On the morning of June 14th, 1990, Bai Ye was awakened not by her alarm, nor by a nightmare—but by a thick, tearing sensation crawling across her face.
It wasn't sound that stirred her, but pain.
As she turned her head on the pillow, her cheek dragged across the coarse fabric with a burning sting. The sound that followed was sickening—like a soggy rag being ripped apart.
A warm, metallic-sweet liquid seeped from the wound, soaking into the pillow beneath her, releasing the thick stench of overripe fruit mingled with rust.
She threw off the blanket and froze.
There were flakes of skin stuck to the bedsheet, like the shed husk of a dead snake. The pillow was smeared with pus and blood, yellow-brown stains blooming outward, carrying a sour, rotting odor.
She reached up to touch her face.
What met her fingertips wasn't smooth skin, but a slick, sticky decay
The image in the mirror made her freeze.
Her right cheek was no longer recognizable.The scattered pimples from before had merged into a grotesque swamp of infection. The skin was peeling in large patches, revealing raw, red muscle beneath—wet, twitching, like pomegranate seeds torn open by force.
Pus oozed from the cracks and dripped slowly down her chin.Worse still, red rashes had begun to appear across her neck, arms, even her chest. Some had already festered into pus-filled boils, each one like a rotting piece of fruit.
Her lips were cracked and peeling.The corners of her mouth were so swollen they twisted her expression into something unrecognizable. Every movement sent a fresh wave of tearing pain through her face—and yet, somehow, that pain brought clarity.
Bai Ye's breathing quickened.
She should have been terrified.She should have screamed.She should have run straight to the hospital.
But she didn't.
Instead, something cold and slick slithered up her spine—a pleasure, vile and serpentine, coiling around her heart.
She stared at herself in the mirror.
This ugliness was thick, suffocating—and yet it washed away the sugary, well-behaved mask she had painted on for the last eighteen years.
The rotting face was a shattered mask—and beneath it,something more realwas beginning to emerge.
Ugly.
But ugly meant freedom.
She no longer had to pretend to be the sweet, obedient daughter.She no longer had to please anyone.Now, she could hate, hurt, destroy—without guilt, without shame.
Because there was nothing left to protect.
A smile stretched across her lips,and the torn skin at the corners split open, leaking beads of blood.
Outside the window, the sycamore trees in the alley swayed in the wind, their leaves rustling like a thousand whispering mouths.
Far in the distance, factory chimneys belched black smoke, staining the sky a dull lead gray.
Bai Ye suddenly remembered—as a child, she used to press her face to this very window.Back then, the sky had seemed so much bluer.
She turned away from the mirror and opened her wardrobe.
From the bottom, she pulled out the most concealing clothes she owned: a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the neck, and a pair of thick trousers.She wrapped a silk scarf around her neck to hide the rising pustules, then secured a mask over her face, double-checking every inch—not a single sore could be exposed.
Downstairs, her mother Li Zhen's voice rang out, tinged with impatience:"Yezi! If you keep dawdling, you'll be late!"
Bai Ye descended slowly, her footsteps deliberately heavy.
Li Zhen glanced up and frowned."Why are you wearing so much? Aren't you hot?"
"Caught a cold," Bai Ye muttered through the mask, her voice hoarse and muffled.
Li Zhen didn't press the issue. She simply pushed a bowl of thin porridge toward her.
At the other end of the table, Bai Hua sat silently flipping through the newspaper, though his eyes kept drifting toward his daughter.
Bai Ye knew he was worried.But she didn't care.
She lowered her head and took a sip of porridge.The hot liquid burned her throat—the inside of her mouth was rotting too.
Good.
Even her body was joining her in decay.
At school, Bai Ye's unusual attire drew even more attention.
"Are you okay?" a classmate asked hesitantly.
"None of your business."Her voice was ice, and the glare she shot him was like a blade.He fell silent and hurried away.
Chen Meng's seat was empty—She had called in sick today.
Bai Ye's lips curled beneath the mask.Looks like the sulfuric acid had worked.
After school, Bai Ye didn't head home.
Instead, she veered off into the wasteland behind the school, a stretch of overgrown grass nearly waist-high.The setting sun cast her shadow long and thin.The rotting half of her face was hidden in the darkness.
Wild roses climbed the fence behind the back gate.She plucked a bloom and pressed the thorned stem into her palm.Tiny beads of blood surfaced.She licked them away, one by one.
