For seven days in a row, Lu Jianchuan, who was kicked out of his home, guarded the hospital parking lot during the day and wandered around downstairs of Fang Xingzhou’s house at night. Seemingly not needing to eat or sleep, like an erratic ghost, so strange that it made the neighbors on the same street uneasy, and finally couldn’t help but report it to the police.
Fang Xingzhou has a good reputation on Xiangxing Street.
Two years ago, an elderly person suddenly fell ill on the street, just as Fang Xingzhou was returning from work. He managed to save the elderly person’s life right there on the street, making a name for himself in the community ever since.
Out of respect for Doctor Fang, after calling the police, a neighbor mustered the courage to quietly go to his doorstep, intending to warn him about his “ex-boyfriend’s” odd behavior.
After confirming that there was no sign of the ghostly figure in the area, he reached for the doorbell.
“(Ding Dong)”-
Fang Xingzhou was obviously at home, and the soft light peeked through the doorway.
During the time he waited for the door to open, his heart palpitated and couldn’t help but look around.
When he turned his head, he was met with a pair of clear amber-colored pupils.
Lu Jianchuan had silently appeared by the flowerbed, still holding the cardboard box, his face as handsome as a ghost in human skin, staring straight at the neighbor at the door. His pale red lips slowly curled into a polite yet cold smile.
At this instant, the neighbor felt his soul had been scared away.
A bit of awe, a lot of fear. He was 100% certain that at the moment before he rang the doorbell, there was no one near Fang Xingzhou’s house!
Where on earth did Lu Jianchuan appear? Why was there no sound at all?
Is he …… really human?
Or …… has a murder occurred in this house that he doesn’t know about, and the man in front of him has actually been transformed into a ghost?
With his heart beating wildly and numerous eerie tales surfacing in his mind, the neighbor suddenly felt an immense regret. Why did he go out of his way to warn Doctor Fang tonight?
Frozen and unsure how to react, the “ghost” sitting on the edge of the flowerbed spoke, his voice luxurious and elegant.
“Good evening, Mr. Lin.”
Goosebumps rose from the soles of his feet to the top of his head as his eardrums caught the voice.
The neighbor shivered, revealed a forced smile, and stuttered, “EEEEEvening, ggood evening.”
Lu Jianchuan’s smile deepened.
“Have you come to look for Zhouzhou?” He stood up from the flowerbed, still holding that box in his arms, “It’s already nine o’clock, he just came back from work, he should be in the shower now, you can tell me if there’s anything.”
After he stood up, the light from the street lamp illuminated the concrete floor hidden in the shadows, and the neighbor noticed that the concrete floor under his feet was densely carved with words, both dark and light, in messy strokes, as if scratched out by someone’s fingernails.
He intuited that he shouldn’t take a closer look, but he couldn’t help but subconsciously take a look at this weird situation.
There, densely packed and overlapping, was written:
–“I love you.”
His scalp exploded, his pupils contracted, and he felt even more that the person in front of him was a specter from a crime of passion. He immediately took a step back, stammering even more, “I I I nothing nothing nothing …… you …… you do not come over ……”
Lu Jianchuan blinked.
His lips lightly opened, seemed to be about to say something, and then suddenly closed, looking in the direction of the door, his face instantly became alive, eyes with strong expectations, dispersing the eerie “ghostly atmosphere”.
The next second, the door was pulled open.
Fang Xingzhou was wearing a housecoat, his hair was still dripping wet. He didn’t even look in the direction of Lu Jichuan, he just looked at the neighbor and said: “Mr. Lin, what can I do for you?”
As soon as the neighbor saw him, he was like seeing a savior and almost cried out on the spot.
He rolled and crawled into Fang Xingzhou’s house, slammed the door shut, and gestured with both hands, pointing in the direction of the flower bed, “Dr. Fang can you you can you see him? Can you see him? Is he alive or dead? How come he stays at your door all night long?”
Fang Xingzhou: “……”
He poured a cup of hot tea for his soulless neighbor and took some effort to calm him down, repeatedly assuring him that the person at the door was not dead, not a soul, not a demon, not a vampire or any non-human mythological creature.
“We broke up, he just can’t accept it for the time being,” Fang Xingzhou explained with an expressionless face, a familiar throb of pain coming from his chest as he said this, so familiar that it only made him feel numb, “It’ll be fine in a few days.”
The neighbor still looked at him skeptically.
“Then how come he can stay awake? And I saw …… him carve ‘I love you’ all over the floor, carved with his fingernail. It’s really scary!”
Fang Xingzhou couldn’t explain.
