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The Water Goes Drip-Drop finale!
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I have heard from Yuan Fei through our chat that
Chief is in the psychiatric department on the twelfth floor of this hospital. I
must thank the accessibility of this hospital: I chance upon a collapsible
wheelchair by the closet while I’m battling with all the bones in my body. The wheelchair
does a wonderful job, except for the pain it causes when I push the wheel.
Hospitals always
give off a creepy vibe at night so it’s only expected that my hairs stand up as
I go down the dark, silent walkway by myself. The stench of disinfectants hit
my nostrils and I quickly plug them up.
Disinfectant….
A fleeting thought
flashes through my mind only to escape my grasp before I get the chance to
examine it. I shake my head and focus instead on where I’m heading.
Sun Le didn’t give
me any more responses when I proposed I’d get his eye back in return for Chief
to be spared his life. I only heard a few quiet ‘drip-drops’ before it became
quiet again. What is that supposed to mean? An implicit agreement or a refusal?
Anyway, I know I
must go to Wu Fan and tell him everything.
I’m staying on the
fifth floor while Chief is on the twelfth. There are ramps made especially for
the ease of transporting gurneys but I don’t think I can wheel myself up to the
twelfth floor in my breathless state right now.
I freeze when I
hear the dinging elevator. I’d thought that the elevator wasn’t in service
anymore but it turns out it still is! I’m about to wheel myself over there when
it hits me that the night shift nurses probably wouldn’t just let me slip past
their watch so easily.
So what should I
do?
Drip-drop.
I shudder as a
chill crawls up my back. I stay frigid in my wheelchair, too scared to even
breathe normally.
The wheels start
turning. I know it’s Sun Le from the strong
stench that wafts through again.
Strong stench?
That fleeting
thought comes whizzing back once again and I catch it this time! I know why the
smell is familiar now. It’s formaldehyde—I’ve
smelled it in the biospecimen lab before.
Why
would Sun Le smell like that? Why would a spirit have a smell?
Accurately
speaking, all I’ve seen of Sun Le is a fuzzy, ink-black shape that doesn’t seem
to have any physical form. So why is it that I could feel a hand there when he
was pushing me? And why do I always smell formaldehyde whenever he does?
The
more I ponder the more petrified I feel so I just stop thinking about it
altogether. I don’t want my abnormal mind to come up with a bunch of disturbing
explanations and get scared to death before I even get to the truth.
The
wheelchair slowly rolls past the brightly-lit nurses station. I duck down and
cautiously take a peek.
The
station is busy. Several nurses are looking around for something. Still, they
should be able to hear the sound of the wheelchair trundling on the marble
floor, but I just slide past their line of sight without anyone noticing as if
I’m transparent.
I should have
known there wouldn’t be a problem with him behind me.
The elevator is
still dinging. Every time the doors try to close they open again as though
something is there, as though someone is waiting for me.
The wheelchair
stops in front of the elevator. The ‘drip-drop’
has stopped once again. I clench my jaw and push the wheelchair into the
elevator. Before I even get a chance to adjust myself, the doors have already
closed and the button for the twelfth floor has lit up.
I gape at the lit
button until I hear a ‘drip-drop’
coming from my side. I shut my eyes almost out of reflex.
He’s here, too.
He’s right here beside me. I might not see him…but he’s actually….
The distance of
seven floors seems to be longer than the River Styx itself.
Despite constantly
reminding myself that Sun Le is after the people who took a part of him and
that I’m not one of those people, I still don’t have what it takes to go
looking for him in this well-lit elevator.
“Thank you,” I say
in barely a whisper.
His actions so far
show that he has accepted my proposal. He won’t kill Wu Fan as long as he gets
his eye back.
Drip-drop.
Have I become less
afraid of him than I had previously thought? I’m still frightened but it’s not
in fear of death—I have the reassurance that I
won’t die. It might be tiny beyond detection, to the point that I’m still not
100% sure that he won’t kill me, but I feel assured nonetheless.
Ding-dong.
Finally, the
elevator has reached the twelfth floor. I wheel myself down the silent, black
hallway and realise a problem upon my hands. I only know that Chief is on the
twelfth floor but which room is he in? Yuan Fei didn’t tell me the details.
Drip-drop.
I smell
formaldehyde once again and my body stiffens. I’ve already developed a natural
reflex to this sound. I would immediately go into an alert state or— better yet—a
pessimistic mindset of an animal under the butcher’s knife.
The
wheelchair starts moving again. I think Sun Le is even more anxious than me to
get his eye back.
However,
I still haven’t thought of how I’m supposed to ask for Sun Le’s cornea when I
see Chief. Am I supposed to carve it out?
I
can’t even fathom it.
The
wheelchair stops in front of room 309. Lightly, I push on the door.
Kah-chik.
The
lock opens and I roll in to the room after a deep breath.
There
are patients in all six beds but, with the help of the hazy moonlight, I only
have eyes for the one person who’s still up.
A
light shiver runs through me and I slowly wheel myself over.
“Chief,”
I call out quietly.
Wu
Fan is sitting motionlessly by his bed staring fixedly at the moon, oblivious
to my voice. Seeing Chief like this, I taste something bitter in my mouth and I
almost can’t stifle my sobs.
I
take Chief’s hand into mine. It’s cold—as cold as ice. If it weren’t for his
even breathing I would have thought I was holding a dead man’s hand.
“Chief…it’s
me, Xiao Yu. Do you recognize me?” I gasp.
He’s
still gazing into the distance, not sparing me even a glance.
“Chief,”
I say under my breath while holding his hands. “Sun Le is the one who did
everything. Do you remember him? The Sun Le who committed suicide last summer?”
His
finger jerks violently. Shocked, I look at him. “Do you understand what I’m
saying, Chief?”
He
hasn’t made a sound but his expression has changed. I hurriedly continue, “He
didn’t die from the fall! He could’ve been saved but Cubs’ father killed him to
save Cubs! Those bastards cut him up and took away parts of his body and then
transplanted it to other people’s bodies.”
I
can feel his hands shaking and I continue as tears run down my face. “Chief…. Cubs
got his kidney pierced ‘cause he took Sun Le’s kidney. Kong Linglin got all his
blood drained ‘cause he received blood transfusion. Mu Mu got his bones melted
down ‘cause he received bone marrow transplant. Xu Ping got his skin sliced up
‘cause he received skin transplant. Do you get it? Chief?”
The
other patients in the room should have been woken up by my sobs but they remain
still as though they’re in deep slumber. My suppressed voice wavers as my tears
mixed with sorrow drip onto Chief’s hand.
“Chief,
I don’t remember which eye you got work done on but that cornea belongs to Sun
Le…and he wants it back and he’s gonna kill you doing so. Do you understand?
You’ll die, so…so….”
I’m
choking on my sobs. “Give it back to him…’cause at least you could live even if
you won’t be able see. There’s hope…as long as you’re alive. I don’t want to
see anyone else dying. No more….”
Chief’s
hand has already stopped shaking. I lift up my head and wipe my eyes furiously.
Chief is watching the moon again with that dumb look, his face returning to its
previous emotionless state.
My
hope withers as I watch him. My eyes trail over to the plate of fruit beside
his bed. If there’s a knife-.
I
jump in my seat. What was I going to do with a knife? Stab Chief’s eye out?!
I
scare myself so much with this absurd notion of mine that my hairs are standing
up. Where did I get that horrifying thought from? Just how obdurate of a grudge
is he holding?
Luckily,
there aren’t any fruit knives over there.
“I’m
gonna go, Chief. I’ll come visit another time.”
I
whisper my goodbyes. I’m afraid that I might do something horrendous if I stayed
any longer. But even if I do come again how would I get Sun Le’s eye back from
Chief?
