Chapter 61: Why Are Mother’s Eyes Sewn Shut?

Chapter 61: Why Are Mom’s Eyes Sewn Shut?

Xiao Luo shouldered open the heavy, rusted iron gate with both hands, her backpack slung over her shoulders.

With a piercing creak, she stepped inside, her small figure gradually swallowed by the dim, damp hallway.

The old apartment building was permeated with cold, damp air. The walls were stained yellow and black, covered in indelible graffiti and scribbled markings. Near the drainage pipes, large patches of peeling plaster revealed the shoddy, thin walls beneath. The air smelled faintly of mildew and something metallic.

Logically, such walls should have terrible soundproofing, yet the building was eerily quiet—so quiet you couldn't even hear the sound of residents moving about.

It was as if... this was a coffin shaped like an apartment building—cold, cramped, and dark.

And its residents weren't exactly alive.

But Xiao Luo was used to this environment. She didn’t give it much thought and headed straight for the stairs.

As she passed Unit 102 on the first floor, she suddenly stopped, noticing a pair of bright red cloth shoes sitting quietly on the ground ahead.

The shoes had white soles and red fabric uppers, looking as though they had been handmade by some country granny in the past. The edges were slightly worn, as if they had been worn for years, but they were otherwise clean and well-preserved.

"Grandma Li," Xiao Luo hesitated, then called out softly toward 102, "are these your shoes?"

"......"

The door to Unit 102 stood open. The resident, Grandma Li, sat motionless on a bench inside, as usual, wearing a thick red sweater, her back turned to the stairwell.

Xiao Luo peeked in from the doorway but could only see the old woman’s slightly hunched back and her same rigid posture.

For some reason, Grandma Li never seemed to turn on the lights. Her frail figure blended into the darkness, and if not for the bright red sweater glowing like embers, it would have been hard to tell anyone was inside at a glance.

Xiao Luo thought the cloth shoes had to be the old woman's—they matched the color of her sweater—so perhaps Grandma Li had accidentally left them in the stairwell?

But when no answer came after several tries, the old woman remained motionless, rigidly seated with her back to Xiao Luo.

After hesitating for a while, Xiao Luo remembered her teacher’s lesson that day about being helpful and returning lost items. She quickly scooped up the red shoes and gently placed them by Grandma Li’s door.

Just as she bent down near the doorway, she felt a cold draft seep out from inside, the chill creeping up her legs.

Grandma Li’s home was so cold...

Xiao Luo thought distractedly. Cold as a meat locker—nothing like a place where people could live.

Was it because of the dampness on the first floor? Didn’t Grandma Li feel the cold?

With these questions in mind, Xiao Luo set the shoes down and quickly backed away, escaping the creeping cold.

Then, Grandma Li’s raspy voice croaked out:

"...No, they shouldn’t be placed there."

The voice was hoarse and weak, as if spoken through a strangled throat, completely lifeless, reeking of the grave.

Goosebumps rose on Xiao Luo's arms.

Grandma Li’s unlit room loomed before her like the yawning jaws of some beast—as if stepping inside meant never leaving.

"They shouldn’t be there, my..."

The old woman’s low voice continued, but Xiao Luo could no longer listen calmly.

She flew up the stairs, her small frame scampering up like a spooked rabbit.

Passing several locked doors, she finally stopped in front of Unit 401.

She glanced up at the address plate to confirm it was her home, then stood on tiptoe and knocked twice.

Soon, the door cracked open, revealing her mother’s pale, swollen face.

Her features were delicate and pretty, but her eyes were sewn shut with thick black stitches, like two knotted centipedes crawling across her face, despite the grotesque stitching.

Xiao Luo ignored this and stepped inside naturally. After setting down her backpack, she babbled cheerfully about her day at school while buzzed about to help with chores.

"Good child."

Her mother, her eyes sewn shut, felt her way blindly into the kitchen. Amid the steady thwacks of chopping meat, she murmured approvingly, "You used to misbehave sometimes, but now you’re so well-behaved..."

*Thud! Thud! Thud!*

"Good child. Mom loves good children."

Amid the meat-chopping that rattled the walls, her mother repeated the same phrase over and over.

After wiping the table, Xiao Luo scanned the room, confirming there were no more chores left in the living or dining area, then picked up her backpack and headed to her room.

"Don’t... close the door."

Her mother’s reminder came immediately. "Leave it open. Let Mom and Dad keep an eye on you."

"Got it!"

Xiao Luo neatly arranged her books and stationery on the desk, then sat down in her chair, finally entering a quiet moment of peace.

