Chapter 3: Abnormality

This pitiful little girl, Xin Meng, had her limbs turn into the legs of the chair and her neck elongated to form the back of the chair. It was hard to imagine how she managed to write in her diary under these kinds of circumstances.

Moreover, this family’s little girl had ended up like this. Yet, the mother was still able to carry her on her lap and write in the diary on her behalf, fulfilling the girl’s little wish. Just as the diary said, this was truly an incomparably blissful family that loved one another.

Bai Yan, who didn’t have a good family experience, was deeply moved by such a warm familial atmosphere. The corner of his mouth unconsciously hooked up as he decided to carry this diary around from now on, looking to see if he could take it home with him.

In this world, there were not a lot of things that he found delightful and it was even harder to find something that could move his heart. So, he couldn’t help but want this diary filled with a mere child’s words that warmed his heart. 

When he was getting a closer examination of the puzzle picture, the conflict on the other side had quickly escalated.

The man was deeply afraid of the ghost that occupied half of the jigsaw puzzle. Towards this unknown object, he became fearful and timid, and because of this, he vented out his chestful of anger towards the ungrateful junior high student.

The junior high student’s constant refusal made it hard for him to press down on his anger.  And so, after many threats and insults, the man finally couldn’t help his fist from moving. He powerfully struck the student down, intending to forcibly snatch the puzzle from him.

Seeing a fully grown adult bullying a weak student, Bai Yan naturally couldn’t sit at the sidelines any longer.

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The man angrily clenched his fist, cracking his knuckles. The arm he stretched out looked exceptionally solid and strong. Looking at his physique, it was evident that he was a person who liked working out in real life.

The untrained Bai Yan took a look at his scrawny figure and seemed to be a bit fearful. Seeing Bai Yan take two steps back, the man sneered as if he were ridiculing Bai Yan for overestimating himself.

Kicking the junior high student to the side, the man snatched the boy’s puzzle and threw his puzzle at the boy’s head, spitting at him after. Then, he continued to mock Bai Yan, saying, “Oh! Are you not going to continue your heroic act? Come on, why don’t you continue?”

After obtaining the student’s puzzle, the shadow that enveloped the man’s head had dispersed quite a lot. Seeing the young student lie on the floor, then shifting his sight to the pretty boy’s scared face in front of him, the man’s dreadful expression eased up a bit.

No matter how weird he felt his current situation was, in any case, the person who was going to die wasn’t someone like him who had capabilities.

He had already thrown his puzzle away, so if anyone was going to die, it was going to be this student who was unable to tell good from the bad.

Right, there was still another meddling pretty boy…

Seeing Bai Yan’s courage crumbling as he retreated to the tableside and fiddled with the jigsaw, the man thought of another great idea.

And so, he walked towards Bai Yan and maliciously said, “Didn’t you want me to return the puzzle? Ok, I’ll give you a chance! Show me your puzzle. If I am satisfied, I’ll give back the puzzle in my hand to that piece of trash.”

The man drew threateningly closer and in the face of such pressing menace, Bai Yan was forced to back up until he was pressed against the desk.

Looking between the man’s intimidating face and the crying student who was laying on the ground picking up the puzzle, Bai Yan gritted his teeth. After hesitating for a moment, he then finally decided, “Fine. You can look. But if you get my puzzle, you need to give the student’s puzzle back to him!”

“Fine. At least you’re tactful!”

Time was precious, so the man didn’t make things difficult for Bai Yan. He impatiently messed up the pieces of the jigsaw after discovering that Bai Yan’s puzzle was unexpectedly clean without a single trace of a ghost on it.

“There was actually this kind of jigsaw….”

The man couldn’t believe it and flipped it over again, but he was still unable to find any traces of a ghost.

Immediately, ecstasy surged in the man’s heart, and soon, he quickly forgot his plans to humiliate Bai Yan. He immediately tossed the puzzle he took from the student’s hand to the table and walked away with Bai Yan’s puzzle in hand.

After the man left, Bai Yan simply picked up the puzzle the man had left and measured it roughly.

The student’s puzzle was mostly clean. Only a part of the chandelier contained a sinister white shadow, which was probably the ‘ghost’ they were talking about.

The figure of the suspended ghost looked young. He was probably the family’s little boy. It was a pity that the diary only described the other three ‘people’ in detail and only a few words about the boy. This made Bai Yan unable to come up with any impressions about him since the only information that he had was that his young boy was extremely naughty.

By this time, 10 full minutes had already passed, but Bai Yan wasn’t the least bit worried.

