Night of Despair

Click.

At last, the door was completely shut.

Yu Hong breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"What the hell is this place?!"

He locked the door, stood upright, but then suddenly thought of the stuttering girl from before.

This place looked eerie no matter how one looked at it, and the stuttering girl seemed nice enough, but how had she survived here?

He stepped back twice and breathed a long sigh of relief.

Puff.

Suddenly, it felt like his back had bumped into something.

Ice-cold, somewhat hard...

It seemed... like a person!!

Yu Hong froze completely.

He lowered his head and saw a pair of white shoes on the ground right behind him...

Had this guy... actually gotten in?!?!

When?!

Bang!!

With a loud crash.

The wooden door was knocked open, and a short figure rushed in, throwing a handful of grey-white substance.

"Ah!!"

Simultaneously, the stuttering girl's voice, like a clarion call shattering the silence, jolted Yu Hong from his rigid state of shock.

He felt a puff of the grey-white little shadow whisk past his cheek and hit the white figure behind him.

Puff puff puff!

The fine sound, like something striking fabric, erupted, but along with it Yu Hong's whole body relaxed, and he stumbled forward several steps, nearly falling.

His body was already weak and powerless, and now with the shock and the rollercoaster of emotions, his physical and mental exhaustion was even greater.

After a few steps, his legs gave way, and he fell to the ground.

Rolling over on the ground, he saw the stuttering girl had charged through the door, clutching a thick wooden club, and was fiercely striking the figure in white.

And even more eerie, the figure in white deflated like a balloon with a leak, softening with a 'puff' and quickly exploding into foam-like tatters, dissolving into nothing.

The shreds had not yet hit the ground before they, too, disintegrated, faded away, leaving nothing behind.

It was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

Huff puff huff puff.

The stuttering girl, breathing heavily, put down the thick club in her hand, her face flushed red, bulging veins popping on her face and hands. Even under the dim light, the tiny beads of sweat were distinctly visible.

"Person, weak, danger...outside...go...out less!" she turned her head to look at Yu Hong and said earnestly.

Yu Hong nodded unconsciously.

Only then did he feel a burning pain in his back, as if a layer of skin had been scraped off.

Rolling over again on the ground, he suddenly discovered that the place where his back had touched had a few drops of blood.

Seeing this, the stuttering girl hurriedly came forward to help him up.

Together, they exerted force, and the stuttering girl's strength immediately became apparent.

She was stronger than Yu Hong, a grown man, and not by a little!

She dragged Yu Hong up, turned him around to lean on the door frame, and removed his upper clothing.

Then she fished out a jar of something from who knows where and began to smear it on his back.

Soon, a rough pain spread from his back.

Yu Hong endured it, knowing the other was trying to save him, to treat his wound.

"What is this medicine?"

"My... gran... leftover... injury medicine powder..." the stuttering girl answered haltingly.

"Good...effective!"

Silence.

Yu Hong thought back to the white-clad person. His mind was crowded with questions he wanted to ask.

After organizing his thoughts for quite a while, he finally spoke again.

"What was that white-clad figure just now?"

"Shadow..." the stuttering girl answered.

"A ghostly shadow?"

"Is it a person?" Yu Hong asked again.

"Don't...know..."

Yu Hong felt as if his lifelong belief in materialism was about to collapse, especially since the figure had vanished before his very eyes, leaving him feeling a sense of unreality and falsehood.

He thought for a while, until the light outside the window grew dimmer. Then he spoke again.

"That white-clad figure... was it a ghost?"

"Not...a ghost," the stuttering girl answered, "Newspaper... has...it..."

Speaking was obviously strenuous for her, so she paused the treatment on the wound, bent down to pick up the newspaper, and flipped through it quickly to hand a page to Yu Hong.

Yu Hong took it and saw the headline on it.

"Phantasmal Experiment Makes Major Breakthrough"

Below were the details.

"...According to a public statement from the Human United Research Organization, the nature of the shadow is closely related to Blood Tide, but a detailed analysis of the experiment content shows that shadows themselves do not possess any memory. They bear the appearance of humans from before their death, but they lack corresponding memories and emotions, instead hunting instinctively any living thing that comes near or notices them, with their primary prey being their own kind.

That is to say, the true nature of the shadow is more akin to a new type of highly camouflaged predator. They cannot be killed, only expelled, and even if dispersed completely, they will soon reappear, possessing the special ability to penetrate most existing materials.

In some organization's experiments, there is even suspicion that they may not exist in reality, but within our own brains, perhaps as a type of self-induced delusion..."

Swiftly reading through this report, Yu Hong felt a chill spread throughout his body.

Danger!

Too dangerous!!

What the hell kind of place was this?! How could it be so dangerous?!

He merely left the house! Did it have to cost him his life?!

Clutching the newspaper, he took a moment to calm down with heavy breaths before reading it several times over.

Thud.

Yu Hong sat down with a dull look on his face at the edge of the bed, watching the stuttering girl tidy up the things she used to treat his wound.

Then she began arranging a woven bamboo basket filled with a mishmash of slimy roots and stalks.

Since the room was not ventilated, a thick, putrid smell of rotting mud filled the air.

