liter coffin see joy

Chapter 4

Li Xiu limped home.

Now he looks quite embarrassed, his body is covered in ash from the old villa, and his school uniform is rubbed up and down like pickles.

The corners of the mouth and forehead were hot, swollen and hot, and it was estimated that it was swollen to the touch, and there was still some wet moisture flowing down the sideburns, and it was estimated that it was blood. Just walking on the street, Li Xiu could feel that someone was watching him from time to time.

Because of his leg problems, Li Xiu has always been extremely sensitive to the gaze of strangers, but at this moment, his whole body is almost numb, and he can't care about the scrutiny of those people.

However, out of deep-rooted habits, Li Xiu subconsciously chose a more remote and uninhabited path on the way back, dodging and dodging, and finally managed to return to the familiar residential building.

The small building where Li Xiu and her grandmother live is actually not far from the school, and the location is the kind of urban village that every city has, which will cause a headache for city administrators. Narrow streets are littered with sewage, cobweb-like power lines are lined with cheap underwear and underwear dripping with water from clips on wires, and illegally built buildings fill up the already modest laneways. Li Xiu walked very slowly today, and by the time he finally got downstairs, the afterglow of the setting sun had completely disappeared into the sky.

The light dimmed completely.

Too late.

Li Xiu looked at the time, and his already ugly face became more and more gray and gloomy. He unconsciously quickened his pace, even if it made his overwhelmed right foot even more scorching pain.

In a panic, Li Xiu accidentally bumped into someone downstairs.

"sorry—"

"Ouch, f**k your mother, you have long eyes?!"

Before he could apologize, Li Xiu ushered in a series of scolding with a thick accent.

The man was a familiar face, none other than Li Xiu's neighbor.

…… The kind of relationship that is very bad.

As soon as she saw Li Xiu, the aunt was stunned at first, and was obviously startled by Li Xiu's miserable appearance now, and the next second, she wrinkled her face in disgust, as if she had seen something very unlucky.

"Li Xiu, did you fight? Tsk, I don't learn well at a young age. The aunt scolded, and then raised the plastic dustpan and broom in her hand towards Li Xiu, "I'm too lazy to go upstairs, you go back and tell your grandmother, don't burn these messy things at the door." How many times have I said it, it's still like this, burning every day, burning every day, your family is not afraid of bad luck, we are still afraid-"

At this time, another resident happened to pass by, and the aunt immediately made a decision, and raised her voice again, as if she was talking to the person: "You said that it is a new society now, and it is still high about these feudal superstitions, that is, everyone has lived together for so many years and is a neighbor, otherwise I would have called the police a long time ago." ”

"Well, I'll remind Grandma."

Li Xiu lowered his eyes when his aunt was shouting, ignored the other party for too long, he answered without an undulating tone, and then walked towards the dark and narrow corridor with a straight face.

He left simply, and when the aunt came back to her senses, she didn't have time to stop her, so she had to lower her voice angrily: "The little cripple who is big and small, looks like that dead old woman, and it is all the best to engage in these crooked ways of gods and ghosts, and it is really bad for eight lifetimes to live with this kind of person......

"Isn't the school uniform on that little girl quite powerful, Aunt Tang is so fierce to him?" The person who was passing by just now listened to the muttering in the aunt's mouth, and couldn't help but ask.

As soon as the aunt raised her eyes, she found that the person she was talking to was a newly moved tenant, and her stomach of complaints suddenly had a mouthful, and she hurriedly grabbed the middle-aged woman, and while scanning the direction of Li Xiu's departure with her residual eyes, she babbled and said: "Ouch, Sister Liu, let me tell you, you must not deal with that family, that family's brain is not quite normal, and the little one just keeps a straight face every day, and he doesn't talk or look at people when he sees them." There is an old woman at home, who pretends to be a god at home every day, burns incense at home, burns things at the door, and makes this place smoky. ”

After listening to the aunt, the tenant's face was a little stiff, and he said, "That's a fortune teller?" ”

The next second, I watched my aunt slap her thigh, and her voice rose again: "Ah,bah"

The aunt spat out a mouthful of saliva and scolded: "What a fortune teller, that old woman is a well-known poke (liar), don't believe you to ask, everyone knows, even her own sister has said it, saying that her mother knows how to deceive people outside every day......"

