The Eleventh Year of Making Hate with My Lover - Chapter 11

“Looks like what? One of those specters from the West District?”

In the minds of most ordinary people, anomalous anomalies were still fundamentally perceived as ghosts and monsters.

“Are you talking about me?” Shen Wang crushed his cigarette, picking up a stray tomato that had rolled right to his feet.

The young man took a few frantic steps backward, earning a sharp scolding from his companion who had rushed over to join him: “What kind of absolute nonsense are you spouting?”

“…I am incredibly sorry about him.” The companion dragged the youth to the side, offering a sheepish apology. “My brother walked past 19th Street in the West District last night and saw… something. It scared the absolute daylights out of him.”

“And that thing looks like me?” Shen Wang’s interest piqued slightly. He casually handed the tomato back to them.

The man accepted it, offering a polite word of thanks before hesitatingly adding: “…It’s not an exact match facially, it’s mostly just the height and general frame…” He gestured vaguely with his hands. “If you only look at the silhouette from behind, there’s definitely a resemblance.”

“But Bro… it’s not just a little bit, it really looked exactly like—” The youth peered out from behind his brother’s shoulder, stealing another tense glance at Shen Wang.

“Shut your mouth.”

The brother let out a heavy, weary sigh and complained, “Sigh, there isn’t a single Animancer available to handle it either. It’s gotten to the point where nobody dares to take that road after dark anymore.”

He used the phrase “available to handle it” rather than “willing to go handle it,” indicating that Animancers had undoubtedly attempted to clear the anomaly previously they had simply failed.

“Is it exceptionally difficult to capture?” Shen Wang lifted his eyelids slightly.

“Not necessarily. The entity isn’t inherently aggressive. It’s just that someone apparently cast some sort of barrier over its body, making it physically impossible for anyone to get close.”

Deploying a protective barrier over an anomalous specter… This was a first even for Shen Wang.

“Let’s go,” Wu Que called out from a short distance away, his tone flat.

“Oh, coming.” Shen Wang flicked the cigarette butt into a trash can, tracing his steps back to catch up with unhurried strides.

He couldn’t tell if Wu Que had overheard their conversation.

The streetlights cast a sharp glare over Wu Que’s frame, making his complexion appear even more starkly porcelain. Between the interplay of light and shadow, his expression remained completely unreadable.

Predictably, the closer they drew to 19th Street, the more desolate the landscape became. Although this sector sat right adjacent to a major commercial hub, practically no one actually lived on this specific street anymore following the supernatural incidents.

The road was illuminated solely by solitary streetlamps spaced several meters apart, plunging the environment into a suffocating, dead silence.

Shen Wang rolled down the car window, carefully scanning the surroundings for any activity. For the time being, nothing anomalous had manifested. If there was a single bizarre variable to speak of, it was the fact that Wu Que had abruptly and seamlessly rolled the window back up.

“What are you doing? I was trying to check if there’s a situation out there,” Shen Wang muttered, turning his head in confusion.

“The wind is a bit chilly,” Wu Que coughed softly.

“We are in the dead of summer, aren’t we?” Shen Wang thought. Could you at least try to assemble a more plausible excuse?

“I have a frail constitution,” Wu Que declared with an entirely straight face, his gaze fixed on the distance ahead. “I can’t quite recall if I bought coffee. Would you mind checking the shopping bag for me?”

His psychological state today was profoundly off. Though suspicions swirled in his chest, Shen Wang still hoisted the plastic bag onto his lap, dipping his head to rummage through it.

Yet, it was precisely this downward movement that caused him to completely miss a shadow flashing past the window outside. Simultaneously, a violent wave of acute, piercing pain struck his skull. Shen Wang’s brow knit tightly together as he pressed his fingertips firmly against his temples, a sharp hiss escaping his lips.

“Ugh…”

It was happening again. His consciousness frequently fell victim to debilitating headaches driven by instability within his mental sea. The system claimed this was a direct symptom of losing more than half of his core mental nucleus. As for how exactly he had lost it that remained an absolute cipher.

“Are you alright?” Wu Que reached out a hand, resting his palm flat against Shen Wang’s forehead as a faint, ethereal blue light pulsed from his fingertips.

“It’s fine, I’m used to it.” Shen Wang subtly pushed the hand away. Once the throbbing pain receded into a manageable dull ache, he resumed digging through the bag.

The items Wu Que had purchased consisted entirely of standard daily necessities like toothbrushes and tissues, along with a few cooking ingredients.

“Isn’t it right here? How do you manage to forget what you personally picked out?” He hoisted the chilled can of coffee to show him. Yet, the exact moment his gaze drifted toward the item sitting directly underneath it, he froze for a solid second before pulling his hand back as if he had been burned.

Squeezed into the far corner of the bag was a small, silver square box, slightly wider than a standard pack of cigarettes, its surface stamped with specific raised textures. Any adult male would instantly recognize its utility at a single glance.

