Mo Yi’s scalp seemed to explode, a coldness spread from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and his hair stood on end.
His fingers trembled, the heavy music box slipped from his unsteady hand and fell straight to the ground. It was cushioned by the carpet, then rolled into the darkness, making a metal clang sound as it hit the wall.
It was so loud in the silence that one could almost feel the tremors in the air.
He turned his head sharply and looked straight behind him.
–It was empty.
The white light of the flashlight pierced through the rich darkness behind him, shining directly on the uneven, dirty carpet, leaving a swaying halo on it.
The carpet was covered with a thin layer of dust. There were a pair of light footprints on it.
As if… there was someone standing there just now, quietly observing him.
Mo Yi’s throat was a little dry, he moved his Adam’s apple and forcibly suppressed the chill in his heart.
There was a cold touch on his wrist.
Mo Yi looked up.
He saw the Mist standing in the darkness, almost blending with the background color– as if he was born and grew up there, which was inconceivable.
He looked at him quietly with a pair of light-colored gray eyes. They seemed to condense with deep and shallow mist.
Pale, knuckled fingers rested softly on his protruding wrist bones.
A faint coldness came from the place where they were in contact with each other’s skin, and it seemed to cause him an inexplicable sense of security. For a while, it soothed Mo Yi’s anxiety and restlessness, and the negative emotions settled down.
Mo Yi smiled, his dark eyes were cool and composed, as if there were only two emotions left, calm and rational.
The Mist’s face had faintly soft lines, as his fingers, which were attached to Mo Yi’s wrist, were removed.
There were no words between the two, but they naturally seemed to understand each other.
Mo Yi calmed down and turned around. Moving the flashlight in his hand, he looked for the music box that just fell.
Soon, the mottled metal box reappeared in his field of vision. It was laying turned over and sadly on the ground. Its body was separated by the fall. The faded velvet cushion and the ceramic figures on it were partly thrown out.
Even so, the small ceramic hands of the two children were still tightly clasped, as if they were not affected by any external force.
Mo Yi paused, reached out and picked up the music box that had been broken in half.
Just as the music box was lifted off the ground, a yellowed piece of paper, which was folded in half, fell out of it. It landed silently on the dusty ground.
Mo Yi couldn’t help but freeze for a moment, he turned his wrist, and carefully observed the metal box in his hand.
It turned out that under the velvet lining, there was a hidden compartment, which happened to be hidden under the two ceramic dolls and above the metal parts in the music box.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
It was very cleverly hidden, and if it hadn’t been dropped like this, it would be difficult to find.
Ca atf ybaabw bo atf mjrrfaaf, atfgf kjr jirb j rlinfg cfmxijmf, ktlmt tjr aegcfv yijmx vef ab ibcu-afgw rabgjuf. Ktf mbgcfg bo atf cfmxijmf kjr gjcvbwis ajcuifv klat atf wfaji rqglcu ja atf ybaabw bo atf ybz. Pa kjr qjgais atgbkc bea veglcu atf ojii.
C rwjii bnji ibmxfa kjr tjculcu ogbw atf ybaabw bo atf rlinfg mtjlc, uifjwlcu lc atf iluta bo atf oijrtiluta.
Mo Yi pursed his lips, reached out and opened the silver cover on the locket, revealing the portraits hidden in it.
The yellowed black-and-white photos were blurred, but the outlines of the faces in the portraits were visible– two photos that happened to be hidden on each side on the inside of the locket.
It was a little boy and a little girl.
The unclear facial lines melted into the black and white background, and only the two of them could be seen smiling shyly at the camera.
The nursery rhyme he found in the kitchen flashed across his mind.
Mo Yi frowned slowly.
They were both about little boys and girls… was there any deeper connection between them?
He blinked in confusion, and put the necklace in his hand back into the dark compartment of the music box. The silver locket collided with the metal bottom of the box, and made a crisp “dang bang” sound.
Mo Yi placed the box on the carpet, then reached out to pick up the folded note.
The yellowed paper was wrinkled, as if it had been once soaked in water, the handwriting on it was blurred, the edges of the dark ink smeared, and it had a cold cyan color, but the content on it was still clearly visible.
This was a piece of letter paper, but there was no signature on it, no date, only one sentence without beginning or end:
“it can never happen, I won’t allow it”
At the bottom of the entire letter, a line of small words was written crookedly, as if it had been written by someone delirious. It was extremely laborious to read.
Mo Yi carefully examined it for a while before realizing that it read:
”god please help me”
There was a chill on his back, and Mo Yi shrugged his shoulders subconsciously, then folded the letter again and stuffed it back into the dark compartment of the music box.
He re-installed the ceramic figures on the music box. The color and shape of the inner lining matched the surroundings, and there was no sign of it being broken.
The broken mirror mounted on the lid shone brightly.
Mo Yi deliberately didn’t look into the mirror to prevent himself from recalling the unpleasant experience from before.
This time, he could clearly see the small words written in bronze letters under the mirror: “my love”
My love.
Mo Yi’s brows furrowed tighter, as if the cloud of suspicion that gathered became deeper and deeper, accumulating in front of his eyes, making him unable to see the true appearance of this instance.
