He put gloves on me, loosely wrapped a scarf around my neck, and added a blue baseball cap. As he placed sunglasses on my head, his hands stopped on either side of my cheeks. I looked at him with confusion. He said to me with a bitter face, "What should I do? You don't have ears." He then lowered the sunglasses and tugged at the mask, "This can't be put on either." Seeing his bewildered expression, I couldn't help but smile.
I took the pen and wrote, "I'll leave my body, and my soul will follow you."
He shook his head, "I can't see you. What if you get lost?" Then he shook his head again, "Let me make you some ears. Otherwise, I can wrap a cloth around your face and tie the ends of the sunglasses with a string?"
At three in the morning, he held my hand and moved forward. I had a piece of cloth covering my face, and the sunglasses slid directly onto the scarf covering my smooth skull. We were in a suburban area, sparsely populated. Cars would speed by the roadside at intervals. Our speed was also about two hundred meters per hour... Because moving was so difficult, I even had to press my body weight onto him to maintain balance. We were like an elderly couple in their last years, supporting each other to explore the world, advancing at a snail's pace with the aim of squashing all life beneath our feet. Later on, he wrapped one arm around my back to embrace me, entrusting both hands to him. The beating of his heart transmitted to my head, causing me to walk even slower in a daze.
Another car passed by and after rushing for several dozen meters, it turned back. "What happened to you guys? Do you need help?"
Shouldn't I sincerely say that there is true emotion in the world?! Neither Lu Nan nor I spoke. The helpful and diligent Chinese driver, a role model for learning from Lei Feng, loyal to the revolution and the party, got out of the car and walked towards us. Lu Nan moved close to my head and said, "Pull your legs up." I didn't understand. Wasn't it time to cover my head? But I instinctively bent my knees. Then Lu Nan released one of my hands and instead supported my waist, lifting me up in one swift motion... We dashed away at a sprinter's 100 meter speed.
Next, he turned around and jumped down into a heap of roadside weeds. He told me, "Don't be afraid, this is a shortcut. We'll be there soon." The good Chinese driver didn't follow us; I thought he might have been petrified. Later on, Lu Nan carried me the rest of the journey. I finally arrived at my mother's grave. In the photo, she was still smiling, and the inscription read "Grave of the Beloved Wife of Wu Family, Lin Fang." Across from her was another gravestone that I once leaned against inscribed with "Eldest Son of Wu Family, Wu Wen, and his Beloved Wife Lin Fang."
The atmosphere at the cemetery was extremely heavy. I suddenly felt something was off. Did the gravestones have inscriptions when I first came here? But this thought was just a fleeting moment in my mind, quickly drowned in endless regret. I knelt down and kowtowed a few times to both of them. "Mom, Dad, your son is unfilial, living in this world alone, unwilling to depart as a wandering spirit. I still can't bear to leave the one I love..." Then I couldn't get up from my kneeling position, just silently gazing at their gravestones. Lu Nan also knelt down, "I swear I will take good care of him. Once again, I ask you, please entrust him to me." He said it with utmost sincerity. I thought it would be nice if they could be buried together.
Lu Nan ended up carrying me back home. The sun emerged from its blood bath, waking up the slumbering world. When we got home, he seemed to be drenched in sweat, so after settling me in, he headed to the bathroom. He emerged shortly after the sound of water stopped, dressed only in pyjamas. He wiped his hair and asked, "Wu Mo, should I help you take a bath?"
Although my whole body is in a mess, I am a skeleton. I don't sweat and don't need a bath. I lowered my head and glanced at my soul within the skeleton, totally naked. "I just want you to live as you did before," he said.
"Oh, so I'd need to eat and everything? I wonder if it would crawl out of my throat or leak onto the bones on my back," I joked, trying to alleviate the invisible stiffness and guilt that had accompanied me from the cemetery. Unexpectedly, his mood became even more downcast upon hearing my words.
"Alright, I'll take a bath..."
The author has something to say:
I'll try to write more lightheartedly... The plot will have heartwarming twists ahead, though there will also be a few dark chapters before that. Don't pay too much attention to them... ╮（╯▽╰）╭
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The Lost Corpse
Short StoryI died. My body turned into white bones and he still found me. Plot summary: I decayed into white bones under a tree, but one day I was unexpectedly brought home by a man. His name is Lu Nan. He believes that I'm his lover who disappeared after a ca...
