Night fell on Y City.
Under the sunset, on the crowded sidewalk, a boy with a bruised face, wearing the school uniform of Jingwen Middle School, was being chased and yelled at by a group of boys from the same school. This exhausted boy's name was Chen Hao, an eighteen-year-old senior. The reason he was being pursued by the group was that he had been pestering the girlfriend of one of the boys, and she happened to be his childhood sweetheart and ex-girlfriend.
Running to the edge of the road, seeing that the pedestrian light across the street was flashing red about to turn green, Chen Hao gave a fortunate smile, looked back proudly at the boys chasing him, then turned back and leaped onto the crosswalk. However, at that moment, a long and urgent screeching of brakes filled the air.
With a "bang!", Chen Hao was struck and sent flying. Before he lost consciousness, Chen Hao's eyelids struggled for a moment, thinking to himself, "If I die, what will happen to my grandfather?" Unfortunately, he couldn't prevent himself from plunging into darkness or stop his consciousness from slipping away...
Chen Hao had been an orphan from a young age, raised solely by his grandfather's care. His grandfather held a special occupation as a master who performed rites for the deceased during burials, commonly referred to in the community as an Onmyoji. Chen Hao's ancestors had all made their living by this profession, but it had ended with his father's generation. Chen Hao himself was willing to learn, but his grandfather always refused to teach him the craft.
"Chen Hao's been hit! What should we do?"
"Damn it, of course we run!"
Seeing Chen Hao hit by a car caused the group of boys who had been shouting and chasing after him to immediately turn and flee.
Minutes later, before the ambulance arrived, the unconscious Chen Hao was already surrounded by passersby who had gathered around. Underneath him was a large pool of blood, with the bright red blood continuously flowing out from his body, making the pool grow larger and larger.
A faint whispering sound could be heard as a chill wind blew by. At that moment, a man with long hair covering his face, dressed in a white robe, approached Chen Hao. He was holding a golden bell in his hand and a short sword hung at his waist. The appearance of such a strange person did not surprise the onlookers—because no one could see him. This person was a soul reaper from the Netherworld, specifically responsible for guiding the Yin Souls of the deceased indicated on the Book of Life and Death to the Netherworld.
The soul reaper shook his bell and said coldly, "Get up, time to go!"
Seeing that Chen Hao showed no reaction, the soul reaper rang the bell louder and urged gruffly, "Get up, it's time to go, don't waste time!"
However, after a few seconds, Chen Hao remained indifferent.
"Hey!" The soul reaper chuckled and crouched down, bringing his head close to Chen Hao's and slapping his face a few times. Chen Hao continued to sleep soundly, showing no sign of response. The soul reaper then placed his palm on Chen Hao's forehead and chanted a short incantation in a "woo-woo-ya-ya" manner. This spell was the Soul-Parting Curse, which was often used on those newly deceased who, due to lingering attachments, had difficulty separating their Yin Soul from their body. Soul reapers generally chanted this spell to force out the Yin Soul.
Suddenly, a dark purple Nether Light flickered in Chen Hao's slightly closed left eye, startling the soul reaper, who quickly withdrew his hand. Following this, a dark purple Talisman Seal appeared around Chen Hao's left eye.
"So there was a Talisman Seal drawn on this kid's left eye!" The soul reaper suddenly realized. In the mortal world, there are many methods to ward off evil and exorcise spirits; drawing a talisman seal on a person is one of the more common methods. However, only talisman seals drawn by deeply spiritual Onmyoji or masters can remain effective for a long time.
The soul reaper stood up, first taking a look around at the crowd of onlookers, then put away the bell and drew the sword from his waist. After chanting a spell to remove the Talisman Seal, he lifted the sword towards the seal on Chen Hao's left eye.
However, to the soul reaper's surprise, before his sword could land, millions of deep purple lights suddenly burst forth from the seal.
When the millions of purple lights had disappeared, the soul reaper was gone, his Primordial Spirit dispersed by the purple light that had radiated from the Talisman Seal. At this time, the ambulance arrived, and several doctors and nurses hurried to lift Chen Hao, whose body was gradually cooling, onto the ambulance for emergency treatment...
Two days later, inside a hospital room. Hearing the ticking of a clock near his ear, Chen Hao, who had been in a coma for two days, slowly opened his eyes. His right eye had been scratched in the accident, causing a sharp pain in the wound, so he could only keep it slightly open, while his left eye naturally opened fully.
Though the white light in the hospital room wasn't overly bright, it was still enough to dazzle and overwhelm Chen Hao, who had not opened his eyes for two days and two nights. After adjusting to the brightness, Chen Hao suddenly discovered that his left eye, which had only been able to see things as a blur, could now see his surroundings as clearly as his right eye.
All his life, Chen Hao had a nickname, "One-Eyed Hao." Every year during physical examinations, the test he least wanted to take was the vision test; his left eye could barely make out the largest letter at the top, while his right eye could see the smallest row of letters at the bottom. His classmates who stood by would laugh at him. For the past eighteen years, Chen Hao had relied on his right eye to see, while his left eye was like that of a dead fish, its pupil dull and lightless. Later, after several visits to the doctor, and with no abnormalities found, he was only given a diagnosis of optic nerve atrophy in his left eye.
