“That’s more like it. Put on the ring, and you’ll be a good daughter-in-law to the Song family.”
Chu Thải Phượng smiled, her expression both bizarre and terrifying.
It seemed she wasn’t bothering to hide her intentions anymore.
She said nothing about Tống Thuận Dương’s limp right arm. She just kept close to me, wouldn’t let me leave the house, and made sure I was always within her sight.
At least Tống Huyên wasn’t home today. I spent the whole morning assessing the risks and decided these two weren’t all that frightening. Even if it came to a fight, I had a good chance of winning.
So, as I headed toward the bathroom, I shoved Chu Thải Phượng aside and bolted out the front door.
Before running, I remembered to toss the corpse-wrapping ring down a drain.
For now, all I had to do was stay out of sight for eight days, then figure out what to do when Lộc Hà returned!
I thought I’d be safe once I got into the elevator, so I relaxed a little and sent Lộc Hà a voice message.
The number on the display steadily counted down, finally stopping at 1.
But when the elevator doors opened, I froze.
The silent hallway stretched on without end, its dim lights flickering. A few newly delivered packages had been left outside the apartment nearest the elevator.
Was I still on the 28th floor?
Had I run into a ghost?
Trembling, I stepped out of the elevator and walked a few paces toward home. Then I felt someone gently stroke the back of my neck…
“Why did my daughter-in-law throw away her wedding ring?”
An old voice came from behind me, but when I turned around, there was no one there!
“I’m up ahead, dear daughter-in-law.”
I whipped my head around.
My nose brushed against something cold, and a wrinkled old man’s face suddenly appeared right before my eyes!
His forehead pressed against mine, our faces almost touching. A grin full of fangs spread across his face as his eerie laughter echoed from all around me. “Where do you think you’re going, daughter-in-law? You can’t escape!”
21
[Don’t give yourself away yet. Your father-in-law has a serious problem!]
[Did you hear me, Quý Khinh? I’m coming over to deal with this. Wait for me!]
Lộc Hà’s voice messages played automatically, but I couldn’t answer anymore.
The old man said I’d suffered heatstroke, then Tống Huyên, my father-in-law, forcibly took me home and laid me on the big bed in the bedroom.
I was still conscious, but my body wouldn’t move. That ghostly weight pressing down on me had returned.
This time, my phone was gone too. I had no hope of calling the police.
The three of them seemed to be arguing in the living room. Chu Thải Phượng said it had been a few days, while Tống Huyên said that as long as the uterus was left intact, it would be enough to carry a pregnancy.
They also said someone was on the way and would be there soon.
I endured it, lying motionless until midnight. Then Tống Thuận Dương slowly wheeled himself in and gently stroked my face.
At once, I regained control of my body.
“Why aren’t you being good, sweetheart?”
“All right, it’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”
I could move again. Terrified, I scrambled into a corner, while Tống Thuận Dương strained the muscles in his face into a horribly twisted grin.
Then his jaw dropped uncontrollably.
With the fake ring I was wearing, his body couldn’t absorb nutrients. Of course, he’d have all sorts of problems.
“Ha ha, this body’s getting more and more useless.”
“Let’s hurry this along. Mom and Dad are waiting for their grandchild.”
I hurried back to the bathroom in the master bedroom and ducked inside, frantically searching the medicine cabinet for sleeping pills.
“You haven’t taken your medicine today. Take it first…”
A faint, almost inaudible tearing sound suddenly came from outside, like silk ripping. Then a foul stench spread through the room.
It was a familiar smell.
But there was no sweetness to it now—only a stench so nauseating I nearly passed out.
Tống Thuận Dương easily unlocked the door and wheeled himself inside.
What happened next was a sight I would never forget.
Like opening a zipper, he used his sharp fingernails to slice down from his throat to his belly, exposing the empty cavity inside.
“You still trying to give me sleeping pills?”
“I don’t need medicine anymore. Dad already took out all those useless organs for me.”
“Soon, I’ll have a new body.”
22
“Ah!”
I broke down, tears pouring out as I hurled whatever I could reach at Tống Thuận Dương. When a faint pine scent entered my nose, someone covered my eyes.
