Chapter 21

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 21 - Possess

There were no classes the next day. Lin Yan wanted to sleep in. Who knew that he’d get woken up by Yin Zhou’s early morning phone call? He was still hazy from sleep. He didn’t make out a lot of what Yin Zhou was saying. From what he did hear, it seemed like one of his relatives say a ghost… Lin Yan put down the receiver and sat on the bed in a daze. He raised his head and glanced at the wall clock on the wall. It was currently 7:05. He had forgotten to close his curtains last night and bright sunlight streamed into the room.

Lin Yan turned over and lay on the blankets, wanting to go back to sleep. The morning wind blew in from the window, and the cool air made him feel refreshed from his shoulders to his legs. Lin Yan hugged the pillow when a thought appeared. Something was wrong.

His side was bare?

He jumped up like a flailing carp and looked down at his bare torso. Lin Yan was so frightened that he pulled the blanket around his waist, looking like a guilty thief.

Fortunately, Xiao Yu wasn’t there.

Lin Yan slumped back on the bed, stretching out his arms and legs and reminiscing about what had happened last night. It seemed that he actually had a bath with the ghost, and even had a good time with him. But then, Xiao Yu put on his clothes, leaving him only wearing his drenched boxers. When the flashback reached the part where the door slammed, Lin Yan jerked. He groaned internally; he actually messed around with a ghost.

The relationship between the two had just started to improve at the antiquities lecture, and then a comment about sending him away caused him to completely flip out. Lin Yan put his chin on the pillow and sulkily pondered. He wasn’t sure what the ghost had been upset about. It was hard to determine who took advantage of who last night, but a ghost that claimed he’ll take his life doesn’t give him much room to resist. It was unbearable. If it weren’t for the fact that he had finished things himself, he would have gone crazy.

Besides, jerking off is a real personal topic… Lin Yan felt himself blush. He buried his head into the pillow and wanted to stay there for the rest of the day.

Anyways, what about the ghost?

Lin Yan changed his clothes, ruffled his messy hair and walked out of the bedroom. When he turned to the living room, he was midway through the yawn. When Lin Yan saw the scene in front of him through the sleepy haze in his eyes, his body was numb in shock and he almost screamed.

Xiao Yu was sitting on the sofa and stared at him coldly. The light gray soft satin shirt reflected the delicate pearly light of the early morning sun. He looked like a beautiful young man, but right now, he made the atmosphere gloomy and chilly.

Five words quickly popped up in his head: enemies on a narrow road*.

*(T/N: it’s four characters in Chinese [冤家路窄], and it basically means two enemies that inevitably meet and have a staredown, i.e. a cowboy faceoff at high noon, that kind of thing)

Lin Yan stood awkwardly tugged on the hem of his shirt. The situation was completely beyond his imagination. The ghost found in the tomb was a ruthless murderer, but this ghost was different from the ones on TV or in horror movies. He wasn’t possessing him, couldn’t remember how he died, or even remember who he was. There was nothing else for him to do but cling to him every day. It sounded pathetic, but he could at least always hold his form and didn’t shy away from the sun. Lin Yan glanced at the sofa discreetly, thinking that the next time he saw the little Daoist priest, he would have so many questions to ask him.

The question now was what should he do? The person on the sofa was clearly upset. Even though he was a few metres away, Lin Yan could still feel the surrounding air crackling and exploding with sparks.

After a moment of hesitation, he decided to take the initiative to attack and kill the enemy before the enemy could attack, nipping all the hidden attacks in the bud. Lin Yan channelled his qi, opened his meridians, centred his energy, and let out a dry smile: “Good morning Young Master Xiao!”

You could hear a pin drop.

“Are you… hungry? I’m going to make breakfast?” Lin Yan wanted to ask him for forgiveness. Even though he thought that ghosts probably didn’t need to eat, eating was probably similar enough to eating people. Eating people… Lin Yan’s face started to burn again. He anxiously wrung his hands. He moved to the sofa, and gently placed a hand on the ghost’s knee.

Xiao Yu glanced at him, then turned to stare out the window in silence.