"Was it the car accident that stimulated and activated the visual nerve in my left eye?" Chen Hao wondered to himself, excited by his left eye's unexpected restoration of vision upon waking from the coma.
He simply closed his right eye and observed the world around him with his left eye, which felt like it had been lost and then found. To his left, an old man with white hair lay in the hospital bed, his left hand hooked to an IV drip, while his right hand was firmly grasped by the wrinkled hands of an old woman standing by his side. Witnessing this scene, Chen Hao felt a pang in his heart as he thought of his own nearly seventy-year-old grandfather, who only had him as family. Fortunately, he had not perished in the car accident, otherwise who would take care of his grandfather when he fell ill?
Chen Hao's gaze remained on the two clasped hands as he contemplated. Soon after, a sparkle flashed in his left eye, and he noticed that the old woman's hands were abnormally pale, the kind of pallor tinged with bruise-like discoloration. At that moment, the old woman, who had been staring at the old man, seemed to sense Chen Hao looking at her and suddenly raised her head. Her lips curled into a slight smile, and she smiled at Chen Hao.
Chen Hao's scalp tingled instantly, and a buzzing noise filled his head as a strange fear washed over his entire body. The old woman's complexion was as pale as the back of her hand, a bizarre and ghostly white. After taking a shuddering breath, Chen Hao met the old woman's lifeless pale eyes with a smile of his own before quickly shifting his gaze to the clock on the wall, which showed it was nearly eleven o'clock.
The next day, at eight in the morning. Upon waking, Chen Hao found that the bed to his left was now empty, with two orderlies changing the bed sheets.
"Where did that old man go?" Chen Hao couldn't help but ask the female orderly by his side.
"Gone! He passed away at around four in the morning!"
"Oh," Chen Hao replied somberly, his thoughts once again turning to the clasped hands of the old man and his wife. Now that the old man was gone, the old woman would have to live alone.
Two minutes later, the orderlies had finished fitting a new set of sheets on the bed. The pair walked out of the room, chattering and laughing. As they reached the door, one of them remarked wistfully, "Poor old guy, died without anyone coming to see him. He was in the hospital for a whole seven days. His spouse passed away early, and his children didn't have the time to come care for him!"
"Yeah..."
"What!" Hearing this, Chen Hao shuddered, his body hair standing on end. The orderly had said the old man's spouse had passed away early? So who was the old woman by his side last night? Thinking of the old woman's pale skin, her strange and somewhat horrifying smile, and those deathly eyes, Chen Hao felt hot and cold flashes run through his body as sweat broke out.
A draft of cold air blew through, causing the adjacent bed to sway slightly. At that moment, Chen Hao suddenly realized how quiet the hospital room, now devoid of anyone but himself, was—a terrifying, eerie silence. His breathing quickened, his heart thudded faster, and as the memory of the old woman's terrifying smile resurfaced in his mind, he couldn't help but leap out of bed and dash out of the room.
Once outside, as he passed by the entrance of another room, he heard the wail of a grieving woman and couldn't help but look inside. He saw a woman weeping over a man lying in the hospital bed.
"What am I to do now that you're gone?" The woman cried, striking the head of the bed with her hand.
Standing at the doorway, Chen Hao felt a wave of desolation and silently lamented the unpredictable nature of life and the finality of death. However, just then, Chen Hao saw the ashen-faced man in the bed open his eyes and glare at him angrily, which sent shivers down his spine and he hastily left.
Walking down the hallway, Chen Hao noticed that nearly everyone was staring at him, some with bizarre smiles, some with angry glances, and others with expressionless faces but ash-gray complexions... Were these people or ghosts? The more he pondered, the more frightened he became, and he dashed out of the surgical building.
No sooner had he stepped out the door than he saw a woman with her hand on her belly approaching him. Her hand and clothing were stained with bright red blood, the beads of blood dripping to the ground.
"Help me, help me get inside!" the woman pleaded with Chen Hao.
Chen Hao initially wanted to help the woman, but the nagging feeling that something was off made him hesitate. Thinking it must be something unclean, he pretended to see nothing and breezed past her with his head held high. However, after taking a few steps, Chen Hao saw three doctors rush to the entrance to assist the woman into the surgical building.
"I... I thought too much!" Chen Hao felt deeply ashamed.
Just then, Chen Hao heard some arguing. He turned his head to the right, where he saw an old man dressed as a patient having a dispute with a female doctor. Seeing them at loggerheads, Chen Hao wanted to intervene. As he approached within a meter of the two, they suddenly turned and looked at him.
Chen Hao froze in place, his face turning deathly pale with fright! He saw that the female doctor had a knife sticking out of one side of her head and large patches of dark red blood on her face.
"Young man, can you see us?" asked the old man with a bizarre laugh, eerily similar to that of the old woman from the previous night.
"No! No! It can't be!" Chen Hao stared blankly at the "two people" before him. He remembered a recent news report about an old man who had died in the hospital, and his family claimed he was killed by a misdiagnosis by a female doctor, whom they then stabbed to death.
At that moment, a hand patted Chen Hao on the right shoulder from behind.