Midnight Bookstore

Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

The scream woke the entire household up. The young girl was not to be blamed, since it was quite terrifying for a person with a strong urge to pee to see a person sitting on the toilet with the light off in the middle of the night. Many people would have a similar experience before, not to mention that his sister-in-law had seen a ghost.

Anyone would misunderstand under the circumstances. They had assumed that their son-in-law had lost his mind and was having evil thoughts on his sister-in-law.

Lin Wanqiu came out of the room and helped her sister up.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

The girl’s parents came to the first floor and saw their younger daughter crying in her sister’s arms. They then saw Zhou Ze, who was still sitting on the toilet bowl.

“You piece of sh**, you ungrateful prick, what do you think you are doing to my daughter?”

The mother-in-law picked up the broom at the entrance of the washroom and was about to hit Xu Le with it.

The father-in-law was infuriated too. He was about to rush into the washroom to teach the son-in-law a lesson.

Anyone would misunderstand under the circumstances. They had assumed that their son-in-law had lost his mind and was having evil thoughts on their daughter.

After all, there was a saying that half of the sister-in-law’s body was actually her brother-in-law’s.

{TL Note: In the past, China was once ruled with feudalism. The people treated the code of ethics very seriously. The daughters were not allowed to leave their homes, meaning that they had no chance of interacting with other men apart from their family members. Many women would only have interaction with men after they were married. However, a brother-in-law was also considered a family member, hence it was fine for the daughters to interact with a brother-in-law. Therefore, the brother-in-law would usually be the first man that they had interacted with apart from their family members. In addition to that, it was legal and quite normal for a man to have more than one wife. Normally, the wealth of the family would be inherited by the eldest son of the first wife, while the rest would only inherit a portion of it. However, there were cases where the man cherished his other wives more, and ended up giving his fortune to the eldest son of the wife they loved the most. As a result, most first wives would introduce their own sisters to their husband to be his new wife, just so their children would have a higher chance of securing the heritage, hence the saying that half of the body of a sister-in-law belongs to her brother-in-law.}

“Mum, dad, Xiao Yi was just given a fright when she went into the washroom,” Doctor Lin said.

The mother-in-law was startled. She felt awkward holding the broom in her hand.

The father-in-law was stunned too. He slowly moved a few steps back.

Zhou Ze suddenly realized the blue veins on his arms had vanished while he was distracted, and so did the pain.

He suddenly felt extremely tired. He simply wanted to go back to sleep.

He rose to his feet to leave the washroom. He was seriously not in the mood to settle his parents-in-law on behalf of Xu Le.

However, when Zhou Ze stood up, his sister-in-law shuddered and hid inside her sister’s arms. “AH! Don’t come any closer!”

Zhou Ze frowned slightly. What exactly did she see just then?

“What exactly is going on!?” the mother-in-law crossed her arms. It definitely did not seem like it was only a little scare. “Xiao Yi, my beloved daughter, tell me what happened, was he trying to do anything to you?”

The sister-in-law was rather honest. Besides, she knew the whole matter would escalate if she did not tell the truth.

“Nothing, I just went into the washroom and saw him sitting on the toilet. It was too scary!” the girl gathered her courage and replied, before digging her head into her sister’s arms again.

It was all a misunderstanding…

“You dim-witted idiot, don’t you know you should turn the light on when you are using the washroom? Do you think our family is the same as yours, trying to save as much money as we could? We can easily afford the electricity bill, but if something happened to our daughter because of the fright, how are you going to compensate…” the mother-in-law pointed at Zhou Ze and scolded.

Zhou Ze was extremely tired. Any person that was worn out would easily lose their temper. He was also quite annoyed by the complicated relationship that Xu Le had left him in. Perhaps he could still endure it if he and his wife were not sleeping on different beds, but he was seriously at his limit.

Pa!

Zhou Ze slapped his mother-in-law’s finger away. “That’s enough.”

The mother-in-law’s eyes widened. She could not believe their timid son-in-law would dare to speak to her like that.

“Is that the right attitude you should have when talking to your mum!?” the father-in-law snapped.

“If you want your daughter to marry again, you can go ahead and talk about attitude to me!” Zhou Ze snapped in return. He knocked his father-in-law to the side with his shoulder and went back to his room.

BANG! The door was slammed hard.

“This is ridiculous!” the father-in-law panted in rage. His wife quickly went over to calm him down, but they no longer dared to make a scene.

After all, Zhou Ze’s warning was quite effective. They were clueless about why their son-in-law was acting differently today, but he was absolutely right that the two were scared that he would divorce their daughter, as it would surely damage her and her family’s reputation. On top of that, it would be very difficult for their daughter to marry a good man after her first divorce, or so they thought.

It turned out that a person’s character and beliefs had nothing to do with their academic achievements or background, but most importantly, their inner quality.

For example, regardless of how angry Xu Le’s parents-in-law were, they no longer dared to provoke their son-in-law any further, as they were scared that the man would threaten to divorce their daughter.

