Starting with dissecting ghost stories

Chapter 172 Blindness (3K)

What exactly is Wang Xinran's state of being...?

Or rather, what kind of person is she exactly? When did her personality take shape, and under what circumstances did her character become fixed?

Wang Xinran stared blankly at herself in the mirror, pondering this question.

If we give up controlling Wang Xinran's mother, can we deduce what kind of person Wang Xinran is by observing her mother's reactions?

"Tap tap tap one"

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

Wang Xinran turned around, opened the bathroom door, and looked at the woman standing in the doorway.

"Xiao Ran... don't worry, their injuries aren't serious, they'll recover quickly... Once things are cleared up over there, we'll move back..."

"The middle-aged woman at the door walked into the bathroom and gently hugged Wang Xinran."

To disguise their identities, Wang Xinran's home was burned to the ground by the Ninth Detachment after the bloodstains were cleaned up. They are now living in a rented room in a residential area.

The interior design style is basically the same as before... In fact, there are only about ten decoration companies here, and they all use the same template for their designs, so there is hardly any difference in the hard decoration design.

"Mm." Wang Xinran nodded, then looked up towards the doorway, as if waiting for something.

Erasing memories cannot precisely cut away a specific area while preserving another; it can only achieve broad-based blurring.

Wang Xinran's mother's memories of that period are completely blurred.

All she knew about that period was Wang Xinran's account of the gas explosion and the injuries to her father and brother.

Wang Xinran felt nothing at all as she was embraced by the woman in front of her.

Knowing the other person's memories and being able to regain control of them at any time... The woman in front of me is no different from the fragments of memories of so many people in my memory.

In what way is the special, unique bond of "family affection" manifested?

What makes this middle-aged woman different from others?

You want to see some real reactions, but if you obscure the other person's memories, are those reactions still real?

For some reason, or perhaps just by chance, a memory fragment surfaced in Wang Xinran's mind.

Those are Wang Xinran's memories.

In my memory, my mother, who was affected by the white worms, smiled at me and said, "When do you want to die?"

Is that kind of reaction considered genuine?

I doubt it.

Wang Xinran raised her hand and gently pushed away the middle-aged woman in front of her. Then, under the woman's confused gaze, she moved her right hand slightly upward and extended her index and middle fingers, placing them below the woman's eyes.

To understand the real Wang Xinran, we must first bring her "family" back to the real world.

Perhaps only by seeing those real reactions, and seeing that even those closest to "Wang Xinran" no longer acknowledge "Wang Xinran" as a person, can one truly let go of the dispensable identity of "Wang Xinran".

As for what "I" am after abandoning this identity, perhaps the answer can be found by being by Shen Xing's side.

At least he always seems to have a purpose and is never confused.

The white worms, like two long threads, emerged from the corner of the woman's eye and crawled onto Wang Xinran's fair fingers.

The woman's expression changed from initial doubt to confusion.

She seems to have regained the memory of that completely manipulated period of time, including the night she smiled as she watched her son stab her husband to death and then be shot, and finally her daughter being taken away after undergoing craniotomy.

These memories echoed in her mind. She seemed completely unaware of what had happened. Her lips parted, but her hands gripped Wang Xinran's arm tightly.

"Xiao Ran... Xiao Ran, are you alright? Is everything alright?" The woman seemed to remember something and anxiously raised her hand to touch Wang Xinran's forehead, but could only touch her smooth scalp.

After confirming that her daughter seemed alright, she appeared slightly relieved. Looking at her daughter, who seemed expressionless, she said, "It's okay...it's okay...Mom seems a little confused."

She seemed to think that what she had just recalled was just a series of sudden nightmares.

"Knock knock knock".

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Hey, who is it?" Hearing the knock on the door, the woman gathered up her inexplicably chaotic memories and feelings and went straight to the door.

I opened the door, and there were two unexpected people standing there.

Husband and son.

"You're not in the hospital..." The woman turned to look at Wang Xinran. Her mind was throbbing, and the memory from earlier seemed to resurface... She had no memory of the gas explosion, only the memory of her husband and son lying in a pool of blood, and she could almost still smell the blood.

"Xiao Ran, how's the job search going today?" The middle-aged man smiled at the woman as he entered the room, then looked in Wang Xinran's direction.

Wang Lei glanced at Wang Xinran, then silently walked into the inner room, entering an empty room.

"Hey, didn't you call me 'sister'? That's so disrespectful." The man pointed at Wang Lei's back and cursed, then closed the door and looked at the woman, "What are we having for dinner today?"

