Chapter 2: The Paper Figures’ Wedding Procession

Xueci had nearly fallen back to sleep when he was startled awake by the commotion in the hallway.

He froze, then hurriedly wrapped himself in his quilt and rose to check, only to find the attic door locked from the outside.

It wouldn’t budge at all.

He stood in silence for a while before lowering his head and returning to the bed, hugging his knees as he stared blankly at the attic.

The tiny space was less than ten square meters, containing only a bed, a desk, and a clothes rack.

The window was made of old, cold-green glass, so hazy with grime that it could never be wiped clean.

Looking at it in the middle of the night was like seeing a human face reflected back.

He wanted to lean against the window to watch for the headlights of his father and elder brother’s car returning at night, but he didn’t dare go near it.

Jing City had seen many torrential rainstorms during the summers in recent years.

The attic was dim, and every time it rained, the quilt became damp and heavy, making it feel exceptionally cold.

Xueci rested his chin on his knees and lowered his lashes, staring at his snow-white toes that rarely saw the light of day.

They were turning red from the cold, so he curled them up bit by bit.

He was still running a fever; his head felt heavy and swollen.

Finally, unable to hold out any longer, he collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Mr. Tan was worried that if the He family demanded the person, they wouldn’t be able to deliver him.

After discovering Xueci was ill, he finally allowed Ma Zhang to bring him some medicine.

Ma Zhang sighed as she carried the medicine upstairs.

Seeing that Xueci seemed to be asleep, she reached out to pull the quilt down slightly from his face and called softly, “Second Young Master?”

Xueci opened his eyes blearily.

Half of his pale, sickly face was buried beneath the quilt, and his forehead was drenched in cold sweat.

Even though he was already twenty-one years old, he was so frail and severely malnourished that he looked barely like a legal adult.

Ma Zhang picked up the little lamb plushie that had fallen to the floor and placed it beside his pillow.

Xueci reached out to hug it.

This doll was an “Abbebe” his mother had bought for him when he was three.

He hugged it to sleep every single night.

The lamb had soft white fur, though its face and limbs were black.

Its eyes were a pair of blood-red buttons, and its soft ears drooped down, resting against Xueci’s neck.

He was strikingly thin.

Beneath his thin skin, blue veins meandered, and his gaunt fingers sank weakly into the lamb’s fleece.

Even the rise and fall of his chest was faint.

“Second Young Master,” Ma Zhang said.

Having watched the child grow up, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache.

She wiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes, helped him up to take his medicine, and coaxed him, “Sleep after you take the medicine.”

Xueci’s body felt heavy and weak.

Helped up by Ma Zhang, he leaned against the headboard to recover for a moment before pursing his lips and asking cautiously, “Where is Mom?”

“…”

Ma Zhang paused, forcing a smile as she said, “Madam is very worried about the Second Young Master. She said she would come to see you later.”

She knew this explanation was stiff and hollow, unable to fool even a three-year-old.

After all, his parents were right there in the old estate; seeing Xueci was only a matter of walking upstairs.

Yet they hadn’t visited in over a decade.

Xueci fell silent.

His long lashes drooped, casting a lonely shadow under his eyes.

He didn’t ask anything else, but a moment later, he spoke very softly.

“Thank you.”

Ma Zhang froze.

He was actually comforting her.

“Thank you,” Xueci repeated in a small voice, thinking she hadn’t heard him, giving her a reserved glance while hugging the lamb tight.

He knew Ma Zhang was lying to him.

He was always sick and caused a lot of trouble for the family, so his parents didn’t like him.

He understood that; he truly was a burden, and anyone would find him bothersome.

It was just that before, he hadn’t wanted to accept it.

He always felt that once he got better, his parents would love him again like they did when he was little.

But he hadn’t expected they were no longer planning to give him a chance.

He Sui obviously didn’t love him either.

He had never been to the He family home, and he didn’t know if that He Xunye would be very mean.

He Sui had mentioned him a few times, but every time he did, a trace of fear would appear on his usually cold and arrogant face.

It was as if the man were some kind of blood-eating evil spirit.

If he was that scary, he might not let Xueci come home.

Then he wouldn’t be able to see Ma Zhang anymore.

He knew Ma Zhang didn’t actually like him that much either, but she was truly the person who had been kindest to him in this life.

Unfortunately, he had nothing to give her, so he could only say thank you before he left.

“…”

Ma Zhang’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

She knew Xueci was a bit pitiful, but she couldn’t blame the Master and Madam either.