My
mind races as I wheel myself towards the door. When I approach the door, Wu
Fan’s feeble voice breaks the silence.
“I’ve
seen…my cornea donor’s consent form.”
I
snap my head back. It takes me a while to comprehend his deeper meaning. I feel
a pang of pain.
“It’s fake.”
What
is there to stop a bunch of lunatics blinded by money from covering up their
sudden wealth with a seemingly legal guise?
Chief
falls silent again. His silhouette from behind seems all the more worn and
battered. I feel a throbbing pain in my chest.
I
whisper, “Get some rest. I’m gonna go, Chief.”
☵
I don’t quite remember
how I got back to my room but I do remember being so tired that I didn’t have
any energy left to move after climbing on my bed. I wake up from my dreamless
sleep the next morning and when I open my eyes I have a police officer rudely
interrogating me with those seven files.
“These files disappeared from the principal’s safe the
day Xu Ping went missing. Why are they here?”
I show an oblivious face. “Beats me.”
“The nurse who checked your blood pressure was certain
the files weren’t here at two-thirty a.m. Why have they appeared during room
checks at seven o’clock? Where were you and what were you doing between
two-thirty and seven a.m.?”
“I was sleeping, of course. What else would I be doing
in the middle of the night?”
“Why was your wheelchair
unfolded? It was still folded up by the closet at two-thirty a.m.”
“Really? It probably opened by itself.”
He’s giving me hard looks—I don’t think he likes
my flippant attitude. He looks like he might just torture me for information.
“Did you go to Room 309 on the twelfth floor at around
three to four o’clock?”
I do a double take. Why is he asking me that? Could it
be that someone saw me?
“The twelfth floor? You think I could make
it up to the twelfth floor in this state right now, Officer?”
His impatience finally shows through. “Mr. Xiao! We
ask that you cooperate with us! Wu Fan, the patient in room 309 was found
fallen over in the room at five o’clock with his right eye damaged. The door
was supposed to be locked but it was opened. We have sufficient evidence to
believe someone entered the room.”
A violent shiver runs through me. I clutch onto his
arm. “What happened to him? Who did it?! Is Chief alright?”
Could it be that Sun Le did it himself because I wasn’t
able to get his eye back for him? Is Chief in any danger?!
My extreme reaction makes the officer waver and his
attitude actually becomes better.
“He’s not in life-threatening danger but his right eye
has been completely damaged. I’m afraid he’ll lose vision in that eye,” he in
turn consoles.
I let out a sigh of relief and ask after some thought,
“Who did it?”
The officer looks at me and steadily explains, “It
appears that he had broken the plate on his bedside table and stabbed a glass
shard through his own pupil, but the psychiatrist who diagnosed him stated that
he has an irrational fear of broken glass so it’s hard to believe he’d do it
himself. Moreover, the door was unlocked so there’s always a possibility that
someone set the crime scene up to trick us.”
I clench my jaw hard and let my head drop
forward.
Chief did it himself. He stabbed his own eye.
Chief….
“The nurses on night shift yesterday said there were
signs that someone had used the elevator but the recordings from the
surveillance camera inside the elevator between three and four o’clock have
been wiped for some reason. This series of coincidences leads us to strongly
believe that someone caused all this to happen within that period of time.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t let out a breath of
relief. At least, so far, there hasn’t been any evidence that suggests I had
been to Wu Fan’s room. At least I wouldn’t go from a suspect to the offender.
“Are you seriously considering that a patient like me
sneaked past all the night shift staff, tampered with the surveillance camera
in the elevator, picked open the door and assaulted a young man who’s bigger
and taller than me?”
His expression twitches a little. I can tell he
also agrees that this notion isn’t too convincing. The only reason that I’m
even a suspect is because of the files in my room and the unfolded wheelchair,
but that kind of speculation practically equals nothing.
The officer keeps
questioning and I keep telling him lies just as before, only in a more sincere
tone. His attitude softens as well, and he leaves after finishing with the
records and fingerprints. I lie back down on the cot and rub roughly on the
clay on my thumb. My eyes become clouded with moisture. Is it going to end now?
Finally….
I stay in the hospital for recovery while Yuan Fei gets
out after about a week in the hospital because of lighter injuries. He comes
back frequently to visit and becomes my only connection to the outside world.
My parents also
come back to the country to visit me and only go back to work after I insisted
that I was fine and giving me a long-winded lecture. Fortunately, they haven’t
heard of anything about our dorm since they have been abroad and only think
that I accidentally fell down the stairs under Yuan Fei’s purposeful
misleading. If not for that, they might just sell their companies and come back
home, or worse, make me go abroad with them.
Chief has lost all
vision in his right eye but he’s mentally more stable now. His family checked
him out of the hospital after about half a month. I hear from Yuan Fei that the
vision in Chief’s left eye has started to rapidly decrease due to the blindness
in his right. The hospital had recommended surgery but Chief turned it down,
the reason being that, unless he hears the donor say the words themselves, he
won’t consent to it even if there’s a consent form.
And that
essentially meant refusal of surgery.
Later on, Chief
didn’t go back to school, instead he resigned from school and immigrated to
Germany with his family.
The serial murders
of Room 308 seem to have died down just like that. The ghastly corpse of the
last victim, Xu Ping, is found outside the principal’s office ten days after he
goes “missing,” causing the school to go in to panic once more. The perpetrator
and motive—still unknown.
Investigations
continue for another month or so without getting anywhere. They stop
questioning Yuan Fei and me, too, and the investigation team is finally broken
up after leaving one unsolved mystery after another, the whole case sinking
into the bottom of the ocean.
I’m
sure if there was an X-Files China then what happened to Room 308 and its
tenants would be in it.
Finally,
I can walk properly after two months or so in the hospital. Yuan Fei gets so
excited that he spins me around and around the hospital room in his arms, the
result being a brutal scolding from the nurse.
What
a nice and relaxing time it has been. I don’t have to worry about that fuzzy
shadow in the night or that “drip-drop” sound that seemed to have leeched
itself on me. Every day, I welcome the new day with a smile and wave goodbye at
the sunset with a smile. The nurses wonder why I’m always happy and smiling all
the time.
Why
wouldn’t I be? What would you do if you were marching in an endless, barren
desert and you can’t even spare a tear because of the relentless hunger and
thirst, your remaining strength no longer sufficient to support your next step
forward, when suddenly, you see a vast oasis, not the mirages you see before
death but a real, actual heaven?
Smiling
would be the least flashy display of the ecstasy you would be feeling inside.
Right
now, I’m humming while packing my belongings because I’m going to check out
tomorrow. I’m already really behind on my homework, but I’m excited and dreading
it a bit, too, to end my pig sty
lifestyle and get back into the real world.
“Oh yeah, I want a
few more bags of those green beans they sell in the store downstairs. I haven’t
seen them anywhere else and they’re so tasty!”
“Hey, hey, hey.
You’re too old for junk food. Plus, you’ll fart a lot if you eat beans!”
“Shuddap!” I scold
jokingly. “Just go get it!”
“Why should I?” He
looks unhappy.
“’Cause you’re
paying, duh!” I pep.
“But why?”
He keeps whining.
“Now,
now, be a good boy.” I pat his head and kiss him lightly on the cheeks on my
tip-toes. I hurriedly hop away and stutter nervously. “Alright! I gave you your
reward! Now, go, go, go.”
He
touches his cheek, giggles and marches out with his nose in the air. After he
leaves, my cheeks start burning and my heart pounds, making me pant and fan
myself like crazy.