The tenant listened with relish to the story of the family: the crook and her daughter had no contact with her because of the deception, and finally the daughter disowned her, so that the old lady had to pick up a lame baby from the street to support herself.

In the mouth of the aunt, whether it is the liar goddess named Seventh Po or the boy named Li Xiu, they are all the same gods who don't know what to do.

But the tenant remembered the boy he had just seen, and he inevitably muttered a little in his heart.

That Li Xiu's boy was beaten like that, and it looked quite pitiful......

　*

In the eyes of outsiders, Li Xiu, who was somewhat pitiful, climbed the narrow and steep stairs to get home, and he was almost out of breath.

When opening the door, Li Xiu accidentally kicked something at the door.

It was a pair of beige women's high heels that looked very old, and after being kicked by Li Xiu, they fell crookedly.

Looks like my grandmother has a guest today.

Li Xiu thought about it as she opened the door with a white face and an expressionless face.

After opening the door, the familiar inferior sandalwood fragrance instantly enveloped Li Xiu. The entrance of Li Xiu's house (if this place can really be considered an entrance) faces the narrow and dark dining room, with a small corridor to the right that connects to the so-called "living room", and an equally narrow and old kitchen to the left.

Skirting the dining room, behind the crooked table is a long, slightly slanted corridor that connects the different rooms. Obviously, such a pattern will only make this home look extremely cramped and depressing. But Li Xiu has been living here since he can remember, and he doesn't feel that there is anything to complain about.

If there is really anything that makes Li Xiu feel distressed......

That is, he can't remember when his grandmother didn't like to turn on the lights very much.

The same is true now.

It was almost dark outside, and the lights still weren't turned on at home. Only in the shrine placed in the depths of the living room, the red light emitted by the electronic candle adds a little thin glimmer to the home.

"Woooooooooo......oo Woohoo......"

A continuous stream of faint cries came from the living room.

Li Xiu glanced in the direction where the cry came from, and saw that her grandmother was sitting behind the square table as before, while another middle-aged woman was hunched her back and crying suppressedly with her back to Li Xiu.

Li Xiu thought of the women's shoes at the door and didn't pay much attention to it. There are not many guests who will come to see grandma, and this middle-aged woman seems to be the one who comes most often, anyway, from time to time Li Xiu can hear her crying at grandma's place.

"I'm back."

Li Xiu hung his head and said in a low voice to the living room.

Since he was a child, he has developed a habit of never coming up to disturb his grandmother when she has guests.

He originally thought that his grandmother would ignore him as before, but this time, his grandmother got up directly, swept open the beaded curtain at the door of the living room, and leaned out her face towards Li Xiu tremblingly.

"Why did you come back so late?!"

The old man's voice was particularly sharp in the shadows.

"I ......"

Li Xiu subconsciously took a step back, afraid that her grandmother would see the injury on her face.

Of course, he soon found that his nervousness was unnecessary.

Although the pair of cloudy eyeballs wrapped in fine folds were directed at Li Xiu, grandma didn't ask about Li Xiu's injuries at all.

"Hurry up and bring food to your brother!"

"Quick! Fast! ”

"What if I'm hungry for your brother?!"

"You told me that when you get to the new school, you will be able to leave school early, and you can go home and bring food to your brother! But look at you, that's when you're back—"

Li Xiu pursed her lips under her grandmother's hurried urging.

"Well, I'll be back sooner later."

He whispered.

The room was dimly lit, and my grandmother's eyes were not good, so I probably didn't see the wounds on his face.

