Chapter 18: Old Clothes She saw a lot of her inexplicably missing...
There are no windows in the basement, and the passage of time becomes a blur.
The mirrors around reflected countless figures, each one pale and bewildered, like a butterfly caught in a spider web.
Early in the morning, after Yu Peizhi left, she began to explore this underground space.
The door leading out should be opened by a mechanism, but she searched for a long time and couldn't find the mechanism.
The wallpaper covered with dark patterns, the chandelier made in the style of brass candlesticks, and even the dark green velvet single sofa in the corner... all have a lingering sense of familiarity.
Yes, it looks very much like the decoration of that apartment in England.
That madman's aesthetic.
Do we even need to imitate something like this? Is it even possible to imitate something like this?
Footsteps came from the passage.
Yu Peizhi appeared with a tray and the gentle smile she was most familiar with was on his face.
It was as if the crazy confrontation just now had never happened.
"Baby, are you hungry?"
He placed the dinner tray on the small table in front of the sofa.
It was a perfectly fried sunny-side-up egg, toast and a cup of hot milk, with a few raspberries decorated on the edge of the plate.
Zhui Lian didn't look at the food. She raised her eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "Yu Peizhi, let's talk."
Yu Peizhi squatted down in front of Zhui Lian and tried to touch her chapped lips with his fingertips, but she turned her head away.
"Why don't you drink some water?" He frowned slightly. "Didn't I pour some for you and put it by your bed?"
I'm afraid you'll drug me.
Zhui Lian thought to himself.
But she didn't say it out loud, just kept repeating: "Yu Peizhi, let's talk."
"What?" he asked good-naturedly.
"I really won't run away," Zhui Lian heard herself say, her voice eerily calm. "I won't get a divorce either."
Yu Peizhi raised his eyebrows, as if appreciating something interesting: "Oh?"
"I will... try to accept you for who you are." Her stomach churned as she said this.
Yu Peizhi laughed softly, his laughter echoing in the mirror room: "Lianlian, what can you promise?"
His voice was deep and particularly creepy: "Your promise is as fragile as glass."
Zhui Lian gritted her teeth and said, "I'll give you my ID card and my passport. I'll leave all my documents to you for safekeeping."
"Then what?"
Yu Peizhi leaned closer, his warm breath spraying on her face, "As soon as you get out, you can call the police to arrest me and say I'm a lunatic who imprisoned his wife."
She did have that idea.
but--
Zhui Lian looked at him calmly and said, "Will anyone believe me? Yu Peizhi, you know better than me."
Yu Peizhi tilted his head, as if thinking about the rules of a game.
After a while, he suddenly smiled, revealing a brilliant smile: "Well, if Lianlian is really so sincere..."
He pointed his finger at a low cabinet not far away.
"Then Lianlian, go open that. After you open it, I will let you out."
The low cabinet was not locked.
Zhui Lian walked over, pulled it gently, and it opened.
Underwear, panties, socks, hair ties...even old suspenders that she thought she had lost long ago, were neatly stacked in rows, in an almost morbid display.
Most of them were her personal belongings that mysteriously disappeared when she first came to this small border town.
There were even some inexplicable snags on the neckline of one nightgown, and several pairs of underwear had obviously been washed, yet still lingered with a faint, strange smell that didn't belong to detergent.
There are even older items that disappeared two years ago when she and Yu Peizhi just started dating.
A light apricot lace bra with suspicious deep marks on the edges.
Zhui Lian felt dizzy and had to grab the edge of the low cabinet to barely stand.
How long had he been spying on her like this? In how many moments when she thought she was alone, he was holding these...
"ah……"
Yu Peizhi's eyes lightly swept across the open drawer in front of Zhui Lian, and his tone was incomparably calm, even with a hint of interest, "Baby saw it."
He also took a step forward, approached the low cabinet, and gently brushed his slender fingers over the rows of underwear.
"Look, they're all still new."
Yu Peizhi didn't look embarrassed at all, and even smiled, "Baby, do you want to praise me? I'm cherishing it."
He picked up the small sling with his fingertips.
"Lianlian doesn't know..."
Yu Peizhi turned his head to look at her, his eyes deep and sticky, "When you are not around, they are the only ones that keep me company."
The fabrics, one piece at a time, were caressed by the fingertips.
The fingertips grew hotter, but the eyes grew darker.
"I smell them, and I think of you...and I think of how you'd look in them, and how they'd feel against your skin...and I just can't help it."
That low yet burning sigh lingered, "It's like you're really trembling in my arms..."
Zhui Lian unconsciously took a few steps back.
Yu Peizhi grabbed her wrist and forced her palm against the slightly cool fabric.
His fingers pressed against hers with surprising force.
"Lianlian, you won't understand that feeling."
Yu Peizhi narrowed his eyes slightly, as if he was savoring some ultimate enjoyment.
"I'm right here, looking in the mirror..."
An abnormal blush spread across his cheeks. He lowered his head and sniffed the suspenders deeply: "Thinking about you, feeling you... Only in this way can I slightly alleviate the thirst of not being able to see you."
Zhui Lian pulled her hand back abruptly, her stomach churning.
In the mirror, countless of her were trying their best to conceal their expressions.