“Xiao
Yu, oh, Xiao Yu, since when have you become so open?” I slap my mouth lightly
as a punishment. “Don’t do such embarrassing things again!”
Punishment
complete. I start humming again as I pack my things.
Out of nowhere, a
minuscule yet extremely evident sound enters my senses.
Drip-drop.
The CD drops from
my hands and I feel as if I’ve been soaked in ice water and my heart has
frozen.
How?
Isn’t it over? How
is it….
It must be my
imagination…. Just my imagination.
Drip-drop.
The familiar
feeling of my hairs standing up comes back and I hear my own teeth chattering.
“Why…?” I manage
to ask in a breathy voice filled with a despair I’d never known.
Is it not over
yet? Has the bliss the past few months been an illusion before death?
Is this his
ultimate way of torturing me? If so, he’s succeeded because all my happiness
and joy crumbled into pieces when he showed up beside me once again.
I’ve lost hope—all hope.
“We’ve given
it back to you already. Why’re you still here?” Tears slide past my cheeks to
my quivering lips. “Is there no escape?”
An odour wafts
faintly in the air, becoming thicker by the second. It is the smell
of…formaldehyde.
A hand-like
thing sticks into my hair. I feel every one of my pores shivering and chills
running through my scalp. My inner voice tells me the strange touch is not from
an earthly being. It’s now running through my hair….
Drip-drop.
“Are you the
devil?” I choke.
Why
did he let me think it was over when he was going to do this today? It has
destroyed my hopes once again right when I started to enjoy a normal life.
Only
the devil would play with the human
heart like this.
Drip-drop.
He
keeps running his hand through my hair as if he enjoys toying with me. I feel
each of my hairs scratching against his
finger. I’m so frightened that I
wish I could just run away but my feet are nailed down to the ground. The next
moment, I feel that chilly sensation reaching towards my earlobe.
I
can’t stand it anymore. My legs give in and
I collapsed to the ground. I hold my head and sob quietly. “Stop
this torture. Let me be
or just kill me. I can’t
stand it anymore. I’ll go insane.”
Drip-drop.
Perhaps
I’m too scared. My heart starts to pound
erratically and soon my vision goes black from the suffocating feeling.
Dizzily, I seem to have stood up. The hand behind me starts to push me forward
and I robotically obey.
Where
am I going this time? The roof again?
But
I can only obey no matter where it is I’m
going.
I
walk on dumbly. Quite a few people say hello to me in the hallways. They ask me
if I’m feeling all right
because I look very pale. I force a smile that probably looks worse than a
frown before continuing to my unknown destination under the guidance of an
invisible force.
I
am blindly heading to a place that I don’t know of—some unknown place in the
hospital. Then he makes me stop in front of an office. The door opens slowly.
I
gape at a room full of specimens. Two-headed infants, deformed infants,
underdeveloped infants, skulls, arms, legs…. If this wasn’t
a hospital, if I’ve never seen something
like this before at school, I would probably scream my head off like anyone
else would.
The
hand behind me pushes me forward and I pass through rows and rows of shelves
full of appalling specimens, finally stopping at one particular shelf. Slowly,
I look up and my eyes stop on an arm soaked in orangey yellow formaldehyde on
the second to the last shelf.
Drip-drop.
My
tears fall down along with this sound.
“Those…sons
of bitches.” I clench my teeth and
ball my fists.
No
wonder. Sun Le should have no form but I can always feel a “hand.”
No wonder there’s always a smell of
formaldehyde whenever the “hand”
appears. It’s because he hasn’t
gotten every part of his body back yet. Some body part is still suffering in
the mortal world.
Drip-drop.
Don’t cry. Sun Le, don’t cry.
Drip-drop.
Please don’t
cry anymore.
I
go on my tip-toes and manage to get the sizable jar with lots of effort. I hold
it close to my chest, afraid that my shaking hands would drop it, in turn
shattering the last unresolved grudge of Sun Le.
Drip-drop.
“Who’s
there?”
I
quickly turn around to see a familiar-looking man dressed in white standing at
the door. He looks just as surprised as I do and asks tentatively, “Is
that…Xiao Yu?”
It
hits me. It’s him—Cubs’
dad.
“Mr.
Jin.”
I
can’t greet my good friend’s
father normally anymore. His selfishness was the cause of this tragedy.
“What
are you doing here?” He has dropped the
wary look when he recognized me. He asks kindly, “What’re
you holding that thing for? Now, put it down.
This place is off-limits.”
Seeing
him beckoning to me so good-naturedly makes my heart sting with pain.
“Mr.
Jin, do you know whose arm this was?”
He
pauses for a moment before chuckling. “All of the specimens here were taken
from corpses. As for whose it was, I really don’t know. All I know is that it
wasn’t taken from a living person.”
“No,
this was taken from a living person.” I try to smile but fail miserably.
“What?”
“It
was taken from a university student called Sun Le.”
Mr.
Jin doesn’t recognize the name and looks utterly confused. I scoff. So, you obliterated someone’s fate whose
name you didn’t even remember, and took away his right to life.
“Let
me remind you. His name was Sun Le, a student at NY College. He committed
suicide last summer, jumping off the seventh floor, and was sent to this
hospital for emergency care.”
He
stays quiet for a while and suddenly he pales.
“You
remember now? You haven’t forget about that summer when Can desperately needed
a kidney, have you? There was a university student who committed suicide who
was a match for Can’s kidney transplant so you said to your father, the
director of the hospital: ‘Dad, Can can’t wait any longer.’”
“Shut
up!” Mr. Jin looks at me with frightened eyes and backs up in disbelief. “How
did you know? How?”
“Hmm,
that’s a good question.” My vision goes blurry and my throat constricts. “You
remember how Can died, right? Mr. Jin, what goes around comes back around.”
His
eyes go wide in shock and he shakes his head weakly. “No. Can’s kidney was a
donation. His death was…was….”
He
can’t continue because he knows the kidney that was pierced by that
gravity-defying piece of glass was the kidney that was transplanted.
“Do
you want to know what happened to Room 308, Mr. Jin?”
I
feel like a devil now, slowly eating away at a father’s conscience. “All five
victims underwent different surgeries last summer. Each one took a part of Sun
Le so he took them back, one by one.”
“Shut
up!” He roars like a madman. “Xiao Yu, you need to go get checked at the psych
department! You’re talking about a dead person here! A dead man can’t do
anything!”
“A
person may die, but their grudges stay.”
I
hiss. “Don’t you have any morals? Hasn’t your conscience ever eaten away at you
for taking a person’s life in return for your son’s? How could you? How could
you decide his fate for him, just because Sun Le was a powerless
orphan and nobody would question his death? Have you ever thought about the
suffering he had to go through before dying, how much hatred he must’ve felt
watching himself get murdered, how he watched you cut him up with scalpels and
trade his life for money? What would you feel towards the world if you were
him? You’d want to take revenge. Your aggrieved spirit would transform into a
grudge so strong and take everything back from those who took it from you.”
“Stop,
just stop.” Mr. Jin slumps down by the door, cheeks wet with tears. “You
wouldn’t understand, Xiao Yu. To helplessly watch your son’s life slip away
through your fingers, it drives a father crazy! Ethics? Morals? None of that
mattered anymore. I just wanted Can to live, even if I had to kill for it. Can
was the continuation of our bloodline. If he died our whole family would
collapse. Do you understand? Can was so, so, so important—even more than me. I’d
give my life for his but…but….”
Mr.
Jin looks like he’s in immense pain. “Can had a brother…the same problem…only I
had a matching blood type so I gave him one of my kidneys without thinking! But
his body rejected it after the transplant…then Can got the same thing! You know
how that feels? You put in everything only to go right back to square one! Only
this time I didn’t have another kidney to spare. I wanted to save him…my only
son.”