From the time he met Lu Jianchuan, the man had an unfathomable amount of energy, and could pester him to exercise all night and still get up early the next day to get fit.
During these days Lu Jianchuan lingered downstairs, he always appeared spirited, whereas his sleep quality was extremely poor, perhaps even in a worse state than Lu Jianchuan, who wasn’t sleeping at all.
Fang Xingzhou has dark circles under his eyes, his voice was a little hoarse, and he whispered, “Sorry to disturb your rest.”
The neighbor had calmed down a little and finally remembered what he was here for, worriedly saying, “I have already called the police, it’s not a matter of disturbing or not disturbing, it’s just that he looks very scary like this, and we’re also worried about you. Dr. Fang, you must pay attention to your safety.”
Fang Xingzhou revealed a little smile, “Thank you.”
The neighbor, not wanting to linger, had a brief chat and was ready to leave. As he grasped the doorknob, he suddenly paused, turning his head sheepishly towards Fang Xingzhou.
Understanding, Fang Xingzhou said, “I’ll walk you out.
“Thank you so much! The police will be here later, why don’t you watch TV and drink tea at my house and come back after the police take him away?”
Fang Xingzhou lowered his eyes, “No need, thanks.”
He pulled open the door and sent his neighbor back home, politely declined his warm invitation and walked back downstairs alone.
In the middle of winter, the night was deep and dewy. In five minutes of back and forth, his wet hair had already condensed with faint ice crystals.
Lu Jianchuan, still holding the cardboard box, thinly dressed, stood in the doorway like a sculpture, showing him an eye-catching and beautiful smile.
“Wife.” He called out to him in a slimy voice, as if they were still in hot love, “It’s cold, can you let me go in?”
Fang Xingzhou was also cold, his face was frozen and bloodless, his eyes stared deeply at Lu Jianchuan, as if he wanted to see the nature of his flesh and blood through that stunning skin.
For seven whole days, Lu Jianchuan held in the cardboard box moment after moment in his downstairs wandering, he did not really sleep for a moment.
Why did it come to this point? Fang Xingzhou looked at him, his brain suddenly appeared a long blank.
After a long time, he recovered a little emotion from the cold and mechanically said, ”We broke up. Don’t guard here anymore, the police will come later, I called them.”
Lu Jichuan knew that it was not him who called the police.
Because he is always softhearted, he has been guarding the downstairs for seven days, Fang Xingzhou did not even call the security to kick him out.
Lu Jianchuan pretended not to understand and just smiled, and while smiling, he opened the case and took out a telescope from inside.
“You still have this, wife,” he said to himself, “I thought you’d have broken it and thrown it away long ago.”
Fang Xingzhou’s eyes fell on the broken telescope.
He hated his extraordinary memory, it had been ten years and he could still recall past details at a glance.
In his freshman year, when they were not on the same campus because of their majors, Lu Jianchuan had stalked him for a long time and even rented a house across the street from his dormitory. He used this telescope to observe his every move, which Fang Xingzhou didn’t find out until his senior year.
And with the telescope together is the discovery of the ten thick books that Lu Jianchuan handwrote, each page of the book recorded his every move, what time he got up in the morning, what he ate, what he said, what he did, how good he looked when he laughed, and how harsh he was when he was angry………. If a day’s record is not enough to fill a page, then fill the rest of the paper with the dense word “love.”
Lu Jianchuan, as if knowing what was on his mind, rummaged through the box and pulled out one of the handwritten notebooks from back then.
“Keep this one too,” he said casually as he flipped open a page, his expression sweet as he looked at its contents. “Ah, it’s about our first date. You were wearing a white T-shirt, jeans—yes, that’s right, I still remember it very clearly. You had the scent of citrus on you, your fingers were cool to the touch, and it took a long time to warm them up. And… your heartbeat was seventy beats per minute, but when I secretly kissed you in the cinema, your heartbeat rate went up to a hundred…”
Fang Xingzhou’s hair might as well have been completely frozen, along with his heart.
His complexion turned even paler, his voice trembling from the cold as he said, “Shut up.”
Lu Jianchuan acted like he didn’t hear him, carefully putting the book back and once again flipping up the cardboard box, this time pulling out a scalpel from inside.
“There’s even this!” Lu Jichuan excitedly raised the knife up.
Fang Xingzhou saw his own bottomless pupils through the cold light reflected from the surface of the knife.
“Wife, you once held it against my left chest and said-”
The latter words disappeared into the cold wind.
