Usually kids talked in a roundabout way, but this girl was quite articulate. Chi Yan bent down and stroked her head, 'Your mom and brother must have been mistaken. This uncle has always been here.' He found it amusing, thinking how only children would be earnest about being right in such things.
Ye Yingzhi chuckled and was about to touch her head too, but withdrew his hand, seemingly to have thought of something. Chi Yan looked at him questioningly and Ye Yingzhi explained, 'There are lots of bacteria on the hand, it's not good for children.'
Chi Yan became awkward as he recalled how he had touched her without a thought, and silently slid his hand behind his back.
Ye Yingzhi said to the little girl, 'Be good, you should go home now. Don't wander around by yourself. It's not safe to talk to strangers.'
The little girl nodded, and they all heard a woman calling, 'Wenwen!'
She looked over and saw her mother. Giving a quick glance at Ye Yingzhi and Chi Yan, the girl turned and ran headlong towards her.
'Wenwen, who were you talking to just now?'
'The two uncles on the boat this afternoon. That uncle said the other uncle had been there. I wasn't lying, brother must have seen wrongly.'
The young mother felt a chill down her spine.
'Two uncles?' she repeated.
The little girl nodded with huge eyes.
But, just now she had only seen one person with her daughter…
Chi Yan and Ye Yingzhi had walked off, closer and closer towards the lake. There were no streetlights along this path, and it was only lit by the moon and the light from the houses around. Being too dark and off the road, there was no one else besides them on this path that Ye Yingzhi picked.
After walking for about 20 minutes, Chi Yan saw a child waving at him in the distance. It was too dark and too far for him to make out the gender, but from the size, he could tell it was a child.
'Yingzhi look, there's another child waving at us,' Chi Yan said, turning and wanting to make his way there if not for Ye Yingzhi tightening his arm around his waist.
Hugging Chi Yan to him, Ye Yingzhi smiled, 'What child? It must be your brain creating an image of the little girl we just saw.'
Chi Yan looked over again, and indeed, the child waving vigorously had disappeared.
Ye Yingzhi whispered into his ear, 'If you like kids so much, why don't you give birth to one for me?'
Chi Yan glared at him, 'Can either of us get pregnant?!'
Ye Yingzhi just laughed, and they walked back with arms around each other.
Pitter patter…
There was the sound of water dripping, as if something wet was getting closer and closer…
In the middle of the night, Chi Yan woke up in fright again, breathing harshly. It was the same dream.
He trembled in fear with the feeling of something watching him.
The fear was overwhelming and he could not care about disturbing his lover now. He huddled closer to Ye Yingzhi and called his name softly, 'Yingzhi…'
Ye Yingzhi's eyes opened immediately, and he turned to hug Chi Yan calmly. 'Don't be afraid, it's okay, I'm here,' he said soothingly.
Chi Yan shook his head – he felt that something even more frightening was going to happen.
'Knock knock.' The sounds came from the door. And it was not just their door, but also from the door downstairs.
But the weird thing was that the door to the room downstairs, which was supposed to be vacant, opened with a squeak. The sound was clear as bells to Chi Yan. The knocking continued outside their door, while a rustling came from downstairs, as if something was crawling on the ground.
Chi Yan was frozen, his brain mindless with fright from the two sounds, and he was only barely holding it together, hanging on to Ye Yingzhi.
Ye Yingzhi patted Chi Yan's back slowly, trying to console him. He pressed kisses against Chi Yan's trembling eyelids, and tucked the covers tighter around him.
However Chi Yan felt that the rustling sound was getting clearer and clearer, and closer and closer to them. The thing seemed to have changed directions, and it was crawling up the wall now, up the wall behind their bed. He could even hear the sound of the nail scratching against the wall. Then it was quiet – but Chi Yan knew, it had stopped at the ceiling downstairs, directly under their bed.
He didn't even dare to run out the door, the rhythmic knocking outside their door was still going on.
Chi Yan didn't dare to make a sound, and even breathed carefully, afraid that the 'thing' below them would hear. He leaned over to whisper almost soundlessly into Yingzhi's ear, '….Yingzhi, did you hear that?'
In the dark, he couldn't see how fathomless Yingzhi's gaze had become. His lips curled and he murmured, 'How dare they.' But his hands continued to stroke and comfort his lover.
Chi Yan asked, 'What did you say?'
Yingzhi replied, 'I said the rats nowadays are too daring. Thank god we don't have any rats at home. And I wonder who is that annoying idiot knocking at our door. I'll go take a look.'
His careless attitude affected Chi Yan as well, who felt a little of his fear and nervousness go away. 'I don't think it's a rat. Listen, it's not a sound a rat can make,' Chi Yan still said.
Ignoring his agitation, Yingzhi tucked Chi Yan backed under the covers before he got out of bed. 'Well, there are more types of wild animals in a place like this. It also could be a yellow weasel or a pangolin.'
Yellow weasel? Pangolin?
A city dweller through and through, Chi Yan had no first hand knowledge of these animals besides their names, not even how they looked like. Upon Ye Yingzhi’s words, he thought that he might really be thinking too much, scaring himself silly.
But the continuous knocking that began after his nightmare still frightened him.
He backhugged Ye Yingzhi, 'Yingzhi, don't go over. Stay here with me. Let's go back to sleep and when we wake up everything will be fine again.'
Ye Yingzhi turned around and stroke his face, and was reminded of the past, when Chi Yan had been so frightened that tears rolled down his face. He explained, 'I'll just go take a look, like yesterday. It must be the same person from yesterday, getting the wrong door again. If I don't go get the door, he won't leave. How would you sleep in such a din?'
Chi Yan felt slightly better but he couldn't get over knowing there's something below their bed, and he didn't dare to stay in bed alone. He looked at Yingzhi, '…then I'll go with you.'
T/N: Hi guys, so sorry for the very long wait… it’s been a tough start to 2018!