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Chapter 50: He Said He’s Dying
by Yue Xia Sang
Music…
It was a very wonderful melody, and a little sorrowful, as if it was mourning something.
What? He could hear sounds?
Surprised, Ji Huan suddenly opened his eyes.
With one hand on the living room floor, he sat up. A dull pain immediately jolted through his right wrist. Frowning, Ji Huan looked down, but discovered that his right wrist had already been bandaged. A snow-white bandage was wrapped several times around his equally snow-white wrist. It was very carefully wrapped and there was even a bow tying it closed.
With the left and right sides equally symmetrical, the bow was extraordinarily perfect.
Ji Huan pushed aside the quilt and discovered that the other wounds on his body had also been treated.
Incense was burning in the room, the scent very familiar. When Ji Huan would clean the corridor, a fragrance would always float through the wooden paper door. He couldn’t tell what kind of smell it was; it was a little like the fragrance of flowers and a little like sandalwood. Ji Huan didn’t know many perfumes at all and he could only differentiate them to this extent. At that time, he thought that it was a very good smell and it was precisely because of that fragrance that he somewhat confirmed that he couldn’t be the only person in that courtyard where he worked.
However, smelling that kind of fragrance indoors didn’t feel as lovely as it did outdoors. Covered up underneath that overly heavy fragrance was a putrid scent…
Wait — Inside!?
Upon closer inspection, Ji Huan realized that the wooden paper door in front of him was very familiar. Finely carved into the wooden logs were four complex seasonal flowers, exactly the same as what he had seen in the outside corridor.
Could it be… that he was now inside the room next to the corridor?
Once that thought rose in his mind, Ji Huan looked up towards the wooden sliding door. It should’ve been night now. The lanterns in the corridor were already lit, and the light of the lanterns shone through the pale paper door. Brightly red, the shadow of the lanterns and the eaves landed on the floor inside. If it was the time he normally would’ve been working, presumably his own shadow would’ve also been able to be seen inside the room?
Ji Huan froze for a moment.
He reached out to touch his ears lightly, and his fingers ended up touching cotton and gauze. The inside of his ears no longer seemed to be in that blunt pain from before. Rather, it was cool, as if some medicine had been applied.
However, this movement inevitably made some noise and in that way, Ji Huan managed to verify that he really could hear some sound. Even if it wasn’t as clear as before, he really could hear again.
Not deaf.
Clenching his fist, Ji Huan immediately stood up. Striding over to the wooden door, he roughly opened it—
“You’re awake?” Ah Jin’s voice came from below him.
Looking down, Ji Huan found Ah Jin sitting on the floor of the corridor in front of him. Looking up, Ah Jin’s dark eyes faintly watched him.
At the same time as Hei Dan’s white-ring eyes.
Held between Ah Jin’s legs on top of his robe, the shiny Hei Dan looked like a little model who wanted to cry but didn’t dare to. When he saw Ji Huan come out, Hei Dan burst into tears.
After giving Ah Jin a glance, Ji Huan extended his hand to him. Ah Jin faintly smiled and readily handed the little baby in his hands up to him.
Hei Dan almost couldn’t wait to get into Ji Huan’s arms. He was crawling very quickly now and Ji Huan hadn’t grabbed him yet, so he took the initiative to grab Ji Huan’s sleeve and follow it up to the collar of his bathrobe. The little guy quickly crawled into Ji Huan’s arms.
Skin on skin, Hei Dan stuck his little ice-cold body to his uncle’s warm bosom. Then, he didn’t budge at all.
Stretching a hand out to gently prop Hei Dan up, Ji Huan sat to the right of Ah Jin.
When he sat down and saw the familiar scenery in front of him, Ji Huan realized that where Ah Jin was sitting now was the place where he normally ate biscuits in secret and that he was sitting where Ah Jin would typically sit when he came by.
Almost as soon as he realized that, Ji Huan unconsciously looked back at the sliding door behind him.
Eh…
The place that he had thought had no people was actually only so for people outside the room. For the people inside, wasn’t it a panoramic view?
Where they were sitting now was in the exact place to block the view of people in the room.
After thinking about it and glancing at the wooden door behind him, Ji Huan turned his head directly to Ah Jin.
Before he could ask questions, Ah Jin straightforwardly pointed a finger at the wooden door to the right: “That Callas is inside.”
Ji Huan got to his feet and went to the sliding door in an instant. After opening the door and taking a look, he quickly stepped back.
Sitting next to Ah Jin again, Ji Huan met Ah Jin’s pitch-black eyes once more:
“Ah Jin, you saved us?”
“Thank you.”
Ji Huan’s gratitude was very honest and he used straightforward words. The level of pain hadn’t been as bad as to make him lose his memory. He remembered everything before he lost consciousness, and even things that he heard while he was unconscious… Now that he was thinking about it, it should’ve been a real situation that happened.
Ji Huan hesitated for a second. It was only for a moment, and he soon opened his mouth again:
“Ah Jin, you’re not actually a worker here. You… are the master here?”
