TCOR CH6

Chapter 6：It’s not as bad as I thought

My mouth tastes bitter.

The digital alarm clock on the bedside table says it is now 12:32, but this is not my alarm clock, and this is not even my bed.

Sitting up with aching muscles, I begin to take in the room I am in – it looks like an expensive wooden floor, a large iron bed, a warm blanket and curtains that block out the light very well… This must be a living room.

I was wearing a very loose white T-shirt and my trousers were missing, but luckily my underwear was still there. I got out of bed barefoot and didn’t feel the expected chill. The floor was actually warm.

After looking around for a while without finding my clothes, I really couldn’t walk around in just a T-shirt, so I had to pull the sheet down and wrap it around me.

The bedroom was quiet, dim and warm, perfect for sleeping, but as soon as I opened the door, the outside world was completely different.

I blinked for a moment to adjust to the light outside, and what I saw was a bright, noisy living room that was also a little cold.

The lattice windows along one wall were open, and the cold wind from outside was blowing in, unchecked by the underfloor heating and the electric fireplace, which was working non-stop.

Most of the noise came from downstairs, with a little from the framed television in front of the sofa.

A middle-aged man who looked like an expert sat in the studio and spoke animatedly: ‘… Recent research has shown that Redvein Syndrome may be a parasitic disease. Redvein is parasitised by male insects, while Cure is parasitised by female insects. In order to reproduce, the male insects constantly release toxins to force the host to find the most suitable female insect.

The red lines on Cure and Redvein are usually invisible, and the presence of the male and female can only be detected by near-infrared light. We have done experiments. From a distance, Redvein can only sense Cure, but the red lines do not connect. It is probably close enough, 50 or 100 metres, before they become entangled…”

Redvein Syndrome again.

I stood at the window and looked down. The street below was full of people and cars. It was quite lively. The surrounding buildings were all very low, with brick facades and old colours, and through these buildings with a sense of age, the skyscrapers standing like winter glaciers in the distance intruded unusually prominently into my field of vision.

With this famous landmark of Jiang City, I had successfully located my current position – the centre of Jiang City, near the city government, just a few kilometres from the Jiang City Art Museum.

Why did you stand up like that?

A soft, smiling male voice suddenly sounded behind me. I was so frightened that I shivered and quickly turned around to see a scene I would never forget.

It was as if he had crawled out of a sea of corpses and blood. Shen Wunian’s face, his white shirt and even his bare arms, which were exposed because he had rolled up his sleeves, were all covered in splashes of blood. What was even more frightening was that he was holding a blood-stained Western-style cooking knife in his right hand.

I wrapped the sheet around me and took an uncontrolled step back, and for a moment I even thought about how I would be dismembered next.

‘Oh…’ Shen Wunian followed my gaze and slowly turned the handle of the knife, pointing it upwards, before placing it behind his back. “Don’t worry, it’s fish blood.” With that, he raised his arm and wiped the bright red from his cheek.

But the blood was already half dry, so when he wiped it away, it left a beautiful red trail, as if he had been kissed by a lover in a hurry.

Not far from the window was a huge desk with some books and materials stacked in a disorderly fashion, as well as a laptop. This was where Shen Wunian usually worked.

He walked over to the desk, took some paper towels from the dispenser and closed the window.

There’s an old man downstairs who likes to fish. I’ve helped him move things around before, and every now and then he brings me some fish he’s caught. This morning he brought a silver carp weighing over ten kilos, and it was still alive, so it was especially hard work to kill it…’ He closed the windows one by one and was soon standing next to me. I like a bit more air, so I opened the windows. If you feel cold, go back to the bedroom and lie down.

As he came closer, the strong smell of fish and blood mixed and entered my nostrils, making my already dazed mind feel as if it had taken a punch and making me even more dizzy.

‘Why am I here?’ The last thing I remembered was lying in the toilet of the art museum, my body burning with fever and dying.

Shen Wunian leaned over me, his bloody hands passing by my ears, and grabbed the window handle behind me, shutting it tight.

