Chapter One: The Monster Clinic
Shengyao hung the freshly washed rag on the hook, casting one last look at the old house that seemed forever shrouded in dust no matter how thoroughly he cleaned. The light in his eyes faded together with the snap of the fluorescent lamp.
Inside the building, there was noise; outside, it was no quieter. Every so often came the sound of parents scolding their children, couples quarreling, boisterous laughter... Every household seemed to be competing in volume, raising their voices and turning up their televisions to the maximum.
These sounds merged into a droning cacophony in Shengyao’s ears.
A crowd had gathered in the neighborhood fitness square. Someone raised a hand and called out loudly, “Xiao Sheng, heading home?”
Shengyao’s eyes moved slightly. He nodded at the old man, whose head was crowned with white hair and whose face was lined with wrinkles.
“Everything settled with your father?”
Shengyao nodded again.
“Oh, oh.” The old man wanted to ask more, but Shengyao, having nodded twice, was already walking away. The old man could only turn and gossip with the others.
“Old Bai’s funeral is all done?”
“That’s right, the burial was this morning at Crane Cemetery.”
“Old Bai was blessed, lived to ninety. Lost his daughter early, but the son-in-law’s been busy all this while, even handling the funeral arrangements.”
“He never remarried?”
“No. Old Bai and his wife tried for years to find him a match, even asked me if I knew anyone. More than thirty years now, he’s just retired, and still never found anyone. Now Old Bai is gone too…”
“I heard his own parents passed away years ago?”
“Yes, he’s all alone now… Wonder if he has any relatives or friends left…”
Beyond the community, a tree-lined path stretched ahead. The leafy shade blocked out the sky; by day, dappled sunlight would fall upon the ground, but at night, only the dim glow of streetlamps filtered through the shadows.
Shengyao walked slowly through the shifting patterns of the trees, arriving at a crossroads.
He glanced at the red signal light ahead, his gaze unfocused, and in his peripheral vision, he caught a glimmer of light.
Across the street, the shops had all closed, save one, which was still aglow. The light shining through its glass door was faint, but the sign, emerging from the shadows, was a glaring red.
“Sain... Wu... Clinic?” Shengyao read the neon sign to himself, and at that moment, he heard the sizzle of electricity.
The sign flickered, and in the darkness new words burst into life—“Monster Clinic.”
A strange name.
As he pondered this, the face of a young man surfaced in his mind—the owner of the pet shop by the west gate of their community, always warm and enthusiastic to everyone.
“…Just go over there, not even ten minutes away, next to the real estate agency, called ‘Monster Clinic.’ Don’t mind the name, the doctor—well, the doctor’s got a bit of a temper, but he’s amazing, works wonders! He can treat anything! His skills are incredible! Uncle Sheng, you have to go!”
The red light turned green, and the neon sign of Monster Clinic flashed twice, casting its eerie red glow.
Shengyao stepped across the street toward the clinic.
His face was reflected in the glass door—a middle-aged visage, marked by the passage of time. Wrinkles creased his forehead and the corners of his eyes, his eye bags were heavy, and deep nasolabial folds bespoke a man accustomed to sternness and few smiles.
The glass door slid open.
Shengyao stepped onto the white tiled floor of the clinic.
Those tiles, like Shengyao’s greying hair, were not truly white.
The incandescent lamp overhead was dim, the tube long since aged. The walls, as ashen as the tiles, bore outdated health posters. The artistic characters proclaiming “Wash hands, stay hygienic” made Shengyao feel as if he had stepped through a time tunnel, back to his childhood, to the small clinics tucked away on street corners decades ago.
Tap, tap...
Footsteps echoed from the corridor, and a figure in a white coat appeared in the front hall.
Despite the late hour, the doctor was impeccably dressed: white cap, white mask, white shirt and trousers beneath the coat. But just like the clinic, nothing was truly clean—brownish bloodstains spotted his chest, and streaks of blood splattered the hem and pants.
Hands in his pockets, the doctor gazed quietly at Shengyao.