Zhou Ze laid down the bed and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes to try and fall asleep, he was seriously worn out.

A moment later, Zhou Ze heard a knock on the door.

“Xiao Yi is very scared, so I’ll keep her company tonight,” Lin Wanqiu said, and left.

It was not like the woman was sleeping with him anyway…

——

The next day at noon…

The parents-in law were having lunch.

“Did he go to the bookstore?” the husband asked the wife.

“He hasn’t woken up yet,” the wife said.

“Unacceptable,” the husband said.

“I agree…” the wife suddenly paused in the middle of her speech. She saw Zhou Ze walking down the stairs. His eyes were red, with heavy eye bags.

The atmosphere froze.

After what happened last night, Zhou Ze’s status in the family had actually risen. At least his parents-in-law no longer dared to provoke him verbally. That being said, there was also a chance that it was because he actually looked like he was going to pick up a knife and stab people as he pleased.

Zhou Ze took a quick glance at the dining table. He then grabbed his chest. The pleasant scent of rice and meat. How disgusting, he suddenly felt like vomiting again.

Zhou Ze walked to the outside and took a deep breath of the fresh air. He immediately felt a lot better, apart from his slightly heavy head. Zhou Ze started wandering down the street. He needed some time to organize his thoughts, but he was struggling to do so since he was sleep-deprived, even though he was unable to fall asleep.

He felt confused and horrible. It felt like he had just walked out of a cyber cafe after spending two days straight in it, or was a student on his way to school after spending the whole night reading a novel on his bed.

Zhou Ze suddenly halted in his tracks. The surroundings seemed rather familiar to him. He looked at the sign nearby.

Tongcheng First Affiliated Hospital.

He somehow ended up at his old workplace, perhaps because of how small Tongcheng was.

Zhou Ze walked into the hospital. He was not thinking of revisiting the old haunt, but he was planning to get some sleep pills to see if they would help.

He could still endure the hunger by drinking more water, but not being able to sleep was a great torture.

Zhou Ze found himself in a familiar hospital, a familiar workplace. He looked at the list of ER surgeons on the wall and saw that his picture had been replaced by a grayscale photo of him.

Zhou Ze subconsciously went to his office. Someone else had taken his spot. It was a middle-aged man with a pockmarked face. He took a quick glance at the man’s name on the table: Doctor Kang.

Zhou Ze let out a self-mocking sigh.

Zhou Ze somehow forgot about the sleep pills. Perhaps the surge of emotion had temporarily suppressed his urge to sleep. He continued wandering around in the hospital to reflect on his past life and his work.

-It is all over; there is no way I can go back in time,- Zhou Ze murmured to himself.

Somehow, he ended up walking down the stairs to the lower ground floor without knowing, and stopped. As a doctor that had worked quite some years in the hospital, he knew what the floor was used for. The floor consisted of some rooms for storage, and the mortuary.

He remembered lying in the mortuary of the hospital, where the mortuary makeup artist was putting on the makeup for him.

He started walking toward the mortuary.

Zhou Ze was interested to see the place he had been laying in. It was an excuse to explain why he was walking toward the mortuary. The truth was, a unique feeling was urging him to visit it.

Zhou Ze soon arrived at the door of the mortuary, with a panel to input the password on the wall. Zhou Ze happened to remember the password. The doctors of other departments might have no business in this place, but Zhou Ze was an ER surgeon. There were times when he had to move dead bodies here when he failed to save his patients.

As a matter of fact, the police would temporarily place dead bodies with unknown identities in the hospital’s mortuary, too. It was a common practice, since the police station did not have a suitable place for dead bodies, hence they would just place them in the local hospital or a funeral parlor.

The door opened after Zhou Ze input the password. He went inside and felt a cold breeze. It was not chilly to the skin, but the kind of chill that could conceal the temperature inside a person’s heart.

There were a few corpses laying around. It was a temporary resting place for the dead.

Normally, someone would be in charge of the place, but for some reason, Zhou Ze did not see anyone when he came in. The person might have gone somewhere to slack off.

Zhou Ze ventured further into the place. A few corpses were placed on top of ice-cold stretchers, covered by pieces of white cloth. One, in particular, was wrapped in a flowery blanket. Judging from the exposed gray hair, it was very likely a corpse of an old woman.

Zhou Ze was not afraid of dead bodies because of the nature of his occupation. Besides, he was basically a ghost too!

Zhou Ze found himself in front of a freezer, the kind with layers of drawers.

The drawers that were occupied had a tag on the handle, written with information such as the name and gender of the corpses.

Zhou Ze pulled an empty drawer open and reached his hand in. He closed his eyes and felt extremely comfortable, as if he could find peace inside.

Zhou Ze laid down inside the drawer after a slight hesitation.

Squeak…

The drawer was slowly pushed into the freezer until it was shut completely.

Silence.

Cold.

Dead silence.

Zhou Ze slowly closed his eyes as strong drowsiness struck him.

He was finally able to fall asleep, but he could not afford to sleep yet, as something was still bothering him.

He was wondering who had pushed the drawer in…