When Fang Xingzhou came back to his senses, he didn’t know when he grabbed the scalpel and pressed it against Lu Jianchuan’s left chest, his head clenched in gusts, eyes were full of blood threads.
Lu Jianchuan glanced at the scalpel and then bent his eyes, “Stab me and cool off?”
Fang Xingzhou slowly grasped the handle of the knife and gritted his teeth.
Of course he remembered what he said the last time he used the knife on Lu Jianchuan. At his senior year graduation party, Lu Jianchuan was framed by the Lu family’s business rivals, and a set of photos of him being overly intimate with a female professor was released.
The morning after seeing the photos, Fang Xingzhou was holding the same knife against him and told him:
“There is never betrayal between us, only death.”
The two of them were extremely close to each other, and Lu Jianchuan’s breath with no temperature fell on the side of Fang Xingzhou’s face.
“You told me,” Lu Jianchuan whispered excitedly, “There is no betrayal, only death.”
Fang Xingzhou’s fingers trembled.
“You’ve betrayed me,” he said in a hoarse voice.
Lu Jianchuan opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, then hesitated. Grasping the sharp edge of the blade, he ultimately just shook his head, “I would never betray you, darling.”
Fang Xingzhou closed his eyes hard and opened them again.
Word by word, he slowly said, “Withdraw from the marriage, or break up completely. While I can still keep my sanity.”
Lu Jianchuan saw his own reflection in Fang Xingzhou’s pupils.
Seeing his lover look at him with such an expression, he could barely stick to his original plan for even a second, despite all the mental preparation he had done before deciding to accept the “Pine Wood Plan.” At that moment, everything seemed in vain.
He wanted an egg (*baby*).
In human society, it seems that the vast majority of couples who grow old together will conceive the next generation, and if others have it, he and Zhouzhou must have it as well.
But the news of the union had already accidentally leaked out, and with his wife so upset right now, does it really matter if they have an egg or not?
Lu Jianchuan’s lips mumbled, strongly wanting to embrace the person in front of him into his arms, even if his heart would be pierced by a scalpel.
Fang Xingzhou stared at him dead in the face, his other hand grabbed his collar and repeated for the last time, “Withdraw from the marrage.”
Lu Jianchuan inhaled hard.
“…… Okay.” He revealed a smile.
Fang Xingzhou kept this position without moving.
After a long time, he violently let go of Lu Jianchuan’s collar and took half a step back, the cold murderous intent between his eyes dissipated, but his gaze still did not have much temperature.
He put the scalpel in his pocket.
“Go.” He said, “When you’re done, we talk about something else.”
Lu Jianchuan froze.
He immediately hugged the cardboard box and followed a few steps over, saying expectantly, “Then can I go home and sleep tonight?”
As the words landed, the sound of a whimpering police car came from the street, from far away.
Without a word, Fang Xingzhou tucked in his scalpel and pulled open the door, then slammed it hard in front of Lu Jianchuan.
“(Boom).”
Lu Jianchuan: “……”
He looked blankly at the cat eye on the door, and after a few moments showed a sobbing expression, wrapped his arms around the cardboard box, sat down on the steps, and began to carve “I love you” again.
That is, until the police car whimpered and braked sharply in front of him.
The car didn’t look much like a regular police car, but a closer look revealed a number of subtle differences.
For example: the front and rear windows are pasted with tightly sealed anti-peep film, so that people can not see anything inside; body thicker than the average car, the chassis is very heavy, the tires are obviously larger; the driver’s side of the driver’s car is actually wearing a white protective suit, not like a police officer, but rather like an epidemic prevention doctor.
Soon, a tall man with a scar on his face and wearing a trench coat came out from the passenger side.
In the middle of the night, he actually wore a hat, and after getting out of the car, he reflexively observed the surrounding environment and confirmed that it was safe before he began to look up and down Lu Jianchuan, and finally took a look at the closed door.
After looking at it, he frowned slightly and said in a low voice, “Mr. Lu, your current behavior is not beneficial to our operation.”
Lu Jianchuan slowly raised his head.
Before he took speech, the curtains upstairs were gently picked up a crack, and a familiar line of sight was cast down from above.
Both of them were silenced at the same time, silently changing the subject.
“Mr. Lu,” the police officer reopened his mouth, “a member of the public has reported that you are disturbing the public order, please come with us.”
Lu Jianchuan was silent.
He held back the urge to look up, obediently stood up and followed the tall man to the police car.
Author has something to say:
Those who clicked into this article should have a good level of acceptance for perverts…? (wary) (tentative) (rubbing hands together)
tranlater has something to say: Happy Holidays XD