Shengyao thought those eyes glimmered with an eerie blue light.
But he paid it no mind.
“I was referred here. You treat all kinds of illnesses? Any kind at all?” Shengyao asked directly, his voice neither hesitant nor hopeful.
“Come in.” The doctor replied, though he did not answer Shengyao’s question.
There was a strange echo in his voice, a ripple that reverberated and returned.
Without a second thought, Shengyao followed him into the corridor.
It was short, with a door on each side.
They entered the room on the left, the sign reading “Consulting Room.”
The room was sparse: just a desk, two chairs, a tangled power strip on the floor, and an old CRT monitor, bulky and out of place. Other than that, only a file rack and a single penholder.
There was just one file in the rack. The doctor took it out, opened it, and handed Shengyao the only pen, “Please fill out your basic information.”
Shengyao’s eyes fell on the doctor’s hand.
The hand was long-fingered, the nails neither healthy pink nor sickly gray, but painted as if by a fashionable woman. Each nail bore a different human face, the features abstract, each fixed in an exaggerated expression—a work of art in themselves.
Shengyao took the pen and filled out the form with care, asking, “Can you really treat anything?”
The doctor asked, “Where do you feel unwell?”
The exchange sounded like any ordinary consultation.
Shengyao replied with something far from ordinary: “I have a sickness of the heart.”
As he finished speaking, he completed the last box and handed the form over with seriousness: “I want to die. I hope you can kill me, so I can witness my own death. The more painful and drawn-out, the better.”
If it weren’t for the “60” written in the age column, and if Shengyao hadn’t spoken so calmly, his words would have sounded like the boast of a melodramatic teenager.
The doctor said nothing. He glanced over the filled form, then took up the pen and swiftly wrote something in the “Chief Complaint” section.
The pen scratched out a rhythm on the paper.
Shengyao couldn’t decipher the doctor’s handwriting. All he could hear was the “shhh” of the pen, but gradually, other sounds emerged: laughter, weeping, wailing, sobbing... The cries rose and fell, the laughter overlapped in various tones—chaotic yet distinct, like instruments in an orchestra, all keeping time with the doctor’s pen.
Shengyao began to feel dizzy. He forced himself to focus, noticing that the faces painted on the doctor’s nails were twisting and shifting, transforming static art into animated scenes dancing across his fingertips.
Tap.
The doctor finally stopped writing, the pen tip dropping onto the paper like a period.
Shengyao’s heart tightened.
The doctor turned to him, the blue in his eyes seeming to flicker.
He spoke: “Of course.”
And all other sounds vanished.
A light came to Shengyao’s eyes, then slowly faded. “Can you do it now?”
“Of course.” The doctor confirmed once more.
He left the file on the desk, stood, and signaled Shengyao to follow.
They left the consulting room for the one opposite.
Shengyao noticed that this door now bore a sign: “Operating Room.”
The so-called operating room was as shabby as the rest of the clinic. Old bloodstains marked the walls, the blue medical screen was riddled with holes that could hide nothing, and the operating table was just a metal bed. The overhead surgical light was rusted, but when switched on, beamed a blinding glare.
Bang, bang... clatter...
“Take off your clothes and lie down,” the doctor said, rolling over a small table from the corner. On it, scalpels of various sizes clinked against each other with a harsh metallic ring.
Like a pig awaiting slaughter, Shengyao lay naked on the cold table. The glaring light on his face turned his vision white.
He felt a sting in his arm, turned his head, and saw the doctor withdrawing a long needle. The syringe was empty—the medicine already inside him.
Shengyao frowned. “I don’t want anesthesia.”
The doctor looked over.
Shengyao expected him to say, “You won’t make it without it,” but instead, the doctor simply replied, “I understand.”
Before Shengyao could respond, the doctor picked up a scalpel and made a cut into his toe.
He felt pain—sharp but fleeting—and then his vision turned pure white.
In that white light, he heard the voice that haunted his dreams:
“Hey, your shoelace is loose!”
