This truly qualifies as a remote area, with expansive fields and desolate concrete roads stretching before and behind.
Distantly, one could hear the sound of a tractor.
Fortunately, the house numbers in this village were still quite clear. Tang Xiaohua’s home was in the middle of the village, situated in front of several acres of farmland, with both neighboring houses deserted for reasons unknown.
The wooden door was slightly ajar, and Song Lili knocked on it.
"Excuse me, is anyone home?"
Song Lili waited for a while but received no response, so she asked again, "Excuse me, is anyone home?"
Just as she was thinking about pushing the door open and entering, a small head peeped out... Song Lili was indeed startled!
Upon closer inspection, she confirmed that it was a little boy...
The boy’s face was dirty, with a pair of clear, distinct, large eyes staring straight at her, devoid of any spirit.
Not only that, but his clothes were filthy, with dark stains on the collar and sleeves that made Song Lili feel uneasy.
The smell from inside the house drifted out through the open door... it was somewhat fishy.
"Sister... has fallen asleep..."
The boy kept his gaze on Song Lili for a long time before uttering those few words.
Song Lili still hadn’t taken off her mask when she asked the little boy,
The boy nodded woodenly, and Song Lili entered the house. Inside was pitch dark, the floor was of that very primitive earth kind, and the little boy just kept staring at Song Lili, making her feel chilled to the core. She asked,
"Is your sister asleep in the house?"
The little boy nodded.
Song Lili took a deep breath, entered the room, and just as the little boy had said, there was someone lying on the bed, only...
She hardly approached before realizing that the person on the bed was a dead body.
The blood had turned the blanket black, and on the floor, it had congealed into black clumps; the stench was pungent.
The little boy walked to the bedside, nudged the person on the bed, and said, "Sister! Someone’s here... wake up... "
Song Lili had no idea what had happened in the siblings’ house before she arrived.
She clenched her fist slightly, suppressing all shock and coldness, and calmly walked to the bedside to take the little boy’s hand, telling him,
"You don’t need to wake your sister."
"Little brother, could you stand back a bit?"
The boy’s eyes remained fixed on Song Lili, hesitating for quite a while before silently stepping back.
Song Lili moved forward and slightly lifted the blanket covering Tang Xiaohua, furrowed her brow, covered the blanket again, and turned over Tang Xiaohua’s body. Her complexion had already turned green, her body rigid.
The features on that face indeed resembled her own...
She used her phone to go online and roughly determined Tang Xiaohua’s time of death, likely the wee hours of that morning.
A small hand gently tugged at the back of her clothes, and when Song Lili turned around, she collided with the timid gaze of the little boy...
Song Lili understood.
This five-year-old child wasn’t unaware that his sister was dead. Perhaps in his understanding, he couldn’t accurately comprehend death, but at the very least, he knew his sister would not wake up.
Before her arrival, this child could only foolishly pretend his sister was just asleep, because if not...
What was he supposed to do left all alone?
Song Lili crouched down, her gaze level with the boy’s, and she asked him,
"Did anyone come to the house this morning?"
The boy nodded, "Yes... uncle..."
The boy shook his head, "Don’t like... him, he always comes... every time, sister cries..."
Song Lili touched the boy’s head, and could easily imagine what had taken place.
Tang Xiaohua was naked, her body covered with mottled red marks, dry blood between her legs, her underwear hanging around one ankle...
A twenty-one-year-old young girl, without father or mother, raising a five-year-old brother, in such a backward village... if some unscrupulous people took notice of her...
, dying at home, who knows when she might be found.
Even if she were found, it wasn’t certain that anyone would bother...
No matter how well Country G developed, there still existed such grey areas.
She came to borrow her identity for a purpose, yet she hadn’t anticipated that the owner of the identity was already dead.
"Sister... won’t wake up anymore?"
The boy asked timidly, his now spiritless eyes misting over,
Song Lili looked at him. Perhaps someone else would have used more euphemistic and implicit language to tell him, but she just couldn’t. This world had many beautiful things, but what befell this child was cruel enough to make one sigh.
With these simple words, Song Lili felt the boy could understand. Orphaned by his parents, death for him was cruel but not unfamiliar.
The boy released Song Lili’s hand, struggled on his dirty face for quite some time, tears began to fall, and then he just sat to the side and cried, his sobs heart-wrenchingly piercing—