He took a deep breath, closed the lid of the music box, and put it in his backpack.
Mo Yi stood up from the ground.
But because he had squatted down for too long, when he suddenly stood up at this moment, his vision couldn’t help but turn black. His numb legs couldn’t support his crumbling body. He lost his balance and fell to the side.
The Mist, who had been quietly watching his every move, stretched out his arm quickly, and with just a little effort, he helped the falling Mo Yi.
Mo Yi was dizzy and took a few seconds to recover. He blinked and realized that he was very close to the other party.
The petrichor scent, the refreshing breath, like a pine forest, lingered in his nose, and the cold and hard-lined profile was close to his eyes.
In the darkness, two men of the same height were leaning against each other. The still bright flashlight fell to the ground, projecting the silhouettes of the two onto a wall. It looked extraordinarily intimate.
Mo Yi coughed a little awkwardly, then stood up straight and said embarrassed:
“Sorry.”
Seeing that the distance between the two has been widened, the Mist lowered his eyelashes lightly. Without any emotional fluctuations he acknowledged “um”. Then he said, “It’s okay.”
Although the Mist’s expression didn’t change, for some reason, Mo Yi felt the depressed mood all around him.
He hesitated for a few seconds, then stretched out his palm and touched the top of the other person’s head in an unfamiliar manner.
The Mist suddenly raised his eyes, and a pair of light-colored eyes suddenly lit up like fog, focusing tightly on Mo Yi’s face.
–Unfortunately, the blush spreading behind his ears damaged his aura.
Unlike the habitual smile that usually rests on the surface of Mo Yi’s face, there was no expression at the moment, although there was a rare touch of real softness in his eyes.
It looked…extraordinarily vivid.
Seeing the Mist staring at him for a moment, Mo Yi, who thought it was nothing, couldn’t help but feel a little unusual.
He turned his head to the side, bent down and picked up the flashlight that had been left out on the ground for a long time, then changed the subject a little embarrassedly:
“Let’s go, we’re running out of time, and we haven’t started exploring upstairs yet.”
There was a faint smile on the Mist’s face, as he responded in a low voice, then followed up with Mo Yi in front of him, so he could walk side by side with him.
As Mo Yi walked forward slowly, he moved the flashlight to illuminate the road ahead. Minding the light beam, he slowly illuminated the outline of the space in front of him.
Beyond the stairs was a narrow hallway, with crooked walls framing the curved floor, and three rooms jutting out on either side of the hallway, both uneven and asymmetrical. The structure was very strange.
The dirty carpet under their feet absorbed the sound of their footsteps, making them sound muffled. When one stepped on it, one could hear the squeak of the wooden boards that were obviously blurred by dust. It looked quite terrifying in the dark and cold corridor.
Mo Yi’s steps suddenly stopped.
He turned to look at one of the rooms beside him.
Through the dark space, he could see the window on the other side of the room. The dirty glass on the window was like a blurry curtain, and the blue numbers were slowly counting down outside the window.
Mo Yi’s eyes sank.
From this perspective…
This should be the one, the man’s window he saw downstairs.
Mo Yi clenched the flashlight in his hand and felt that its metal shell was stained with a touch of warmth from his own body temperature.
He took a deep breath, the icy air teared through his chest along his respiratory tract, and the dryness tugged at his throat, making him even more emotional.
Mo Yi turned and walked in.
The room was large and messy, under the lights it appeared even messier, as if a gray shadow lurked in the darkness.
He went straight to the window and looked down through the glass.
It just so happened that one could see the twisted porch when coming in.
Mo Yi pursed his lips.
……really.
He leaned forward and carefully observed the traces on the glass– there was a shallow handprint that had almost dissipated.
Mo Yi took a step back, swept the room roughly with the flashlight, and paused his wrist slightly, when he saw a few crooked words written on the uneven wall opposite the window.
”god please help me”
Compared to the writing on the letter, the wall was more chaotic and frantic, the dark liquid flowed down and then dried up on the rough wall, leaving crooked lines and a dull brown color in the light.
Mo Yi couldn’t be more familiar with this color.
–Bloodstains.
The large English letters were written in blood on the dirty walls, scribbled and messy, just like a person’s crazy mental state, shocking and horrifying.
Mo Yi subconsciously touched the backpack he was carrying.
Through the nylon fabric, the metal music box was clutched in his palm.
Mo Yi was suddenly stunned, and a coldness rose from behind him.
It suddenly occurred to him… that black and white photographs were an invention of the 19th century.
And if according to their previous guesses, this instance should be related to the Black Death.
But the last time the Black Death ravaged Europe on a large scale…
It was the 17th century.
Thanks for the update
I’m terrified…
thank you very much for the translation 🤍🤍🤍
So creepy ohhhh…
Mist smells like rain and moisture!! I love love petrichor scent
It’s nice right? Petrichor is one of my favourite english words.
it was a mistake to read this at 1am yawa
Why am I reading this at night? If I’m having a nightmare tonight, I’m blaming this novel. 🥹
The delirium is really getting to me, the atmosphere of this story always delivers. With how “thirsty” the setting is, maybe its origin is also related to fever?
Thank you so much for translating! <3