FMT 11

Chapter 11 Nightmare

Xiaodan’s stomach was still hungry, so his sleep was restless, and he woke up quickly. He lay in his dad’s arms, blinking his black and white phoenix eyes, not making any fuss at all.

When Liandan fed him milk, his chubby little mouth kept pouting, chasing after the spoon. This child had a strong mouth, he drank milk especially well. If he was fed even a little late, he would kick his short legs in protest.

Liandan hurried to feed him mouthful after mouthful. When he was done, he got up and bent over with some effort to lift the fat baby, pacing back and forth in the room, patting his back for a burp. Xiaodan obediently rested his face on his dad’s thin shoulder, looking around again and again.

After the burping, once the child was laid back on the bed, Xiaodan babbled at Liandan as if he was chatting. After a while his eyes could not stay open, his long eyelashes fluttered and soon closed, and he continued the sleep he had not finished earlier.

At this age a child still slept a lot, and the more he slept the faster he grew.

That terrifying young man had gone out with the village chief. The old lady had also fallen asleep. The house was very quiet.

The small child on the bed slept with even breathing. Once the bed curtain was let down, the small space turned dark.

In such silence, Liandan’s uneasy heart settled much more.

He put on his shoes lightly and stepped to the ground, went outside to cut some grass to feed the milk goat, and squeezed some goat’s milk into a bowl, planning to warm it in the pot.

In the doghouse, Laicai opened his dog eyes, staring cunningly at his movements. While Liandan was not paying attention, he suddenly rushed out and bit his trouser leg.

Liandan was so startled he cried out. He almost dropped the bowl in his hands. He hurriedly yanked back his trouser leg, and under the wolfdog’s threatening growls, he ran back into the house in panic.

After entering the house, he could still hear the loud barking of the big wolfdog outside in the yard.

Half of the milk in the bowl had spilled out. Liandan gasped painfully, afraid it would not be enough for Xiaodan to drink.

When he had steamed the milk in the pot, Liandan finally had time to check his leg. His skin was not hurt, but the trouser leg had been torn to a mess. Liandan bit his lip with a headache, went back inside to find the sewing basket, took off his trousers, sat in the bedding with his bare legs, and carefully sewed them stitch by stitch.

When he married into the Chen family, he had brought only two sets of clothes. One was what he wore at home on ordinary days, left behind by his married elder sister, already patched many times.

The other was specially altered by his mother from her own old clothes. That was his mother’s best clothing, a little better than what Liandan himself had, and he usually could not bear to wear it.

It was said that in the town more than ten li away, each summer and winter one had to prepare a new set of clothes, which would cost at least one or two silver taels, not even counting the underclothes and bellybands underneath.

Liandan had lived this long and had never seen so much money, let alone spent it on new clothes.

But in this village, most families were miserably poor, so wearing patched clothes out was nothing anyone would laugh at.

These trousers of Liandan’s had already been worn thin by washing. Now Laicai’s sharp teeth had bitten several holes in them, and after all the pulling and tugging, they were almost like rag strips.

Even though Liandan was good at needlework, sewing them back still took a lot of effort.

When he was nearly finished, and just about to break the thread and tie it off, the courtyard gate made a sound, and then footsteps entered the yard.

For a moment Liandan did not react to who it could be. He rushed to tie the knot to put on his trousers, but the more anxious he was, the less he could manage.

Finally, when the footsteps reached his own door, Liandan tied the knot, but had no time to put the trousers on.

The footsteps outside stopped. Liandan grew so anxious his eyelids turned red. He already realized who it was. When he felt the person outside was about to push the door open, a hoarse and somewhat strange voice came from outside, slow and unhurried. He said, “I’m back.”

The other had no intention of coming in rudely. Liandan was stunned for a moment, then quickly responded, “Eh.”

He was afraid of waking Xiaodan and had gotten used to not daring to speak loudly. He did not know if the other could hear him, but the footsteps outside sounded again, moving away from this door.

Liandan let out a breath, hurriedly put on his trousers under the bedding, tidied himself, then took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and cheered himself on for a while before daring to go out.

When he went out, he did not see where Chen Shuangning was.

Liandan leaned to peek through the crack of the next room’s door. Old Madam Chen was still asleep on the kang, not waking.

For dinner, Liandan cooked a pot of cornmeal porridge, thin and watery, eaten with pickles. He tried to wake the old lady to feed her some food, but failed.

As it grew darker, Liandan looked out uneasily, but saw no sign of anyone.

He went back to the room and babbled with Xiaodan, holding his little butt so he could lean against his chest, walking around the shabby house to look here and there.

From time to time he pointed at the spider webs in the corners or the broken tables and chairs, explaining to the little baby what they were.

His voice was low, with a gentleness and delicacy that belonged only to a ge’er, and it sounded very comforting.

Xiaodan kept his phoenix eyes wide open, looking brightly at the shabby things in the house for a while, then looking at his dad again. For no reason he was so happy that he bounced, almost making Liandan’s arm go numb.

Liandan said, “You are so heavy.”