Li Xiu said to himself as he shuffled and limped into the kitchen.

said that he was going to deliver food to his brother, but Li Xiu did not fire in the kitchen.

He just skillfully scooped two handfuls of raw rice from the rice bucket and put them in the porcelain bowl.

Immediately after, he removed an inconspicuous jar from the shelf, and when he opened it, he shook the bottom of the jar and removed some fine black powder from it.

It was the incense ash he had prepared before.

After mixing the incense ash and raw rice evenly, Li Xiu held the bowl in one hand and walked through the narrow corridor, all the way to the small room at the end of the corridor.

"Gah-"

The room was dark all year round without lights or windows.

However, the next-door neighbor turned on the light, and there was a faint light peeking through the old window in the corner that had been grayed out and translucent.

The room was littered with all kinds of things, some of which were plastic bottles and cardboard shells that my grandmother collected in other neighborhoods on weekdays, and some cheap incense burners, gossip mirrors, and so on.

In the shadows, the rough and exaggerated deceptive props of the past have inexplicably gained a little real gloom.

In the corner of the room, there was a double bed that I didn't know how long ago I had picked up, and it was also full of miscellaneous items.

Li Xiu lowered her eyes and walked to the bed.

He half-knelt down and lowered the rice bowl in his hand under the bed.

When he was doing this action, he was involved in the injuries on his body again, and the whole person was so painful that he hit a spirit, and almost fell to the ground directly out of strength.

Fortunately, at the last moment, he still stabilized his figure.

"Brother, eat."

Because it hurt so much, he was a little perfunctory when he greeted his brother for dinner today, and just muttered in a low voice.

The slats of the old bed were already covered with dust.

The shadow under the bed was pitch black.

The room was quiet, so quiet that you could faintly hear the vague conversation between the grandmother and the guests in the living room.

"Well, isn't it...... I really don't like to talk...... The leg is also lame......"

"What's the solution, I told you at the beginning, it's you who are disobedient......"

"Count it...... I don't really expect him to retire anyway......"

　……

Li Xiu maintained his previous position, propped his hands on the ground, slowly slid down, and sat on the edge of the bed for a while.

The place where he was beaten by Wang Rongfa's gang before became more and more hot and swollen, and Li Xiu couldn't care about the pain now, so he could only pray desperately not to break a bone, after all, there would be a mock exam soon, and according to the contract he signed with Qiming, he had to be at least in the top five years of age to get the guaranteed living expenses and bonuses.

If he really broke a bone, it would delay his exam too much.

The family next door must have finished eating and was turning on the TV. The unnutritious dialogue of the soap opera is accompanied by the occasional laughter and conversation, which is clearly audible, but as if it came from another world.

Li Xiu didn't know that his face was as white as a piece of paper that was gradually soaked in water.

Finally, he no longer had the strength to support himself, and his bruised body lay on his back, and he fell silently to the dirty floor of the room.

Turning his head sideways, he could only see the dark shadow under the bed.

There is also the bluish outline of the white rice bowl in the shadows.

"Brother......

Li Xiu muttered in a voice that couldn't be lower.

"I'm being bullied by those guys again today."

　……

"I want to fight them, but I can't."

　……

"It hurts me."

　……

No one responded to Li Xiu's whisper with a hint of trill.

There was still a dead silence in the room.

　*

Because of extreme tiredness and pain, Li Xiu unconsciously began to lose his mind.

It was the sound of the door closing as the guest left that woke him up suddenly, and he realized that he had accidentally taken a nap in his room.

Damn –

Li Xiu scolded secretly, and was about to get up, when he heard his grandmother's stern reprimand.

"Li Xiu, why are you still in it?! How many times have you said it, you will come out when you deliver food, and you should come out when you deliver food, your brother is most afraid of noise, what do you want to do in it?! ”

Grandma has always disliked Li Xiu's spending more time in this room, which belongs to her brother.

In fact, Li Xiu himself is the same.