“But
the person who suffered in the end was none other than the son you didn’t want
to hurt.”
My dear Cubs, if you were still here and knew about
your kidney being one taken from a murdered senpai, would you weep tears of
heartbreak?
You would. I know you would. Because you’re so kind.
But your kindness was devoured by the sins of those grownups.
Perhaps,
the grudge-holding Sun Le is well aware that the best way of revenge is not
killing a person but to destroy everything that is dear to him. Therefore,
Cubs’ death would become the most hurtful, most devastating punishment for this
sinner.
“But
why did it become like this? Why did it become like this?”
He’s
sobbing now. His wails seem to grind my heart. I look down at the jar in my arms
and walk over to him, putting it down gently. “This is Sun Le’s last grudge in
our world. It was you who caused this series of tragedies to occur so you
should be the one to put an end to it.”
I
place his hand on the jar and grip it tightly. “Let him rest in peace and
resolve this hatred and sin.”
I
walk out of the room and take one look at Mr. Jin crying on the floor.
Sun Le, are you watching? Those are his tears of
repentance. It might be too late but please try to forgive the irrational
decision of a father who loves his son, for he has already paid with his
suffering, his organ and the rest of his life.
I
turn around and walk towards the exit.
Drip-drop.
Drip-drop.
Drip-drop....
The
distinct sounds drift further and further, lingering in the distance, no longer
trailing me.
The
piercing sunlight is so hot when I leave the building that my eyes tear up. I
can’t get it to stop.
“Xiao
Yu! Where did you go? I was lookin’ all over for you!”
I
hear Yuan Fei’s furious voice. I open my eyes to look at him. He grabs me in
concern after seeing my face. “Are you okay? Not feeling well? You’re crying.”
“The
sun’s too bright.”
I
cling to him. The feelings I’ve been bottling up have finally been released and
the tears keep coming. “Just let me cry. Let me cry a life’s worth of tears…so
I won’t ever cry again…mmkay? I just wanna cry. Let me cry it all out, okay?”
Scared
by my bawling, he embraces me and keeps patting me. “Mmkay, mmkay. You can cry
all you want. I’ll be here.”
I
let everything out with no restraint, speaking a bunch of nonsense, and get my
face wet with tears and snot. Yuan Fei jokes and tries to comfort me but when I
don’t stop crying he gets concerned and red in the eyes as well. At last, I
break into guffaws seeing his expression while there are still tears on my
face, making Yuan Fei exclaim in bewilderment: “This kid’s gone mad!”
The
next day, I check out of the hospital.
☵
Two days later, the General Hospital makes the headlines, shocking everyone.
The son of the hospital’s director went to the police and gave everything up,
how the hospital abandoned the resuscitation of a certain student who was
brought in from a certain school due to him being an orphan and instead
transplanted his organ to the director’s grandson who had been in critical condition.
Instantly, the news spread like wildfire. The
police follow the clues and uncover many more cases of black market trades that
occurred in the hospital, the amount unimaginably high. The local media start
reporting relentlessly on the illegal dealings of hospitals all over the
country. Many well-known figures in the medical field are exposed and
investigations are extended to the family members of the patients involved in
the illegal trade. The society’s trust in hospitals plummets and leaves the
people in a panic.
Later on, every one of the medical staff
involved in the murder of Sun Le, the student of Northern Yu College, gets
sentenced. Mr. Jin was supposed to receive the death sentence but on the
account that he gave himself up and repented for his actions, the court gives
him a death sentence with reprieve and strips him of legal rights instead.
Director Jin is sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole and is stripped
of legal rights. The other offenders are sentenced to ten to thirty years with
parole, depending on the level of involvement.
This appalling case has become the
embarrassment of the nation’s medical field and finally, after nine months of
hearings, the whole ordeal comes to an end.
I put down the newspaper and lay it flat on the
ground. Just as I sit up, I hear Yuan Fei yelling at me. “Xiao Yu! I found it!
Over there!”
So I get up and crumple the paper into a ball,
tossing it in the trashcan.
Right now, Yuan Fei and I are at a cemetery in
the suburbs. We have finally found the tiny home of Sun Le on the solemn, grand
Columbarium wall.
Yuan Fei puts down the flowers in his hands and
lights some incense. He says quietly to the grey photograph, “Sun Le, I know I
can’t repay what I owe you so please come find me in the next life. I will
definitely repay you for your love.”
I observe his face from the side silently.
Seeing his handsome complexion all earnest and somber makes my heart
pound.
He sticks the incense into the small censer and
grins at me. “Don’t get mad. You can come find me too.”
“Pshh.” I roll my eyes at him and scoff. “What
do you mean next life? Who says I’ll have anything to do with you this life?
Who do you think you are?”
“You little…!” He squeezes through his teeth
while he glares at me. He then says to the photo, “Sun Le, you need to scare
him in his dreams for me tonight. He’s always picking on me!”
I kick him while laughing, only then does he
start looking serious. “You burn some incense for him too.”
“’Kay.”
I light three sticks of incense after replying
and face Sun Le. My mind races momentarily. “Sun Le…I didn’t know you that well
and I never talked to you before but I really regret it…if only I knew you
then. We would’ve been good friends.”
Actually, I have a lot to say but it all melts
into one: “I wish you happiness in your next life.”
Never to meet such a
terrible end. Never to hold such grudges against this world. Never to use blood
to cleanse the sins…because you’ll have our blessings in your next life.
I plant the incense into the censer as a man
and a woman approaches with curious eyes. “Are you friends of Sun Le’s?”
My eyes go to the strangers. He smiles. “Hello,
I was Sun Le’s classmate. I used to be the class rep. My name is Wang Meng.”
“Oh, hello.” We quickly shake hands.
“What a surprise. I thought there wouldn’t be
anyone else but us coming to visit. Didn’t think anyone’d still remember him.
It’s very nice of you.” He points to the woman beside him with a smile. “This
is my wife, Ma Xiaoying. Her first crush was Sun Le so she’s been dragging me
along to visit.”
Embarrassed, Ma Xiaoying pinches Wang Meng and
he cries out exaggeratedly, making everyone laugh.
“Oh, and you are…?”
“Oh, I’m Yuan Fei and he’s Xiao Yu.” Then he flashes
a smile and continues.
“I’ve heard about
you before. He said he wasn’t that popular in the class but you’d always look out for
him. He was really grateful.”
Wang Meng scratches his head shyly but he
grins. “He really said that? Hehe. Then it wasn’t all for nothing. That guy
could go for a day without saying a thing and when you talk to him he’d just
kinda smile at you. Made me wonder for the longest time whether he saw me as a
friend or didn’t like me.”
Then, he studies me and blurts. “Weren’t you in
the senior high department? Xiao Yu of class 3?”
I’m a little surprised. “Yes. How did you
know?”
“It really is you!” He chuckles good-heartedly.
“So you two were really friends after all! He didn’t talk much but he had a ton
to say when it came to you. And he said you were the person he wanted to paint
the most and he wanted to talk to you but was too scared. I thought he left
with regret but it turns out you knew each other! This is great!”
I raise my brows. What is he talking about?
Wang Meng keeps
going. “He was really good at
landscape but he rarely did portraits. But actually, the portraits he painted
were brilliant. It’s just that there weren’t many people that he wanted to
draw. That’s why you looked familiar: you’re Xiao Yu. See, he had a portrait
sketch book and it only had drawings of you in it. Laughing ones, mad ones,
smiling ones, sad ones…. I’d always said he must’ve been really close with you
or else how could he have drawn all those, right? But he insisted that he never
even talked to you and just drew from imagination.”
