Chapter 111: Strange Records

Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle... The friction between the two pieces of wood made a rough rustling sound. Ji Taimei pushed open the coffin lid covering his head with trembling hands, and the brilliant sunlight fell, making his eyeballs ache slightly.

Looking around, Ji Taimei found himself on a flight of steps. The black lacquer pine coffin was placed under the eaves on the side of a residential house. The plastic sheet covering it had slipped to the ground because of the action of him pushing open the coffin lid just now.

Ji Taimei crawled out of the coffin tremblingly. Confusion and fear filled his mind, but the heart in his cold chest didn't move at all, making him somewhat doubt whether he was 'thinking' with his brain now?

Just like the digital world's underlying 0 and 1 constituted by whether the silicon transistor switch is on or off, human 'consciousness' is essentially biological electrical signals constantly communicating in neurons.

And when the heart stops beating, the brain dies, and there is no biological electrical activity in the neurons that have turned into a pool of dead meat...

Then what exactly is 'thinking', 'consciousness', 'self'... at this time?

There was no time left for Ji Taimei to think about this question, because the first thing he saw after crawling out of the coffin was a piece of lush bamboo, and the second thing he saw was a water well with the well cover moved away by half in an open space in the bamboo forest. A boy and a girl, only eleven or twelve years old, were lying on the edge of the water well, standing on tiptoe and looking into the well excitedly.

"Look, Jingyan, the little flower fish is eating steamed buns!" The little girl shook the shoulder of the little boy named 'Jingyan' beside her, her voice very excited.

They were feeding the fish in the well with small pieces of steamed buns.

There are fish in the wells of Sheep Prison Village, which is not strange. There is no high-end instrument in the countryside to detect hydrology. The simple working people will raise one or two koi or river turtles and other aquatic animals in the well to judge whether the well water is polluted or poisoned by the death of fish and shrimp, which is simple and practical.

"Stop looking at the fish, Xiao Rong, look behind." The little boy Jingyan held the hand of the girl named Xiao Rong beside him and pointed to the residential house behind: "The coffin is open."

"Oh my..." The excitement on Xiao Rong's face immediately turned into fear. She nervously held the half-steamed bun in her hand: "When did it open..."

"It seems just now, I heard the coffin sound." Jingyan said: "Dad said it's unlucky for the coffin to move. Let's go home quickly."

"Okay."

Xiao Rong and Jingyan ran out of the bamboo forest hand in hand, saying while running that whoever arrives home first can hug Xiao Hei.

What is Xiao Hei? Maybe it's a black cat or a black dog they raised.

Ji Taimei stood in place, looking at the backs of the two children jumping away in a daze. He wanted to shout to stop them, but could only make a hoarse ah ah sound—his Adam's apple was eaten by Wang Nainai last night.

"What's going on..."

Watching the two children disappear at the end of his field of vision, Ji Taimei felt lost and helpless in his heart. He came to the well, supported the well edge with both hands, leaned his upper body slightly, and looked down at himself on the water surface:

His clothes were tattered. Whether it was the shirt outside or the short-sleeved shirt inside, they were all torn and tattered by Wang Nainai, dripping with blood. The skin exposed under the tattered clothes was not the color of human skin, but hideous and terrifying scars. He could vaguely see the dangling internal organs under the flesh.

Half of his face from his cheekbone to his chin was almost all torn and eaten, and the bloody gums and the jawbone wrapped in muscle fibers were exposed. The upper half of his face was normal, but the lower half was a skeleton draped in residual flesh, which was a zombie or zombie image that appeared in horror movies.

Standing in front of such a terrifying monster, even an adult would be scared to scream, but the two children, Jingyan and Xiao Rong, just now did not show any fear or worry. They seemed not to see Ji Taimei standing in front of the coffin at all, just muttered two sentences that it was unlucky for the coffin to open, and ran away far away.

"Maybe it's not that they didn't see, but they really didn't

A chill rose in Ji Taimei's heart; he turned around and looked at the half of the well cover placed on the edge of the water well.

He remembered this well; the well cover on top was in the shape of a yin-yang fish, divided into two halves, one yin and one yang. The half now lying on the ground was the one with a dot of yang within the yin.

