Frightening Joke: Above the Mist

In a haze, like a dream, like an illusion.

These people... were the ones he had seen before, those who died in Fog Gathering.

And at the moment he saw this scene, Bai Yanliang also felt completely weak, collapsing to the ground.

Qi Nian and a group of shadowy human figures surrounded him, looking down at him, expressionless...

————

I had a dream.

In the dream, I often played with a big boy...

Under the dim sky, on an old street, the stage set up was singing an opera I couldn't understand.

The big child and I sat in the dark audience, watching the stage intently, occasionally clapping enthusiastically.

Until the sky grew darker, until I realized the surroundings were unusually quiet, the stage also fell silent.

The previously incomprehensible yet pleasant opera now seemed particularly jarring to the ears, and the big child and I hurriedly looked around to find that the vast audience had long since emptied, leaving only us sitting there.

Looking back at the stage, the opera actors stood silent, heads bowed, though the lights weren't flickering or dim, yet it felt much colder, casting a ghastly white light on the actors' faces, their heavy makeup running down like melted candle wax.

At that moment, I felt a tight grip on my hand, it was the big child who held me tightly, dragging me to run away.

I didn't know how long we ran, but the old street seemed to stretch indefinitely, constantly extending forward, and even when I was too exhausted to move, eyelids heavy, we still couldn't get out.

Later, I woke up.

When I woke up again, I was already home.

It was only then that I knew; it was the big child who carried me back home.

And that big child, was my brother, named Bai Yanren.

Our parents died young, the two of us were raised by our grandparents, and before we were fully raised, our grandfather, who was a long-term alcoholic, also passed away, leaving only an immobile elder and us two brothers.

After we escaped from the opera troupe, my health began to weaken, from inexplicable nosebleeds to bleeding from the eyes, ears, and mouth, and even after going to the hospital, no cause could be found.

Grandma became increasingly worried, her health also worsened, and not long after, she too passed away.

Until her dying breath, Grandma cursed Bai Yanren, claiming that my condition was entirely his fault.

Speaking of my brother Bai Yanren, he was also a peculiar person.

I'm much younger than my brother, so almost from childhood, I heard all sorts of tales about him.

My brother was very smart, from the neighbors' conversations you could tell, he was what they called 'someone else's kid'.

He could constantly excel in academics without much effort. His physical fitness, height, and appearance were all quite impressive.

But at home, before Grandfather passed away, and I was very young, I can vaguely remember, the family always called my brother a jinx.

Indeed, my brother was very clever, but it seemed his intelligence was something taboo at home.

It was later that I learned from Grandfather's drunken rambles the rough story.

It turned out, our parents' early deaths were also because of my brother Bai Yanren.

According to Grandfather's jumbled recounting, the situation then was somewhat like my own experience.

It seemed that my brother was inherently sensitive to certain strange places, or rather, he was naturally drawn to unusual things.

When he was very young, before I was born, he was just a four or five-year-old child who left home alone, searching throughout the already urbanized streets for something, and he actually found a well that shouldn't have existed in the city.

Our parents were frantic, asking around and gathering information before they found his exact location.

When they arrived, my brother was trying to dive headfirst into the well.

Our parents quickly rushed over, grabbing his feet and pulling him out.

But at that moment, the four or five-year-old brother seemed like he lost something into the well, constantly struggling and reaching towards it.

Mom and Dad comforted him while peering into the well.

That glance was when the big problem arose.

The two were stunned on the spot, as if their souls had left them, they returned home in a daze, holding the child.

After that, their health rapidly deteriorated, and like my symptoms, they first had nosebleeds, which progressed to bleeding from all orifices, finally their bodies began "fading", turning into a grayish hue before silently passing away.

This process took several years.

And it was during this time that I was born.

Grandfather's drunken muttering seemed to come from personal experience, maybe it was true, after all, when they said the child was lost, many neighbors helped look for him too, surely it wasn't just my parents at the scene.

In any case, because of this incident, my brother's odd behavior became a family's constant worry.

Under the family's intentional observation, many of my brother's actions seemed even stranger.

He would stare intently at seemingly empty places for ages.

He liked to venture into dark areas, the deeper the darkness, the more he liked it.

He always looked at our parents, grandparents, and even everyone he met with an eerie gaze...

Eventually, the impression my brother left on family was entirely different from that on neighbors.

In the eyes of the neighbors, he was a diligent, outstanding student.

Meanwhile, to the family, he was a "seemingly precognitive", eerie-eyed, silent oddball.

Later on, when I became a bit more sensible, I tried asking my brother some questions.

"Brother, why do you always stare at some places for so long? Clearly, there's nothing there..."

"There is, and there's a lot."

"Brother, why do you walk into such dark places?"

"Brother is looking for a path."

"Brother, why do you talk to yourself sometimes?"

"Brother is talking to others."

"..."

Such dialogues went on and on.

After our parents passed away one after the other, then grandfather too, and finally grandmother, only then did my brother gradually become "normal".

But by then, my health had already reached its worst condition.

I started bleeding from all orifices.

And my body began fading, starting from the toes...

I remember that day, my brother looked at me for a long, long time, then said to me, "Yanliang, I'm going to send you to a place where you'll sleep for a while, but after waking up, your body will be all better, okay?"

"Mm! I trust brother."

"I trust brother!"

"I trust brother..."

"Trust brother..."

The phrase echoed in my mind.

Bai Yanliang suddenly opened his eyes, and at the same time, his brain felt a sharp pain.

He could clearly feel, deep in his mind, or somewhere in his soul, a piercing sensation.

Something unfamiliar was emerging in his body.

With the pain came flashes of strange memories.

Bai Yanliang endured the intense pain, an expression of disbelief eventually appeared on his face.

In his mind, a child's voice echoed:

"Big brother? Who are you?"

He, woke up.

The original owner of this body, the real Bai Yanliang.

Awoke.