Chapter 4: Fake Sister Digging a Pit to Bury Me? Wubao, Run!
The clang, clang of digging continued in the woods. Zhang Chulan finally managed to convince Chi Wu to hide behind a nearby dirt mound while he crept toward the destination alone.
The moment he peeked out, Zhang Chulan almost screamed.
Under the silver moonlight, a slender woman with disheveled hair was huff, huff shoveling dirt. All around her lay the shadowy, haphazard shapes of corpses. The scene was bizarre beyond belief.
“Despicable grave robber!” Zhang Chulan was furious. He fumbled for his phone and opened the camera.
“I’ll catch you red-handed and send you to jail.”
“Hm?” Feng Baobao, still digging, twitched her ear and suddenly turned her head.
Her eyes were terrifying. Zhang Chulan let out a short “Ghost!” and ran for his life, deliberately sprinting in the opposite direction of Chi Wu’s hiding spot to avoid getting them both caught.
After tripping twice, Zhang Chulan finally stopped, leaning against a tree and clutching his chest. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might explode.
He pulled out his phone, about to message Chi Wu, when a sudden chill ran down his back.
Bang!
When Zhang Chulan opened his eyes, they went wide with terror. He scrambled to get away, but Feng Baobao grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him to the edge of the pit.
“Big sis, grandma, immortal, ancestor… what are you doing?”
Feng Baobao just said, “Oh,” and answered him as casually as if she were discussing dinner.
“Burying you.”
Zhang Chulan fought to control his ragged breathing. “Help!”
Clang—
He was kicked into the bottom of the pit.
“Stop yelling,” Feng Baobao advised kindly. “There’s no one else here. You can scream your lungs out, and no one will come to save you.” She went back to digging with intense focus.
Zhang Chulan’s ears twitched. He thought about Chi Wu’s slight build and immediately shut his mouth. What if he called Chi Wu over and this madwoman buried them both?
Not good.
An idea struck him, and he started talking nonsense. “Sis, sis… I’m your long-lost brother!”
“Oh, you mean that,” Feng Baobao said. “My ID is fake. My surname is Feng.”
“What?!” Zhang Chulan’s eyes bugged out. Are fake ID operations really this blatant now? he thought. Are criminals this rampant?
Then again… this madwoman was already digging up graves.
Zhang Chulan sat in the pit, thinking. Suddenly, he realized it was quiet. He gripped the edge of the pit and pulled himself up. Just as his head cleared the rim, he saw that the corpses on the ground had actually stood up.
He watched the madwoman take her shovel and thwack, thwack, “tidy up” the zombies, smashing one’s head in with each efficient swing.
His understanding of this person deepened yet again.
Zhang Chulan saw that Feng Baobao was busy smashing zombies and hadn’t noticed him. He immediately started to sneak away. But just as he climbed out, the madwoman glanced at him.
“This isn’t fun anymore. The rest are yours.”
“…” Zhang Chulan was speechless, thinking, I really owe you one. The second she disappeared, he scrambled over to Chi Wu, grabbed his hand, and bolted.
“Wubao, run! The zombies are coming!”
“Ao.” Chi Wu glanced in the direction Feng Baobao had left, then looked back at the zombies. The words “They’re not chasing us” were on the tip of his tongue, but he never said them.
Zhang Chulan dragged Chi Wu, running full tilt. He didn’t see that the moment the zombies behind them had laid eyes on Chi Wu, they had stopped in their tracks.
“Hoo… hoo…” Zhang Chulan collapsed on the floor as soon as they got home, wiping a gallon of sweat from his forehead.
“Terrifying. That was too terrifying.”
He remembered his grandfather’s instructions, and an uncontrollable irritation flickered in his eyes. Afraid of showing it, he covered his face with his arm.
“Wubao, let’s just rest tonight and go back tomorrow.”
“Mn.” Chi Wu went inside and got some fir branches. He came back to Zhang Chulan and, with practiced ease, reached into his pocket and fished out the lighter.
“You rest. I’ll go boil water.”
Zhang Chulan’s mind was racing. By the time he’d recovered enough to sit up, Chi Wu had already lit the stove. The firelight flickered and danced, and Zhang Chulan suddenly realized that Chi Wu was… almost too calm.
“Wubao, aren’t you scared at all?”
“Of what?” Chi Wu asked, his tone perfectly natural. “If you do no wrong, you fear no ghosts at the door.”
“…Really?” Zhang Chulan thought. I didn’t do anything wrong either, but isn’t fear the normal reaction to seeing something like that?
Thinking about it, Zhang Chulan suddenly remembered that his childhood friend’s emotions were often different from other people’s. He was the only one from the orphanage who still had monthly psychological counseling, and sometimes he would disappear for a day or two. He could never get a straight answer, but Chi Wu was a total homebody. None of it added up.
“Are you scared?” Chi Wu asked, as if he’d just realized. He reached out and ruffled Zhang Chulan’s hair, his voice dropping slightly.
“There, there… nothing to be scared of.”
A shiver went down Zhang Chulan’s spine. He couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, but in a flash, he realized Chi Wu’s current tone and cadence were exactly like his own. He was mimicking him, perfectly.
“Wubao…” Zhang Chulan suddenly reached out and covered Chi Wu’s mouth and nose. Only when he felt the warm breath did he relax, letting his head rest on Chi Wu’s shoulder.
“Soothe me some more.” He really was on edge. It was a gnawing anxiety that came from his intuition that his life was about to fundamentally change.
While change was somewhat exciting, the unknown was also terrifying.
Chi Wu naturally accepted the head resting on his shoulder. He fed firewood into the stove with his left hand while his right idly patted Zhang Chulan’s back.
They sat like that until the bamboo water container in the stove let out a bang. Zhang Chulan jerked up as if startled from a nap.
“Wubao,” he said, weighing his words, “we don’t exactly have a proper bathroom here.”
The village outhouse was full of bugs. Zhang Chulan glanced at the moonlight outside.
“The moon is full. We’re lucky. We can just wash in the courtyard.”
Chi Wu nodded, unbothered, and jutted his chin. “You first.”
“Let’s just wash together,” Zhang Chulan tsked. “The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can sleep.”
It had been a long time since they’d bathed together. Back at the orphanage, there were a dozen kids to a room and only one bathroom. The hot water was only on for a short time, which often meant they had to double up. That hadn’t changed until they started middle school.
They washed quickly under the moonlight, rinsing their hair as best they could.
“Wubao, c’mere, I’ll dry your hair.”
“Don’t need to.” Chi Wu grabbed a few paper towels and rubbed his head. “It’ll dry in a minute.”
“So stubborn.” Zhang Chulan clicked his tongue. He fiddled with the hairdryer plug, moved next to Chi Wu, and adjusted the heat, starting his nagging.
“If you don’t dry your hair, you’ll get rheumatism when you’re old.”
The words sounded familiar to Chi Wu. Just as he was about to ask, Zhang Chulan continued his self-important rant.
“Weren’t you Principal Liu’s favorite? How come you don’t remember a single thing she said?”
“I’ll do it myself.” Chi Wu finally remembered the old woman who had picked him up from the doors of the mental hospital. A small smile touched his lips, and his voice softened. “She was a good person.”
Zhang Chulan ran his hand through Chi Wu’s hair several times, savoring the silky feeling. Just as Chi Wu started to get up, Zhang Chulan shoved the hairdryer into his hand and rubbed his own neck.
“Wubao, ever heard of returning the favor? Your turn to dry mine.”
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