Yu Peizhi looked at her reaction, which she couldn't hide, and suddenly laughed again.
That smile was mixed with a sense of satisfaction that chilled one's bones.
He carefully folded the suspenders and put them back into the drawer, as gently as if he were handling a rare treasure.
"Scared?" He tilted his head, his tone even a little aggrieved, "But... this is the real me, Lianlian."
"Didn't you say... you'd try to accept the real me? But you're afraid of even that, so..."
Zhui Lian interrupted him and said, "No, I just didn't react for a moment."
"I'll try my best to accept it." She raised her eyes and looked at Yu Peizhi with as calm a look as possible, "If this is the real you."
The air stagnated for three or two seconds.
Yu Peizhi stood up and extended his hand towards her.
"Okay, since you're so sincere, let's go out first, and--"
He suddenly laughed faintly, "I have a surprise for you."
Zhui Lian looked at him suspiciously, alarm bells ringing in her heart.
This change was too fast and too strange.
But she had no choice. The basement was like a suffocating cage. If she stayed there any longer, she would be trapped in Britain's continuous cold rainy season.
Zhui Lian finally reached out and placed her hand on his cold palm.
Yu Peizhi took her hand, walked out of the suffocating mirror room, and returned to the bathroom upstairs.
The sudden brightness hurt her eyes.
Zhui Lian stood in front of the sink. The bathroom was tidy again. The broken mirror, bloodstains, toothbrush cups, wooden brushes, metal racks thrown on the floor... had all been cleaned up.
She scooped up a handful of cold water and washed her face.
The cell phone finally had a signal, and Zhui Lian was about to order herself some birth control pills, when she felt a cold touch on her back.
It is a transparent document bag.
Yu Peizhi put his arm around her waist and handed the file bag to her.
He displayed it like a work of art, a gentle smile on his face. "Look, now... you should finally feel relieved, right?"
Zhui Lian's eyes fell on the items in the file bag.
Inside was a surgery certificate issued by the hospital.
The paper was white, in standard format, and clearly printed in black Song font:
[Patient name: Yu Peizhi]
[Surgery name: Vasectomy]
The date showed that it was one month before their wedding.
At that time, Yu Peizhi was collecting folk songs in other places.
Zhui Lian suddenly looked up and looked at him in disbelief.
Yu Peizhi said softly: "I told you that you won't get pregnant. Do you believe it now?"
She pinched out the thin piece of paper, her fingertips were cold, and her eyes subconsciously swept over the name of the hospital where the operation was performed - [Friendship Hospital].
A private hospital with a name so ordinary that it seems a bit tacky.
But Zhui Lian silently memorized the name.
"Why?" Zhui Lian heard his own voice asking.
"Why?" Yu Peizhi looked calm. He twirled a strand of Zhui Lian's hair with his fingertips and said, "You said you don't like children."
Zhui Lian actually thought that the topic could end here.
All the anxieties that we were afraid of could finally be put to rest.
But she couldn't help but ask, "What about you?"
"Me?" Yu Peizhi repeated.
Then he suddenly leaned over, put his hands on the edge of the sink, and trapped her between his arms.
The mirror reflected Yu Peizhi's approaching face, with a dark current in his eyes that Zhui Lian could not understand.
"I don't like it." He smiled, "I don't want Lianlian to have eyes for anyone else, no one."
Including their children.
Her gaze could only belong to him, only him, only him.
Zhui Lian turned sideways, avoiding Yu Peizhi's scorching gaze, placed the briefcase on the washing machine beside her, and asked the next question that had been lingering on her mind for a long time.
"Yu Peizhi, there's one thing I don't understand." She spoke calmly.
"I never told you anything about that man, his habits, his tone...how did you know those details?"
The smile on Yu Peizhi's face faded a little, and his eyes became deep.
He straightened up and looked at her thoughtfully, as if he was weighing something.
Yu Peizhi: "Do you really want to know?"
Zhui Lian nodded.
After a while, he suddenly took out his mobile phone from his pocket, tapped his fingers quickly on the screen, entered a long string of numbers, and then handed it to her.
The screen was bright and dazzling, showing a mobile phone number whose location was S City.
"Is Lianlian very curious?"
The corners of his mouth curled up subtly, as if he was smiling. "If you're really curious...just call this number and ask yourself."
The tone was low, gentle and soft.
The temptation is hidden in the end of the upward hook of the final sound.
There was also a hint of mischief mixed in there, a kind of enjoyable show.
Zhui Lian looked at the string of numbers, and a strong sense of foreboding gripped her.
"Don't you want to call?" Yu Peizhi tilted his head and prepared to take back his phone.
Zhui Lian suddenly reached out and snatched the phone from his hand at that moment. Her fingertips trembled slightly as she pressed the dial button.
“Beep—beep—”
There were long calls coming from the receiver, each one sounded like a slow mental torture.
Finally, the call was picked up.
"Hello?"
A noble female voice came from the other end of the receiver, clear, calm, polite yet with a pampered tone.
This voice—
Zhui Lian's breathing suddenly stopped, and her hand holding the phone tightened again and again.
This voice...she will never forget it until her death.
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The author has something to say: Here comes the pervert...
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