I’m not sure what to say right now.
Then he scratches his head again. “You know Sun
Le’s a pretty good-looking guy, right? So people always thought he was gay. So
these people asked me if he had someone….” He sighs. “Well, I really regret it
now but I suspected he was, too, and I thought of you. So I told them he had
feelings for someone in senior high. Then the rumours got way outta hand and
they started saying he had a lover in senior high. Thank goodness I never said
your name, or else things would’ve gone haywire.”
“Wait…so that guy in senior high was you?”
Yuan Fei looks at me, shocked. So I’m actually
the reason why they met?
Actually, I’ve realised a while ago that Sun Le never
wanted to hurt Yuan Fei and me and that’s why he kept following Yuan Fei around
and couldn’t help touching him at night. It wasn’t revenge but a show of love
by a spirit in love with him. As for me, I should’ve been a third party in it
all but I’ve never been in real danger.
The only one time I was in danger was when Sun Le
threw me down the stairs and that was probably because he was angry about my
betrayal. Yuan Fei was really nice to me, after all, and Sun Le saw that so he
got so mad at my betraying Yuan Fei at such a time that he almost killed
me.
We were never Sun Le’s targets to begin with and we
were never in danger. It was our fear of the other realm that demonized him and
filled us with alarm with regards to his existence. That is why we kept hiding
and running for our lives.
While we screamed ourselves hoarse from the
overwhelming panic, he never once actually harmed us. He just trailed behind us
quietly, watching. Perhaps, he was trying to find closure from us while we
thought of the pitiful spirit as a nightmare.
Now I know more. He didn’t choose me
randomly. He had been observing me before I even knew of him. Perhaps I was
wrong about him touching my earlobes because I had been wearing Yuan Fei’s
jacket. How could he not know who his beloved person was? He probably only did
it because he had wanted to touch me.
The last time at the hospital when he gently brushed
my hair, I was so terrified I was sprawled out on the floor, and I asked him
“Are you the devil?” I wonder what he had felt when he heard that. He had never
hurt me, yet I kept hurting him with my words and actions and misunderstanding
him.
I was wrong. I was wrong right from
the get go. I haven’t once been right when it comes to Sun Le.
“Xiao Yu? You okay? You don’t
look too good.” Wang Meng asks, concerned.
I tug my lips up into a wide smile. “We were good
friends. Really, really good friends.”
“Huh?”
Wang Meng probably doesn’t know why I said such an
irrelevant comment but I don’t care. I just want to say it in the most sincere
way possible so Sun Le can hear what I feel from the bottom of my heart.
If we had met before
your incident, maybe everything would be completely different now. Don’t you
think, Sun Le?
“Oh right, oh right!” Wang Meng giggles as he rubs Ma
Xiaoying’s stomach. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m gonna be a dad!”
He sounds like a kid boasting about his new toy.
Ma Xiaoying shoots him a dirty look. “What do you mean
‘secret’? You’ve literally announced it to the whole world.”
Yuan Fei cheerfully congratulates them while I stare
fixedly at her slightly bulging stomach. A peculiar feeling comes upon me like
the many hints Sun Le had given me. I slowly crack a smile.
“Have you picked a name yet?” asks Yuan Fei.
“Not yet. We’re racking our brains out.” Wang Meng
frowns. “We dunno if it’s a boy or girl so we gotta prepare two lists!”
“How ‘bout,” I mumble, “Lele? I hope your child can always be
happy.”
“Lele?” The couple shares a look and bursts into
laughter. “Wang Lele. It’s a good name. Good for both genders.”
“That settles it then! Wang Lele it is!” Wang Meng
laughs as he holds my hand. “Thank you so much, Xiao Yu! You better come to the
baby shower!”
“Well, aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves
here?” Ma Xiaoying chides.
The four of us chat a bit more before we say our
goodbyes. When we turn to leave, Wang Meng calls out again. “Oh yeah, I forgot
to ask. Is that guy in student council called Wu Fan still there? How is he?”
I waver before answering. “Wu Fan? He went to Germany.”
“Aw. That’s too bad,” he says. “The school wanted to
get Sun Le’s cremation done and over with as fast as they could. It was he who started
a petition in the class to get him a place in the cemetery. It took a lotta
effort but we secured a small spot in this good fengshui place.”
It takes me a moment before finding my words. “Is that
so? He really did a good thing.”
“Yeah, he sure did! Alright, we’re gonna head over
there. Have a good day, you guys.”
“Bye.”
My lips curve up again after our second goodbye.
So that’s why. No wonder Sun Le gave Wu Fan an extra
chance. No wonder Wu Fan was the only lucky survivor.
“Whatchu smiling for?” Yuan Fei asks curiously.
“I was just thinking,” I flash a sweet smile at him.
“How there isn’t such a thing as ‘coincidental’, only ‘predestined.’”
“Huh?”
I pay no attention to the puzzled Yuan Fei and start
running. He hurries after me, calling my name, and I go even faster while
laughing out loud until I hear:
Drip-drop.
I stop dead in my tracks and Yuan Fei grabs my hand,
quickly comforting me. “Xiao Yu, it’s all over now!”
I look up and it’s Yuan Fei’s worried face. I chuckle
out loud and pull my hand away. I walk over to the sink that the cemetery
prepared for visitors. The sink is stuck, a pool of water lying in the bottom.
Water oozes from the loose faucet and slowly drips down. Drip-drop.
I place my hand on the knob of the tap and take a deep
breath to control the tremors brought by my reflexes. Everything starting from
that game begins to flash across my mind. All the sadness, pain, suffering and
fright are a nightmare of the past. Steadily, I let the air out as if to
release every last bit of the negativity from my mind, only leaving the things
that moved me and will remember for the rest of my life.
Gently, I twist it shut and watch as the last drop of
water drip into the pool. Drip-drop.
I know it’s really going to be the end this time.
I turn around and see Yuan Fei standing there with a
concerned look. For some reason I think of that one thing he asked me but I
didn’t answer.
Therefore, I ask him with a smile. “Let’s never be
apart, okay?”
He freezes and his expression changes drastically, both
shocked and delighted. I feel all warm in my heart seeing this but his face
darkens all of a sudden. “I’m not gonna reply to you just yet.”
“Why?” I blurt.
“Hmmph. ‘Cause you didn’t reply right away when I
asked you, and you only replied after nine months and twenty-eight days!”
I roll my eyes. “Who the hell remembers that stuff?”
“I do!” He retorts.
I burst out laughing and
skip up to him, taking his hand into mine.
“Then I’ll wait nine months
for you,” I whisper.
He nods, beaming, and holds
my hand tightly.
My smile is innocent but
I’m plotting in my head: ‘The most I’ll give you is nine hours and twenty-eight
minutes. I’ll make you surrender one way or another!’
With that settled, I pull
an even sweeter smile.
As we stroll
towards the exit of the cemetery, a single drop of water slowly seeps from the
faucet behind us. It falls into the sink and
causes a ring of ripples and a clear sound.
Drip-drop.
Afterword
*palms together* It’s finally finished. Many thanks
to the readers who have been with me through it all. Thank you all!
Now, I’ll be
answering some questions some of the readers may have.
First of all, a
lot of people think that Sun Le is ‘taking his revenge,’ so they don’t
understand why he didn’t ‘take his revenge’ on the doctors. Actually, though,
this is not the case. The Chinese have always thought the worst way to die is
to die without a whole corpse—even dead eunuchs held
on to their p***ses for burial, so that they are ‘intact’ and are able to
reincarnate. Therefore, it would be more fitting to say Sun Le was taking back
his body parts rather than revenge.