Who would like a child like Xueci?

Madam’s health was poor.

Ma Zhang was Xueci’s wet nurse and had cared for him since shortly after he was born.

Compared to other children his age, Xueci was excessively well-behaved back then.

He didn’t cry or make a fuss when he was hungry; he would just grip his little blanket and look around with those big, ink-black, watery eyes.

It wasn’t until Xueci fell gravely ill at age three that everything changed.

A Taoist priest said the child was possessed by an evil spirit and performed several exorcism rites, but they were useless.

In the middle of the night, Xueci would still stand silently by Madam’s bedside like a tiny ghost, shaking her shoulder and saying, “Mom, I want to play with that ball.”

Madam would open her eyes and, in the pitch black, suddenly see a thin, blurry shadow standing by the bed.

Nearly suffering a cardiac arrest from fear, she would ask in a trembling voice, “What… what ball?”

“Mom,” Xueci would tilt his head and say softly, “It’s the red ball under your bed.”

Madam’s gaze would uncontrollably drift toward the dark space under the bed, which was supposed to be empty.

But after Xueci spoke, she really seemed to see a blurry round shadow.

Roll, roll… It rolled around, hitting the foot of her bed over and over, as if a pair of hands were pushing it.

“Aaaaaah—!!!!!”

Madam’s shrill scream tore through the night.

She already suffered from severe neurasthenia, and after being terrified by Xueci for several nights in a row, she had to be hospitalized for treatment.

As he got older, Xueci would still occasionally shake and cry, saying there were ghosts in the house.

From the year Xueci got sick, the Tan family’s business took a nose dive.

There was much public gossip, saying the Tan family had likely run into something evil.

The father was busy and overwhelmed, practically living at the company.

He couldn’t sleep all night, feeling constantly uneasy until he suddenly received a call from Shangli one night.

“Dad,” Shangli said, struggling to remain calm. “I’m at the hospital with Mom. Xueci just pushed Mom’s head into the bathtub. Mom nearly drowned; she’s still being resuscitated.”

The father’s head buzzed as if an ominous premonition had come true.

His eyes turned cold and dark, and he drove to the hospital through the night.

When he arrived, Madam had just finished resuscitation.

She lay weakly on the hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask.

Her long hair was soaking wet like a pale water ghost, her limbs were freezing, and her lips were blue.

There was a ring of red marks on her neck from small hands, which were already beginning to turn purple.

The father didn’t say a word, his face grim.

When he got home, he grabbed Xueci by the neck and hauled him up to the attic.

“Master…”

Ma Zhang was terrified, but fearing something would happen, she hurriedly followed. “Master!”

The man’s large palm was powerful.

Xueci’s slender neck was nearly snapped, his small face bloated from lack of oxygen, his limbs soft and dangling lifelessly.

The father remained unmoved and threw him onto the floor.

The man’s tall, shadowy figure completely loomed over the small child.

Before Xueci could even speak, he was kicked away.

Ma Zhang covered her mouth and screamed.

“Ma Zhang,” the father turned his head and glanced at her, speaking in a tone of disappointment that brooked no argument. “Lock him up. If he tries to run out again, break his legs.”

“How can the Tan family have a child that acts like such an animal?”

Ma Zhang met the father’s ice-cold eyes and knew he was truly enraged.

She didn’t dare make a sound and hurriedly nodded several times.

…

In the third year of Xueci’s illness, the parents adopted Tan Yanning.

By order of arrival, they had Yanning call Xueci “Brother,” and Yanning had no objection.

After Yanning arrived, Madam found comfort and her condition gradually improved.

Even though they were the same age, Yanning was steady and mature, and everyone in the Tan household was full of praise for him.

He even had excellent grades, skipped several grades, and at twenty-one, was already a second-year graduate student at Capital University.

He could be called a favored child of heaven.

But Xueci was either acting crazy all day or looking like a sickly dead person.

It felt like being around him would bring bad luck.

Madam strictly forbade Xueci from going near Yanning, and the father wouldn’t allow Xueci to leave the attic or touch anything in the house.

If Yanning got sick—even if it was just a few coughs from a cold—Madam would fly into a rage.

She would rush to the attic, grab Xueci, and slap him without a word, scolding him and saying he must have snuck downstairs, blaming him for passing the “sickly air” to his brother.

When something went wrong at the father’s company, he would return home with a grim face, staring at Xueci in uncontrollable fury.