"I haven't cooked yet..."

""

Before the woman could say anything, the man grinned, raised the black plastic bag he was carrying, and said, "Meat for lunch."

The woman stared blankly at everything before her, still feeling as if she were in a dream.

The husband, son, and daughter were all there, and everything was as usual, except that the daughter had a tuft of white hair for some reason, and the husband and son both looked unusually pale.

"Son, dinner's ready!" the man called out as he busied himself in the kitchen. His son came out of the room. "3, 2..."

'

Just before the countdown ended, the son opened his bedroom door, walked to the dining table with a sour face, and sat down. His daughter, Wang Xinran, also sat in the main seat, quietly watching everything in front of her.

The woman hesitated for a moment, then sat down at the dining table.

Then her "husband" brought over a few plates.

An indescribable stench emanated from the plate.

The "husband" placed two large platters in the center of the table, covered with frozen meat that had not been cooked or roasted in any way. Next to the scarlet frozen meat, the woman saw a pale finger with green fingernails.

The "son" grabbed the hand and bit down on it, his teeth grinding against the ice shards with a "crunching" sound. Melted ice water mixed with dark red "juice" flowed down the corner of the son's mouth.

Wang Xinran sat upright in the main seat, quietly watching this happy family scene.

Is this what home feels like?

Immediately afterwards, a piercing scream shattered the peaceful and warm scene at the dinner table.

"You are dead! You are dead!"

The woman screamed almost in despair. As she stumbled backward, she crashed into a chair and fell to the ground, but she quickly got up and ran towards Wang Xinran.

"Hurry! Xiao Ran! They're ghosts!" The middle-aged woman grabbed Wang Xinran's arm and dragged her up from her seat with almost all her might, then ran towards the door with her.

But soon, the woman felt waves of resistance.

She looked back and saw Wang Xinran standing there, calmly watching her, seemingly with no intention of leaving.

"What are you talking about?"

Wang Xinran looked at the two people still eating at the table and said, "They came back to life. Now we, as a family, can be together again. We should be happy."

"No! They're not! Xiaoran, what's wrong? Xiaoran... Mom begs you, please come with me!"

"Why?" Wang Xinran frowned slightly, somewhat puzzled. "They're the same as before."

The resurrected father and brother have the exact same memories as before, except that their diet has been changed to the flesh and blood that the split body needs. The nameless corpses in the funeral home can provide this flesh and blood, so there is no shortage.

Apart from that, isn't everything still the same?

"Ah!!! Ahhh!!!" The woman seemed to have completely ignored Wang Xinran's words. She watched in despair as the two monsters wearing the skins of her husband and son devoured flesh and blood, crying out in heart-wrenching agony.

She tried desperately to pull Wang Xinran away, but Wang Xinran seemed completely unmoved. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move Wang Xinran an inch.

The woman seemed utterly exhausted. She collapsed to her knees, crying out helplessly, as if she had no idea how to cope with the scene before her.

Wang Xinran walked up to her, looked at her face, and half-squatted down.

"Are they ghosts?" Wang Xinran asked the middle-aged woman in front of her, pointing at the two men beside the dining table.

"Waaah... They're ghosts... Ghosts... Why...?" The middle-aged woman cried so hard she almost choked.

"Then I'm a ghost too," Wang Xinran pointed to herself and said, "I had my ghost friends bring them back."

"Waaaaah..."

""

The woman was just crying; it was unclear whether she had heard what was being said.

"We were all affected by ghosts. I became a ghost, my brother was affected by me and killed our father, then was killed by the police who arrived, and then I was taken away," Wang Xinran asked with some confusion, "Didn't you remember?"

The white worm was no longer in the mind of the middle-aged woman in front of her; Wang Xinran could not fathom what was going on in her mind.

But crying like this all the time is still very annoying.

However, it seems that...

Neither the identity of "Wang Xinran" nor the definition of family and kinship seems to have any meaning.

Once the fiends have finished eating, take them back to the funeral home.

It's time to end this farce.

Just as she was about to stand up, she felt someone tugging at the hem of her dress.

Wang Xinran looked down and saw the middle-aged woman who had smiled and asked her if she wanted to die. Now, her eyes were bloodshot and her sobs were still shrill and unpleasant.

"...Xiao Ran, it's okay, it's not your fault..."

'

"Tell your friend...you should turn your mom into a ghost too..."

'

"Mom will stay with you too..."

""

The love of family sometimes seems blind, indiscriminate of right and wrong.

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