Midnight Bookstore - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Hell!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
Cold. Very cold…
Zhou Ze had no idea why it was so cold.
He was walking on a secluded path, with flowers on both sides, yet it was far from romantic and beautiful. The bright-colored flowers were watching him sneeringly, like bystanders.
The blooming of the Yellow Springs Flowers as the deceased arrived at the realm of the dead!
{TL Note: Yellow Spring is another name for the underworld.}
Zhou Ze recalled he was last surrounded by fire, a huge fire. The terrifying fire devoured him completely, and the scorching heat burned him into ashes… but he ended up here in the blink of an eye.
It turned out that the path had quite a few people.
There were old folks, kids, young men, and middle-aged men. There were men and women. Everyone was wearing different clothes.
Some were wearing simple clothes, some were dressed luxuriously, and had huge makeup on their faces too. Everyone was walking on their heels.
No one talked. No one made any noise.
The only sound left was the occasional sound of the sole of shoes rubbing against the ground.
Zhou Ze was moving forward numbly with the rest. He kept glancing around and turned around. He eventually realized where he was.
He was already dead. He was now in Hell.
It was the underworld, the home of the deceased.
So it turned out that he had still died in the end.
He was unsure what to do, nor did he know what choice he should make.
He did not want to die. No one wanted to die, but he did not know what he was supposed to do here. He felt lost, and helpless.
A chilling melody came from the distance.
Zhou Ze turned around and saw bright red patches approaching from the distance, but the people nearby simply disregarded them. They continued to walk forward on their heels numbly.
Zhou Ze was able to take a better look when the red patches were close enough. They were actually bright red paper umbrellas with peach blossoms on them. A group of women was holding the umbrellas while walking toward him in a line.
They were fairly tall with alluring physiques, each wearing a purple qipao that would reveal most of their thighs as they were walking.
{TL Note: A qipao, also known as cheongsam, is a close-fitting dress that originated in 1920s Shanghai.}
The hair of the women was tied up in meticulous buns. Even their steps were perfectly in sync, as if they were the best group of dancers in the world that had practiced a performance for more than a hundred years.
They continued forward, from one end of the path to the other. They happened to walk past in front of Zhou Ze.
Delicate makeup, fair skin, the chilly melody that they were humming; it suddenly felt like he was in Shanghai back in the twenties.
Each woman was wearing a bracelet. They had different sizes and colors, setting off their fair skin. It was a feast for the eyes.
The only pity was, they were not walking on the pedestrian path of a busy main street, nor were they walking in a luxurious club. They were walking on the Yellow Spring Path decorated by the Yellow Spring Flowers on both sides.
They were looking straight ahead, the ones behind staring at the ones ahead.
The woman leading the group had a hollow look in her eyes.
When the last woman walked past Zhou Ze, she suddenly turned around and looked at him.
He initially thought the woman was the prettiest woman in the world.
But it was the opposite extreme instead.
Scary?
Absolutely!
Disgusting?
Absolutely!
But Zhou Ze was already dead. It was possible for a man to be scared to his death, but what if he was a ghost?
The woman looked at Zhou Ze.
Zhou Ze looked back at the woman.
The two exchanged glances briefly, before the woman proceeded on her way while shaking her hip, leaving Zhou Ze staring at an attractive back. The qipao wrapped tightly around her body, highlighting her curves perfectly.
“Where…where are you going?” Zhou Ze strayed away from his initial group and subconsciously followed the group of women.
As for the people that were walking numbly on the path, none of them looked at him. It was as if they had lost the ability to think and sense. Zhou Ze was different from all of them.
The women continued forward while humming the chilly melody, smoke rising with every step they took.
The repressive atmosphere turned more melancholic after they appeared.
Zhou Ze proceeded to follow the women.
He saw them walking into a lake ahead. The lake was not big, its surface was as still as a mirror.
However, the women’s intrusion broke the stillness, and ripples started to appear.
The heads of the women leading the way submerged, and the women behind followed.
Zhou Ze walked to the side of the lake. He did not go into the water. He stood still and watched.
The whole place was completely unfamiliar to him, and every person would only visit it once in their entire lifetime. Once they arrived, they would never leave.
