Free Web NovelA child this beautiful was bound to become a target in a private welfare home.
Places like this had no tolerance for anything too beautiful.
And yet, he was rarely bullied. His body was always covered in injuries, but somehow, the ones who ended up looking truly miserable were usually the children who had tried to bully him in the first place.
Bai Liu enjoyed watching the spectacle unfold—the fierce, solitary child coldly retaliating against every little gang that came after him.
He was extremely withdrawn. His body carried a strange scent, a mixture of mushrooms and heavy blood. The backs of his hands, exposed beneath his sleeves, were densely covered in fresh needle marks. Sometimes blood would seep from the punctures, and he would wipe it away with complete indifference.
He almost never spoke to anyone or interacted with anyone.
Likewise, no one dared approach this strange child whose complexion grew paler by the day, until he looked almost like a vampire drained of all warmth and blood.
He seemed unconcerned by any of it. He always wandered alone to places no one else wanted to go, then remained there for an entire day.
Coincidentally, those were also the kinds of places Bai Liu liked.
The boy often sat inside the church behind the Love Welfare Home, seated in the very first row beneath the divine statue. He would quietly open a book and lower his head, reading page after page with intense concentration.
Bai Liu—or rather, Bai Six—sat not far away, lazily propping his chin against one hand as he curiously observed both the strange child and the book in his hands.
Suddenly, the boy turned toward him and lifted the book slightly.
“Want to read together?”
His tone was flat and emotionless.
Bai Six glanced at the title.
Slender Man Murder Records.
“Sure.”
“Do you invite other people to read books with you too?” Bai Six asked after sitting beside him. “And where exactly did you even get something like this? It’s contraband here, isn’t it? If the Dean sees it, she’ll lose her mind. She’ll start saying we have violent and bloody tendencies.”
The boy continued turning the pages with the same hand riddled with needle marks. He never looked up from the book, but he answered every question calmly.
“I asked other people before if they wanted to read it with me. But they all screamed and ran away after seeing the contents.”
“I got it from outside.”
“I like things like this.”
“Horror?” Bai Liu asked with interest.
The boy nodded faintly.
“Because I think I’m horrifying too.”
Then he turned slightly and looked at Bai Liu.
“Do you like them too?”
“I do.” Bai Liu smiled. “I especially enjoy stories where horrific monsters slaughter human players.”
After that, the boy began bringing more and more horror books and games from outside to share with Bai Liu.
Hidden behind the church, beneath the indifferent gaze of the divine statue and under the silent protection of the gods, the two of them secretly played with all those terrifying contraband items forbidden within the welfare home.
They played horror games.
They read disturbing picture books.
And Bai Liu found himself smiling more and more often.
He was beginning to enjoy staying beside this person.
He was completely different from Lu Yizhan.
Whenever Lu Yizhan played games with Bai Liu, he would deliberately let him win. And even when he lost, he would only scratch his head sheepishly and laugh.
“Bai Liu, you’re amazing.”
But this person was nothing like that.
Despite his detached exterior, he possessed an astonishingly intense competitive streak. No matter what kind of horror game they played, he would mercilessly massacre his way through it before crushing Bai Liu and taking first place.
Sometimes, after Bai Liu lost and sank into obvious frustration, the other person would awkwardly pat him on the shoulder and turn his face away.
“Keep trying,” he would mutter stiffly. “Maybe you’ll beat me next time.”
And every single time, Bai Liu would immediately challenge him again.
The endless cycle of defeat thrilled him.
Playing games with this person was unbelievably fun.
Gradually, they became inseparable.
Two freaks who existed outside the crowd.
But before long, Slender Man Murder Records was discovered during a routine inspection by one of the teachers.
The book was confiscated and reported directly to the Dean.
Furious, the Dean gathered every child in the welfare home outside and interrogated them one by one, demanding to know who had brought such an unhealthy picture book into the orphanage.
No one dared answer.
The children lowered their heads like cicadas frozen in winter, trembling silently.
In a fit of rage, the Dean tore the book apart page by page right in front of everyone.
Bai Liu pressed his lips tightly together.
Standing among the crowd, he tilted his head up and stared fixedly at the shredded remains of Slender Man Murder Records—the picture book he and that person had read together countless times.
No one admitted ownership of the book.
Instead, everyone desperately denied involvement while shifting the blame toward Bai Liu and the strange child.
When the Dean questioned Bai Liu directly, he denied it too.
Only He did not deny it.
He stood calmly before the Dean, lowered his eyes toward the torn fragments scattered across the floor, and quietly asked:
“Are you afraid of this book?”
Then he raised his head.
“Or are you afraid of me?”
“Do you think I’m some horrifying monster who’ll bring disaster upon you?”
The Dean’s face visibly stiffened.
Her gaze flickered nervously toward the needle marks covering his body. She avoided his eyes entirely, unable—or unwilling—to answer him.
In the end, the incident was handled strangely lightly.
The Dean made a tremendous show of anger, but ultimately let him off without punishment.
He always seemed to possess a certain privilege before the Dean.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she was afraid of touching him at all.
Just as he himself had said—
the Dean feared him.
Not only the Dean.
The teachers feared him too. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
They feared the smell of blood clinging to him.
They feared the strange mushroom-like aura surrounding him.
