Since I was born, I could never learn to speak.
A fortune teller once said I was an "idiot," the kind with a broken mind, and that I would never learn to talk in my life.
It wasn't until I was three years old that my father died of cancer.
At the same time, I also uttered my first words in life.
At that time, my father, tormented by the illness, lay wasted and dying on the large bed at home, dressed in a pure black embroidered silver python cheongsam.
The snake embroidered on the cheongsam was extremely realistic, with silver scales glistening brightly.
Its eyes were dark and unusually bright, as if they could reflect a human form.
It was then that I cried and pointed at the silver python on the cheongsam, opening my mouth to say my first words, "There's someone sitting on Daddy."
But I was too young at the time, and my memory is quite vague.
To this day, as I try to recall it, I can only vaguely remember that there was a white man sitting on my father's corpse.
As for what the man looked like, I truly cannot remember.
I didn't understand why he was sitting on my father, nor why no one else could see him. After my father died, the cheongsam was not buried with him, but instead hung on the most prominent wall in our home, serving as the gold-lettered signboard of our family's tailor shop.
Because this cheongsam could extend a person's life. A person who was diagnosed with a terminal illness, on the verge of death, could live at least three more years simply by wearing it.
It might seem like a short time, but for someone who is about to die, every extra day of life is a blessing.
As I slowly grew older, I began to realize that the cheongsam seemed to be alive. At night, I could always feel the silver python on it as if it were about to crawl down at any moment!
The python's eyes seemed to grow more eerie and sinister every day. Each time I looked up, I felt as though those eyes were staring at me with a strange, almost mocking expression.
Until the night of my twenty-first birthday, when the python on the cheongsam turned into a ghostly shadow, crawled down, and slithered into my bed, wrapping itself around my legs.
That cold, bone-chilling sensation felt like an ice pick stabbing into my heart.
Then, a pair of ice-cold hands gently stroked my cheek, and I heard the voice say, "avril, do you know who I am?"
It was as if some force controlled me; I lay in bed unable to move, unable to see his face in the dark. "Who… who are you?"
"I… am the white python from the cheongsam that your family, the Avery family, passed down as a family treasure." He spoke slowly, his tone cold and full of contempt.
I was shocked. "What? But… that's just embroidery. How could it turn into a living thing?"
Could it be that something was wrong with my mind and I was hallucinating? Or was I dreaming?
"Your father personally skinned me and sewed me into the cheongsam. Isn't that interesting?" His fingers brushed my lips, maliciously pressing into them, causing them to ache.
My lips hurt, but I dared not resist, feeling an indescribable fear and panic in my heart. "What do you want from me?"
Did he really get killed by my father?
If that's the case, no wonder the python on the cheongsam looked so lifelike, staring at me with that kind of gaze… Thinking about it now, it's even more terrifying.
He had always been watching my whole family. It was too horrifying!
"Hehehe…" A faint, eerie laugh echoed from his lips, so chilling it felt like it could freeze the air into ice.
As I heard his laughter, my mind grew sluggish.
Then, I lost consciousness.
After that, the white silver python on the cheongsam would transform into a living being every night.
It would slither along the white wall, crawl into my bed, and turn into that eerie, terrifying man, repeatedly touching my face.
His cold fingers would touch my body again and again.
This life was a hellish torment for me, lasting for two months, until I started to feel constant acid reflux and nausea. After visiting the hospital, I was completely at a loss.
I found out that… I was pregnant.