The number of pieces the puzzle had was certainly 63, so he grabbed the puzzle and walked over to the junior high student. At this moment, the student had already finished gathering the scattered puzzle pieces and was wiping his tears while struggling to get up.

Seeing this, Bai Yan hurried over to lend the student a hand and quickly helped him up.

Once the student was able to stand up straight, Bai Yan took out a tissue for him, indicating for him to wipe his tears with it.

The junior high student appreciatively received the tissue and used it to blow his nose loudly, choking out, “Thank you, brother.”

“You’re welcome.”

After thanking him, the junior high student silently stood in place without budging. Bai Yan thought for a moment and quickly exposed a warm smile, saying in an understanding tone, “Right, this was your puzzle, I’ll return it to you. You can give me the man’s puzzle.”

“How could I do that…” Even though the student said this, his face was filled with struggle and reluctance. He hesitated for a long time but still ended up stuffing the man’s puzzle to Bai Yan, feeling relieved inside.

Seeing Bai Yan indifferently receiving the puzzle, the student couldn’t help but feel guilty, but his fear had gotten the best of him. He was too afraid that the ghost would kill him.

His intense will to live overcame his conscience, and to calm his guilt,  he even told himself silly excuses——This was the puzzle that he had originally found, having the person return this puzzle to him was only natural.

In the end, the student didn’t utter a single word. He bowed his head, received his little ghost boy puzzle, and silently walked towards the table.

Having received the new puzzle from the student’s hand, Bai Yan did not rush to see its contents.

Because cold-hearted people always assumed that people were the same as them. So in the first few moments of obtaining the puzzle, Bai Yan silently counted the pieces. After confirming that there were no less than 63 pieces, he started attentively looking at the ghost, figuring out which one it was.

If it were as the man had said, the ghost in this puzzle was frightening at first glance.

Donning a bright red skirt and a dark and miserable face, even though he thought that there was no mistake that this was the mother of the family, Bai Yan still carefully examined the piece and confirmed that it was indeed a woman.

In recent years, the number of men who liked to cross-dress rose, so there might be a possibility that male ghosts would also have this kind of interest. He didn’t want to make a grave mistake in the minor details.

According to the diary, after the mother had returned, she started acting strangely. There was no doubt that she was also dead at that point. The ‘mother’ ‘s body was ice cold which could be pertained to drowning or freezing to death.

Even though it was normal for a corpse to become ice-cold and rigid, the father’s obsession with excessive eating was abnormal while the little brother’s abnormality was his disobedience. Even though the girl’s diary logs didn’t describe it thoroughly, Bai Yan regarded the physical coldness of the mother to be her abnormality.

There were plenty of clues written in the diary. Bai Yan remembered that the man had found this puzzle while searching inside the wardrobe, and so, with the puzzle in his hand, he walked towards the wardrobe and directly opened it.

“Creak——”

Along with the pull of the hand, the closet revealed several kinds of men and women’s clothes hanging brimming inside. There were even two piles of children’s clothing at the bottom, which probably belonged to the two children of the family.

Seeing the clothes from a lit perspective, there seemed to be nothing abnormal about them. It only clearly showed that there used to be a family of four that lived here.

Bai Yan couldn’t find any more clues, so he simply touched the items directly. Once he had a touch, he immediately felt something peculiar.

All of the woman’s clothes were wet to the touch.

Bai Yan felt the other clothes once again and found that the man’s and children’s clothes were in good condition, having a smooth and dry touch to them.

And so, Bai Yan pulled out a piece of women’s clothing and took a whiff of it. Immediately, a strong perfume scent assailed his nostrils.

Moreover, there was another smell mixed in with the perfume. It was a hard-to-describe smell, but one whiff of it would make someone retch, it was the smell of a decaying corpse.

The instant that he smelled the stench, Bai Yan realized something. There was no doubt that the ‘mother’ had worn these clothes.

Otherwise, there was no way anyone would go near such a tear-inducing smell.

He quickly stuffed the clothes back into the wardrobe.

Unfortunately, after pondering for a bit, he had no choice but to bear the suffering, clutching the woman’s clothes in his arms and bringing them outside.

At the same time, he also pulled out two pieces of thick men’s clothing.

When Bai Yan returned to his seat with the clothes and puzzle, apart from him, the three other players had already been prepared. They’d long been piecing together their puzzles before he had.

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The author has something to say:

It is my first time writing about a crazy male lead. It was a pleasure to write this but sometimes, I can’t grasp what the male lead would do next. I hope I won’t collapse from writing = =