From her pocket, she drew the small knife she had bought.Its blade gleamed in the dying light—beautiful,like her decaying skin.
She slowly rolled up her sleeve, revealing her arm, blistered and full of pus.
Then, she cut.
The knife sliced open the swollen sores. Yellow-brown pus oozed out, trickling down her wrist.The pain made her tremble—but it was the pleasure, the sick, euphoric satisfaction that made her shake harder.
She was rotting.
And rotting made her happy.
Slash by slash, she carved fine lines across her diseased flesh,as if, through this ritual, she could bleed out the poison buried deep inside her.Blood and pus dripped to the ground, like part of some unholy ceremony.
A sound broke the silence.
Bai Ye froze, quickly pulling her sleeve down and hiding the knife.
A stray cat peeked out from behind a garbage bin, its eyes wary and shining in the dim light.
She stared at it.Then, suddenly—she smiled.
From her bag, she took out a small piece of bread and tossed it toward the cat.
It hesitated, then crept forward, sniffing the offering.
Bai Ye lifted her foot slowly—and brought it down hard.
The cat shrieked, a high-pitched wail that echoed through the alley.It stumbled away, one leg dragging behind, leaving a smear of blood in its wake.
Bai Ye stood still, breathing fast, her heart pounding.
The sky had gone darker.
At first, just a few drops of rain fell—plopping onto the stone slabs, leaving dark, circular stains like secret marks.
She looked up.The clouds hung low and heavy, as if they might collapse under their own weight.
A damp wind swept past, carrying the earthy scent of rot.Laundry flapped wildly on the dorm balconies in the distance, twisting and jerking like a row of hanging ghosts.
Bai Ye quickened her pace, but the rain had already caught her.
It started with a few cool splashes on her shoulders, then came down in a sudden, heavy torrent.The street vanished in a curtain of silver.
Her hair soaked through and clung to her face.Rainwater ran down her neck, over the raw flesh hidden beneath her scarf, stinging like a thousand needles.
Puddles burst beneath her feet, splashing mud onto her pants.
Old buildings flanked the alley, silent and unmoved.Their windows glowed with dull yellow light,but none opened for her.
She ducked under the awning of a small convenience store, gasping for breath.
Rainwater streamed down her face.The mask clung to her skin, soaked through—like a layer of dead flesh she couldn't peel away.
The rain only grew heavier.
She stretched out her hand, catching the droplets as they fell from the eaves.They shattered in her palm like broken glass.
She closed her eyes.
The sound of the rain blurred the world.Everything washed into a murky hum—as if even the air itself had forgotten her name.
Just like she had.
Bai Ye stepped forward.Out from beneath the awning.
She tilted her face to the sky.
The rain ran down her chin, mingling with pus and blood.It dripped into her collar, blooming into soft pink stains across her shirt—like fading flowers.
This would be the last time her body felt rain.
Her hair plastered to her face like strands of black seaweed.Her soaked shirt clung to her frame, nearly transparent,revealing the mottled skin beneath.
The rot on her body, soaked and swollen, had turned pale.Edges curled like peeling wallpaper.
She looked down at her hands.
The dirt between her fingers had been washed away,leaving only pale, nearly translucent skin behind.
In the distance, a church bell began to toll—its chime mixing with the downpour,like a funeral rite whispered through water.
Bai Ye took a step forward,and disappeared into the curtain of rain.
Behind her, the footprints she left behindfilled with water—and vanished.
That night, the lights in the house were on.
At the door, Bai Ye peeled off her soaked socks.Her right eye was nearly sealed shut—pus, mixed with rainwater, had glued her lashes together.
She stepped into her room barefoot.Each footfall left behind a sticky print on the wooden floor.
The air reeked—sweet and putrid, like raw meat left too long in summer heat.
Late into the night, Bai Ye was awakened by an unbearable itch.
Moonlight poured through the slit in her curtains, carving a silver line across the floor.
She scratched at the rot on her right arm, fingers digging in until her nails were packed with torn flesh.
Her bedsheets were soaked with a mixture of blood and pus.The stench filled the room, thick and cloying.
Outside, a nightingale was singing.
Bai Ye rose slowly and pressed the shredded skin she had peeled from her body onto the glass window.
The moonlight shone through it,illuminating the scraps until they glowed translucent—like the wings of a moth,on the verge of becoming something else.