Xiaodan opened his mouth and let out an “ah,” as if he was protesting, and from his toothless mouth came a spit bubble that popped with a sound.

Seeing him like that, Liandan, for once, forgot all his troubles, and laughed out loud.

He had just laughed once when he suddenly sensed something wrong. He quickly held Xiaodan and turned toward the door.

In the dim lamplight, a shadow was standing at the doorway that had been opened at some unknown time.

Liandan’s eyes widened at that shadow, and the smile on his face gradually disappeared.

“How did this happen?” The person who had stopped at the doorway stepped into the room. The light of the oil lamp finally shone on his face, a face that could be called handsome, with a pair of frightening eyes.

It was Chen Shuangning.

Liandan followed his gaze down to himself and realized he was asking about the trouser leg he had just mended that afternoon.

His clothes were patched upon patches already. Even with the trouser leg sewn up, it should not have been noticeable. Liandan did not know how Chen Shuangning had noticed.

The young man walking toward him made Liandan uneasy. He instinctively stepped back, lowered his head, and answered softly, “It was torn by Laicai.”

Chen Shuangning stopped three or four steps in front of him. He showed no expression after hearing Liandan’s answer.

Liandan noticed that after he had entered from the doorway, his few steps had made no sound, unlike when he returned that afternoon.

At that time… could it have been on purpose, making noise to remind him?

“It’s late, go rest.” The young man looked at Liandan and said this.

Liandan lowered his head. His scalp tightened, and he felt the man’s gaze fixed on the top of his head. He nodded randomly, opened the door ahead of him, and went out.

Liandan placed Xiaodan on the inner side of the bed, went to add warm water to the wooden basin, prepared a cloth towel, and stood by waiting.

After Chen Shuangning finished washing, he took the cloth towel from his hand. Liandan quickly pulled his hand back right after passing it over.

The other should have glanced at him. Liandan was not sure.

After finishing, the young man said, “Go sleep.”

Liandan obediently walked to the bed, glanced stealthily at Chen Hanwen’s memorial tablet on the table, then quickly withdrew his gaze and climbed onto the bed to lie down.

Xiaodan was already asleep, arms spread on both sides of his head, lying sprawled in all directions.

This room had originally belonged to Chen Hanwen. After he died, it had remained empty.

Before Liandan married in, Old Madam Chen had someone replace the wooden bed that could only sleep one person with the current one that could sleep two.

Liandan’s body was thin and small. With the child, the two of them together only occupied a small part of the bed, still leaving most of it empty.

He turned his back outward, covered tightly with the quilt, body tense, listening secretly to the sounds behind him.

Footsteps came to the bedside. Liandan bit his lip in nervousness, but he only heard the faint sound of the bed curtain being let down, and then the footsteps moved away again.

The oil lamp was extinguished, and the room fell into darkness.

Liandan controlled his breathing to make it sound as if he was deeply asleep.

After quite a while, he did not hear footsteps again, and no one had come near.

It was still hot under the quilt. Liandan held on for some time but finally could not endure it. He pushed the quilt down a little, quietly sat up, and turned his head to look.

After staying in the dark for a while, his eyes had already adjusted to the dimness in the room, and he could see the outlines of everything clearly.

After looking for a while, Liandan sat up from the bed, blankly glancing around the room.

In this dim room, there was no longer any sign of Chen Shuangning. At some point, the room had only him and the child left.

Liandan lay back down. He could not figure out when Chen Shuangning had gone out or how he had gone out.

He pondered for a while. He wanted to sleep, but he inexplicably felt it was strange and frightening.

Liandan’s small figure got out of bed. He shuffled in his shoes to take the memorial tablet from the table. The familiar cold touch gave him a sense of safety. His thin fingers touched the carved name on it, then he returned to the bed. As usual, he hugged the tablet in his arms, and only then did he slowly fall asleep.

It should have been in the second half of the night when Liandan had a dream. In the dream, he once again returned to Lingyun Temple and saw that courtyard littered with corpses, flesh and blood everywhere. He knew he was dreaming, yet he could not escape it.

For some reason, the nauseating smell of blood was so real it did not seem like a dream, rushing straight into his nose.

There were also strange sounds like whimpering.

At that moment, a man appeared in the courtyard. He wore a green-plum-colored robe, his hair tied at the top of his head. Cold moonlight illuminated his face. That face had only its outline, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, it was flat.

The instant he saw it clearly, Liandan let out a terrified “Ah,” gasped rapidly, and woke up.

As soon as he woke, he was dazed for a while. Then he instinctively hugged the memorial tablet in his arms and curled under the quilt.

Beside him, Xiaodan’s breathing was even and long, he was sleeping soundly.

It was indeed just a dream. Liandan’s heartbeat gradually calmed.

Suddenly, he felt something was wrong. He turned his head to look out toward the room beyond the bed.

Through the semi-transparent bed curtain, he saw a figure sitting still in a chair by the window, unmoving, extremely strange.

Liandan’s just-calmed heart instantly tightened again. Though he could not see the figure’s face, just from the shape he could recognize it was his husband, who was said to have returned from the dead.

Liandan bit down hard on his lip to stop himself from crying out.