♪ Bring back what you took from me~Puke out
what you ate from me~
To be honest, taking out all the organs other
than the eyeball without using surgical procedures looked really bloody in my
mind, and that is why all those people died in a bloody manner. Firstly, the
parents would experience the pain of losing a son. Secondly, I’ve always
thought that you reap what you sow, and even if you’re not the one reaping,
your relatives would be. So you can’t do anything immoral or there will be
consequences. Therefore, their deaths were inevitable. Ahem.
As for the guiltiest of them all, the doctors,
I didn’t give them a bad ending in the story, only legal consequences. That’s
because I know the world’s an unjust place. One murder sometimes only brings a
few years in jail (I can give you lots of examples in real life). This is
reality. No matter what you want, some bad people just get off easy. If Cubs’
father didn’t turn himself in, all those doctors would still be out and about
so I chose to stick closer to reality with them. I consulted a lawyer friend
and was told that Cubs’ father and grandfather would be the ones with the
harshest sentences. The other doctors would never get a death penalty and
considering the grandfather’s age and how the father turned himself in, they
wouldn’t either. As for the sentences for the other doctors, I did my research
online. It was usually 30 years or less so I went with an average-length
sentence. I personally think it’s too short but it’s hard to be objective. T_T
We can only imagine them: 1) discredited as
professionals, 2) beat up in prison, 3) abandoned by their wives and kids when
they get out, 4) not able to find jobs, and finally 5) dying after a long sorry
life. Better than a bullet to the head. Uh-huh.
But what’s written above isn’t what Sun Le was
concerned with. His actions were more straightforward: he wants his body back.
As for justice, I will leave that to you real human beings (the justice I’ve
written is already an ideal outcome; bad guys turning themselves in and the
secret being uncovered are actually all very unlikely to happen in reality, whereas
it’s more likely that they would get away with it). I’m sure you can picture
what the ending would be like if this kind of incident actually occurred.
On another note, it’s not a coincidence that
the five dead guys were living in the same dorm but this novel’s word count was
way too high and I couldn’t foreshadow anymore. So I have to sneak a little in
here. Sun Le died an unjust death so someone wanted to use this to gather them
together and then use the game to summon Sun Le back to the mortal realm. But
Sun Le’s grudge was resolved so the plan failed (actually I wanted to make the
five ooxxooxx). But the story doesn’t end there. Sun Le killed too many people,
no matter for what reason, so Wang Lele won’t be having such a great life
either (like I said, don’t do bad things *sigh*). But that would be the content
of another book predicted to come out in n
months. But you can pretend it doesn’t exist seeing that n>12. Hehe, I’m done with my little blurb. See you in the next
book!
________________________________
Dairytea's comment: Thank you, dear readers, for following us to the end and to all those who helped us with this project. ; u ; xoxo
ayszhang's announcement: I have a confession (yes another one). I didn't do a good enough job with translating the title of the novel (the one with Han Xin as the main character) >_<; and now I regret it and want to change it. I just wanted to give you all a head's up. Perhaps I'll set up a poll with the options. I want to change it to "Beyond the Frore Dunes" but I'm also okay with "Cold Sands: Beyond the Frore Dunes" because we're all kind of used to calling it "Cold Sands". What do you guys think?
Chapter 11
The Water Goes Drip-Drop - English Translation by ayszhang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Thanks for your hard work! Cool picture too~
ReplyDeleteWoah so fast!
DeleteThanks so much. And congrats on finishing it. I hope to read more stories like this in the future. Thanks again! ^^
ReplyDelete:D Welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Delete>< i'm third i wanted to be first for the last chapter!!
ReplyDeletei'm only three minutes late!!!!
DeleteOh my :s everyone is so hard-working today!!! *touched*
DeleteAnyways~I still love you even though you're third <3 now go read the chapter!
ALRIGHTY.. i read it all.
Deletenow, first thing before anyother thing:
WHY? TT^TT *sob sob* WHY DID IT END SO FAST WHY?? WHY??? TELL ME WHY!!!!!!
*sniff* i admit i wanted it to end and all but it was just because i loved it so much and was soooo curious to know why all of those things were happening.. life is so cruel.. why, why WHY?!
- see how my life turn over dramatic whenever i finish a story i love.. agh it a toture!!
OK~ now forget my boring lifestory (again!!) lets get into the subjuct
the chapter is sooooooo long, it satisfied me completly and the ending... oh my god i thought it was going to be sad but it was soooooooo sooooooooo soooooooooooooooo supersweet ^^
i loved it sooooo much, it consisted of somesad parts where i was fighting to not shed tears but generally it was awesome... congratualations on completing your first novel YAAAAAAY *applause applause*
anyway, now everything is clear to me.. the reason why Sun Le killed them all.. indeed he wanted to get his organs back but it is the perfect way to revenge ofcource.. the best way to avenge someone is by taking his most beloved and dearest to his heart..
it was brave of the chief to make the dicision to stab his own eye, i lower my hat in respect.. he really is sooo.. *sight* i have no idea... yep.. he really deserveed to live..
oh yeah i was soo shocked that Sun Le actually wanted to be friends with Xiao Yu.. and all that sketching and portraits of him really makes you think he tottaly is inlove with him... agh it is soo sad that he couldn't get the chance to do so TT^TT
oh yeah and when he touched Xiao Yu.. it was sooo sweet but a very sad goodbye >< agh really if i were there when he was alive i'd have intoduced him to Xiao Yu weather he accepts or not...
and the most shocking thing.. the cause of all the problems "YUan FEi and Sun Le meating, Sun LE's tragetic death, the organs being trasparented to the other guys and for them to die eccept chief but givin him a goog lesson ...etc" everything happened because of Xiao Yu!!!
WOW he soooooo loved to DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hmmmm.. what else? whatelse?? oh yeah!! that new story the author was planning to write and didn't , i belive you said for 10 years in the comments so i have this impossible theory
O.o that n=12.. what if it meant 12 years!! o.O
HAHA no way ><
i'm just saying don't get your hopes up....
as for cold sands.. any name is perfect, but i really got used to calling it cold sands so if you needed to change the name i'll still call it cold sands ^^
thank you for your hard work up till now.. congratualations again on finishing your first novel.. keep up the good work.. and.. yeah the picture was soo good i hope i got the characters right.. noo i'm sure i got'em all correct...
sooooooo i'mm see in the next chapter of cold sands .. or lets say Beyond the Frore Dunes... it would be prefect if its named "Cold Sands: Beyond the Frore Dunes" as i said before whatever it is named i still will call it C.D
See you Later.. Bye Bye
TUT it was such a good time but sadly it's over now *sniff*
DeleteThanks :D we're all very excited that we're done~
Yeah Sun Le had a tough life. I was actually rooting for him along the way :3 Im biased hehe
If only he had met Xiao Yu :/
O_o this story was written in 2006 and a lot of fans including me have asked the author but she said she probably wont write it :(
Haha i think that one would be better or maybe something like "Beyond the Frore Dunes (Cold Sands)"
you know... an idea came to my mind a minutes ago, about writing a bl horror story ofc. And i thought why not use the name LiLi as the main character??
DeleteBut i'm not sure if i'd write because i usually write about detectives, so writing a love story or a horror one would be something new to me.
incase i actually write it i'll inform you (i'm thinking about creating a page to publish my stories)
what do you think? is it a good idea to do so??,
hold on i spelled the name wrong it's LeLe right??
Delete8D Ofc it's a good idea! <3 Let us know when you do~
Deleteoh the finale already aww. thanks
ReplyDeleteYeahh :') we've finally made it to the end! Yay~~ thanks for the support
DeleteThank youu!! >_< Looking forward to your next projects woohoo!!