The hand Shen Wang used to hold the iced coffee trembled imperceptibly, his fingers tightening against the aluminum can.

Why on earth did he buy that?

Who exactly does he intend to use it with?

He dropped the coffee can back into its original position, tossing the entire bag onto the backseat. His fingertips were still slick with the icy condensation from the can, the freezing sensation barely doing anything to suppress the sudden, inexplicable wave of awkwardness pooling in his throat.

All the way until the vehicle glided into the residential garage, Shen Wang didn’t utter another syllable.

“We’re here.” Wu Que killed the engine, noticing that his companion was completely checked out mentally.

“Oh.” Shen Wang stared at him, his mind unprompted flashing right back to that box of protection, before rubbing his face aggressively and turning to step out of the vehicle.

Perhaps because he hadn’t returned in such a long time, Shen Wang’s immediate, instinctive reaction upon stepping out was to inspect the property.

It was a three-story Western-style townhouse complete with a courtyard. The yard looked rather chaotic, the lawn clearly starved of maintenance for a prolonged period. Beyond the overgrowth of weeds, a vast majority of the flora had already withered to dust. In stark contrast, however, a cluster of bushes sitting right beside a wicker lounge chair stood nearly half a person tall, its blue and pink blossoms thriving with eerie, unnatural vitality. Despite the blistering summer climate, the flowers exuded a distinct, localized chill.

The second the vehicle had crossed the perimeter; Shen Wang had sensed an immensely intricate network of barriers deployed around the architecture. It was impossible to discern whether it was designed to keep an outside threat out, or to keep something inside locked away.

Wu Que seemed extraordinarily fixated on the flowers by the wicker chair.

Tracing the trajectory of his gaze, Shen Wang concentrated his eyes on the thriving blossoms. “Those flowers are blooming remarkably well. What species are they? To think they’re still thriving after you’ve been gone for months.”

Wu Que’s fingertips curled inward with an unconscious tremor. “Eternal Beacons. A flower cultivated to commemorate the deceased.”

It appeared that the mere sight of this floral patch was enough to thoroughly settle his mind.

“……” What a lunatic. Who plants that kind of omen in their own front yard? Shen Wang simply couldn’t comprehend his logic.

“Let’s head upstairs, I’m absolutely exhausted,” Shen Wang mumbled, letting out a yawn.

Pushing the front door open, the interior of the living room wasn’t nearly as desolate as he had anticipated. The home furnishings actually leaned into an incredibly warm, domestic aesthetic. Different sizes of shoes lined the entryway rack, matching pairs of water mugs sat atop the coffee table, and various styles of framed paintings adorned the walls it was immediately apparent at a single glance that two people had once shared this space.

Shen Wang hesitated for a moment before probing: “Is this the house we lived in after we got married?”

“Bingo.” Wu Que’s tone curved upward, yet his expression didn’t carry a single shred of genuine warmth or joy. “Everything is exactly the way you left it. Does any of it ring a bell?”

“None.” Though the word left his lips cleanly, a phantom sense of familiarity trickled into Shen Wang’s chest. It was highly abstract not a concrete visual memory, but rather a structural sensation.

Wu Que displayed zero surprise at the response. Nodding placidly, he escorted him up to a bedroom on the second floor. The layout here preserved the same warm, intentional design milk-white curtains, a pale-yellow tablecloth, and a matching rug. The person who had curated this environment had clearly gone to great lengths to ensure the occupant maintained a bright mood.

Yet, upon closer inspection, the headboard bore clear, distinct friction marks where iron implements had repeatedly ground against the wood.

It looked precisely as though… someone had once been systematically chained to this bed.

As Shen Wang stared at the marks in a daze, Wu Que returned from the adjacent room cradling a fresh set of bedding. He dropped to his knees on the mattress to smooth out the sheets. Due to the momentum of his movements, his shirt draped downward, exposing a brief, slender sliver of his porcelain waist.

Shen Wang uncomfortably averted his eyes, his gaze snapping right back to the headboard.

If this place truly served as their marital residence… who exactly had locked up whom?

Wu Que’s movements suddenly faltered for a microscopic fraction of a second. “…You can case the duvet yourself. There’s water boiling in the kitchen, I’ll go check on it.”

Suspecting nothing, Shen Wang reached out to accept the bedding. He practically never tackled domestic chores; when he had first woken up in that decrepit, crumbling apartment complex within the Black Market, he would typically just wrap himself in his trench coat and crash directly on the mattress. His hands were engineered to wield firearms and daggers, so technically, this task should have been clumsy. Yet, acting entirely on pure muscle memory, his fingers moved with surprising, fluid efficiency, sliding the duvet into its cover seamlessly.

He began to meticulously survey the parameter of the room.

For reasons he couldn’t name, a profound, hollow sense of emptiness began to expand within his chest.

