Too Late to Love My Ghost

When I was about to be tortured to death by a psychotic killer, he hung up on my desperate call for help.

Die, you disgusting gay freak. Stop bothering me!

While I was being sliced apart one cut at a time, he was by his first loves side.

He personally dissected my corpse, vomiting again and again from the horror of what had been done to it.

Later, when he learned the truth, he went insane.

The corpse pulled from the stinking ditch in the suburbs was covered in garbage and excrement, and even three layers of masks could not block out the stench.

My lover, the forensic pathologist Li Shuo, unzipped the body bag, lifted me onto the autopsy table, switched on the bright examination lamp, and began retrieving the bodys ID information and recording DNA.

After I was cornered in a restroom by a psychotic killer and stabbed to death again and again, my soul drifted out of my body and followed Li Shuo.

He really was unlucky, being haunted by a dead gay man like me, forced to have me at his side even after I died.

I stood beside Li Shuo and watched him methodically record and analyze the fatal wounds, while my face had already been disfigured by knife cuts until my appearance was impossible to recognize.

When I saw my own corpse, I was stunned too.

It had been soaked in the stinking ditch until it was pale and swollen, my hands and feet were gone, and even the remaining features on my face had been slashed beyond recognition.

Li Shuo was a senior forensic pathologist who had dissected and analyzed thousands of corpses, but even he threw up into the trash can when he saw the state I was in.

After he roughly recorded the data, he held the trash can and vomited up his breakfast.

The forensic interns around him staggered out of the autopsy room, all frightened and disgusted by the horror of my body.

Before the autopsy had even begun, they were already standing outside with grim faces, discussing the case and determined to find the real killer.

Only after eavesdropping on their discussion did I understand that I was the fourth victim.

The first three cases were all killed with fatal stab wounds and dumped in the wilderness, while my death was especially brutal.

It did not look like a random killing, but more like deliberate torture and murder.

I had been stuffed into a red suitcase and dumped, there was no blood, and after the red suitcase was soaked in water, no fingerprint information could be collected from it either.

There was no clue at all about the killers identity.

After Li Shuo finished vomiting, he returned to his professional state.

He examined my broken body again and again.

His movements were careful and focused, and he still had not realized that the corpse he was analyzing was the man he hated most.

When I hid in the restroom and called Li Shuo for help, my lover was accompanying his first love at a medical appointment.

Shuo, help me, someone is trying to kill me!

The door was shaking under the murderers repeated impacts, and the moment the call connected, I thought he would come protect me.

In the next instant, my body went stiff when I heard the sweet, cloying voice on the other end of the line, and it was Zhou Hang.

Shuo, my throat is so itchy, can you stay with me while I get the IV? Im not interrupting your work, am I?

Zhou Hang was Li Shuos first love from his youth, and he was also the stepson my father loved most.

Li Shuo called me a shameless gay man, yet he loved Zhou Hang deeply.

What he hated had never been men, but me.

It was me, the one who clung to him and loved him desperately.

Hang, dont worry, your throat is just inflamed, so be good, close your eyes, and rest while I stay with you, Li Shuo said in a gentle and considerate voice.

I had never seen that tenderness from him, because with me, he was either cold as ice or brutally rough when he threw me onto the bed.

So all his tenderness had been given to him.

I knew it.

I was never really his lover.

I was only a tool for him to release desire.

I clutched the phone tightly as the bloodstained knife was pulled out again and again, and I curled up on the cold restroom floor, begging for mercy.

Li Shuo was carefully looking after his sick first love and had no attention to spare for the call.

Each stab pierced flesh and brought out blood, and I cried and sobbed as death drew closer and closer.

I breathed weakly as the killer stuffed me into the red suitcase.

Hurry up and die, and stop calling me.

Li Shuos irritated voice echoed beside my ear, and when the call ended, my heart died completely.

As my soul gradually drifted out of my body, I thought back to the moments we had spent together.

Calling it a relationship would be too generous, because it was more like my one-sided entanglement.

If I had not still been somewhat useful at night, he probably would not have even looked at me.

Especially after my stepbrother Zhou Hang came back, Li Shuos heart flew entirely to him.

He had even less respect for me than before.

I was in the hospital too, only I had been forced into the restroom by the killer.

The funniest part was that he was only one wall away from me, only a few steps away.

After my soul left my body and drifted to Li Shuos side, I saw him carefully pour hot water for Zhou Hang, watch his IV drip for him, and tuck his blanket around him.

Zhou Hangs head rested on his shoulder, and I had never seen the victorious, joyful smile on his face before.

He was like a peerless hero descending on rainbow clouds, guarding Zhou Hang, and what a beautiful, harmonious scene it was.

But he was clearly my lover.

Li Shuo frowned as he carefully examined my corpse, and even though the stench was overwhelming, he forced himself to hold back the urge to vomit.

I watched his throat bob as he turned his head aside from time to time and wrote notes on the paper.

After the autopsy ended and they obtained the basic information, they had to confirm the deceaseds identity in the database before they could continue the investigation and track the crime scene.

Once the autopsy was over, everyone clearly breathed a sigh of relief, and during lunch, they chatted casually in the cafeteria.

Its pretty strange today, why didnt Zhou Qing come? Li Shuos colleague teased.

Li Shuos face instantly turned cold, and he said indifferently, Im sick of him, and itd be best if he never came again in this lifetime.

Hes actually really good to you, his colleague advised quietly after sensing the chill around him.

Ever since his first love returned, our once peaceful life had been shattered, and we argued often.

He had only gotten together with me because it meant he could see Zhou Hang often, so this relationship had never been sincere from the start.

In the house we bought, he never allowed me into his study, and once, when the door was not locked properly, I discovered that it was covered entirely with photos of Zhou Hang.

The passwords for his phone and bank cards were all Zhou Hangs birthday.

But if he loved Zhou Hang so much, why had he not chased him to another city to be with him?

Why did he lower himself and allow me to taint his body?

I knocked my head, but no matter what, I could not remember that part.

My autopsy report was printed out, and Captain Zhang, who was in charge of investigating the case, read it with red eyes and clenched his fists as he swore.

He would catch the killer and give me justice.

The deceased died from blood loss, there were seventy-two wounds on his body, he was dismembered and stuffed into a suitcase, his abdomen was stabbed fifteen times, his heart was stabbed four times, and his cheeks were cut thirty times with a blunt object, with the facial cuts suspected to have been made after death

The deceased was around twenty-six years old and is suspected to have been an office worker.

The autopsy report was especially detailed, identifying not only my approximate height and weight, but even my occupation.

Li Shuo took the autopsy report and scanned through it before asking with pain in his voice, Have you confirmed the deceaseds identity? We have to catch this murderer. He has antisocial personality disorder.

Captain Zhang shook his head.

It has been less than twenty-four hours since we discovered the body, and were still comparing it in the genetic database, but no one has reported anyone missing either.

Everyone sighed over the passing of such a young, vivid life.

Before death, the deceased had suffered torture and abuse, and the dismembered limbs had still not been found.

I drifted there and saw the pain on Li Shuos face as he lamented how fragile life was.

If he knew that the deceased was me, the person he hated most, he definitely would not show any sadness.

After all, the last thing he said to me was, Hurry up and die.