Only now, as she sat down to rest, did she suddenly notice a few ghostly icons hovering at the edge of her vision.

Strangely, when she focused on them, an uncanny sense of recognition washed over her.

It was as if they had always been there—she just hadn’t noticed them before.

To an outside observer, Xiao Luo would have seemed to be zoning out, staring blankly into space for a while.

But in reality, she was examining these mysterious icons in her mind.

"System... Backpack... Store...?"

"System... What’s a system? It feels so familiar... Did I see it on TV before?"

Her lips moved faintly as she mouthed the words of each function. Finally, her gaze lingered on "System Forum."

For a moment, she went lightheaded, as if a voice in her heart was telling her: *Something very important is hidden here.*

*You have to... you have to click on it...*

After a pause, Xiao Luo raised her right hand, attempting to press the icon as if changing channels on a TV.

But her fingers only waved through nothingness. The icons remained unmoved, and instead, she caught her mother’s eye.

"Sweetie, what are you doing?"

Her mother raised her stitched-shut eyelids, looking right at her, her tone gentle as she asked, the needle marks around her eyes twitching slightly.

Her body remained in the kitchen, facing away from the door, yet her neck twisted at an impossible angle, as if straining to twist her own head off. The two stitched seams of her eyes were directly aimed at Xiao Luo.

Long black hair cascaded down, clinging to her paper-white face, radiating a bone-chilling eeriness.

*Mom...*

Mouthing silently the word that should have been the most affectionate, Xiao Luo's hands trembled slightly as a foreign terror took root, her breath coming in short gasps.

Mom always seemed to be watching her every move, despite having no eyes...

*No!*

*Wait.*

The snake's icy scales dug into Xiao Luo's palm, sending a frost-like chill up her arm and into her brain, dissolving part of the mental fog. Her jumbled thoughts snapped into focus once more.

A realization struck Xiao Luo:

*Right, why are Mom's eyes sewn shut?*

*How does she see? How does she monitor my every move?*

*And why—why does this "Mom" feel so unfamiliar, like a stranger?*

Xiao Luo's breath caught. Beneath Mom's invisible scrutiny, she forced all her terrifying suspicions back into the depths of her heart and pasted on an obedient smile: "I just saw a bug on the window. It was a little dirty."

"But I chased it away now... Mom."

Fighting down a surge of nausea, she forced out those last two words.

Mom paused for over ten seconds, as though meticulously dissecting Xiao Luo's movements and expression to determine if she was telling the truth.

Xiao Luo unconsciously held her breath until Mom finally turned away, apparently buying her excuse.

"Is that so? That's mommy's good girl—always listen to Mom..."

Muttering vaguely, Mom resumed chopping meat with the cleaver, the meaty thock-thock-thock echoing through the kitchen.

Just hearing the sound, Xiao Luo could practically see how the blade sank into flesh, severed tendons, crushed bones—how minced meat and blood splattered and pooled beneath the knife...

Ice water seemed to trickle down her spine, as if that blade could swing toward her at any moment.

While Mom was still busy cooking and her perpetually overtime-working father hadn’t returned home yet, Xiao Luo seized the chance to explore this mysterious forum.

She soon realized she didn’t need to physically tap the icons—all she had to do was focus her gaze and mentally select it, and the function would unfold before her.

Though still a child, Xiao Luo had dabbled with electronics from the school computer lab. She quickly grasped the forum’s basic functions and navigation.

After a moment’s thought, she first checked her personal profile, hoping to find the "her name" the serpent deity had mentioned.

Name: Luo Shengle

Homeworld: Third Dimension · First Universe · Milky Way · Earth

Identity: Player · Human Female

Points: 4200

Special Trait: Gaze of Fate (S)

*Luo Shengle... Is this my real name?*

Xiao Luo stared blankly for a long time, slowly grappling with a horrifying truth: the "Mom" and "Dad" she lived with now might not actually be her parents.

Or rather—why had she previously ignored all the red flags? Why had she accepted a woman with sewn-shut eyes and uncanny mannerisms as her mother?

*This isn’t normal...*

Xiao Luo gradually realized that this entire family, this apartment building, even the world she had once taken for granted—none of it made sense.

She continued scrolling through her post history, finding only a solitary post in the "Random Thoughts" subforum of the casual discussion area. It had nearly 700 replies now, ranking among the subforum's top threads.

Every fiber of her being knew that all the answers hidden in this forum were contained within that post.

Her fingertips tingled slightly as she mentally opened the thread, prepared to devour every clue contained within.