Wu Que walked out of the room with his head bowed low, pausing on the staircase landing as his hand traced the wooden banister to peer down. Only a solitary lamp remained illuminated in the living room below; the entryway and the kitchen were swallowed in deep shadow.

Upon reaching the ground floor, he bypassed the kitchen entirely, marching directly to the front entryway. With near-silent precision, he twisted the doorknob and stepped out into the night, sinking into the wicker lounge chair positioned right in front of the Eternal Beacons. Leaning his head back against the frame, his long legs rhythmically rocked the chair back and forth.

Approximately one minute later, a dark, fluid substance began to seep through the gap beneath the front gate, gradually coalescing into a human silhouette right before his eyes.

Wu Que opened his eyes. The familiar face materialized, completely swathed in a wreath of black mist and freezing energy.

“Sweetheart… you’re finally home.” The voice was equally familiar—the exact tone Wu Que had been listening to all day.

The slender phantom dropped to a crouch beside the lounge chair, lifting its head in a desperate bid to clasp Wu Que’s hand, only for its fingers to uselessly phase straight through his skin. The entity stared blankly at its own hands, a profoundly wounded, aggrieved expression bleeding onto its features.

“Don’t go out scaring people at night,” Wu Que murmured, a blue light shimmering at his fingertips as he formed a phantom grasp around the dark entity’s forearm.

“I was merely looking for you.” The specter’s physical form began to blur and destabilize, gradually condensing down into a tiny, fractured shard of a mental nucleus. Yet, its voice continued to vibrate through the night air: “Please don’t leave me all alone in that empty house ever again.”

……

Shen Wang’s sleep that night was anything but peaceful. A constant, faint rustling sound kept scraping against his consciousness, sounding precisely as though someone was trying to force their way through the gap beneath his bedroom door. He swung the door open, only to find Wu Que standing in the corridor clad in his pajamas, a mechanical puppet clutched firmly in his hands.

“……” A heavy, mutual silence descended between them.

“You… don’t sleep at night just so you can play with toys?” Shen Wang narrowed his eyes, entirely unable to parse what his companion was scheming.

“I stumbled upon it while organizing some old boxes. I was just about to dump it into the storage room.” Wu Que lightly rattled the puppet. His grip on the object was profoundly bizarre, his fingers practically clamping its mouth shut.

This mechanical puppet looked remarkably human… dark hair, dark eyes, it felt strangely familiar.

Just as Shen Wang leaned in closer to inspect it, an object nestled deep within the puppet’s chest cavity suddenly flared with light. Immediately after, its four limbs jerked violently, its miniature fist nearly colliding directly with the bridge of Shen Wang’s nose.

“……”

“……”

Wu Que pulled his hand back with a sheepish chuckle. “It’s been sitting in storage for so long, yet the battery life is still remarkably potent.”

Tucking the puppet back under his arm, he turned on his heel to scale the stairs toward the third floor, not forgetting to throw a parting instruction over his shoulder: “Get some rest early.”

How completely bizarre. Ever since their return to Capital A, this man had been acting flagrantly abnormal. Furthermore, Shen Wang’s own internal state was fluctuating wildly; while fluctuations within his mental sea were common, they were rarely this frequent. He had suffered multiple acute headaches in a single day.

Shen Wang clicked the lights off, staring blankly at the ceiling in the dark. Gradually, the microscopic sound of an object shifting positions drifted down to his ears.

It was faint, yet infinitely amplified by the dead of night.

There was something moving directly above his ceiling to be precise, inside the room directly upstairs.

What exactly is he hiding up there?

Recalling that uncanny mechanical puppet from earlier, Shen Wang crept out of bed with completely soundless steps, slowly cracking his bedroom door open. The moonlight filtered through the hallway window, painting a pale, skeletal layer of light across the floorboards, making the adjacent shadows appear even more chaotic and menacing. The black staircase extended upward into absolute pitch darkness. Shen Wang pressed his lips together, ultimately resolving to investigate.

He carefully bypassed Wu Que’s bedroom door, navigating the darkness entirely by touch as he scaled the steps to the third floor.

The third floor comprised two rooms and a small open-air balcony. The room situated furthest down the corridor sat directly above his own bedroom. He walked over and tested the handle—no response. It was firmly locked.

Wasting zero time, Shen Wang experimentally deployed his puppet strings, channeling them through the narrow gap beneath the doorframe. The Mystic Water manifestation stretched out from the shadows, transforming into an ultra-fine black thread that snaked into the interior, unlocking the mechanism from the inside.

Though designated as a storage room, it was structurally just a spare bedroom littered with a scattering of items. A few oversized cardboard boxes sat loosely across the hardwood floor. Shen Wang continued to maneuver his puppet strings, sending them sliding through the hollowed-out handle grips of the nearest box to feel around.

A book… some garments… a few bizarre implements.

Suddenly, Shen Wang’s movements froze completely as a violent wave of absolute ice-cold terror raced up his spine from his limbs.

Through his strings, he had just brushed against a human hand.