In the current perspective, the white grains on the girl’s body began to wriggle.
No, these were no grains of rice, but densely packed white maggots burrowing in and out of her body.
The girl lifted her head and looked at Li Zhiyuan.
She opened her mouth as if letting out a silent scream; the white maggots covering her eye sockets quickly dispersed, and from the dark hollows, blood tears seeped out.
She was telling herself that she was in agony, she was suffering, she yearned for release.
The Black Cat had told Li Zhiyuan, as a Corpse, the more cognitive abilities one retains, the heavier the torture they endure.
A Corpse itself is a collection of resentments, and it is deeper resentment that supports them in resisting the torment.
But what if someone inherently lacked such resentment? And also had to maintain clear cognitive abilities.
That would be akin to throwing oneself directly into a sea of fire, merely to endure brutal torture.
On the girl’s body, the boy sensed no resentment, only extreme pain.
Li Zhiyuan couldn’t help but turn his head to look at Zhou Yong, who was wrapped in a gelatinous cocoon.
Some things, even without verbal communication, can be understood through the eyes.
Clearly, the girl had been forcibly retained, and the one clinging on to her, or rather, the one who developed a great resentment because of her departure... could only be Zhou Yong.
In the kitchen, the flame still flickered, following the dining table tradition, the last dish should be soup.
Li Zhiyuan stepped into the kitchen, not seeing the figure of the woman.
He walked up to the pot and saw a dark soup bubbling inside.
At that moment, the bellows started up again.
Li Zhiyuan lowered his head and saw a hand extending from behind the stove, pulling the handle of the bellows.
Continuing to walk further, upon reaching behind the stove and following the hand, he didn’t see the figure of a woman sitting there.
That’s because the arm was extending out from inside the stove.
Li Zhiyuan squatted down, his eye level with the stove opening.
The woman inside, too, lifted her head and smiled at Li Zhiyuan.
This stove wasn’t burning firewood, but the woman herself.
She had crawled into the narrow stove; flames burned on her, supplying the continuous boil of the soup in the pot.
Yet, on her face was an expression of comfort.
Perhaps, through such self-immolation, she could relieve the terrible pain she inherently suffered.
Not long ago, Li Zhiyuan had engaged in self-harm, and he understood this feeling very well.
Zhou Yong wanted to keep his family intact, so... he dragged both his wife and daughter into hell.
Perhaps in the beginning, Zhou Yong did not know things would turn out this way.
But now, to say he was unaware would be ridiculous.
He knew, but he chose to deceive himself, selfishly at that.
However, one thing is for certain, the one who taught Zhou Yong this method definitely knew the consequences of doing so, so what was his purpose?
At first, it could be assumed he was a kind person, pitying Zhou Yong for losing his wife and daughter, trying to "help" him.
But now, it is clear that this assumption does not hold; a person capable of doing such a thing has nothing to do with "kindness."
Approaching the kitchen door, seeing the conversation outside had not ended, Li Zhiyuan’s gaze once again fell on the girl, and he signaled to her with a wave.
The girl crawled over.
During the meal earlier, she had been forced to play the role of a "daughter," and the woman had been forced to play the role of a "wife."
Strictly speaking, they were actually Zhou Yong’s Chang.
However, Zhou Yong did not possess such power; he could not compare to Tai Sui, the Corpse he and Li Zhiyuan encountered last time in the cemetery.
That Copper Coin is still buried in the cemetery still, and Li Zhiyuan still dares not retrieve it.
The girl crawled to Li Zhiyuan’s front; she had been trapped here, enduring constant agony, and this boy was the only outsider who had appeared "here" recently.
What drove her to approach the boy was the instinct to seek death.
Li Zhiyuan placed his hand on the girl’s head. He could feel the wriggling sensation coming from beneath the hair. He knew what lay beneath.
But right now, he had no choice but to ignore it.
Following the method in the Black Book, he began to adjust the frequency of his consciousness.
He wanted to borrow the girl’s perspective to see what that person who arranged all of this for Zhou Yong looked like.
It was simple enough; he succeeded because the girl not only didn’t resist, but actively cooperated.
In Li Zhiyuan’s vision, a blue mosquito net appeared; he lay on a small bed, too weak to move, barely able to twist his head. He (she) didn’t even have the strength to sit up now.
Someone was crying; she turned her head to look, the person crying beside the big bed was Zhou Yong.
A woman lay on the big bed; she was dead.
Zhou Yong was clutching his wife’s hand, crying bitterly.
After some time, he started pounding the floor, cursing loudly, generally about why life, why fate, treated him so poorly, why it was so cruel to him.
At that moment, a voice came:
"I can reunite your family."
The speaker was not in the room but outside; his voice was carried through the window.
To Li Zhiyuan’s surprise, this tone and voice felt familiar, no, it felt intimately close, as if it were someone from his immediate circles.
Yet, even after going through his network of relations, he couldn’t find someone who matched this voice.