After Being Watched by My Paranoid and Gloomy Deceased Wife - Chapter 21

I abruptly looked up and saw Her lips moving.

“Lulu.”

She spoke with the voice that had appeared in my mind, gentle and deeply affectionate.

She took my hand and placed it on Her bare chest. Beneath the bl00d color, so intense it was nearly black, water flowed, mimicking the rhythm of life.

When my palm completely covered that lightly colored, ethereal, bl00d-colored skin, the only thing I felt was emptiness.

Yet, I distinctly heard a heartbeat.

“Thump-thump,” “thump-thump”… one after another, so loud.

She curved Her lips, Her smile beautiful, stained with a bizarre yet pure happiness due to the bl00d color.

“Lulu.”

“Lulu is here.”

The bl00d-colored beauty whispered my name, as if I were Her lost and regained treasure.

A new arm generated. She used that hand to press my hand more firmly against Her chest, even slightly penetrating the thin, bl00d-colored water membrane.

My fingertips were enveloped by the flowing water, but what I felt was a slightly viscous, sluggish, bl00d-like texture.

Strange, how would I know the texture of bl00d?

This thought couldn’t linger in my mind for long. Moments later, it was replaced by an even more horrifying scene.

My hand was completely inserted into Her chest, my entire hand enveloped by the strangely textured water flow.

“Lulu is here.”

The bl00d-colored beauty repeated again, saying, “Lulu is here, in my heart.”

She still had Her eyes closed, bl00d tears streaming down Her face, yet the corners of Her lips curled upward more and more.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you so much.”

“Lulu, missing Lulu.”

I saw the smile on Her face become so bright it was nearly distorted, the beautiful face brimming with an almost intoxicated sense of fulfillment.

So eerie.

I couldn’t properly organize my words to describe this visual shock.

The peculiar thing was, Her entire body was icy cold, radiating chill, yet Her chest cavity was much warmer… just like freshly drawn bl00d, carrying a slight warmth.

I wanted to withdraw my hand, but She held my hand, leaning close to me with a rapturous smile.

Her exquisite face pressed close to mine, Her bl00d-colored hair strands falling and brushing across my cheek, one by one.

In the mirror, I saw faint bl00d-colored threads, like a spiderweb, forming where Her hair had brushed, remaining on my skin.

Is all this truly just a hallucination?

I was a bit dazed. The hand that was forced into Her chest tentatively moved.

“I like you, I like Lulu.”

The distance was too close. I could see bl00d water flowing ceaselessly beneath Her seemingly smooth skin.

Her bl00d-colored lips slightly moved, like a soft murmuring, ambiguous at my ear.

“Lulu, I like Lulu, I want more.”

Her nose bridge was too high and refined, the tip of Her nose like a crescent moon, which had appeared countless times in my midnight dreams.

I watched with open eyes as She gripped my wrist, forcing my hand, along with Her bl00d-colored hand, deeper into Her chest cavity.

“Deeper, a little deeper.”

She let out a satisfied sigh, Her expression frenzied and obsessed.

The slightly viscous, bl00d-colored water flow enveloped my hand and wrist. She seemed to want to press my entire being into Her body.

Fear caused me to break out in a cold sweat in my panic.

I subconsciously wanted to fight back, or do something that could save me from this horrifying hallucination.

Does a hallucination have a heart?

“Thump-thump,” “thump-thump,” “thump-thump.”

I heard—no, this was not heard.

A faint tremor came from my fingertips. In Her embrace, I felt as if I were walking naked in ice and snow, yet my fingertips were warm, hot.

Even, scorching.

The tremor intensified from faint to clamorous. In the flowing water, I touched a gradually forming heart.

What is life?

Breathing? Pulse? Heartbeat?

I don’t understand. I am not a doctor, let alone a philosopher.

At this moment, the boundary between life and death blurred at my fingertips. The tremor waves came one after another.

Something like flesh and bl00d grew in the water flow, adhering closely to my palm without any gap.

Like a miracle, and like an absurd creation story.

In short, life was born in my palm.

Something so intensely cold, paradoxically brought a burning pain.

I stiffly turned my head to look, only to find a bl00d tear sliding down Her cheek, dripping onto my shoulder.

“Lulu, it was born for you.”

Her voice was gentle, crazed, carrying a smile of intoxicated happiness.

A hallucination? I sluggishly thought.

Actually, I know that ever since She appeared, I’ve fallen into a panic where the world feels unreal.

Sometimes, I can’t even distinguish whether this panic is fear of loss or fear of facing reality.

How strange humans are, knowing nothing even about themselves.

“Lulu, touch it.”

She smiled gently and lovingly, like a mother who had just given birth to a child.

I fear the unknown, and I dare not confront such a hallucination.

“Please, Lulu, it is yours.”

She gripped my wrist. Another arm grew from the water.

The new hand pressed against my palm, forcing me to bring my palm closer to that scorching, trembling heart.

“It is yours, it belongs to Lulu.”

“Lulu, it beats for you.”

She eagerly sought my affirmation, as if I were the creator God.