After seeing too much of her grandmother's various tricks to fool the guests, rationally speaking, Li Xiu doesn't believe in any gods and ghosts. However, I don't know why, he has been delivering food to his "brother" for so many years since he was a child, but he has never been able to adapt to the too quiet atmosphere in this room.

Li Xiu attributed this discomfort to the psychological shadow of childhood.

He still remembers the first time he came to his room to deliver food when he was a child, and he was so scared that he cried all night, and then he had a fever for a week due to excessive fright. As a result, even when the fever reached 40 degrees and the road was unstable, his grandmother still dragged him out of bed regularly every day and forced him to bring food to his brother.

Li Xiu has long since forgotten what he was afraid of when he was a child, and the feeling of being so frightened that he was so frightened that he even had to tighten his internal organs was deeply rooted in the depths of his heart.

That's today......

was beaten like this, maybe his brain has become abnormal, so he will shrink here inexplicably, like a madman complaining to a non-existent "brother".

Li Xiu seemed to hear a voice in his body, making a self-deprecating sound.

Thinking of his weak behavior just now, Li Xiu couldn't help but sneer, he raised his hand and wiped the corners of his eyes, then stood up and walked towards the door.

Li Xiu knows better than anyone that his "elder brother" will never be able to come out to help him get rid of the bullying of the group of people in the class like the "elder brother" in reality.

Because Li Xiu's brother was just placed in an ash altar under the bed.

Grandma once said that if it weren't for the help, she wouldn't have asked Li Xiulai to deliver food to her "brother".

"The kid was fierce...... Alas......"

　*

Li Xiu can no longer say the specific date when his "brother" arrived home.

In the vague impression that it was when he was very young, one day a group of people suddenly came, crying and kneeling, forcing his grandmother to go out that day.

A few days later, when my grandmother came home again, she brought back her "brother".

- For the sake of wealth and fame, many powerful people who already have them did not hesitate to go the wrong way, and finally even sacrificed their innocent children in a frenzy.

But, as depicted in many stories.

Waiting for the greedy and powerful, in addition to the monstrous power in his dreams, there is also a fierce and tyrannical demon.

　*

“…… Do evil. ”

Grandma never talked about those few days again, but every time she mentioned her brother, she couldn't help but sigh.

She placed the urn under the bed in the corner room, and then Li Xiu had such a strange looking task.

Every day, he would return home on time and bring a bowl of rice mixed with fragrant ashes to the dusty urn under the bed.

At that time, my grandmother was much better than now, and her temper was far less eccentric than now. So occasionally, she will still be patient and explain a thing or two to Li Xiu.

My grandmother said that by placing a bowl of raw rice under the bed, she was actually making offerings to the ghost and eliminating the ghost's anger and karma.

Grandma said that Li Xiu is a boy, so there is no need to be afraid of that ghost running into his stomach.

“…… And if you bring Him food every day, He will recognize you and treat you as His family. ”

"By the way, according to his age, you have to call him brother."

"When you deliver food every day from now on, call Him brother." ”

"Ah Xiu, you are obedient and have become a family, not only will he not harm you when the time comes, but he will always protect you."

　……

When is this "then"? Li Xiu never asked a reason from her grandmother.

Day after day, he just repeated the act of bringing food to his brother every day.

For him, "brother" represents the shadow under the bed, the darkness that fills the room.

As for the rest, Li Xiu didn't feel anything.

He didn't understand why, as the years went by, his grandmother became more and more jealous of this room and didn't even dare to open the door, let alone understand the fear that flashed in his grandmother's eyes when he mentioned "brother".

Brother, it doesn't exist at all.

　*

"Ka-"

At the moment when Li Xiu was about to push the door and leave the room, he suddenly heard a crisp sound when the porcelain collided with the ground.

He was stunned and turned his head in surprise.

Then he saw an empty bowl, dripping from under the bed, and turning out.

The rice under the bed was scattered all over the ground.