He looked down at me and said, ‘There was a sick kitten by the road that was dying. I picked it up out of kindness, cleaned it up, gave it medicine, took care of it for the night and even made it fish soup to strengthen its body. But when the kitten woke up, it was full of fear and looked at me as if I were a kidnapper…’. He pretended to sigh, “Good people never prosper.

He was so blunt, how could I not hear that he was pointing at me?

I looked away guiltily and muttered, ‘No, with that look on your face… who wouldn’t be afraid?

Those who knew he killed fish thought he had slaughtered the old man downstairs. Aren’t you supposed to stun the fish before you kill it? There was blood everywhere, so did he skin the fish alive?

Hm?

I leaned against his chest and felt him press down a little more.

‘Thank you!’ I quickly changed my words, ‘Thank you for picking me up when I was sick… and bringing me home, taking care of me and also giving me fish soup.

A low, satisfied chuckle came from above my head, and satisfied with his answer, Shen Wunian finally stepped back.

Someone named Tony called yesterday to ask why you weren’t at work. I took two days off for you, and I also took today off for the art museum. And your clothes are still in the dryer, so you can wear mine for now and I’ll bring them to you later.

I nodded in agreement, quickly wrapped myself in the sheets and fled from him.

The female worm’s pheromones enter the host through the parasite. The male worm’s venom is very sensitive to these pheromones, and it dissipates on contact. This is why Cure’s bodily fluids can relieve Redvein’s burning pain.

And Cure must fall in love with the Redvein Syndrome patient in order to cure the disease. Our current speculation is that the female worm needs Cure to secrete a certain substance which she absorbs in order to have the energy to mate with the male worm and give birth to the next…’

The sound of the television behind me suddenly stopped, and I think Shen Wunian turned it off.

Back in the warm, dim bedroom, I had just finished making the bed when Shen Wunian sent his clothes over. He didn’t come in, he just handed them through the door with one hand. That hand was long and pale, with firm muscles, and there was no trace of blood.

He gave me a set of grey-blue pyjamas that were a bit big, but were comfortable to wear. The top was worn directly over the T-shirt, and the trousers could be tightened with the drawstring, so I just rolled the legs up a bit.

I was still warm, so the fever must not have completely gone. After the series of actions just now, my energy was basically exhausted, and I leaned back against the bed and fell asleep again without noticing.

When I woke up, it was an hour later and there was a soft knock at the door.

‘Come out and eat.

I rubbed my eyes and opened the door to go out. Shen Wunian had already showered and changed into new clothes – the same kind of black t-shirt I was wearing, and a pair of black baggy trousers that showed his ankles – and he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“Um…

“Go brush your teeth.

Just as I was about to ask where I could wash up, Shen Wunian, as if he had some kind of premonition, pointed me in the direction of the bathroom.

In the black and white mosaic tiled room, a brand-new toothbrush with toothpaste was sitting on top of a glass of water, while an equally clean and brand-new towel was folded neatly beside it. Someone took care of me when I was sick and even helped me apply the toothpaste when I brushed my teeth… It was a really new experience.

I stared at these few objects for a long time and almost felt bad that I had broken their perfect structure.

If only I had my mobile phone, I could take a picture… I closed my eyes and was shocked that for a moment I had such an outrageous thought.

I’ve burnt my brain,’ I concluded, grabbing the toothbrush on the glass and stuffing it into my mouth.

Shen Wunian said fish stew, and he really did make fish stew.

There was no dining table in the room, so the big bowl of fish soup, the steamed fish and the equally light-looking green cabbage were placed on the wooden coffee table, while Shen Wunian and I sat on the carpet in front of the sofa to eat.

The TV was on again, the commentary on Redvein Syndrome finished, replaced by an old American or European film.

We ate while watching the TV, because we didn’t know what to talk about with Shen Wunian, so we had to concentrate on the film.

It’s a film about vampires. The male vampire protagonist A bites the other male protagonist B and turns him from a human into a vampire. Male protagonist B therefore hates and rejects A, believing that the other person has turned him into a monster. He doesn’t want to drink human blood, doesn’t want to hurt humans, and struggles endlessly and painfully with the beast within him.