“I’m not angry anymore. I let you kiss me, and we can do it again in a few days. I don’t know what’s wrong.” Lin Yan coaxed him kindly.

The ghost still sat silently.

“I don’t want you to leave anymore. You choked me so hard yesterday, so let’s call it even.” Lin Yan felt like he was making a fool of himself. He was getting frustrated so he leaned forward cheekily: “Here, I’ll let you kiss me again as compensation.”

“Alright, then I’ll kiss you whenever I want to instead.”

Not waiting for Lin Yan to lean over, Xiao Yu flung his sleeves, moved to the side and sat upright looking at him.

Xiao Yu’s reaction really let him know what it meant to show warm feelings but meet with cold rebuke. The irritability of being woken up early in the morning mixed with his current anger, and he couldn’t keep it together. Why, despite getting closer to death every day, did he still have to go out of his way to make this ghost happy?

Lin Yan clenched his fist and screamed at Xiao Yu: “What do you want? Do you want me to just lie still while you fuck me? I’m a living fucking person and you never ask when you want to do anything. I dug up your grave, not fucked your corpse. What’s the point in stalking me like this? Huh?” As he got angrier and angrier, he picked up a glass cup on the coffee table and smashed it, the shards scattering all over the floor.

“Fine, have it your way. You want me to leave? If you aren’t going to kill me then I still have things to do. When the time comes, you go on your way and I’ll go on mine. We won’t owe each other anything!”

In the living room early in the morning, two people were sitting on the sofa, one with a blank face and the other with a face full of rage right beside him. Neither wanted to look at the other longer than they needed to. Sunlight bounced off the broken pieces of glass on the ground. The orchids on the windowsill were in full bloom, and a few slender branches were covered with quivering white butterflies.

A picture-perfect scene of a husband and wife quarrelling.

The people involved wouldn’t agree with this. Lin Yan tugged on the waistband of his pants and walked to the kitchen distractedly. He took four eggs and cracked them into a frying pan. He didn’t know why he still prepared enough for two people. The oil crackled and popped on the pan. When it was almost cooked, he grabbed the sugar from the spice box and sprinkled it in. Lin Yan bowed his head again. He just wanted to throw the pan away. He had accidentally put the wrong seasoning, and now the poached eggs were sprinkled with a thick layer of MSG.

He couldn’t keep living like this.

Suddenly the phone in his pocket beeped. A text message from Yin Zhou popped up with the address of XX hospital and a message: “Visiting starts at 9:30. Get here quickly.” Lin Yan stared at the phone in a daze, and suddenly remembered the jumbled call he received this morning. It seemed that Yin Zhou’s relatives had encountered something evil and he wanted him to grab the little Daoist priest and rush over to see what was going on.

Holding his phone, Lin Yan didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. He hadn’t even dealt with the evil things happening around him. Now he had to take on someone else’s problem, as if ghosts from all over the world had made an appointment to meet him, rushed over all at once and greeted him with an evil grin. Lin Yan turned off the stove, forwarded the text message to the little Daoist priest, and tried to fix his expression as he walked to the living room. He hadn’t been angry for so many years and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He deliberately forced himself to keep a straight face and stared at the wall behind Xiao Yu’s shoulders: “I’m going out. If you really don’t want to see me, stay here. I’ll be back tonight at the latest.”

After he finished talking, he went to stand at the door to change his shoes. He turned his head and was face-to-face with Xiao Yu again. He was close enough that he could see his reflection in the other’s eyes. Lin Yan was so startled that he almost fell into the shoe rack.

“You want to play Cold War but you’re still going to follow me, this guy…” Lin Yan muttered, grabbing the car key from the hook and opened the door.

At 9:30 a.m., Lin Yan, who had just finished charging through the morning traffic, appeared in front of a private hospital on the North Third Ring Road. The hospital’s grandeur was a sight to behold. The high-rise buildings were covered with walls of light-blue glass, and the shrubs in the flower beds were meticulously pruned. Although the road near the main entrance of the hospital was congested with traffic, it got better once he passed through the gate. Lin Yan followed the instructions on the floor plan to find the inpatient department. He bought a ridiculously expensive basket of apples from the supermarket downstairs, walked through the front door, took out his mobile phone at the elevator entrance and double-checked the address Yin Zhou sent him.

