223. Nightmare
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You know, real-life spooky incidents happen all the time, but most of them are just secondhand stories.
Memories like that are usually laced with deception; one can change their own recollections through sheer mental suggestion.
It’s like little Lin Nan, who was just your average ordinary kid. But thanks to some prompting, Wu Jiaming rewrote that history in her mind, picturing him as a cute little boy, all to back up the claim that Lin Nan was always a girl.
It’s basically a form of indirect “feminization.”
And Wu Guodong’s ghost story about Lin Nan? No one witnessed it firsthand; it was just a monk saying it was a ghost encounter, and with Lin Nan’s unexplainable daze at the time, everyone grudgingly accepted it.
Now, mentioning it sounds like proof that there’s really a ghost haunting the back mountain.
Wu Jiaming anxiously returned to her room on the third floor, stealing a glance at the clearly visible outline of the back mountain outside the window. She shivered and hurriedly pulled the curtains shut in her bedroom.
Lin Nan and Liu Xinyi had also returned to their room.
She was still reeling from that horror flick, diving straight under the covers as soon as she got back. The scary scenes flashed through her mind, making her shiver even more.
She was so scared she didn’t even dare close her eyes, fearing that the images dancing in her mind would become clearer, so she kept them wide open, trying to distract herself with TikTok.
Liu Xinyi, sitting at the foot of the bed, was seeing Lin Nan in this pitiful state for the first time.
“Cousin, ever since you turned into a girl, your personality seems different too,” she recalled last year’s New Year’s celebration, “Back then, you weren’t chatty, but you weren’t this much of a chicken, right?”
“I haven’t watched a horror film in over a decade, okay?” Lin Nan’s voice trembled.
Even without Lilith possessing her, a scene like that would have made her tremble too, just in a less piercing tone. Back then, her voice was a lot less shrill; she couldn’t even scream.
This probably explains why people think men are braver than women, right? After all, women scream when scared, while men just shudder, yell “what the heck,” and have their hearts racing.
Liu Xinyi rolled her eyes, teasing, “Cousin, those eighteen years as a guy? Totally wasted, you’re also way more scared than I am!”
“Whatever, it’s wasted time,” Lin Nan pulled the blanket over her head but quickly peeked out her eyes to stare at Liu Xinyi.
“What’s up?”
Lin Nan shook her head but kept her gaze fixed.
She was in desperate need of safety, yet all she had was her slightly shorter cousin. Thankfully, Liu Xinyi’s masculine vibe was somewhat reassuring.
“Let me sleep on the floor tonight,” Liu Xinyi sprang off the bed, tossed her jacket onto the table, revealing her ample physique.
Though her style was more boyish, she certainly hadn’t skipped out on development.
She thought about taking a shower but, after a long day with no sweat, got lazy and sat cross-legged on the bamboo mat, leaning back against the wall, yawning.
“How about we just sleep?” she suggested, feeling a bit drowsy as she reached for the light switch on the nightstand.
“No, let’s leave the light on!” Lin Nan hurriedly stopped her.
Liu Xinyi grumbled, “I can’t sleep with the lights on….”
“Then stay up with me? You can play a couple of games?”
In other words, you’re so scared you can’t sleep?
She glanced at Lin Nan’s wide eyes filled with suspicion and suddenly found her cousin’s frightened demeanor rather endearing.
With a resigned sigh, Liu Xinyi pulled out her homework, deciding to use this boring time to tackle her winter break assignments.
Lin Nan peeked at her work and realized that after going to college, she had completely forgotten everything about math. It wasn’t that it was incomprehensible; she just totally blanked on how to solve problems.
About an hour later, the terrifying images from the movie finally began to fade with time, and Lin Nan let out a sigh of relief, hoping she wouldn’t be awakened by a nightmare tonight.
She scrolled through short videos for a bit longer, barely keeping her eyes open, before she turned off the lights in the bedroom, closed her eyes, and started thinking about random stuff.
Her cousin fell asleep quickly; after a day of bus travel, she must’ve been exhausted, and despite her slim frame, she was snoring away.
It felt a bit unfair to make Xinyi sleep on the floor when she was older and, well, technically a boy… um, girl, so no problem there.
Suddenly, the scenes from the movie flooded back into Lin Nan’s mind uncontrollably, but she swiftly switched her mental screen to the videos she had just watched.
Before she knew it, she had drifted off to sleep…
And, sure enough, nightmares showed up.
In her dream, she was still a guy, with loving parents and a harmonious family. They chatted and joked every day, talking about school gossip and her parents complaining about work woes.
It was the picture of happiness.
But out of nowhere, the once warm scene morphed into a gray-scaled nightmare. For some bizarre reason, she suddenly transformed into a girl. Crying, she tried to explain the situation to her parents, only to be met with their disdainful looks and being shooed away with sticks.
In disbelief, she watched as her parents’ skin rotted away, revealing their pale bones…
Lin Nan woke up screaming.
Tears lingered in her eyes as she gasped for air, her heart thudding heavily and loudly, echoing in her ears.
Staring at the dark ceiling, she felt as if she were seeing the monsters from her dream again, making her heart tighten. She quickly wrapped herself in the blanket she had kicked off without knowing when, but still felt uneasy, sensing someone lurking behind her, as if dark hands were creeping out of the shadows toward her…
With a burst of adrenaline, Lin Nan jumped out of bed and dove into another set of covers.
“What’s wrong?”
Liu Xinyi was jolted awake, groggily opening her eyes, feeling like she’d been wrapped up in an octopus.
Turning to look, she found her cousin clinging to her, forehead pressed against her shoulder, trembling like a leaf.
“Cousin, are you having a nightmare?”
In her just-awoken state, Liu Xinyi was completely disoriented. Yawning repeatedly, she tried to roll over to find a comfortable position to continue sleeping but found herself stuck.
Forget about rolling over; she feared Lin Nan might strangle her.
“Mind loosening your grip?”
Even though Lin Nan felt like a soft marshmallow and smelled delightful, Liu Xinyi didn’t have time to appreciate that. She managed to free a hand to pat her cousin on the shoulder, saying, “How about you let me up to turn on the light?”
Lin Nan shook her head vehemently.
“Are you really that scared…?”
With a resigned sigh, Liu Xinyi continued to gently pat Lin Nan’s back, as if soothing a child.
“Cousin, I’m into girls, you know.”
“Seriously, let me go… I’m going to suffocate!”
“Cousin!” She turned on her phone’s flashlight and aimed it at Lin Nan, “There’s no ghost! It’s just a nightmare!”
Lin Nan’s trembling finally eased as she lifted her head, tearfully wailing, “My mom doesn’t want me anymore…”
Ah?