ReplyDelete^^ Thank you for the support!!!
DeleteDamn, I want the next part of the series.Has it been released yet? Will you be translating it?
ReplyDeleteNo :( the author never got to writing it. It's been almost ten years since... So i think we're out of luck
DeleteIt ended.. no kiss? hahahaha.. i was scared shitless at first.. then it turn out to be a really lovely story.. thanks for translating and sharing. good job..
ReplyDelete>3< A cheek kiss~
DeleteYeah! The first few chapters were a lot scarier whereas the later half was about solving the mystery.
You're welcome :))) glad you liked it!
These kinds of stories tend to end like this, imo. So scary at first with all sorts of mysteries, then in the end, solved or not, turns out much or sightly better...I was so scared reading the first 2-3 chapters, (I don't know how I survived it lol) but it wasn't so scary anymore later.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was a good read. Thanks a lot for your hard work and effort! <3
As for the title for Cold Sands, either one's fine with me.
Catch you next time whenever...since our time is too far apart. When a new chapter's released, and despite me knowing the time, I'm still sleeping, too early over here lol (though I woke up early today just for this, honestly /yawns and goes back to sleep ha ha)
Anyway, thanks again and have a good day!! <3
Haha its true! I don't think anyone could keep writing scary stuff for the whole book! The readers wouldn't have time to catch their breath either XD
DeleteOkay~ Thank you for the feedback :)
Aww go back to sleep~ I'll see you next week for Cold Sands (Beyond the Frore Dunes X3)
Thank you! It's too bad for Lele.
ReplyDeleteYeah :s too bad.
DeleteWelcome ^u^
Thanks so much for translating this novel! I haven't read it yet 'cause I was waiting for the translations to be completed, but it looks pretty interesting. It's so damn difficult to find BL with plot, and even more difficult to find scanlation/translation groups that are interested in translating plotty BL, so I'm really pleased when I - once in a blue moon - manage to come across something like this.
ReplyDeleteThanks again, and best of luck to your group in the future!
Oooh 8D I hope you like it!
DeleteThank you~ <3
whoah-hoh small world they're in eh
ReplyDeleteand let me get this straight if im understanding correctly, were they in some kind of one-sided love triangle-ish back then? sun le liked xiao yu, xiao yu clueless, then yuan fei got dragged into because his friends thought sun le liked him, then he (yuan fei) ended up liking sun le instead? so sun le was never into sun le but rather, xiao yu? @__@ i might be misreading if i'm wrong
oh well, thanks guys for your hard work as usual for these. now i'm just waiting for love late and will continue cold sands later. speaking of cold sands, the new title sounds better, but i'm used to the old one, BUT whichever is truer to the title, then i don't mind. d^_^
Yeah! Exactly. Sun Le liked Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu had no idea. Yuan Fei got dragged into it and fell in love with Sun Le. =u= I think most stories have a really small world or else the character set would get way tooo big XD
DeleteThanks for the support :D
oh the twist.
Deletei guess my brain's slowly working again lol
yeah, true true ^^ it'll probably even get too chaotic and dramatic if it's too big. audience may even be fewer too, because no doubt, yours truly is one of those who will drop watching/reading/listening to anything if it becomes like that (coughs)
thanks very much to you too, for your response to this leeeech~ <33
XDD Yeah exactly! *whispers* I'm one of those too >u> hehehe...
Delete<3 Hope to see you in our other projects too~
Wow~ first completed chapter by the bltranslation group! Congratz XD
ReplyDeleteIt's been 2 weeks since I last check in this site and to see the lovely yet suspenseful novel come to a beautiful end... T^T the couple xiao yu and yuan fei are really adorably sweet but my dirty fujoshi mind can't help but awaits fo their 'steamy' embrace but sadly there was none... oh well atleast they ended up together and sun le's case was satisfyingly resolved ♡
Also while I was reading this I was listening to the radio and when I was at the suspensful part, the radio coincidently played "who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" song. I laughed for a good while even though i was supposedly reading a horror novel. Kinda ruined the suspense moment though~
Anyway, thanks again for the bl team for letting me read such a wonderful chinese work to the end~
Thank you~ we owe it to all you lovely readers for encouragement and the proofreaders and ofc the authors for writing the original =3=
DeleteHaha i know exactly what you mean. I was imagining the steamy action in my head >;)
Rofl! Ghostbusters! XDDD sure brings back memories!
thanks soooo much for the hard work bringing this story to us. truly appreciate the effort and time all of you have put in. congratulations on completing it!! ^_^
ReplyDeletenow, for the comments, as i've said in the beginning, i've never liked scary/horror stories, until now. thanks for helping me get over that thru this novel. i really have to reread this from the start because a lot of details and nuances were lost to me when i first started reading this because i wanted to get thru the scary parts really quickly that time.
sun le and revenge--i now understand that it wasn't anything about revenge. it was more journeying into the next life in one piece--all body parts intact. as it stated at some point, ghosts/spirits don't have rational thinking and there's no awareness of right or wrong, but simply that one objective of being whole. the deaths were gruesome, and xiao yu and yuan fei were terrorized, but that was due to their own perceptions of ghosts and being haunted and of how evil the acts of sun le were without being aware of the true nature of the hauntings.
in the end, this was a good read for me and i have a high regard for the author who could weave such a story and be convincing of the story-telling. i hope you guys would continue doing such great projects.
cheers to Chinese BL!!
Bahaha im sure you'll find everything not that scary this time around ;) since u already know the reason behind everything haha
DeleteThank you for your support the whole way ^^
Oh yeah, the ultimate one-sided love triangle of all time.
ReplyDeleteso many twist and turns until they realized the emotions on their parts.
Misunderstandings led to one truth to another. I now see why Cubs dad wasn't dead. that's a goiod way to end it. because if not, all professionals with so many difficulties in life will be found dead in one corner of the street.
Sun Le is such a sweet,sweet child. he adored Xiao Yu but yeah, has fallen eventually with Yuan Fei. He has a big heart, actually but he commited auicide and lose ot all.
Wow, I guess there's no need for a sequel. I think this story enede all for the best.
Thank you so much. will be waiting for the pdf file.
and yeah, I love the idea of just adding that as a subtitle for cold sands. . the main title is simple but as a whole it just us an idea on how Yu and Xin met the very first time. both of them have cold attitudes the very first time they met on that cold dessert.hahah
-Mai
Yeah complicated story eh! But that's what made it so good :3
DeleteI agree. I don't think he would've gotten the death sentence because he outed himself to the police so he gets points for that. I was really moved by this story because it's based upon such an immoral yet common problem in Chinese society (ofc I'm sure this happens in various degrees in other places as well)
Ok! Well I don't really wanna get rid of Cold Sands either cuz I got used to calling it that >v<
Thank you~and I'll see you soon in the Cold Sands updates!
Thank youuu!!!
ReplyDeleteWelcome <3
DeleteUah but all the desecrated organs never made it to Sun Le's graveside, right? That's the making for a sequel 10 times scarier! Imagine having to dig up your old friends' graves to pick out a rotten liver or having to skin them... Not to mention, what ever happened to that cornea? Haha, everyone else wanted a lovey-dovey ending, but I apparently wanted chilling suspense!
ReplyDeleteGreat job! Thank you very much for translating! BL horror doesn't happen so often, and I'm glad to see such a story that took itself seriously.
o_o! That would be so scary!
DeleteI think Sun Le just destroyed all of his parts in some spirit-y way? He bled Kong Linglin out, pierced through the kidney, shredded the skin, melted the bones... so I assume the cornea was just destroyed in some way.
