"Or maybe that 'Calamity' was just too weak... It died with a single axe blow." Li Xiuchun proposed another possibility.
Chen Tan didn't respond. He stared at the blood-soaked figure for a long time before turning to the kitchen to fetch a kitchen knife.
"What are you doing?"
"Cutting open his chest to see if his heart is still there," Chen Tan said hoarsely. "At least I need to know... whether I killed a monster or destroyed God's chance at redemption."
He knelt beside Chen Ling's corpse and began to cut open the chest with the knife. Li Xiuchun, her face pale, turned away and rushed into the kitchen, vomiting violently.
A few minutes later, Chen Tan slowly stood up.
"Well?" Li Xiuchun asked.
"Empty," Chen Tan said, looking at the hollow cavity inside the chest. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "He has no heart."
"No heart? Then how did he..."
Chen Tan paused. "Whatever it was... it's dead now."
"What do we do with the body?"
"Hide it in the cellar... With all the enforcers outside, we can't take it out."
Chen Tan moved the table in the living room and opened the heavy wooden plank on the floor, revealing a dark, narrow underground space.
In this era without refrigerators, using the cellar's natural insulation to store food was the best option. He was about to throw Chen Ling's body in when he noticed the gruesome wound on the neck and hesitated.
"Go get A-Yan's opera costume," Chen Tan said. "No matter what it was, this was still A-Ling's body... Even if we can't give him a proper burial, at least let him wear something decent."
At the mention of the opera costume, Li Xiuchun shuddered.
"But last night... he came back wearing that..."
"It's just a piece of clothing," Chen Tan started to argue but stopped, remembering the horrifying scene when Chen Ling returned last night. "Never mind, let's just leave it as it is."
Chen Tan tossed Chen Ling's body into the cellar, covered it with the wooden plank, and then placed the table back on top.
Afterward, Li Xiuchun began cleaning up the bloodstains in the house. Though the sight made her nauseous, she held her nose and continued.
Knock knock knock—
A rapid knocking suddenly sounded at the door.
Li Xiuchun's heart skipped a beat, and she turned to look at Chen Tan in panic.
"Someone's here?"
"Don't answer. Pretend no one's home."
Li Xiuchun nodded, and the two held their breath in the living room, listening to the relentless knocking.
But the knocking didn't stop. Instead, it grew louder and more urgent. Then, a deep voice came from outside:
"Enforcers! Open the door immediately!"
Hearing the word "enforcers," both of their faces turned pale. After a moment of hesitation, Chen Tan gave Li Xiuchun a look, quickly changed his shirt, and walked to the door, buttoning it haphazardly along the way.
Creak—
The door opened a crack.
Chen Tan slipped outside and closed the door behind him. "Officers, what's the matter?"
A light drizzle fell from the overcast sky as two figures in black-and-red uniforms stood outside, their expressions grim.
"Why didn't you open the door sooner?"
"I was asleep. It took me a while to get dressed," Chen Tan said with an awkward smile.
The two enforcers glanced at his hastily buttoned shirt and relaxed slightly. "Is this Chen Ling's house?"
"...Yes."
"Where is he?"
"He went out this morning and hasn't come back yet."
"When he returns, give him this notice," one of the enforcers said, pulling a document from his coat. "Districts Two and Three are under full lockdown. All candidates who passed the written exam for the enforcer recruitment are required to assemble. He's on the list.
Tomorrow at 7 a.m., report to the District Three Enforcer Headquarters. Failure to appear will be considered a forfeit of the position."
Chen Tan's heart skipped a beat, but he kept a straight face as he took the notice and nodded.
"Understood. I'll make sure he gets it."
The two enforcers turned and left, and Chen Tan breathed a sigh of relief.
He pushed the door open and stepped back inside.
Screech—screech—
As soon as he entered, a sharp metallic scraping sound reached his ears, like nails dragging across a chalkboard. It sent chills down his spine.
Li Xiuchun was huddled in the corner, trembling uncontrollably.
When she saw Chen Tan return, her nearly broken gaze lifted, and she slowly pointed toward the kitchen...
In the kitchen, a figure in crimson stood with its back to them, head bowed as if chewing on something.
Seeing that figure, Chen Tan's mind went blank!
It was a boy whose neck had been nearly severed. The bloody flesh was visibly healing at an alarming rate. In his left hand, he held a kitchen knife, and in his right, a blood-stained axe. He was shoving both into his mouth...
As if sensing Chen Tan's return, the figure in the crimson opera robe slowly turned around.
It was Chen Ling—Chen Ling, who had no heart and whose neck had been nearly severed.
His cheeks bulged as he chewed on the remnants of metal and wood, his unfocused eyes glowing like those of a beast, eerie and menacing.
"Dad."
A voice came from behind him. "I'm hungry..."
---
Chen Ling had a dream.
It was a cloudy afternoon.
As usual, he had finished his training at the martial arts field in the suburbs and returned home, drenched in sweat.
It wasn't his birthday, but a cream cake sat on the dining table... The orange candlelight flickered in the dim living room, and two figures sat at the table, their eyes red.
A cream cake, worth 200 copper coins, was something their family could never afford under normal circumstances.
He was puzzled. He asked what the occasion was.
His parents told him it was the day his younger brother, A-Yan, was scheduled for surgery.
He was overjoyed. A-Yan's congenital heart disease had been a nightmare for their family. To cure him, his parents and he had sought help everywhere, but every clinic had been helpless.
A few days ago, his parents said they had found a hospital in District Two and sent A-Yan there. They were confident he could be cured.
Hearing the good news, he happily ate the cake, but soon his consciousness began to fade. He slumped onto the table, and the last thing he saw was his mother, Li Xiuchun, covering her mouth and sobbing.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," he heard his father whisper. "A-Yan's illness requires a heart... You'd be willing, right?"
He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but ultimately fell unconscious.
Then, he felt himself being stuffed into a bag. The sound of rain pattered against the bag's surface. After what felt like an eternity, he was finally placed on some kind of table.
He felt his chest being cut open, and something was taken from it.
After that, he was dressed in a set of clothes and moved somewhere in the pouring rain. Thick soil gradually buried his body, and everything around him sank into darkness and silence...
In the darkness, Chen Ling's eyes suddenly opened.
Spotlights lit up one after another above him, illuminating the figure in crimson lying at the center of the stage. After a moment of disorientation, Chen Ling propped himself up with his hands and shakily got to his feet.
"Damn it... Why am I back here again?"
Chen Ling's face was pale. His gaze instinctively fell on the screen at the center of the stage, and his pupils contracted sharply.
[Audience Expectation +1]
[Audience Expectation +1]
[Current Expectation: 67%]
[Detected loss of actor connection. Performance interrupted.]
[Audience Expectation -50]
[Current Expectation: 17%]
[Warning! Warning!]
[Audience intervention detected!]