Chapter 20

  Then this name followed her for an entire summer like a vengeful spirit.

  That night, Youyou went to bed early and fell asleep.

  The city sank into a deep sleep. The desolate streets were swept by the chilly night wind, and the heat and noise left over from the day were dragged away by the invisible hand of decay into the darkness that emitted a foul and damp air. The streetlights cast a faint glow, and a bleak silhouette emerged from the dim light.

  Occasionally, one or two pedestrians returning at night would hurry by. A vendor selling zongzi on the street was softly hawking his wares. The uncle who sold zongzi, the neighbors called him Fu Bo.

  Night, slept. Who, still awake.

  She slept soundly, the neon lights from across the floor lingering outside her window, as if a bright gap had been opened, and desolation and sorrow were escaping wildly from it. Her room seemed very dim and silent.

  The creak of the door opening jumped out clearly.

  A pair of pale little feet walked in. Walked to her bedside. Amidst the blur, there seemed to be a child's laughter. Her quilt was pulled by someone, and a clear voice said: "Sister, I'm hungry. I want to eat zongzi."

  Turning over lazily and saying drowsily: "Eating zongzi in the middle of the night, if you want to eat, go buy it yourself."

  She let out a snore and continued sleeping.

  The door creaked shut behind him.

  A gust of dark wind swept through the dark corridor, and a black cat crouched in the corner let out a startled wail and escaped elsewhere.

  An unmanned elevator automatically goes down to the first floor.

  Ding! The elevator doors opened.

  The streets outside the old building were still dark and turbulent in the darkness of night.

  Three drunken men staggered along the street corner, talking nonsense and stumbling. Finally, one of them couldn't hold it in anymore and ran into an alley to vomit desperately. His companions simply walked to the side and unzipped their pants to urinate on the spot.

  A strong smell of urine wafted through the air. The two people who had urinated started talking about ghosts.

  "I heard that urinating anywhere will easily get you haunted by ghosts."

  "Really? A female ghost, huh. Well, I'm feeling a bit lonely tonight anyway. Having a female ghost to keep me company for the night isn't so bad!"

  "Haha, you big lecher, you'll die at a woman's hands sooner or later..."

  "What's the harm in this? As the saying goes, 'To die under the peony flowers is to be a romantic ghost!'"

  Two people burst out laughing and finished urinating, then turned back to call out to their companion who was vomiting inside. Meanwhile, his companion was staring blankly at the depths of the alley, where a yellow figure was slowly approaching, jumping with bright red under the moonlight.

  "What is that?"

  The man who was urinating also sobered up a bit at this time, and he looked intently into the alley. They heard that as the figure approached, there was a sound of "dang dang". They were still wondering what this sound was when the figure had already floated to a not-too-distant place in front of them.

  Under the moonlight, a pale and terrifying face floated out, smiling gloomily.

  "Ghost! Ghost!"

  The man who was urinating let out a startled cry, and his urine gushed up again, causing his lower body to ache terribly. They shouted the name of the vomiting man, telling him to hurry up, but their companion didn't budge, standing there like a wooden chicken, as if his soul had been scared away.

  Mr. Fu, who sells zongzi, saw two men running out of the alley in a state of extreme terror, rolling and crawling past his stall. Mr. Fu looked at the fleeing figures of the two men with suspicion, guessing what had happened, and soon he saw another man walking out of the alley.

  The man's expression was wooden, his eyes dull, and his gait very calm, as if a corpse were walking towards him. Mr. Fu couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine as he watched the man approach the stall, and he took in a sharp breath. The man stiffly raised his hand, pointing at the steaming hot dumplings in the pot, and said mechanically, "One zongzi."

  "Alright...alright."

  Fu Bo picked out a zongzi with some trepidation. The steamed dumpling was so hot it almost made him cry out, but when he saw the strange expression on the man's face, Fu Bo didn't dare make a sound.

  The man directly took the zongzi from Fu Bo's spoon, and grabbed the scalding hot zongzi in his hand, but he didn't seem to feel anything. Fu Bo could only explain that this man had skin that was resistant to heat.

  Or maybe it's like being dead and having no feeling of pain at all.

  The man neatly unwrapped the zongzi leaves, but he didn't eat it immediately. Fu Bo saw that the man actually put his fingers into his mouth and bit them, then dripped blood from his fingers onto the zongzi. This strange behavior scared Fu Bo so much that he dared not breathe loudly, and a chill suddenly rose in his heart.

  People who eat zongzi like this have never seen it in their lifetime!

  Old Fu's legs trembled uncontrollably. Was the man in front of him human or a ghost? He had lived for decades and had never seen any ghosts, but he had come into contact with one or two mentally ill people. However, this man was even more bizarre than the mentally ill people he had met.

  It can even be called terrifying.

  The man opened his mouth and took a bite of the zongzi, the aroma of pork filling bursting in the air. He sucked in a mouthful of that fragrant air with great force, as if he hadn't smelled it for a long time, and revealed a satisfied smile, with bright red finger blood on his lips. After another bite, his whole mouth was full of blood. The look didn't seem like eating zongzi, but more like devouring human flesh.

  Midnight street, under the streetlights, a man eating zongzi and Fu Bo selling zongzi, their silhouettes frozen in the chilly night wind. Update 1.