This is it. Lin Yan took a breath and stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the 17th floor.

In the elevator, Lin Yan hoped that the ghost would do something to disperse the current embarrassing atmosphere, but Xiao Yu just stayed an arm’s length away from him and put on an air of indifference.

When the nurse led Lin Yan into the ward, Yin Zhou and A-Yan had already arrived and were sitting on some stools in the middle of a conversation. The private room was clean and tidy. A wide hospital bed sat against the wall, covered with light blue bedding. There were no patients. A middle-aged woman with delicate makeup but a sad expression sat on the bedside peeling oranges. Seeing Lin Yan enter the room, she barely forced out a wry smile and greeted him: “Xiaolin is here, sit down.”

“Hello, Auntie.” Lin Yan pulled up a chair and sat down. This woman was Yin Zhou’s aunt. She was often seen around Yin Zhou’s house during New Years. He remembered her as being a very popular person. She liked to laugh at Lin Yan’s jokes, and always said that when her daughter was older, they could get married. She kept at it until she met Weiwei, then she changed her goal and asked him almost every day if he was married yet.

“Xiao Yang is over there.” The woman pointed to the window. A girl wearing a hospital gown stood in front of the window glass with her back to Lin Yan, not reacting at all.

Lin Yan nodded at Yin Zhou. “What’s going on?”

Yin Zhou pulled his stool over and sat down by Lin Yan. He pointed to the girl by the window: “It’s my cousin. The one that set off firecrackers with us on New Years, remember? For the past month, she’s been in the hospital with a kidney infection.”

“Of course I remember my little wife.” Lin Yan laughed and called to the girl at the window, “What’s Xiao Yang looking at? Come over here, look who’s here.”

The girl didn’t seem to hear it at all. She remained at the window and continued staring out.

Lin Yan was perplexed. He remembers this girl as someone lively and mischievous, talking like a mini adult. Even when she was thirteen or fourteen, it always seemed like she, Lin Yan and Yin Zhou were all the same age. During the Chinese New Year, Yin Zhou had been bored playing games in his bedroom and didn’t want to greet his relatives so Lin Yan became the host despite being a guest. He was the one who watched TV and gossiped with this little girl; from which boy was handsome to who secretly wrote a note to whom. The little girl was smart and kept her wits about her. One time, Lin Yan and Yin Zhou secretly took her to a lake to go ice skating. As a result, her foot slipped through the ice and she got completely soaked. Unexpectedly, she never said a word of what happened and she kept it secret when they all went home.

No one in the room spoke, and the sudden silence made Lin Yan a little at a loss. A moment later, the woman sitting on the bed suddenly burst into tears: “I don’t know what’s wrong. She was barely sick and then this happened.” She pointed at the girl by the window and cried loudly: “It’s been four days. She hasn’t eaten or slept. She just stands by the window and stares outside. The doctors have checked for everything that could possibly be checked. They say it’s hysteria and there’s nothing they can do. I can’t take it anymore.”

“What? Auntie, calm down. Speak slowly.” Lin Yan was confused.

“See for yourself. It’s hard to explain.” Yin Zhou pointed to the girl standing completely straight at the window.

Lin Yan put the fruit basket on the bedside table hesitantly. He walked to the window and stood behind the girl for a while. When she didn’t move, he tapped her shoulder: “Xiao Yang, have you missed me?”

The girl turned her head. Not like how ordinary people turn their heads where they move their necks first, but instead turned her head 180 degrees until she and Lin Yan were face-to-face. As soon as he saw the girl’s face, Lin Yan yelled and stumbled back. He immediately noticed something wrong. She didn’t have any pupils. Her eyes were rolled back into her head. Through her tangled hair, only the whites or her eyes were staring at Lin Yan. She faintly hissed: “Are you here yet?”

“Why haven’t you come yet?”