Chapter 202: Inhuman
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com please read it there. and check out other stories too.
Xi Mo added, "Wuyuan is very beautiful, and there are many Hui-style buildings,* with blue tiles and white walls."
*traditional Chinese architectural style from the Huizhou region in Anhui province.
"Have you been there?" Ruan Yesheng completely relaxed and chatted with her.
"I went there once, during filming, but I was in a rush and busy working, so I didn't get a chance to explore properly. What about you?"
“I’ve only been there once, and Tinghuan took me. But we were just tourists, staying in a hotel. She didn’t let me get close to her clan, and I’ve never met her family.”
"Clan?" Xi Mo seemed curious. The concept of clan has long since disappeared in many places, but some still retain this tradition.
"Yes, Tinghuan's family is quite complicated, with clans, ancestral halls, and many rules. She warned outsiders like me that it's best not to go there, as it's quite dangerous. Since she said so, I had to listen, it wasn’t a joke."
Xi Mo stayed silent for a moment, then said, "If you were the protagonist in a movie or TV show, the plot would just stop. Usually in movies and TV shows, people would insist on going against advice and then encounter all sorts of bizarre and unbelievable events. In foreign countries, that would be monsters, ghosts, and killers; in China, it would be hallucinations, schizophrenia, and in the end, there would be hardly any survivors."
Ruan Yesheng laughed listening to Xi Mo’s sudden sarcastic remarks.
After Xi Mo finished speaking, Ruan Yesheng asked, "Have you... seen a monster?"
The line became quiet, Ruan Yesheng could almost hear Xi Mo’s soft breathing.
"I don’t know," Xi Mo said after a while, "I’m not sure, if that counts."
Ruan Yesheng roughly understood what she was thinking and asked her to confirm, "Are you referring to the dark figure you saw through the crack in the door when the hotel caught fire, or... the one in the silver box in Dr. Zhao Yinchu's ambulance?"
“Both.” Xi Mo’s voice turned cold. “I couldn’t see clearly under the door crack, and I didn’t open the box to check. This uncertainty messes with my judgment. But my intuition tells me that the shadow under the door crack doesn’t look human. If a person leaves a shadow at the bottom of the door crack, it would basically be the outline of a shoe, and that area would be much smaller than the shadow we saw. Unless… that shadow was a person lying on the ground, peering in our direction. But there’s a fire outside, and everyone would be trying to survive. Why would someone lie down to look?”
"So you think it might be... a monster?" Ruan Yesheng had the same doubt in her heart as her.
“Yes, since even souls can be exchanged, it’s not surprising that there are monsters in this world that we can’t understand.” Xi Mo said, “The same goes for the one in the silver box. It sometimes moves. It could be some kind of animal or something. Whatever it is, if it’s not an animal that we usually understand, it could be called a monster.”
"And what about the footsteps that followed closely behind? It's been so long, have you figured out what it is? It's even faster than what rushed in," Ruan Yesheng asked again.
“Maybe human…maybe ‘inhuman’.” Xi Mo’s words were tinged with wariness and contemplation: “Sometimes I wonder, are all the people we meet ‘human’? Or could they be something else entirely?”
The cold wind kept pounding against the windows, making the whole building seem about to collapse. Fortunately, the windows were very sturdy and stable, keeping out the biting noise and turbulence of the winter night.
The room light fell on Ruan Yesheng, she curled up slightly, her face appearing somewhat pale in the light.
“Xi Mo, I…” Ruan Yesheng hesitated.
"What's wrong?" Xi Mo noticed the change in her tone and quickly asked, "Are you feeling unwell?"
"No, it's just that when you talked about 'inhuman,' it reminded me of an old photo." Ruan Yesheng calmed herself down and told her not to worry.
Xi Mo asked softly, "What photo?"
Ruan Yesheng's gaze dimmed, a barely concealed pain flashing across her eyes. After a long pause, she adjusted her tone and said, "The upper right corner of that photo is blurry; it shows a person's hand, but it looks..."
