Su Bai was being despised. Apparently, the man was not satisfied with Su Bai’s face and had no interest in tearing it off and sticking in onto his own face. He signaled his men to throw Su Bai back into the bloodstream. That was actually freeing Su Bai."Bang!"
Su Bai remained a vampire after being dumped into the stream, with no heartbeat or body warmth. On the terrace, the man was about to leave on his paper horse.
However, just then, there came a sharp scream. It was pathetic, like weeping, and touching, like a story-teller, but also kind of urgent, like a dissatisfied housewife in her boudoir, crying with desperate desire.
The man looked back nervously, then subconsciously touched his own face. He seemed to be meeting someone really important, but he hadn’t found the perfect face yet… now he panicked because he was still faceless. His bandsmen were frightened to sweat; thick white liquid came out from their paper bodies and their limbs seemed to be falling apart. Clearly, there was something that even the man was afraid of, and these paper men were almost scared to death.
Immediately, the man waved his hand and hissed for his men to pick up Su Bai’s body. He wasn’t very fond of that p.u.s.s.y boy, but there was no other choice, since those skins he had found before him were even worse. There was even a girl’s skin in it… if he went to see "that one" with a girl’s face, he would end up in tragedy.
From the blood, Su Bai was lifted again by the tentacle. Then he was stuck into the black soil ceiling headlong. The fungus in the soil moved, carrying Su Bai upwards.
Now he knew how those people were killed; in a specific place, or so-called turning point, they were pulled down by the soft soil, then pierced and killed by the tentacle. When Su Bai was moving through the black soil, he didn’t feel filthy; it seemed that numerous microorganisms were cleaning him up, even the blood in his clothes was gone. He felt even cleaner than having been bathed and rubbed up by a servant.
However, hardly had he taken a long breath after his head were out of the soil, his feet were caught and pulled downward violently. He immediately took another breath before his head went back into the soil again.
Soon, he was pulled out from below. It was the same tentacle. But this time, he took a closer look and saw the pale moss over it. He thought it was more like an overgrown root of a plant rather than a tentacle of an animal; now he was pretty sure about his idea.
Several paper men were standing at the edge of the stone terrace, spreading something blue into the blood. Then the tentacle slowly put Su Bai onto the terrace. The paper men lifted him up, while the faceless man was pressing them to move faster.
Below the terrace, there was a slope going down with traces of artificial works. After a while, Su Bai even found villages. But those villages were ancient, made of stone and hiding in the darkness, and there was no evidence of life. It seemed to be more of a symbolic existence.
A bridal sedan chair appeared in front of them. The faceless man went into it, then Su Bai was carried in by several paper men. After that, the paper men lifted the sedan chair as if they were hurrying off to fetch the bride, while the faceless man started to change his face in the sedan. Of course, he was going to take a new face out of Su Bai’s "corpse".
The man’s fingernails were as sharp as knives. He was touching Su Bai’s face like a tailor measuring cloth. Then, he was about to cut when he was ready.
After such a long time, Su Bai’s injury had finally healed. Though he was still weak, he couldn’t keep playing dead when his face was about to be cut off.
Next, the faceless man’s fingernails cut through Su Bai’s skin… However, to his surprise, it didn’t feel like cutting a dead person’s skin, but more like hitting a tough stone. Even, with a crisp sound, two of his fingernails broke!
He took another look— It was not a dead human body in front of him, but a zombie!
And the zombie was staring at him with hollow blue eyes!
In an instant, ten black fingernails grew out on Su Bai’s hands, with ptomaine and cold toxin. Then, while the faceless man was still trying to understand what had happened, Su Bai attacked. One of his hand ripped into the faceless man’s eye, and the other into his neck.
"Pop!"
"Pop!"
Su Bai was taking the risk. He didn’t know anything about the faceless man’s ability, but in such a close distance, under a surprise attack, he couldn’t escape no matter how capable he was.
In fact, it was much more effective than Su Bai had expected. And this faceless man didn’t seem to be as tough as he had thought. He was like an embroidered pillow[1], looked tough but couldn’t withstand a single blow.
The cold toxin set in through the faceless man’s head and covered it with frost. Su Bai recovered to his previous state, but was exhausted after such a long time of torment and so many injuries. He could have died if the blood in the stream didn’t work.
The faceless man’s body was lying in the sedan chair. Then the sedan chair was gently put down. They must have arrived at their destination.
Su Bai struggled to pull himself together. He quickly took off his clothes; it was easy, ‘cause those ancient styled clothes found in the village were simple and convenient. Then he tore all the strips off the faceless man, wrapped himself up with them and covered the faceless man’s body with his own clothes.
Even he himself was impressed by his quick wit. Maybe human minds really could become far more active than usual when it came to a crisis.
A paper man came to the sedan chair and waited.
Su Bai took a deep breath. These red cloth strips were worn and dirty with a musty smell, but Su Bai managed to remain calm, opened the curtain and walked out.
It was no longer empty outside; it looked like a burrow under the ground, but there were traces of buildings. However, due to years of crustal movement, these buildings only had a few remains and hardly looked like houses.
Right now, Su Bai was in an independent room. There was a bed in front him; the headboard should have been made out of wood, but after such a long time, it was rotten and broken in many parts, therefore piles of stones were put there to maintain the bed.
On the bed, there were colorful rags everywhere, layer over layer. Near the headboard, there was a human skeleton with pale green fire burning in it, lighting up the room in a creepy way.
After Su Bai got off, all the paper men left. But something began to move under the colorful rags. Not very much, but quite detectable.
Then, a hand reached out and crooked its fingers towards Su Bai.
As for a hand, it was a beautiful feminine hand; so beautiful that it could even become a model for photos. But Su Bai wouldn’t have any extravagant hope that there could be a pretty girl under the rags, or that he would be as lucky as the scholar Ning Caichen who met a fox fairy[2].
In fact, even if there was a naked beauty waiting for him, he wouldn’t feel impulsive in such a filthy place with the smell of dead bodies.
Besides, taking that faceless man into consideration, who knew what kind of disgusting thing would it be in the rags! However, now Su Bai understood who the faceless man was— a toy boy for the one in those rags. No wonder he was so weak; it must be difficult for him because he had to keep changing faces in order to please his master with something new. To tear skins off his head, replace them with other faces and become someone else again and again, it must be some sort of torture from this man. By killing him, Su Bai could have set him free.
The hand had been waving for so long, but Su Bai didn’t step forward. Suddenly, the air became stressed, and the green flame rose, as if showing the changing mood of the person in the rags.
Apparently, the person in bed had run out of patience.
Then, a remote voice came from the bed and echoed in the narrow s.p.a.ce among the rock walls. It was on and off, but it came with a scary dignity:
"Come… serve… me… Now…"
———————————
FOOTNOTES:
[1] an embodied pillow: it’s a Chinese idiom, similar to the English saying "Many a fine dish has nothing on it".
[2] Ning Caichen and fox fair: It’s one of the most well-know story in the short story collection named Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio written by Pu Songling. In that ghost story, a scholar named Ning Caichen met a fox fairy named Nie Xiaoqian, they fell in love and finally lived happily ever after. It’s such a romantic legend that over the years there have been different versions and multiple films, TV plays and dramas about it.