Ji Taimei squatted down and saw a small character "Early" carved with a sharp tool on the half of the well cover on the ground. He had an impression of this character because he had carved it there himself as a child, using a small knife, following the example of Mr. Lu Xun. On the mountain behind his grandmother's house, there was a type of wild fruit known in the local dialect as "Nong Nong Zi," with the Chinese academic name "South Nan Suanzao." It was a southern wild fruit native to Qinzhou and very rare in the Central Plains region. The few trees in the backyard had been brought back and introduced by his grandfather, who had once been an "educated youth" in Qinzhou.

The pits of the South Sour Date were very beautiful and could be made into jewelry like Bodhi seed bracelets. As a child, Ji Taimei and his mother had agreed that when they went to his grandmother's house, they would go up the mountain together to pick sour dates and make a bracelet each for his mother and younger sister using the pits. But that year, when his mother brought him back to Sheep Prison Village to visit relatives, it was already late autumn, nearing winter, and they had missed the season for picking wild fruit.

Full of regret, Ji Taimei imitated Mr. Lu Xun from his textbook and used a small knife to carve the character "Early" on the well cover behind his grandmother's house, meaning he would definitely come earlier next year.

That was the last time he remembered returning to his grandmother's house.

"In other words..." Ji Taimei's gaze narrowed slightly as he looked at the coffin he had been lying in earlier, placed under the eaves.

The house with the coffin placed under its eaves was his grandparents' home.

The brick building with the glazed tile roof before his eyes slowly overlapped and merged with the old house from his memory where he had once sat on a small stool eating watermelon with his sister. Ji Taimei no longer doubted it in his heart; this was his mother's maiden home.

He took off his jacket and shirt and wrapped them around his face to avoid scaring the two old people, then hurried with a light jog to the front door of the house. The door was open, and a pair of couplets was pasted on both sides of the main entrance:

First line: 【Reunion recalls the first meeting, parting hates this moment】

Second line: 【Eyes see the same scenery, heart holds different ambitions】

The horizontal scroll was tattered, and the characters written on it could no longer be seen clearly.

No mistake, no mistake, this was his grandfather's handwriting! Ji Taimei's memory gradually became clear. He stepped over the threshold into the house and walked familiarly toward the bedroom on the left. It was both a bedroom and a study; in Ji Taimei's memory, his grandfather often drank tea, read books, wrote, and slept in there.

=9+Shu_ba

But upon entering the bedroom door, Ji Taimei's body suddenly jolted, and he stood stiffly in place. His mouth was wide open; if his throat hadn't been disabled, he would have screamed out loud by now, but all that came from Ji Taimei's mouth were hoarse, bubbling sounds of "Ah... ah..."

What a terrifying scene appeared before his eyes...

The headboard in the bedroom was stuffed with books, and a cup of hot tea on his grandfather's desk emitted wisps of fragrance. The white-haired old man sat on the edge of the bed drinking tea and reading. The scene in this old house was exactly the same as in Ji Taimei's memory.

But sitting next to his grandfather was a decadent teenager with heavy dark circles under his eyes from years of staying up late to surf the internet. His posture was still somewhat upright, but his temperament was unexpectedly gloomy.

This person was all too familiar to Ji Taimei.

Because that was himself.

"Grandpa, do you know where my sister went?" the 'Ji Taimei' sitting on the bed asked his grandfather: "Mom told me to come find her."

"I don't know." His grandfather shook his head, took a sip of tea, and said: "The old woman took her to worship the Earth God early this morning, saying she wanted to ask for some incense ash to soak in water for the child. If you ask me, it's all feudal superstition."

After finishing, his grandfather spat out the tea leaves in his mouth. Having been an educated youth, he was quite dismissive of things like worshipping the Earth God.

The Ji Taimei beside him also chimed in, expressing that he didn't believe there were any gods or ghosts in this world either.

The grandfather and grandson chatted as if no one else were around, completely unaware that someone was standing at the bedroom doorway.

A person covered in wounds, skin torn and flesh mangled, looking like a skeleton, with eyes full of resentment.

(End of Chapter)