He felt his heart pounding in his chest. He tried to turn his head, but his body only bent downward.
He saw his sneakers, the laces untied, trailing on the ground.
Awkwardly clutching his textbooks, he squatted to tie them, and then remembered the voice. He looked up, just in time to see a ponytail swinging as its owner walked away, already a dozen meters ahead.
“Thank you!” Shengyao called out loudly.
The girl with the ponytail turned, her youthful face breaking into a smile as she nodded at him.
“Um... May I know your name?” Shengyao heard his own stammer.
The girl burst out laughing, making Shengyao blush furiously.
“My name is Bai Xiao—‘Bai’ as in ‘daylight,’ ‘Xiao’ as in ‘hundred stories,’ but not with ‘Sheng.’ My friends call me ‘Shengsheng.’” Bai Xiao winked and laughed again, clear as a bell.
Shengyao’s face turned even redder. Nervously, he scratched his head, forgetting the books in his arms, which scattered to the ground. Flustered, he tried to pick them up, afraid she’d leave. But looking up, he found Bai Xiao already helping him gather his books.
“You asked my name—what’s yours?” she asked with a smile.
“Oh! My name is Shengyao. It’s written like this.” Shengyao tore a page from his notebook, carefully wrote his name, college, class, and student number, and handed it over. “My surname is pronounced ‘Cheng,’ a polyphone, but usually pronounced ‘Sheng.’”
Bai Xiao laughed again, tilting her head playfully. “So you’re ‘Shengsheng’ too?”
Squatting there, holding that piece of paper, their eyes met by chance—and something bloomed in both their hearts.
...
“Your foot is done,” the doctor’s voice cut through Shengyao’s memory.
The blooming feeling froze in his heart.
The doctor’s face eclipsed the white light.
His hands were drenched in blood, holding a large metal tray. On it, skin, flesh, and bone were neatly separated, more precise than the butcher’s wares, each toenail preserved and arranged in order.
“Next is your leg.” The doctor set down the tray and picked up another scalpel.
Shengyao followed his hand and looked at his own calf.
Below the knee was gone, the metal table awash with blood.
His leg was dry, rough, and pale. On the pale skin, a faint scar sprawled like a dying centipede.
“You’ve got a scar on your leg.”
A distant voice echoed in memory.
“Yeah. I used to play on the school soccer team—got this in junior high.”
“I was in the school band. We used to cheer for our soccer team with violins, cellos, even the big drum, playing on the sidelines—so silly.”
“You weren’t from No. 3 High, were you?”
“Huh?”
“Your school’s famous—cheerleading... I played against your school, watched your cheerleaders a bunch of times... haha!”
“Shengyao! Don’t laugh!”
“Hahaha... Did you play violin, cello, or the drum? Hahaha...”
“If you laugh again! Just you wait!”
...
The doctor’s voice returned: “Now your hand.”
Shengyao felt his hand lifted.
Beneath the surgical lamp, his hand seemed to glow.
Somehow, the room had gone completely dark, except for the hand illuminated by the lamp. Everything else was lost in shadow, and the doctor’s form had vanished.
All Shengyao’s attention centered on his hand.
There was no ring on it, nor any mark of one. Still, he seemed to see a simple platinum band, see the beautiful city lights beyond a floor-to-ceiling window, see Bai Xiao’s tearful, joyful face.
He saw another ring—a dazzling diamond set for a woman. His fingers trembled as he tried to slip it onto Bai Xiao’s finger, but—
“Pfft! You bought the ring too small!” Bai Xiao’s tears vanished in an instant.
“How can it be small? I measured in secret!” Shengyao broke out in a sweat.
She pulled him, still kneeling, to his feet. “We’ll exchange it tomorrow.”
“I measured, I swear... wrapped it round your finger…” he muttered.
“You didn’t know my knuckles are thick? Measuring the base isn’t enough.”
“What’s thick?”
“They just are.”
“Not at all!”
“Pfft…”
“Don’t laugh. I messed it up...”