“What exactly do you want? Not only do you want to kill your mother, do you want to kill the whole family?!”

He was simply a source of misfortune burdened with “yin” debts.

Since Xueci came along, this family hadn’t had a single peaceful year.

Xueci wanted to explain that he only saw a small ghost sitting on Mom’s head, stepping on her to push her into the water, and he only wanted to pull her out.

But he was very small back then and didn’t want to pull Mom’s hair, so he could only grab her neck.

However, he never even had a chance to speak.

Gradually, even he couldn’t quite remember what the situation had been back then.

Perhaps it really was his fault.

He had already spent day and night atoning for it.

What exactly should he do?

To what extent of pain did he need to go to be forgiven?

The father eventually lost his patience and had someone take Xueci for a psychiatric evaluation.

In the end, it was found that Xueci suffered from schizophrenia, which was why he had hallucinations and absurd thoughts.

Developing the illness at such a young age and having it worsen meant there was basically no hope for his life.

Ma Zhang looked at Xueci hesitantly.

Xueci’s long lashes were lowered as he hugged the lamb, gently stroking its head.

The youth’s nose was snow-white, and under the dim light of the attic, his skin looked very luminous.

He actually had a cold yet gentle face with striking features.

When he wasn’t having an “episode,” there was no sign of mental issues at all.

He was no different from a normal person, and he even had a temperament that matched his name—as if no matter what terrible thing was done to him, he could forgive it.

Ma Zhang bit her lip and couldn’t help but advise him.

“Second Young Master, don’t blame Madam. If there were any other way, she surely wouldn’t bear to let you go. She has had a very hard time too.”

She and Madam had grown up together and were like sisters.

Madam’s family had passed away early, leaving her lonely.

She finally got married and had a child, only to be nearly drowned by her own son.

How could she not feel disheartened?

The attic was cold and dark, with only a very dim bedside lamp on.

Ma Zhang couldn’t see Xueci’s expression.

In the darkness, she suddenly heard a very low laugh.

The sound was so light it was almost like a cold sneer.

Ma Zhang froze, and a dense layer of goosebumps suddenly broke out on the back of her neck.

She suspected she had misheard and looked at Xueci.

Xueci’s black eyes, which looked like they were soaked in water, looked up.

The attic was too cold, and his quilt was washed to the point of being white and full of holes, providing almost no warmth.

His neck was a patch of snow-white from the cold.

“I know,” Xueci said. “I don’t blame anyone.”

Ma Zhang suppressed the bit of strangeness in her heart, gave him a smile, watched him finish his medicine, and helped him lie back down before leaving.

Before Xueci had recovered from his illness, he soon fell back into a deep sleep.

He didn’t know how long he had been sleeping when his body was suddenly lifted.

Then, people were clumsily dressing him and applying things all over his face.

Xueci’s lashes fluttered several times as he struggled to open his eyes.

In the darkness, he met several deathly pale faces crowded around him.

They had ink-black, slender almond eyes, faces painted with two circles of vivid rouge, and mouths painted a very bright red, curved in a stiff, mechanical smile.

Pupils had been dotted into their previously blank eye sockets, and several pairs of dark eyes were staring straight at him.

Xueci: “…”

And so, he temporarily closed his eyes again.

Seeing the bride’s eyes open and then close again, not knowing if he had fainted or died, several paper figures dressed in red and green immediately crowded around Xueci’s head and began to chatter.

Xueci’s entire body was very cold, as if he were wrapped in a mass of damp, heavy fog.

He couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

Until a paper figure dressed like a matchmaker walked over and grabbed his shoulder forcefully, its nails digging deep into his flesh.

Xueci’s shoulder hurt so badly that he had to open his eyes once more.

The paper matchmaker’s mouth was painted blood-red, carrying a bloody air of death.

In a shrill, gloomy voice, it said, “It is time for you to leave.”

Xueci was too terrified to speak, his breath trembling.

He instinctively looked toward the attic door, wanting to find a chance to escape.

However, as soon as he turned his head, cold sweat instantly broke out.

The attic door had opened at some point, and the pitch-black, dark hallway was packed with dense crowds of paper figures.

Pale, gray, defeated faces were stacked one upon another, each with two circles of bright rouge on their cheeks.

They looked both cold and festive.

The two in the lead were even wearing dark red-bordered burial clothes.

They held red lanterns with the character for “Double Happiness” and waved their hands at him.

Their bizarre, blue-white faces were beaming with smiles, as if urging him to come out.