Strange game designer.

Chapter 732 Dark

People are afraid because they have a bad feeling.

Serial killers are terrifying because they kill, and victims feel they will be killed, which is why they are afraid. But if they are actually killed, there is no fear to speak of.

The absence of any premonition is fear.

The second row from the bottom of the wall is full of photos of Li Sansi's younger brother. The baby is growing up little by little, becoming more and more adorable, and every movement is endearing.

Li Sansi took a lot of photos of his younger brother, his gaze hidden in the dark. Apart from him, it seemed that only Aunt Xia noticed something.

His gaze shifted, Gao Ming licked his dry lips, and his pupils narrowed slightly.

The last photo in the second row isn't of the baby boy, but of Aunt Xia. The woman with very fair skin is chopping vegetables in the kitchen. When the knife cuts the white radish in half, the woman seems to have thought of something terrible. She runs out of the kitchen in a panic, looks at the crib, and then at the baby boy's chubby arms.

The younger brother babbled and laughed, and Li Sansi's camera captured the moment.

The father continues his tireless efforts to abolish the death penalty, striving to improve the law and make the city more orderly and humane. Aunt Xia stays home alone with her two children; caring for infants is incredibly difficult, and she's suffering from mental exhaustion, often experiencing uncontrollable, intrusive thoughts, with terrifying images constantly flashing through her mind.

Those terrible things didn't happen; it was just a premonition, a judgment made by the brain based on past experiences and various information.

The third row of photos from the bottom up shows more people, all of whom Gao Ming had never seen before. Each one gave him a feeling that was both strange and familiar.

The number of photos of Aunt Xia gradually increased. She sewed up tattered clothes with needle and thread, packed up and threw away garbage, chopped vegetables and stewed meat, went to see a doctor, took all kinds of medicine, argued with her father, and wanted to send Li Sansi away.

In the photo in the middle of the third row, Aunt Xia, with very fair skin, is holding her younger brother. There are broken vases and scattered documents on the ground. She is looking at the camera with disgust, her mouth open, shouting something, probably something like, "Get out of my house! Stay away from my child! You unwanted brat!"
Gao Ming didn't know why Aunt Xia's attitude had changed. Judging from the photos, Li Sansi hadn't hurt his younger brother. He himself always had all sorts of wounds on his body, but his younger brother's skin was as smooth and fair as when he was born, without a single flaw, making people want to kiss him.

After this photo, the overall tone of the photos on the wall began to darken.

Li Sansi still enjoys photographing his family, but his younger brother is always crying, Aunt Xia has a gloomy face, and his father has lost his smile.

The adults took him to many new places, and Li Sansi would take pictures in each place: his grandparents whose bodies were hanging symmetrically with his maternal grandparents' bodies; his aunt who was locked in a house due to hereditary mental illness; the couple next door whose child died young; and his father's clients who had been divorced several times.

At the very end of the third row, there was a new group photo. It was taken with Li Sansi's camera, but the photographer was not him; it seemed to be his father or Aunt Xia.

In the photo, Li Sansi stands quietly under a neon sign, carrying a backpack full of things. Next to him is an older male worker in a drain repairman's uniform and an obese woman in a wheelchair with both legs amputated.

The man's job was to repair and maintain the underground water network. It was usually alright, but during the rainy season, he would be extremely busy, staying away from home for weeks at a time, always on call. The obese woman didn't have many demands of Li Sansi, nor did she show the same disgusted look as Aunt Xia. However, because she had lost her legs, her temper would occasionally become volatile, smashing everything in sight. Her way of venting her inner pain was by hearing the cries of others in agony.

The number of wounds has increased again.

Gao Ming's gaze continued upwards, looking at the fourth row of photos. It was another summer, and Li Sansi had grown taller, but perhaps due to anorexia, he was still very thin, and his hair was always damp and stuck to his face.

The first photo in the fourth row is a selfie. Li Sansi is wearing a school uniform, but his clothes are always wet compared to the other children. It's unclear whether it's because his adoptive father always works in the sewers or because someone splashed water on him.

It was damp, wet, and chilly, with a faint stench and fishy smell, much like the place where he lived.

The second photo was taken at home, in that semi-basement that looked like a rat hole. A man in dirty work clothes was unpacking a cake, and a fat woman who had lost both legs had a dazed look on her face, her mouth seemingly unable to close completely, and she was drooling.

Li Sansi knew very well that the woman was drooling not because she wanted to eat cake, but because her nerves were dying and she was almost paralyzed, so she couldn't even make a loud sound.

The plump woman knew perfectly well that her husband hadn't bought the cake to celebrate her birthday, because it wasn't her birthday or Li Sansi's birthday. He must have been celebrating finally breaking free from his constraints.

Days spent eating cake are always happy, at least some people are happy.

Wearing wet clothes, Li Sansi took the third photo. The plumber cut the cake into six pieces, gave one piece to Li Sansi, and fed the remaining five pieces to his wife.

Even if his wife seemed unwilling to eat, the plumber would still pry her mouth open with a spoon, the cream sticking to her lips and obscuring her voice.

The fourth photo was taken late at night. The door was open, and the plumber, as he usually did when he worked overtime, crawled out of his rat hole in the dead of night to repair the faulty pipe. The difference this time was that he was pushing his wife's wheelchair.

He seemed to have figured out some things, yet he also seemed completely lost.

Noticing Li Sansi's camera, the usually taciturn and honest man unusually straightened his clothes and awkwardly gestured towards the camera, as if he was going to keep an appointment to meet a very important guest.

The stepfather left with his wife. In the dead of night, Gao Ming didn't know where they went, and Li Sansi seemed to know as well.

The last photo in the fourth row was also taken late at night, with Li Sansi's lens pointed at the entrance of the underground water network.

The ground was marked with wheelchair tracks, and sewage flowed silently, distorting the figure of Li Sansi holding the camera. The center of the image was deep within the water pipe network, a place of darkness, a darkness where nothing could be seen clearly.

(End of this chapter)