I was obviously watching very closely, but I just bowed my head and took a few bites of my food, and B left A with his adopted daughter…

Why did they leave him? This is the downside of watching the original film: you can’t follow the plot if you lose concentration for even a second.

Apparently, the family was fine one moment, but went their separate ways the next.

He turned them into monsters, shouldn’t they hate him? Shen Wunian must have seen this film, because he doesn’t watch television, but now he can tell where the plot is going just by looking at the screen.

I stopped eating and stared at the screen, thinking. After a while I said, ‘Maybe her suffering is not in him, but in being an animal and still having humanity.

In high school, during a psychology class, our teacher played an interview with the master of psychology, Carl Jung. Jung believed that the more people pursue the light, the more they are consumed by the darkness within. The more they resist, the more painful it is. The right way to deal with it is to face yourself, no matter what, and accept yourself so that you can really grow.

Don’t you think you should have a human nature? After a short silence, Shen Wunian asked again.

I thought for a moment and said, ‘That way everyone can feel more comfortable.

More comfortable? Giving up the fight and sinking down completely, will that make you feel more comfortable?

‘It’s easier than always having to maintain your human nature,’ I discussed with him from B’s perspective, based entirely on the content of the film. Why live such a tired life when you can live comfortably and wantonly?

Maybe it is because I live a very hard life, always hoping that others can live a little easier and happier.

Shen Wunian didn’t say anything for a long time. I picked up my chopsticks again to eat, and then I saw him looking at me with a strange and playful expression, as if I had said something shocking.

I trembled and withdrew my hand: ‘Why are you looking at me like that?

I remembered our conversation and didn’t think I’d said anything wrong.

‘Nothing, I just feel…’ Shen Wunian smiled as he picked up a piece of fish belly and put it in my bowl, “like I’ve had a revelation.

Although I found his attitude strange, I thanked him for the fish in my bowl.

After dinner, I don’t know if it was a relapse, but after a while my body started to feel bad again. The aches and pains that only come with a fever swept through my body again, but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday.

I staggered to the kitchen door and asked Shen Wunian where my clothes were, as I was going back to school in the afternoon. Perhaps my face did not look right, for Shen Wunian immediately took off his rubber gloves and touched the back of his hand to my forehead.

You have a fever again,’ he said with a worried look on his face. Anyway, I’ve got some extra room here, so stay another night. It’s not too late to leave tomorrow.

Faced with such an unadorned face, so handsome that there was nothing wrong with it, it was hard to refuse the other man’s kindness.

I’ve already stayed one night, so it doesn’t matter if I stay another night, does it?

I was half pushed, half carried back onto the soft bed. As my body sank into the mattress, my consciousness quickly faded.

In the middle, Shen Wunian seemed to have gone out for a while, I don’t know if he went to an art museum. But Xu Ao’s exhibition was about to open, and as the curator, he should have been there more often.

I fell asleep again, and when I woke up it was night. Shen Wunian came back and said he had bought preserved egg and pork congee from a nearby Cantonese restaurant, and helped me up to eat some.

I was sweating all over and felt much better, except that I didn’t have much energy and my body was very weak.

After eating, I curled up under the covers and fell asleep again – this place is really good for sleeping. I haven’t slept this well since I was thirteen.

I don’t know how long it was before Shen Wunian came in with a glass of milk and asked me to lean against him while I drank it.

I can’t drink any more…

I turned my face away from him halfway through, but Shen Wunian kept after me, insisting that I drink it.

Good girl, you’ll sleep better if you drink it,” he said.

he cajoled me, gradually getting me to drink the milk.

After I drank the milk, I fell asleep in no time, but I didn’t sleep better, as Shen Wunian had said.

I didn’t sleep well at all. It was a strange feeling, as if my body still had some sense of touch, but my soul had already fallen into a deep lake, and it was getting darker and colder all over my body.

I began to have strange dreams, entwined with a faceless creature.

The creature was lustful and evil, greedy and fierce, and it made me suffer greatly.

It’s not as bad as I thought… At the height of my suffering, a cold voice whispered in my ear as if it were none of its business.

“Indeed, being a beast is much more comfortable.