But I am not. I am merely a mentally ill person who has saved enough for retirement, most of which came from the inheritance gifted by my mothers (after tax).

In Her despair, which was spreading due to the lack of response, I gazed at Her trembling, bl00d-colored eyelashes.

I finally counted them clearly.

223 roots. Truly deserving of being a hallucination, as a normal person’s upper and lower eyelid eyelashes combined are only slightly over two hundred.

I saw Her lips open and close, bl00d-colored tears seeping from Her eyelashes.

“Lulu, touch it, feel it.”

She looked down at me, half of Her body submerged in the sink. Her exquisite and beautiful face, bizarre yet pure demeanor, was like a delusion in a fantastical dream.

And I was the mortal looking up at the goddess.

The goddess said, “I beg you.”

I feel speechless at my own overly low-level delusion. One should have some higher-level interests, instead of constantly wanting a great beauty to beg not to be separated.

Too low-level, too wicked.

So, amidst Her expectation, I let my hand gently cup that lonely growing heart in the flowing water.

Clearly, I was afraid. I should pinch this heart, forcing Her to leave my hallucination.

I should crush this heart, making myself snap out of the hallucination.

But this solitary heart had no arteries to transport bl00d. Life existed here like an isolated island.

And as I reached out and held this heart, Her expression was half joyous, half painful.

“Lulu, press harder, a little harder, let me feel you more.”

The heart in my palm trembled violently. I saw myself in the mirror, and finally saw Her as well.

Tears fell unexpectedly once more, surprising both Her and me.

Why did I cry?

She also asked, “Why are you crying, Lulu?”

I lost control of my emotions, weeping in Her arms—

The tears were silent. A wordless grief assaulted me, leaving my mouth open but unable to utter any sound.

That heart was beating in my hand.

Thump after thump, beat after beat, knocking against my palm, vibrating in my eardrum, making my soul numb and tremble.

This heartbeat, it’s so familiar, but… it’s reversed.

I opened my eyes. My vision was bl00d-red, unable to tell if it was because She was too close or if a new hallucination had popped up.

It must still be a hallucination.

Because I heard the noisy, bustling sounds of people surrounding me, then moving away from me.

The traffic sounds of the city are always like this, irregularly composing every day in Lishan along with other sounds.

“Thump-thump,” “thump-thump,” “thump-thump.”

My palm felt wet, soft, and warm. The trembling sound transitioned from strong to weak, exactly opposite to the previous hallucination.

The hallucination told me this was bl00d, lots of bl00d, more and more bl00d surging out.

Warm, carrying the temperature of a human body, burning the skin where it splashed onto me.

Vaguely, sunlight illuminated the bl00d-redness before my eyes.

But “I” couldn’t see anything. My vision was stained with bl00d, and tears scorched my cheeks.

“BANG!”

I heard the grating sound of metal colliding. Shattered glass fragments scraped across my cheek. Someone shielded “me” in front.

She held “me” tightly, as if it were the last embrace of this life.

A moist, warm liquid sprayed, soaking the clothes on “me.” The sweet, metallic smell of bl00d was in my nostrils, in my mouth.

The suddenly shrinking space made me feel suffocated in this crowded embrace.

People were talking noisily. What were they saying?

A buzzing sound, accompanied by the strange, bizarre “squeak” of metal with each breath.

I heard glass being shattered. Someone violently tugged at the car door, and many people were talking loudly.

Why were they tugging at the car door?

At first, I couldn’t hear clearly, but losing sight made me extremely reliant on the only two clear senses at the moment.

Touch: the increasingly weak tremor beneath my palm.

And… Hearing. They said—

“The secondary collision was intentional. It’s too hateful.”

“It’s too late. Can’t save her. If there hadn’t been that second hit, maybe she would have lived. Alas, a tragedy.”

“Hey! There’s another one here! This one might still be saved!” Someone exclaimed in surprise.

“Thump, thump……”

And the tremor in my palm completely stopped at this moment.

“She’s here. She still has a breath. She’s still alive!”

Amidst the people’s relieved cheers, I returned to the initial hallucination.

The bl00d-colored lips were very close to my eyes. I blinked, and a drop of bl00d water seeped into my eye, startlingly cold.

She seemed to be trying to kiss away my tears.

“Lulu.”

Still that gentle, mature voice. This vocal quality is almost my perfect ideal type.

Hearing this voice, why does it make me want to cry more?

The heart beneath my palm was beating vividly. I watched my tears fall, once again melting into Her bl00d water.

The absurd, bizarre, and very present tremor grew stronger.

She hugged me, as if to replicate the almost suffocating embrace from the previous hallucination, seemingly trying to forcefully absorb me into Her body.

Breathing was difficult. I was starting to lose warmth in the cold. My paralyzed brain panicked at the memories that were about to vanish.

I was very clear that they would, just like before, like those…

Memories I could no longer recall, suddenly burying me like a snowstorm, and then melting away in irretrievable forgetting.

Icy kisses, like fine snow, landed from my drooping eyelids to my cheek, and then to my lips.

I heard that tantalizing voice gently soothing me.

“Lulu, don’t cry.”

“I’ve come back.”