After sitting for a while, Yu Hong felt his mouth dry and his body growing hot.

"Do you have water?" he asked listlessly.

The stuttering girl paused, then pointed to an inconspicuous black urn in the corner of the wall.

The small vat was only the size of a human head, with vague patterns of flying birds, branches, and flowers on the outside.

Yu Hong stood up, walked over, and crouched down to lift the lid of the small vat.

Inside, a shallow layer of yellow water with a faint stench appeared before his eyes.

"....." He was at a loss for words; one look was enough to tell that the water was undrinkable.

It reeked...

Suddenly, a tea pot-like black metal object was passed over from the side.

It was Stutterer.

She shook the tea pot.

"Filter..."

She mimed the action of scooping water and pouring it through the spout at the top of the tea pot.

Yu Hong then noticed that there was something akin to a filtration net on top of the tea pot.

He fell silent for a moment, took the tea pot, found a ladle by the vat, and slowly poured water into it.

It took a while to filter a small ladleful of water.

He grabbed a wooden cup, pouring the ladle of water into it.

Hiss.

A stream of clear water with a slight stench surged out, filling a third of the cup before stopping.

Yu Hong looked at the stinky water; even though filtered, it still...

He thought not to drink it, but the severe thirst from dehydration made it clear to him that if he didn't drink, already sick and injured as he was, he would be doomed.

As he hesitated, Stutter grabbed the cup from his hand and downed it in one gulp.

Clack.

She set the cup on the edge of the vat, making a noise as it touched down.

"Drink... No... problem!"

Yu Hong paused, stepped forward, scooped water again, re-filtered another cup, and then, holding the cup, hovered his hand in mid-air.

Hmm...

He paused, lifted the cup to drink, but then slowly set it down again.

Once more, he lifted it to drink.

And quickly set it down again...

Stutter's eyeballs followed his hand's up and down movements, looking somewhat confused.

After several such repetitions,

Yu Hong drew a deep breath, gripped the cup tightly, his complexion growing increasingly pale.

He thought, couldn't the water be cleaner?

He worried that before replenishing water, he might be the one in trouble. Just because Stutter was okay after drinking, it didn't mean he would be too, given how much people's constitutions can differ.

'Enhance the cup?'

Suddenly, a faint voice entered his ears.

Clack; he set the cup aside on the wooden table.

Yu Hong's expression changed subtly, looking around but finding only Stutter standing obediently to one side, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

'Enhance the cup?'

The voice came again.

Yu Hong looked all around but couldn't find anyone who might be speaking.

So, he focused his gaze on the wooden cup on the table.

Quickly, a faint number appeared on the surface of the cup: 3 days.

Apart from that, nothing.

Yu Hong's expression changed abruptly; his first thought was that he might be seeing things, but even after blinking repeatedly, the number was still there.

Suddenly, he seemed to think of something, looked down at the Black Mark on the back of his right hand.

Sure enough.

The mark was the size of an egg, the black area rippling with a water-like sheen.

'It's this thing causing the mischief!' Yu Hong instantly understood in his heart.

For a while, his eyes roiled, a tumult of thoughts surged in his mind as he stood in place.

But quickly, he remembered Stutter was still around him.

Hastily raising his hand, he showed the back of his hand with the Black Mark to Stutter.

"Can you see anything on my hand?"

"...." Stutter shook her head, looking bewildered. "Nothing... at... all."

"..." Yu Hong lowered his hand, took another look at the cup, confirmed the number was still there, and roughly guessed at some speculations.

Under Stutter's bewildered gaze, he turned and walked towards other places.

The room wasn't large, with only a few furnishings.

A wardrobe, a table doubling as a desk, two nightstands, an old-fashioned dressing mirror, and two stools.

Apart from that, there was a pile of assorted items in the corner; the small vat was placed there as well.

He made a circuit and finally stopped in front of the wooden door of the house.

He stretched out his hand and pressed it against the door.

Recalling the process just now, another idea rose in his mind.

'Couldn't this door be made better?'

Hiss.

Suddenly, as if a fine thread emerged from the Black Mark on the back of his hand, it entered the wooden door.

Soon a black number emerged on the door: 16 days.

'Enhance the wooden door?' The faint voice rang out again, indistinct of gender, devoid of emotion, mechanical.

Yu Hong looked at the number, his eyes faintly understanding something.

'This number is likely the time needed for enhancement... so what will it look like after enhancement?'

He withdrew his hand, turned back to look at the water cup, and the number on it had disappeared.

'Also, how is this enhancement carried out? Will it cause a big commotion? Is it possible to keep enhancing indefinitely, are there any limits?'

Questions bubbled up in his mind one after another.

"What are... you... doing??" Stutter couldn't help but ask.

"I just felt dizzy... my mind went haywire for a moment, a bit chaotic...." Yu Hong sighed, not mentioning the numbers and the Black Mark.

He wasn't planning to reveal it to anyone before he understood the specifics.

The priority was to test the enhancement effect of this Black Mark on something.

The wooden door took too long and wasn't guaranteed to be without commotion.

Yu Hong wandered back and forth, quickly settling on an inconspicuous little thing—the white pebble that Stutter had thrown earlier.