionally eerie.

Jiang Ye opened his phone and switched back to the camera feed. The hallway was empty, and there was no one on the ceiling, yet all three of them could clearly hear someone whistling outside.

“Could they be in the camera’s blind spot?” Li Miaomiao asked, her hands trembling as she held them.

“Unlikely,” Jiang Ye shook his head. 

“The blind spot isn’t big enough to hide a person. Besides, the sound is very soft. He must be right up against the door, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to hear it.”

“Then where is the sound coming from?” Li Miaomiao subconsciously gripped Jiang Ye’s shirt. Her hand was shaking, causing his shirt to tremble as well.

Jiang Ye stared at the screen. 

“It’s that delivery box,” he said. 

“The box the rider left at the door.”

Everyone’s gaze shifted to the delivery box on the screen.

“Could there be a human head inside?” Jin Feize said with a hint of a smile. 

“Judging by the size of the box, it could certainly fit an adult’s head.”

“Can a human head whistle?” Li Miaomiao asked in disbelief.

Jin Feize said slowly, “If a person without a head can walk, why can’t a head whistle?”