Chapter 32: Birdsong
Li Jiahong had a strange dream last night. In the dream, he saw a bird he had never seen before. Because the distance was somewhat far, and dreams are always such unclear things, he couldn’t see the specific appearance of that bird clearly, but what he could determine was that the bird seemed to have a torso similar to a human’s, and an extremely long face.
Although its appearance was somewhat frightening, Li Jiahong felt a strange sense of trust toward it, always feeling that it wouldn’t harm him.
Just as he inexplicably opened his arms, wanting to welcome the embrace of that nameless bird, he suddenly woke up.
“It’s already… already morning?” Li Jiahong got up from his wife’s bedside. The sunlight entering his eyes somewhat stung his eyeballs. He rubbed his eyes, and the image of his wife sitting up against the headboard gradually became clear.
“Look at you, sleeping like this must be uncomfortable, really… you could have squeezed in with me.” Jiang Gu looked at her just-awakened husband rubbing his waist with a pained expression on his face, and she couldn’t help but put on a reproachful look.
Li Jiahong stood up and stretched his muscles and bones, laughing: “That’s not because I didn’t shower last night, afraid that my dirty smell would make you unclean too.”
“We’re old husband and wife, when have I ever disliked you.” Jiang Gu glared slightly.
Li Jiahong couldn’t help but chuckle. Looking at Jiang Gu’s girlish demeanor at this moment, he couldn’t help but recall when he and his wife were young and dating. Although her appearance had changed, it still made his heart flutter even now.
Li Jiahong gently caressed Jiang Gu’s face: “You look much better today.”
“Mm, maybe because that amulet took effect, and with you by my side, I slept very soundly last night, with an unprecedented sense of peace.” Jiang Gu took the initiative to hold Li Jiahong’s hand, gently caressing her face on his rough palm.
In the midst of this tender moment, Jiang Gu heard her husband’s stomach emit a roar of hunger. She immediately burst out laughing, then turned to get out of bed, “Hungry, huh? I’ll go get you some food.”
“Wait, you’re not better yet, lie down first, I’ll go.” Li Jiahong, seeing this, quickly supported his wife who was preparing to get out of bed, afraid she might accidentally fall.
After hearing her husband’s words, Jiang Gu was stunned for a moment, her expression showing a brief stiff change. She then obediently lay back on the bed, looking at her husband with tender eyes like water: “You’re right, just now I was too impatient, thinking it was still like before.”
“Wait for me to come back.” Li Jiahong smiled as he tucked Jiang Gu in properly, stroked his wife’s hair, and after saying that, left the hospital room, looking back every few steps.
As he went downstairs, Li Jiahong’s eyes brightened, murmuring: “That feather amulet might really be useful…”
After buying breakfast and enjoying it together with his wife in the hospital room, Li Jiahong used the hospital room’s bathroom to take a shower. After Jiang Gu’s parents came to accompany her, he finally dared to leave with peace of mind. Before leaving, he didn’t forget to tell his wife, “He probably won’t leave Shenzhou for the next period of time. Mom and Dad are getting old, it’s too tiring for them to accompany at night, so he’ll come over every night to accompany her from now on.”
Under his wife’s reluctant yet tender gaze, Li Jiahong left the hospital room. When the elevator stopped midway at the third floor while he was going down to leave the inpatient department, a mother and child entered—a young mother carrying her child who was probably only one or two years old.
The woman held the child tightly. Although she appeared normal on the surface, her eyes never dared to meet those of the people in the elevator, trying her best to evade, with a trace of lingering fear in her eyes.
“Xiao Nan, wait!” Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a young man dragging luggage chased in right before they shut, carrying a bag of infant supplies in his hand. He entered the elevator, panting while helplessly saying to the woman, “This is too sudden, the doctor said Xiao Bao should stay for observation one more day.”
Hearing this, the woman said angrily and in shock: “Stay in the hospital? I don’t even dare to stay here one day!”
Seeing his wife’s agitated expression, the man raised his hands in surrender and gave an apologetic look to Li Jiahong in the elevator. Li Jiahong responded with an understanding light smile.
The man lowered his voice a bit: “It was just a nightmare, isn’t Xiao Bao right by your side safe and sound?”
“That wasn’t a dream!” The woman called Xiao Nan probably realized it wasn’t good to shout so loudly in public. After yelling that, she immediately gritted her teeth and said lowly: “You don’t know how scared I was last night, Xiao Bao suddenly disappeared for half an hour, I was anxious searching everywhere…”
As she spoke, the woman began to cry softly. The child in her arms, innocent and unaware, giggled while playing with his mother’s hair.
The man sighed and embraced his wife and child.
Li Jiahong watched all this from the side, feeling somewhat emotional inside.
“I don’t want to hear that bird call again, it’s too scary…” The woman gradually calmed in her husband’s arms and let out a complaint.
Not sure if it was because he was too sensitive, when Li Jiahong heard “bird call,” he suddenly raised his voice in surprise: “Bird call, what kind of bird call?”
Hearing Li Jiahong’s puzzled voice, the woman turned her head, showing a somewhat embarrassed expression: “Big brother, don’t mind it, maybe I was too nervous and misheard.”
The man explained: “My wife said it was like a woman imitating a strange bird call, making sounds like ‘gu gu gu,’ sounding quite silly…”
Li Jiahong walked out of the hospital and gazed at the environment around the inpatient department over the hospital wall, a trace of hard-to-calm suffocation slowly growing in his heart.
He always felt that the tallest tree in front of the inpatient department looked so similar to the one he saw in his dream…
To continue investigating the matters related to Huo Gu and the disappearance of children, Li Jiahong headed to the address provided by Wei Jiang. He wanted to see if the person who was said to have escaped from that eerie being Huo Gu had left any useful clues.
Since they could escape, that means there must be a way to go back, right?
If the child was still alive in Huo Gu’s lair, he had to rescue him no matter what.
If… if he was already dead, bringing back other people’s children would still be a good thing.
It could be said that after Li Jiahong learned that the being who took his own child back then was not human but some unprecedented strange creature, he had already prepared for the worst.
The address provided by Wei Jiang, although not local to Shenzhou, was just in the neighboring Huigang City, and it wouldn’t take more than two hours by car from where he was now.
Upon arriving at the destination, Li Jiahong found himself in a village.
This village seemed to have only one road up and down the mountain. The villagers built their houses on the mountaintop and mountainside, and every household had decorated their houses quite nicely, looking like private villas.
There were quite a few people living here, and some had even opened farmhouses, presenting a peaceful scene.
Li Jiahong had deliberately dressed neatly and cleanly today. After all, he might need to visit someone, so he had to dress properly. He followed the door numbers from house to house, gradually realizing he seemed to be moving away from people, stepping onto a forest path without asphalt, entering the forest.
He thought he had gone the wrong way, but soon, as he looked up, he saw not far away a dilapidated two-story flat-roofed house hidden among lush trees.
As he approached that rundown small building emanating an ominous aura all over, Li Jiahong compared the door number and confirmed that the address provided by Wei Jiang was right here.
It’s still the new book period now, welcome everyone to invest enthusiastically, it’s free anyway, no harm in clicking~~~