“Don’t look. Calm down.”
“Something came up. I’m late.”
It was Lộc Hà’s voice!
But we were on the 28th floor. How had she gotten into the bedroom?
I knelt on the bathroom tiles, vomiting. Just beyond the wall, Lộc Hà was quickly dealing with the unconscious Tống Thuận Dương—or, more accurately, a withered corpse.
“I attached a thread of spiritual awareness to a paper effigy and sent it through the crack under the door. But it won’t hold out for long.”
“Your house has been converted into a yin coffin. When Tống Huyên renovated it, he meticulously arranged every corner to suppress you.”
“Remember this: if you want to survive, you can’t make a single mistake over the next seven days.”
“First, you’ll meet Tống Hiến Nam, Tống Thuận Dương’s fourth older sister, who’s coming from the countryside. She’s here to trade her life for your future son’s.”
23
That night, I sat quietly by the window until morning.
Tống Thuận Dương woke up. His memories had been altered and his abdomen stitched back together, and he was completely satisfied with the night before. He dragged me off to breakfast, confidently declaring that I was definitely pregnant and that the baby had to be a boy.
His fourth older sister, Tống Hiến Nam, had gotten off the train early that morning and just arrived.
She was a rural woman with an isolated disposition, unmarried and living off odd jobs around the village. We’d met only once, at the wedding banquet.
I’d met all four of Tống Thuận Dương’s sisters only at the wedding banquet. The eldest hadn’t come and had only sent a red envelope. The second, third, and fourth had quietly sat down to eat. Not one of them spoke to anyone the whole time, as if they were invisible and hated by the entire family.
Chu Thải Phượng said her son didn’t have long to live, so she’d called her youngest daughter home to see Tống Thuận Dương one last time. But the sad truth was that the one who didn’t have long to live was Tống Hiến Nam.
Without a sacrificial offering to nourish the death ring, anyone who survived a life exchange wouldn’t last more than a few years. But that posed no problem for Tống Huyên.
After all, Tống Thuận Dương, who had been stillborn, had lived for twenty years thanks to this method. All he had to do was wait until he was the right age and find an unlucky marriage partner, and he could extend his life by another half a lifetime.
I made small talk with Tống Hiến Nam. While tidying up her room, I quietly asked, “Have you seen your eldest sister?”
“How long has it been since you were in touch with your second and third sisters?”
“Doesn’t it seem strange to you? Your other sisters don’t see each other or even keep in touch?”
Tống Hiến Nam froze, her lips trembling as she asked what I was trying to say.
Chu Thải Phượng kept a close eye on me. I didn’t have a phone, so all I could do was quickly slip a scrap of paper into Tống Hiến Nam’s hand and walk away.
[You don’t want to become the next sacrifice, either, do you? At four this afternoon, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor named Lộc Hà will be in the first-floor lobby. Take her back to your hometown, where you’ll see your sisters one last time.]
After passing on the message, I began gathering the keepsakes my parents had left behind. Things like photographs, fountain pens, and diaries—objects that still carried their owners’ presence—were what Tống Huyên feared most.
When he was alive, my father loved fishing. There was plenty of fishing gear in the storage room, so I used cleaning as an excuse to bring in a mop.
The storage room lights were off. The floor was very slippery, as if it were covered in water. Without thinking, I bent down to wipe it a few times. The slimy feeling put me on alert.
The next second, the ceiling light switched on.
Blood pooled across the white tile floor, and strange, bloodstained symbols covered the walls. A suffocating pressure slammed into me, making my scalp tingle uncontrollably.
“What are you looking for? Your father’s fishing gear?”
Tống Huyên appeared in the doorway, beaming. He held Tống Hiến Nam by the right hand and asked loudly, “Do you think that traditional Chinese medicine doctor named Lộc Hà can beat me?”
Drip, drip.
A few drops of water fell onto my forehead, carrying a strangely sweet, fishy taste. I looked up in horror.
Lộc Hà’s corpse hung from the ceiling, her eyes wide open in agony as she stared straight at me!