"You don't think that's a human hand? It just looks like a human hand?" Xi Mo realized something and quickly asked.
“At first glance, it looks like a person, and it’s even wearing clothes, with sleeves covering its wrists,” Ruan Yesheng said. “But the hand always seemed a bit distorted, not like the normal skeletal structure that a person should have. When I first saw it, I thought the person’s hand was just a little deformed. But then I vaguely felt that something was not right. Maybe it wasn’t a person at all? It was just my preconceived notion from the photo that made me think it was someone else.”
"Where did you see this photo? Related to what?" Xi Mo puzzled. She felt Ruan Yesheng wanted to tell more things she hadn’t known.
Ruan Yesheng needs her.
Or perhaps Ruan Yesheng was filled with fear and wanted to confide in someone she trusted. This fear, which she may have suppressed before, was finally unleashed during their conversation, stirring up her long-buried horrors.
The more things were like this, the more Xi Mo understood that she needed to maintain communication with Ruan Yesheng, even if she couldn't be by her side now, she hoped to accompany her in another way.
Ruan Yesheng hesitated for a moment, then said, "I saw it in the landfill."
"Landfill?" Xi Mo was even more confused: "What were you doing at the landfill? When did this happen, and which landfill was it?"
"This happened during my university years." Ruan Yesheng seemed to be trying hard to hold back some emotion, her voice trembling slightly: "I..."
Xi Mo noticed Ruan Yesheng's emotions and quickly comforted her, "I'm sorry, I may have asked a lot of questions. You can't answer them all at once. How about this, just tell me the name of that landfill first, and we can talk about the rest when we meet?"
“…Okay.” Ruan Yesheng agreed.
Then, holding her phone close, she whispered, "It’s called Xiao Hui Ling landfill."
Xi Mo had never heard of it, noted it silently, and didn’t ask more, then said, "It’s past midnight, it’s New Year’s Eve, do you want to sleep?"
"Are you sleepy?" Ruan Yesheng murmured, her voice tinged with a hint of dependence.
"Not sleepy."
“I’m not sleepy either,” Ruan Yesheng said, lying down and turning to her side.
“Then I’ll chat with you a little longer. Maybe you’ll fall asleep while we’re talking.” Xi Mo’s voice softened.
Ruan Yesheng sighed, "My dorm mates used to date and would always talk on the phone until very late at night. To avoid disturbing our rest, they would even go outside to make the calls. By the time they came back, it was already past midnight, and they were even caught by the dorm supervisor. Sometimes, they would just put their phones next to their pillows and fall asleep while talking. At that time, I didn't understand why they could talk on the phone for so long. Did they really have that many topics to talk about? Now I understand, they really did."
"I used to think that too," Xi Mo said, "How can a call last hours? It’s like talking about what to eat for breakfast this month and what to eat for dinner next month. It’s like talking about global warming, river pollution, glacial melting, and national affairs. The whole city’s affairs are covered in these phone calls, and that’s how you talk for so long.”
Ruan Yesheng was amused by her: "You actually love to mutter to yourself, muttering about this and that, and you're not as aloof as you seem on the surface."
Xi Mo tensed: "No, I’m consistent. I'll say what I think, and if I don't say it, it means I haven't thought of it."
“Really?”
"Really."
"Consistent in word and deed?"
"Consistent in word and deed."
Ruan Yesheng said, "I like you so much."
Xi Mo: "..."
"Why aren't you saying anything? Oh, you don’t like me. Because you’re consistent, you're not saying it because you don't think of it." Ruan Yesheng clenched her blanket, shaking slightly.
Xi Mo: "..."
Soon Xi Mo said, "I knew you were up to something, so I couldn’t speak, otherwise I’d fall for it. That’s consistent."
"You react so quickly, I can't fool you anymore."
Ruan Yesheng's emotions gradually calmed down. Even though they couldn't meet, Xi Mo's voice seemed to provide her with a safe haven from the wind and snow. She could curl up in this small, warm place and briefly forget her pain.
