After I was born, I never learned how to speak.
The fortune-teller said I was a simpleton, the kind with a broken mind, who would never learn to talk in this lifetime.
Until I turned three, when my father died of cancer.
At the same time, I also spoke the first sentence of my life.
At that time, my father had withered away from the pain of his illness and died in the large bed at home, wearing a pure black Silver Python Cheongsam.
The python embroidered on the cheongsam was incredibly lifelike, its silver scales shimmered brightly.
Its pair of jet-black pupils were exceptionally bright, as though they could reflect a Human Form.
Just then, crying, I pointed at the Silver Python on the cheongsam and opened my mouth to speak the first sentence of my life, "There's a person sitting on Daddy."
But I was too young at the time, my memory somewhat vague.
To this day, despite my efforts to recall, I can only vaguely remember a White Python's silhouette seated atop my father's corpse.
As for what the man looked like, I have completely forgotten.
I didn't understand why he was sitting on my father, nor why no one else could see him.
After my father's death, the cheongsam wasn't buried with him. Instead, it was hung on the most prominent wall in our house, serving as the signboard for our family's tailor shop.
Because this cheongsam could extend one's lifespan; a person with a terminal illness on the brink of death.
If they wore it, they could live for at least three more years. Read complete version only at novęlfire.net
It might sound quite short, but to those nearing death, every additional day alive was a gift.
As I grew up gradually, I began to notice that the cheongsam seemed alive; at night, I could always feel as if the silver Giant Python on it was about to slide off at any moment!
The silver python's eyes seemed to grow more eerie and sinister by the day. Every time I looked up, it felt as if those eyes were watching me with a mocking smile.
Then, on the night of my twenty-first birthday, the python on the cheongsam transformed into a ghostly shadow that crawled down and coiled around my legs in bed.
The ice-cold sensation felt like an icicle piercing through my heart.
Then, a pair of hands, cold as ice, caressed my cheeks, "Su Wan, do you know who I am?"
I lay there, unable to move as if possessed by some force, and in the darkness, I could not see his face clearly, "You... who are you?"
"I... am the White Python from the cheongsam that your Su Family treasures," he said slowly, his voice dripping with icy disdain.
I was shocked, "What? But... that's just embroidery. How could it become a living thing?"
Was it a problem with my mind, creating an Illusion?
"Your father personally skinned me and sewed my skin into that cheongsam, amusing isn't it?" His fingers brushed over my lips, maliciously pinching them until they hurt.
My lips ached, but I dared not resist, feeling indescribable fear and panic deep within, "What do you want?"
Had he really been killed by my father?
If so, no wonder the python on the cheongsam appeared so lifelike, and why it watched me with such intent...
Thinking this made me even more creeped out.
He had been watching our whole family all along, how terrifying!
"Hehehehe..." A soft, lingering laugh came from his lips, so chilling it seemed to freeze the air into ice.
In the midst of his laughter, my mind gradually grew numb.
Then, I lost consciousness.
From then on, the White Python on the cheongsam would come to life every night.
It would snake along the white wall, slither into my bed, and transform into that dreadfully eerie man, repeatedly touching my face.
His fingers, chilled to the bone, touched my body over and over.
This hellish torment continued for two months until I started to feel nauseous and vomited frequently.
After going to the hospital for a checkup, I was completely shocked.
I was actually... pregnant.