That fear gradually spread to the children, who were exceptionally good at reading adults’ expressions.
And so, although they understood nothing, the children also began fearing him.
They rejected him.
They isolated him.
They attacked him.
And after realizing they could never win against him in a fight, they began watching him from afar with the terrified eyes reserved for monsters, inventing bizarre rumors and horrifying stories about him.
A monster whose body spontaneously sprouted needle holes.
A monster who bled endlessly.
But he himself remained utterly ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) indifferent.
He merely crouched down calmly and began collecting the torn pages of the book.
After the crowd dispersed, only Bai Liu remained beside him.
The two of them silently crouched together, picking up every fragment of Slender Man Murder Records from the ground.
After gathering all the pieces, they wrapped them carefully and brought them to the church.
That place was their sanctuary.
Neither the children nor the teachers were willing to enter the church unless absolutely necessary.
The church inside the welfare home only opened on certain special occasions. On those days, many elegantly dressed wealthy people would arrive to perform baptisms for the children and participate in strange rituals.
Bai Liu avoided every single one of those ceremonies.
He hated the way those rich people looked at the children.
It was the gaze one used when selecting merchandise.
And after every ritual, the needle marks on His body increased.
His complexion grew paler and paler, until he no longer resembled a living person but a bloodless marble statue.
Inside the church, Bai Liu and he quietly pieced together the torn fragments of Slender Man Murder Records on the table.
Above them, the divine statue looked down coldly upon their childish attempt to repair something that no longer held any value.
“Do you think those people really believe in God?” Bai Liu suddenly asked.
“Do you think God actually exists?”
The other person kept his head lowered as he patiently aligned the fragments with his fingertips.
Then he asked quietly:
“Do you believe?”
“I don’t.”
Bai Liu answered immediately.
He casually pointed at the torn pages spread across the table.
“If God exists, then let Him turn this pile of scraps into a real Slender Man for me.”
Bai Liu was already growing impatient with the repair work, but the other person remained astonishingly patient.
After a moment, he looked up.
“When the book was torn apart earlier... were you upset?”
“No.”
Bai Liu answered too quickly.
The other person looked directly at him.
“Do you really like this picture book?”
“Do you really like the Slender Man?”
“Not at all.”
Again, Bai Liu denied it instantly.
The other person lowered his head once more and continued assembling the pages.
“I see.”
For once, Bai Liu felt genuinely irritated.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘I see’?!”
A month later, Bai Liu finally understood what he had meant.
Inside the church, beneath the divine statue, sat an ugly doll that only vaguely resembled the Slender Man.
At best, it looked perhaps one-tenth alike.
The doll sat upright in the front row with perfect posture.
It appeared to have been sewn together from discarded bedsheets and old quilt covers stolen from the welfare home. Straw stuck awkwardly out of its head, while mismatched patches covered its body from top to bottom.
Rather than horrifying, it looked poor and clumsy—
like a wandering vagrant disastrously unsuited for the role of monster.
The Slender Man doll slowly turned its head toward Bai Liu, who stood frozen in the doorway.
Then it lifted the patched-up picture book it had painstakingly repaired over who knew how long and asked in that same flat voice:
“Want to read together?”
Bai Liu calmly walked over and sat down.
But after less than a minute of reading, he buried his face against the table and began laughing uncontrollably.
“...This is way too funny. Your face sticking out of this cloth doll—”
“The face needed bandages,” the other person explained seriously. “I couldn’t find enough of them.”
“So I used my own face instead.”
“I thought my face was probably horrifying enough already.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Still laughing, Bai Liu looked up.
“You’re always hiding your face behind your hair. What if you actually look even more horrifying than the Slender Man—”
Before the other person could react—and while the bulky doll costume restricted his movements—Bai Liu suddenly reached out and swept his hair upward.
The moment the hair lifted, both of them froze.
Neither spoke.
Silver-blue eyes devoid of visible pupils gazed quietly at Bai Liu.
And reflected within Bai Liu’s dark eyes was the other person’s face in perfect clarity—
silver hair,
pale lips drained of blood,
a sharply defined jawline,
and eyes fixed unwaveringly upon him.
Ten seconds later, they both looked away at the exact same moment.
Bai Liu slowly withdrew the hand resting against the other person’s forehead and quietly rubbed his fingertips together.
His breathing had become slightly uneven.
Meanwhile, the other person lowered his head at once. One hand clenched tightly beneath the table as though he wanted to force his eyes directly into the pages of the book. He flipped through the pages at absurd speed, nearly one page every second, as if he were no longer capable of understanding what he was even reading.
“...Do I look very horrifying?” he asked softly.
“It’s fine,” Bai Liu replied with forced composure. “You’re not that horrifying.”
“Then why is your heart beating so fast?”
He asked it gently.
“Weren’t you frightened by me?”
“No.”
Bai Liu took a slow breath, shut the book, and stood up with his back turned toward him.
“Let’s stop for today.”
“Wait.”
The other person suddenly wrapped his arms lightly around Bai Liu from behind and placed the repaired picture book into his hands.
His voice was unexpectedly soft.
“It’s fixed now.”
“It’s yours.”
For some reason, Bai Liu didn’t dare turn around.
He stiffly accepted the book and hurried away without looking back.