They chatted for an unknown amount of time, and Ruan Yesheng's voice gradually became drowsy, sometimes even humming softly. Xi Mo, who was used to her flirtatiousness and shrewdness, rarely heard her like this, and chuckled gently: "Go to sleep?"
“…I’m not sleeping.” Ruan Yesheng mumbled.
"Okay, go to sleep." Xi Mo couldn't help but tease her.
"...I don't want to sleep." Ruan Yesheng hummed a few times, said a few more words, and gradually quieted down.
"Yesheng," Xi Mo said softly, "Yesheng?"
Ruan Yesheng was too sleepy to answer.
Her breathing was almost inaudible on the phone, yet it seemed to transcend space and amplify in Xi Mo's ears.
Xi Mo held her phone close and murmured softly, "I...like you too."
After she finished speaking, she took her phone down; the time showed 2:29. Intending to hang up, but stayed on the line, scrolling through some of her previous chat messages with Ruan Yesheng, before finally ending the call, turning off her phone, and going to sleep.
Ruan Yesheng didn't get up until after nine in the morning. When she picked up her phone, she saw a flood of New Year's Eve greetings. Some were generic, while others were sent specifically for her. Shen Qingbie, on the other hand, was quiet and didn't contact her. Ruan Yesheng suspected that Shen Qingbie hadn't gotten up yet.
Xi Mo’s chat was pinned, she could see it at first glance. Around eight, Xi Mo sent her a message, "Happy New Year’s Eve, Yesheng."
"Happy New Year’s Eve. When did I fall asleep?" Ruan Yesheng sat by the bed and replied.
After waiting for a while without receiving a reply, Ruan Yesheng got up to wash up. Once she finished, she picked up her phone again and saw Xi Mo's reply: "2:29 AM."
"How do you remember it so clearly?" Ruan Yesheng asked curiously.
Xi Mo replied instantly: "That's simple, I just checked the time."
Ruan Yesheng had no idea what had happened at 2:29. She asked, "What are you planning to do later?"
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com please read it there. and check out other stories too.
"I'm at the Xi Manor. I'm going to see my mother later."
Lunar New Year's Eve is a festival for family reunion, but Xi Mo's mother had already passed away, so a large part of the New Year's Eve was spent visiting her grave. Ruan Yesheng thought that she couldn't keep sending messages to bother Xi Mo at this time, so she replied, "Okay, I'm going to clean up later, so I might not be able to check my phone."
"Okay, don't go out today," Xi Mo instructed.
"Understood."
Xi Mo, who was in the flower room, put away her phone and looked at Xi Ji not far away. Xi Ji was bending down to pick fresh flowers, preparing to arrange them into a bouquet to take to his deceased wife, Jian Yuan.
"Dad," Xi Mo walked to Xi Ji's side, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Have you heard of Xiao Hui Ling Landfill?"
Xi Ji's expression seemed to darken slightly. He looked up at her and said coldly, "Why are you suddenly asking this?"
Xi Mo carefully observed Xi Ji's expression, realizing that he must have heard about it, and said, "A friend of mine was chatting with me and mentioned this, so I'm a little curious."
"What friend?"
"It's just... a good friend, we just chatted casually."
"Why talk about this if nothing happened?"
Xi Mo made a bold guess. Something must have happened at that Landfill, otherwise Ruan Yesheng would not react like that. So she probed, "Maybe something happened there, but she didn’t go into detail. I’m just curious."
After a moment of silence, Xi Ji said, "Xiao Hui Ling Landfill is long gone. Back then, a body was dug out there. It was reported by a female college student. The case was too tragic, and too bizarre. It was suppressed, and until now it hasn’t been solved."
...A female college student?
Xi Mo frowned, recalling what Ruan Yesheng had said back then.
—This happened during my university years.
Author’s Note:
Xiao Hui Ling Landfill and these things were all mentioned before.
