The first moment I walked into my aunt's house, I sensed that something was very wrong.

There was a rancid smell in the air, which was completely different from the smell of my old aunt's house that I remembered.

My aunt loves cleanliness very much, and worships the Buddha and burns incense every day, so the house is refreshing all year round, and is filled with a strong sandalwood fragrance.

For decades, the smell had penetrated almost every piece of furniture and wall, but now, there's not a trace of it.

The room was still clean, but the shrine in the middle of the guest hall had obviously not been enshrined for a long time, a thin layer of ash had accumulated on the Buddha statue, and a few sticks of incense sticks were scattered in the incense burner, and there were no fresh offerings on the offering table except for a stack of candy that had also accumulated dust.

“...... It's the old aunt, "Seeing that I had been staring at the Buddhist shrine, Zhou Hao explained to me a little embarrassed: "Originally, it was inconvenient to see her, and I wanted to help her worship, but she said no." I don't know why, she had to make offerings every day, and she didn't even let me light incense during ......this time."

I nodded.

My aunt is a very devout Buddhist, and there must be a reason for her to be like this suddenly. But my mind wasn't on that at the moment, because the more I went inside, the more uneasy I became, especially when I stood at the door of the back room, and the uneasiness made me shudder suddenly.

The smell of rancid meat in the air was terrifying, as if when you opened the curtain, you could see a pile of rotten flesh inside.

This made me a little afraid to act rashly for a while.

But Zhou Hao didn't notice this emotion. He was half the owner of the house, so when he saw me standing still, he went up to me first, and lifted the curtain for me: "Go in and see her......

"Haohao, ......"

At this moment, a soft sigh came from the room: "Alas...... Went...... Beitang ...... Are you here......"

It was my aunt's voice, but it was so hoarse that it made me feel a little strange.

This made me stunned for a moment, and then walked in quickly: "Auntie, it's me, I'm Beitang ......"

The room was quiet, and in the darkness I heard a gasp like a bellows, I followed the direction of the sound and took two steps inside, and Zhou Hao turned on the light for me.

"Auntie?!" The moment the lights came on, I involuntarily took a step back.

Although I had made all kinds of assumptions from Zhou Hao's brief words before, I couldn't help but be taken aback when I saw my aunt.

The inside of the house, like the guest hall, is also clean and clean.

Aside from the bed and a cupboard, there was almost nothing to furnish and no carrion as I had just imagined.

The old lady lay motionless on her single bed.

On such a hot day, she was covered with two quilts, but despite this, she was still shivering.

It was so clean that it was clear at a glance, but the smell of decay was as strong as in a morgue, and the face of my aunt lying on the bed facing me was almost exactly like a corpse.

Moreover, it is still a 'dried corpse'.

I've never seen so many wrinkles on her face, and I feel like the skin can fall off her bones at the slightest touch.

My aunt is in her early sixties this year, and she is not too old to say that she is old, and because she has never given birth to a child, she usually looks so good that she seems to be less than fifty. Except for her legs and feet, which were not easy to move early on, because she didn't pay attention to rheumatism when she was young, her body bones have always been very strong. The body is even stronger and a little plump, so the old ladies of her generation often jokingly call her fat.

But the aunt in front of me, I couldn't recognize her for a while.

She lay on her side on her clean, spotless single bed, pressed under the heavy quilt, as thin as a paper man. It's only been a long time since I left here, and she's so thin that her face is out of shape.

In the sickeningly thick air around her, she closed her eyes and breathed hard with her mouth open.

On such a hot day, she was covered with two quilts, but despite this, she was still shivering with cold.

While shaking, he did his best to squeeze out a smile when he heard my footsteps. "Beitang ......," she murmured my name, then poked her withered hand out of the futon and stretched out in my direction: "...... Come here, let my aunt see ......"

I hurriedly stepped forward, sat down beside her, and took her hand in the palm of my own.

Her fingers were so cold that I trembled, I was stunned, and said, "Auntie, I see that you are not lightly ill, let's go to the hospital quickly?"

"Don't ...... Don't go ...... It's useless to go......" She said as she pulled her hand out of my palm, slowly lifted it up and touched my face, and then muttered to herself, "It's okay...... Ok......"

What is it okay with? I didn't ask.

only continued to persuade her: "Look at you, you are all thin like this, and your body is still so cold, how can you not go to the hospital?"

"Don't go," she shook her head again and smiled at me: "It's useless to go, Beitang, it's useless to go......"

I've never seen my aunt so stubborn.

She has always had a lot of rules, a lot of taboos, and what is beneficial to do. This is the first time I have seen her willful like this, as if she has no warning at all about this condition of her body.

"Auntie," so I tried to persuade again: "Didn't you always say that the world is big, and the body is the biggest? No matter what, you have to go to the hospital when you are sick, you see how long I have been gone, and you suddenly lose weight like this, auntie, whether it is useful or not, let's go to the hospital first and then talk about it, okay?"

After speaking, I took out my mobile phone from my trouser pocket and was about to call the number given to me by the old policeman, but just as I was about to press the button, suddenly my aunt grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand holding the mobile phone down: "Beitang...... Said it...... Don't go to the hospital!"

Her strength wasn't enough to stop me, but her stubbornness and the look on her face made me nervous.

I intuitively feel that something very bad has happened to her, and looking at her illness may not be just a 'disease' in the ordinary concept.

So there was silence for a while, and I couldn't take my eyes off her.

She seemed to notice it, raised her head, and tried to give me a reassuring smile again, but after struggling for a long time, the corners of her mouth only outlined a somewhat strange arc: "Beitang...... There are some diseases that hospitals really can't treat...... Have you forgotten how your mud disease was cured......"

Her words once again confirmed my hunch.

After a moment of speech, I opened my mouth and was about to say something, but I saw that she grabbed me tighter, and then slowly opened her eyes that had always been closed towards me: "Look again...... If I look like this, can I still be saved by going to the hospital?"

The moment I saw her open eyes, I almost fell to the ground.

What is wrapped under a normal person's eyelids is the eyeball. But under the old aunt's eyelids, in the sockets, there were large clumps of pus, and small pieces of egg yolk-like things.

How to describe the impact of these eyes, I only know that at that moment, I couldn't even breathe.

Pus slid out of my aunt's eyes like tears as soon as I opened them, and the rancid smell in the air became stronger and stronger, and for a time I almost uncontrollably wanted to turn around and run away.

"Old ...... Auntie...... What's the matter with your eyes?!" It took me a long time to hear the words trembling in my throat.

The old aunt closed her eyes again, raised her hand, and calmly wiped the pus from her cheeks: "This is retribution......

"What retribution??" I wondered.

She smiled bitterly: "Beitang, did Liu Liqing's kid come to you today?" ”

I was stunned: "How do you know ......?"

After asking, he immediately understood.

Therefore, I couldn't help but get up and looked at her incomprehensibly: "Auntie...... Could it be that the thing that Liu Liqing hung on his body was what you taught him to do?!"

“...... Be. ”

“...... Why? Do you know what he's going to do with it?"

The old aunt smiled bitterly again: "I knew it before...... But what he did today, I really didn't think of anything...... Beitang, if I knew that he was such a person...... No matter what, I won't teach him to do that......"

But whether he did anything to me or not, no matter who he did, he should not do. Auntie, I don't understand, why did you teach him to make such a terrible thing?"

"What are we ......" She was silent for a moment, lowered her head, and slowly clenched the withered hand under the quilt: "I just see that child is really pitiful, so ...... I want to save his life......"