XD Tbh I kinda wanted everyone to die the first time reading it hehehe
You're welcome! I'm glad you liked it <3
Wow!!! It was really good!! And it was so not what I was thinking!! In the end it was not because of Yuan Fei... But I need to say that nevertheless he was an asshole. Great story I like it very much Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteThanks you for letting us know and read this book. And also thanks for your hard work.
Next please! ^^
Hi~ hahaha yeah he was an immature jerk
DeleteThank^^ ill see you next week for Cold Sands!
finally it's the end! I'm really really really satisfied with this story it;s scary,cute, sad,happy at the same time. the ending is just beautiful :') Sun le is just too sad TT
ReplyDeletehuhuhu
anw, thankyou so much for sharing this story XD sorry for my late comment..
-Hong
Thank you for thesupport the whole wa
DeleteYeah i felt so sorry for Sun Le :(
But I'm happy for the ending like this
Ok, I'm a little bit confuse here. Sun Le actually really love Yuan Fei and decided to suicide after misunderstood Yuan Fei just fooling him around.
Delete"Now I know more. He didn’t choose me randomly. He had been observing me before I even knew of him. Perhaps I was wrong about him touching my earlobes because I had been wearing Yuan Fei’s jacket. How could he not know who his beloved person was? He probably only did it because he had wanted to touch me.
The last time at the hospital when he gently brushed my hair, I was so terrified.... ".
But the way he act to Xiao Yu (after he became a ghost), showed that he actually really love Xiao Yu. T_T. Sun Le wants Xiao Yu know the truth behind his death even Xiao Yu doesn't know his existence before. He didn't choose Yuan Fei to show him what's he experienced before his death.
Sun Le, you're so stupid 3x. Why must you not see Yuan Fei face to face and listen to his explanation before decided to jump? If Yuan Fei had a chance to explain his real feeling, of course this miserable things won't happen. *Crap... Why must I felt so disappointed right now? T_T. IF Sun Le is still alive, of course he got a chance to be with Xiao Yu.
I guess Xiao Yu was more of a crush for Sun Le while Yuan Fei was an actual friend/maybe lover. As you can tell from Wang Meng's description, Sun Le was really shy and didn't have many friends. That's why he didn't approach Xiao Yu back then either, because he was too shy. On the other hand, Yuan Fei pursued Sun Le so I think the misunderstanding with Yuan Fei might have been devastating to Sun Le solely based on these facts. Some people have very fragile minds/hearts _< Yeah they might be together if he were still alive...but what I'm wondering is who would be the seme and who would be the uke then >w<
DeleteOh yeah.. me too.. Xiao Yu is totally a uke and ofcource Sun Le would be a uke bacuse of his shyness..it is almost impossible to think that Xiao Yu is the seme!!! they are perfect the way they are Yuan Fei makes the best Seme as Xiao Yu makes the best uke for him...
Deleteanyway, as Adrian Zhang said some peaple have a fragile mind.. and come on.. when you get you're heart broken you won't think clearly and with a timid person like Sun Le.. you've seen what happened.. anyway he was going to live it was the doctors fault.. >< they took his life.. i wanna cry whenever i remmeber it TT^TT
>< I couldn't imagine Xiao Yu as a seme either!
DeleteYeah, no matter what the love triangle was like, the important point was that he was killed by those bastard doctors TAT ofc it being a BL story >u> and us being BL readers... we all pay attention to the love XD duh hehe can't help it~
if i have to choose i think Sun Le will be the seme..a shy one XD Xiao Yu will always be the uke in the story lol
Delete-hong
HAHAHA.. maybe.. i wonder how they'd look >< agh i wanna seeeeeeeeeee
DeleteYuan Fei will literly KILL Sun Le out of jealousy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congrats on finishing translating the very first novel!!
ReplyDeleteThis novel is actually pretty enjoyable though I am wishing for more BL >v<
Thanks~~~
DeleteYeah >.< I wanted more too! Buuut it wouldn't make for a good horror story then XD
Congrats for completing this novel! It was really scary....>.< i dont quite understand why is it that sun le chose to disclose the past to xiao yu (as well as generally acting like he's so much in love with him) rather than to yuan fei - after all he even took his own life because he loved yuan fei right? And he did touch yuan fei's earlobes first in the beginning rather than xiao yu's? Hmmmm
ReplyDeleteit is kind of complicated to me too.. but i think he loves Xiao Yu and thinks of Yuan Fei as a friend.. and it could be the tottal opposite, that is why Xiao Yu was the one Sun Le showed his for.. and just like Xiao Yu said, he touched him because he does that to everyfriend same with Yuan Fei, maybe he has a strange fetish, or just wants to be more close to his friends as he doesn't have many friends.. well that must be asked to theauthor personnaly but it is better to think the way you want to make the ending better for yourself..
DeleteYeah~ my theory is along the same lines as nii_san's. Yuan Fei was certainly an important to Sun Le, which is why his 'betrayal' broke Sun Le's heart. Sun Le might have made the wrong decision at the heat of the moment but regretted it (Xiao Yu has a revelation about this in ch 11 when he relives Sun Le's death)
DeleteIn my opinion, an interpretation of art is always up to the individual XD the author is just the creator but its the audience that must decide its value. So I would come up with my own interpretation! :) PS There are LOTS of foreshadow and clues hidden in the text so I suggest reading it again carefully. I made sure to include them all when I was translating ;D
And all is revealed...Chinese seem to have a totally different view on reincarnation from Hinduism...In Hinduism we believe the current body which acts as a vessel for the soul in the current life traps the soul from being reincarnated and so to release the soul from the earthly bindings we have to cremate the vessel... Whether you are reincarnated as a human or another living being ( where human is the highest form of incarnation before reaching enlightenment) depends on your karma(deeds)...In fact we believe in the concept (crudely put) you get what you give sooner or later even if takes loads of lifetimes....As such we have no concept of clear cut moral right or wrong...Its all about your actions leading to consequences which lead to further actions (and so the cycle continues)...Thank you for the translation :D...The finale was strangely poetic ^^
ReplyDeleteActually! China has fully adopted the concept of reincarnation from Buddhism (it sounds very similiar from your description). Buddhism has affected China immensely and has been integrated as part of our culture since around year 0 (the earliest Buhhidst temple according to historical records was built in the first century). As such, the concept is quite imbedded so the author didn't need to explain it but here is what she implied.
Delete1) Sun Le couldn't move on to the next life because only part of his body was cremated (though I'm not sure how he cremated the transplanted parts LOL)
2) So his spirit stayed in this world to get those parts back in order to move on
3) The author mentions many times in the afterword that you reap what you sow
4) Wang Lele is the reincarnation of Sun Le
5) Wang Lele will not have a good life because Sun Le did too many bad deeds
I hope that helps! I guess many cultural things are in between the lines and implied so perhaps I need to make a translator's note as well? :o
Thanks for reading and commenting :D much love for long comments
it'd be great if you make a traslator's note.. it would be very helpful
DeleteWhat kinds of things should I write about?
Deletehmmm.. maybe what you think of this story..ummm what is the relashinship between Sun Le and LeLe (this is actually to help me write a story in which i finish what the author said he might do)
Deletea brief explanation concerning Sun Le's tragedy or something.. i don't know i never translated so i have no idea what to write in a translator's note... well it is just your view of the story i believe
Okey dokey! ^^ I'll post it along with the PDF
Deletethank youu ^^
DeleteOoohhhh its was breathtaking story ...i really like go in that story really nice ...i read it over night
ReplyDeleteReally good story its just like real .... Thank you
ReplyDelete^^ You're welcome~ I'm glad you liked it!
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much! It was an amazing story.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! :)
ReplyDelete