Something was floating at the center of the lake.
It was a pair of hands. Their nails were red, and the hands were pale, as skinny as leeks.
The two hands danced elegantly on the surface of the lake. They instantly grabbed Zhou Ze’s attention. He was having trouble moving his eyes away.
It was beautiful and breathtaking.
Zhou Ze’s eyes slowly turned hollow as if he was bewitched. He did not even realize he was moving forward.
The water reached his feet, then his knees, his waist, and finally, his neck, before his whole body went into the water.
The water was not cold. It was surprisingly warm. It was clear, and Zhou Ze could see a great distance away, and it did not feel like he was suffocating either.
Zhou Ze saw the women holding the paper umbrellas. They were still strutting forward under the water.
Not far away was a woman in red clothes. She stood in the water, but her hands were dancing above the surface.
Zhou Ze started approaching the woman, not because of her beauty, nor was he being driven by some other force, but there was something magical about the woman that he could not explain. It was urging him to move closer subconsciously.
Zhou Ze finally arrived in front of the woman.
The woman drew her hands back from the surface.
The woman’s hair was very long and thick. It was drifting in the water, making it impossible to see the woman’s face.
“Finally…I’ve waited…for someone like you…”
The woman’s voice was pleasant, sweet, and soothing.
The woman reached out her attractive hands and placed them on Zhou Ze’s shoulders intimately.
“Come… accompany me…” The woman’s hair started spreading. It brushed Zhou Ze’s face.
Being brushed on the face by a gorgeous lady’s hair might sound enticing, but the hair suddenly turned into the strongest steel string in the world and tangled around Zhou Ze’s throat.
“Come… accompany me…” The woman’s hair scattered, it was no longer covering her face. She finally revealed her true appearance.
She did not have a face. Her face was flat, without a single wrinkle on it. It was flat and smooth, something that lots of women would be jealous of.
However, there was no nose, no mouth, no eyes, and no ears.
A faceless… woman.
Zhou Ze was having trouble breathing. His chest was about to explode. At the same time, it felt like he was going to collapse at any second.
The faceless woman’s laughter sounded melodious and ethereal, but in Zhou Ze’s ears, it sounded evil.
Zhou Ze finally came to his senses. He had no idea what would happen to him if he was trapped here, but it was surely not going to be a good ending.
“Stay… accompany me!” The faceless woman was still laughing. Her hair was dancing wildly.
Zhou Ze subconsciously reached his hand out, grabbing the hair around his neck. He was trying to break free.
The faceless woman was intrigued by his amusing attempt.
“You can’t break free from it, stop struggling. Only people with souls are able to come here, and once I devour enough of them, I will be able to go back! You will end up as a sacrifice!”
However, as soon as the woman finished the sentence, she blurted out in surprise, “No way…that’s impossible…”
Zhou Ze’s fingernails were growing slowly and turning black. They were emitting a unique light in the water. Their color was the same as the color of the old man’s fingernails who Zhou Ze had tried to save.
The sound of water being poured onto hot oil was audible.
The hair of the faceless woman melted when it made contact with Zhou Ze’s fingernails. Zhou Ze slowly backed away, breaking free from the faceless woman’s control.
“Impossible… that’s not possible!… Why!? Why can you leave too!? Why can’t I leave like you!? Why!? This isn’t fair!?”
The faceless woman tried to grab Zhou Ze back.
However, Zhou Ze’s fingernails touched the faceless woman’s attractive hand and burned a hole in it.
“AHHHHH!?” the faceless woman cried out in agony. She backed away, giving Zhou Ze back his freedom. Zhou Ze started to float toward the surface.
“You won’t escape… they… they are surely going to catch you and bring you back here! This is where the deceased belong. You, and the rest that left, they will eventually catch you and bring you back here!” the faceless woman shrieked hysterically.
She was jealous, she was envious; she had gone mad!
Zhou Ze slowly lost consciousness as he approached the surface.
The secluded Yellow Spring Path, the dazzling Yellow Spring Flowers, the scream of the faceless woman, the graceful women in qipaos, and everything else was slowly fading away…