Chapter 6 You Seem to Have a Pulse

  "What exactly do you want me to do?" I asked, "What does that even mean?"

  He lowered his voice and explained to me, "Tomorrow, you take these things, go to A city, to my home, and tell my parents that the child in your belly is mine. They only have me as their only son, so they will think of every way to keep the child there. This way, you'll have an excuse for them to give you all the things that belong to me."

  "Give it to me? Really give it to me?" At this time, what floated into my mind were houses, cars, and stocks. If that dead person didn't require me to fulfill any marital obligations, then just giving all these things to me like that, of course I would want them.

  I don't know what my expression was at the time, but in return, I got his white eyes. "These things were brought to me by you, and then you'll give them back to me. The sacrifices I made during the mission, my parents should have already received the news. There are too many doubts in this matter, so I still can't appear in front of everyone now. So you must appear as my spokesperson, tomorrow the most important thing for you to get is a package that my parents just received in the past few days."

  I was thinking to myself, it's really hard to tell that this soldier has a habit of shopping on Taobao. Didn't the news say before? There was an A-level fugitive who bought a lot of things on Singles' Day and had them delivered to his home address. As a result, he actually went back home to pick up the package, and it was when he went back home to pick up the package that he got caught.

  "What's in the package?" I asked.

  "Don't ask so much, some things can't be told to you."

  I shot him a withering look: "You get me to help you out, using my reputation as collateral, and now you're telling me there are things you can't tell me? Don't you think that's a bit too much?"

  He leaned back in his chair, his hands on the table, tapping lightly: "You're getting less and less afraid of me now. Don't forget, I'm a dead man."

  This reminder made me recall that he was a dead man without a heartbeat or breathing. Moreover, he followed those dead people to leave. A question I particularly wanted to know emerged in my mind, which is what happened after he followed the corpses into the darkness that day? And how did he come back? However, judging from our current situation, he probably won't tell me the answer to this question.

  It seems I don't have the right to express my opinion on this matter. I didn't even get to eat a few mouthfuls of rice before following him back to my small hut.

  He had just closed the door and was standing in front of the sofa, taking off his clothes.

  "Ah! What are you doing?" I exclaimed.

  "Let me show you my body. My mom used to be a police officer. She has high insight. Maybe she'll ask about my situation, so we need to be prepared."

  I was so anxious that I almost cried. The only time I saw a man's body was when our classmates from the workshop went swimming together last year, and at that time, they were all wearing swimsuits. But this dead person actually moved so fast that he had already taken off his pants.

  I hastily covered my eyes with my hand and shouted: "Don't, hurry up and put it on. I... I can handle your mom."

  He stretched out his hand and pulled down the hand covering my eyes: "Take a good look!" My eyes suddenly saw his body, and I was shocked.

  His physique is great, with abs and a clear fish line, solid muscles, apparently all practiced in daily life. But these are not the key points, the key point is that there are many scars of injury on his body.

  He grasped my hand and covered the scar on his left shoulder with it, saying: "A wound from half a year ago, eleven stitches."

  Then there was his right waist: "The injury two years ago, didn't get stitched up, so the wound healed a bit ugly." His skin felt warm and hot like a jellyfish, even in this cool October weather, it wouldn't make me feel cold. But my heart was racing rapidly, and my head also lowered down. I thought about looking away, but unfortunately saw some things that shouldn't be seen.

  He lifted up my face with one hand: "What are you looking at? What are you looking at?"

  I quickly turned myself around, forgetting the place I shouldn't have looked at earlier. He took my hand and placed it on his left chest, saying: "There's a gunshot wound here. It didn't hit any vital organs. Here..."

  "You seem to have a pulse!" I blurted out, and as my hand touched his, I indeed felt what seemed like one beat of his heart. Just one, with no second beat following.

  As soon as I finished saying this, he let go of my hand: "Can't you be serious for once? If you get kicked out by my mom tomorrow, the plan I've been working on for so long will be ruined."

  "I... actually, I don't even know what I did wrong. In my opinion, he should also be concerned about his own body. After all, he suddenly died, and now if he still has a pulse to prove that he's still alive, shouldn't he be very happy? Why doesn't he show any signs of happiness at all. Is it because he already knows about this phenomenon of himself, but he just can't accept it?"

  This sounds a bit like nonsense, his heart will or won't beat, he's certainly much clearer than others. I started to suspect what I felt earlier, the beating of his heart was an illusion. Or maybe my own brain had a spasm.

  He looked really angry, so I quickly stuck it on myself and said, "What about this wound?" I pointed to a piece of wrinkled skin on his right arm.

  "Been burned."

  "Oh, are there other injuries? Maybe your mom won't ask me these things?"

  "There's a bump the size of an egg on my left buttock, I got it when I was injected with medicine in the war zone and had an allergic reaction. My mom knows about this scar." He said seriously, but I burst out laughing.

  Looking up at him, he still had that deadpan face, not even cracking a smile, which made me quickly stop smiling too. I coughed a few times: "Alright, I've got it all memorized. Is there anything else I need to pay attention to?"

  "Go online and check what's the situation like for a pregnancy of over a month, dress properly tomorrow. The package you're bringing out is very important to me."

  I nodded, but thinking of the scar on his butt he mentioned earlier, I couldn't help but laugh. When it got hard to bear, I lowered my head and saw something I shouldn't have seen. Lifting my head up again, I met his cold face. I simply pushed him away and walked into the room. Didn't he say this room belongs to me?

  I rushed into the room, dove under the quilt and burst out laughing. I didn't know what was going on outside, but when I had laughed enough, I opened a slit from the door and looked at him in the living room. I thought he hadn't seen me, but then I heard him say: "You look pretty good when you laugh."

  He's actually quite handsome, if only he weren't dead.

  The next day, early in the morning, Su Haicheng took me to the long-distance bus station. He didn't have an ID card and could only take a long-distance bus. Fortunately, my parents were both in City A, and I was also familiar with this route of long-distance buses. Just as we arrived at the station, our boss called.

  For some reason, as soon as I receive a call from my boss, I feel nervous. Really nervous. It's as if I've done something wrong and can't even speak with confidence.

  "Boss."

  "Aren't you feeling well today? Not coming to class?"

  "Ah, I'll take two days off then."

  "Are you with your boyfriend?"

  I took a glance at Su Haicheng beside me, and my heart rate immediately accelerated. I told myself in my heart: "He's just a dead man, not even my boyfriend, what am I nervous about? Even if it's an act, this is just a play that only the two of us know about, what am I nervous about?"

  But my heart just can't calm down. "Huh? No, he's just someone I know, that's all. Boss, if your girlfriend..."

  "Alright, just like this, you come back to class as soon as possible, there is a presentation activity next week."

  "Alright." He cut me off, clearly not wanting to bring it up.

  He got on the long-distance bus with Su Haicheng, and this trip was going to be a high-speed one, at least four hours. As soon as he got on the bus, he crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep. But I sat next to him, feeling more and more uneasy in my heart.

  After much effort, he finally gathered the courage to ask him: "That, when you entered that village, did you see a..."

  "They're all dead, every last one of them. Don't ask."

  "So did you follow those corpses that night and where did they go?"