“You didn’t. I’m happy. I’m so happy.” Bai Xiao cupped his face, rose on tiptoe, and kissed him.
The ring no longer mattered.
...
“Next, your chest... this is your heart.” The doctor’s voice fell, and his figure appeared in the light, replacing Bai Xiao in Shengyao’s memory.
His hands withdrew from Shengyao’s chest, clutching a pulsing mass of flesh. The faces painted on his nails were stained blood-red—each one, even the smiling ones, now twisted and grotesque. They were like ten tiny people, dancing and chanting around the living heart in a primitive ritual.
Shengyao watched his heart throb, as if watching happiness and joy recede from him.
...
“So, where to next? We did your university, the Ferris wheel from our first date... next is after we graduated... Is it Uncle Chen’s apartment? No, no, he must have rented it out—wait, did you borrow it from him? That penny-pincher would never agree! Or did you pay for it? Oh! The next stop must be the hotel where you proposed…”
...
Shengyao saw his heart stop beating; the ten faces on the doctor’s nails fell silent.
He wished the voices would stop as well, but he heard his own reply: “Beep—wrong answer. The hotel’s for the evening. I didn’t go to Uncle Chen. He’d never let us borrow his place. I went straight to the current tenants—they’re our juniors. I told them, and they agreed, even promised to clean up for us. The place hasn’t changed at all; the patch of wall you scorched is still there.”
Bai Xiao snorted, “So the hole you made is still there?”
“You can’t see it! They put a bookshelf in front, covers it up.” Shengyao laughed.
They were on their way to the apartment they’d rented after graduation, where they’d lived only a year, but it was a year apart from all others: cockroaches in the kitchen, laundry dyed the wrong color, smoky cooking mishaps, clogged drains, a broken air conditioner... It was there, amid the blunders and chaos, that they started a new life together.
Now, their lives were about to enter another new chapter.
As the light turned red, Shengyao glanced at Bai Xiao in the passenger seat.
Her hands rested on her gently rounded belly.
...
The scalpel sliced through Shengyao’s vision, its metal blade reflecting the harsh surgical light.
“Next, your eyes, your ears...”
The doctor’s pronouncement was drowned by a violent crash; the white light was replaced by violently shifting scenery.
...
The sound of brakes came late, and by the time Shengyao’s mind caught up, only a high-pitched ringing remained.
He turned quickly, shouting words even he could not hear: “Shengsheng! Are you okay—”
The passenger seat was misshapen, the airbag deployed. Bai Xiao’s back was pressed hard against the seat, her face pale as she slowly, painfully managed a faint, weak smile.
The scene froze, and Shengyao’s thoughts stopped entirely.
...
“This is your brain. This is the last one.”
The doctor’s voice became ethereal, as if falling from a great height, evaporating before it could touch Shengyao.
Pressed close to his soul, the voice of his unforgettable beloved—yet the words she spoke became the nightmare he could never escape:
“I’m trapped... You go first. Don’t worry... Don’t be afraid... Take care of Mom and Dad, for me... Husband... I... you... you must take care...”
Now, her last wishes were fulfilled; he had cared for both sets of parents, seen them through to the end.
Now, he could finally do what he’d always longed to do.
“I’m sorry…”
You could have lived a happy, peaceful life, reaching old age, living to a hundred...
If only you hadn’t met me...
I’m sorry...
...
In the shabby operating room, all that remained on the iron bed was a pool of blood, while the nearby table was neatly arrayed with human organs, like the pieces of a half-finished three-dimensional puzzle. The puzzle’s head was missing a piece.
Shengyao’s voice echoed in the air, as darkness swallowed all his consciousness.
Plop.
The doctor tossed the brain into the air, caught it deftly, as if playing with a ball.
The ten faces painted on his nails all twisted in wild ecstasy. His mask stretched, revealing the corner of his mouth, his lower lip, his whole face contorted, the blue in his eyes flaring bright.
Plop!
The brain landed on the table, sending scarlet drops spraying onto the doctor’s white coat.