If he was capable of helping him get rid of those people chasing him and saving Grandpa from those people’s hands, Ah Jin’s identity… could only be of the master here. If the room in the back was Ah Jin’s, wouldn’t it be that Ah Jin was catching him red-handed when he secretly ate biscuits there every day?
With his eyes on Ah Jin, who was the left side that he could hardly hear on, Ji Huan pursed his lips.
Ah Jin, however, suddenly smiled. As if he could see Ji Huan’s current thoughts, he directly said:
“During that time, I didn’t feel like eating much every day and seeing you eat biscuits enthusiastically, I couldn’t help but take a look.”
His daily life of laying in bed was very boring. Occasionally, and only occasionally, he would leave for a walk.
“Didn’t feel like eating?” Ji Huan furrowed his brows: “Are you sick?”
“Sick.” From the first time he saw Ah Jin, from the very first time he saw the paleness of his skin, Ji Huan had always had that kind of thought: Ah Jin must’ve been in bad health. When they met, it had obviously started to become hot, but the clothes Ah Jin had been wearing were very thick. Later, as the weather became warmer, Ji Huan had shed several layers of clothes while the clothes Ah Jin wore were always neat and tidy, even becoming tighter.
Ah Jin looked at him, the smile on his face slowly fading away.
After a while, he suddenly said:
“Have you seen those things? The ones gathered around the courtyard, those huge, obviously approaching things?” Ah Jin said as his eyes suddenly looked forward. Following his line of sight, he looked and looked until the bizarre scene that he had witnessed when he was close to death suddenly appeared in his mind again.
Those huge things that hid the sky and covered the earth…
Gazing into the night in front of him, Ji Huan suddenly shivered.
“Don’t be afraid. Those aren’t ghosts, but devils. This land has…” Ah Jin pointed to the bulging ball in Ji Huan’s arms: “… this kind of devil and devils like that Callas. Naturally, it has even more troublesome devils.”
“In this world, anything that humans can’t explain can be explained by the existence of devils.”
“For example, ghosts, demons and other odd things.”
Ah Jin spoke calmly and unhurried, as if he was generalizing common knowledge for Ji Huan. He talked tirelessly about some of the odd events in history that had been caused by devils. Like he was telling Ji Huan a story, he spoke in a very amusing fashion. Even a difficult-to-move person like Ji Huan almost laughed because of one of them.
Realizing that he had almost laughed, Ji Huan hastily coughed in his hand to cover it up.
However, as he had thought before, Ah Jin really was a person who read a lot of books. He could talk about many things that had happened in different countries at different times and connect them together as he talked while still making it sound amusing in the same breath. Ah Jin was a very knowledgeable person.
With a faint smile, Ah Jin continued: “In short, those had been devils.”
“Do you know about vultures?” Changing the subject, Ah Jin suddenly mentioned something that seemed to have nothing to do with what they had just been talking about.
“I know them.”
“In the wild, if you see a vulture circling in the sky for a long time, you can be fairly certain that there’s a dying animal below.”
“Devils are no different. So much so that because a devil decomposes very quickly after it dies into dust in the air that’s difficult to catch, devils are even more sensitive to their own kind dying. The larger the dying prey, the more delicious, the more they’re willing to invest patience into it.”
“They will carefully prepare for this great feast. They’ll go to this banquet one year, two years, even three years in advance, waiting within sight of their dying kind. Waiting until the second it dies.”
“When that moment comes, they will pounce from the sky and eagerly tear at the dead devil’s body. By turning the power inside of it into their own flesh and blood, they will become stronger themselves.”
Ah Jin spoke slowly. Listening to the descriptions coming from his mouth, Ji Huan seemed to almost be able to see a group of devils tearing at their own kind. Staring blankly into the late night before him, Ji Huan suddenly asked:
“Ah Jin, you’re a devil?”
The man known as Ah Jin turned his gaze, meeting him suddenly.
“Yes.”
Ji Huan heard Ah Jin’s answer; this answer was no surprise to him. Ji Huan strangely realized that he no longer felt surprised when he heard the word ‘devil.’ It was strange, but it was like that.
Then, after looking down, he heard himself ask again:
“That… Ah Jin, you’re dying?”
He didn’t raise his head, but he knew that Ah Jin was looking at him. He even knew what the expression in Ah Jin’s eyes were like: like stagnant water, without any emotion in his gaze, staring fixed on him.
After a moment, he raised his head. When his eyes landed on Ah Jin, Ji Huan saw him smile:
“Yes.”
He said.
However, he didn’t know why, but even when he heard Ah Jin’s response, Ji Huan found that he still wasn’t surprised at all.
hello everyone! sorry for only one chapter this week; i got busy and a little burnt out. ah jin can’t give ji huan a break, LOL. six more chapters of the prologue left until we’re on the first volume! some of you have already made some pretty close predictions about what’s to come.
TL Notes
none!
Author Comments
“Sorry that today’s (chapter) was even more late. It originally should’ve been updated at noon, but at that time, I was getting on the plane, off the plane and going to a hotel. There was less than an hour while waiting for my luggage to be released and there wasn’t a high enough word count by the time I was pulled into a group meal. I wrote it just after finishing eating.
Just a little small explanation.”