Vol 1 Chapter 1.1 (2/2)

Jiang Ziya instantly stood still. Just now, Xiao Xue’s voice was simply not like a child’s manner of speech in the slightest bit. Most importantly, the light in the staircase had abruptly vanished. He could only see halfway down the flight of stairs, and further below, it was so dark that it looked like there weren’t any stairs there. It looked as if it was a black hole, and if one fell down it, it was highly possible that you would scream for a good three minutes before you hit the bottom.

Jiang Ziya looked at the black hole and fell silent for a long time. In the end, he admitted that he really didn’t have the courage to go down.

Suddenly, someone pulled the corner of his beach shorts. He was so frightened that he nearly fell down the stairs. By reflex, he turned his head back to look. The two little girls were each grabbing one corner of his shorts.

Currently, Xiao Xue looked completely like a doll. However, she and Jiang Jiang still had their hands linked. They no longer looked like a pair of sisters, but rather, a little girl with her doll.

Yet, the doll’s expressions were actually more animated than the little girl’s. Her eyes kept blinking, and the plastic eyeb.a.l.l.s rotated flexibly. On the other hand, the little girl was as expressionless as a doll. Regardless, whether it was the expressionless little girl or the lively-looking doll—they are both equally d.a.m.n scary!

Jiang Ziya became completely petrified. Going down was something he couldn’t do, but going home and staying at home by himself was also equally scary. Just as he was trapped without any way out of this dilemma, the neighbor’s door abruptly swung open. He had a feeling of being rescued, and he hurriedly turned his head over to look.

Though the strange woman who lives next-door is also weird, she is definitely a hundred times better than a living doll!

However, the person who came out was not a woman, but a man who was so good-looking that he looked like he had walked out from a magazine’s cover. His clothes also looked like clothes seen in magazines. He was wearing a white dress s.h.i.+rt, a black vest, and even a red bowtie. However, in his hands, he was carrying two rubbish bags that did not match the rest.

Jiang Ziya didn’t know what kind of wild impulse took over him, but he spontaneously covered his right eye and used only his left eye to look at him.

A male doll who was the same height as the rubbish bags was holding onto two rubbish bags… It was a little funny, but after feeling so, he felt panic kicking in. He was so panicked that he had difficulty breathing, and even his scalp had gone numb.

Had he gone crazy? Could it be that this world had actually started to replace humans with dolls since a long time ago?

Jiang Ziya put down his hand and tried hard to use only his right eye to look at that man, asking, “The w-woman next-door, is she there?”

The man revealed an extremely gentle smile, as he answered smilingly, “Mistress? Yes, she is in…” He suddenly gave a light gasp, for there was a familiar sound coming from downstairs. With an apologetic smile, he said, “The garbage truck is here. My apologies, I have to go bring out the trash first.”

After the man finished speaking, he instantly rushed downstairs in a hurry. Jiang Ziya didn’t dare stop him either. Although he really wanted to open his mouth to request that he help throw away the doll Xiao Xue too, since the other party was also a doll, he really didn’t dare ask!

After taking in a few deep breaths, Jiang Ziya turned around to look at Xiao Xue and Jiang Jiang. The doll appearance of Xiao Xue had vanished again, and the two little girls held each other’s hands as they both lifted their heads up to look at him. They looked just like a pair of sisters who got along very well.

“…”

Jiang Ziya gritted his teeth and then pulled back the corner of his shorts and pushed Xiao Xue aside. Picking up Jiang Jiang, he kicked open the door of his neighbor. After he dashed in, he even shut the door with all his strength and used his back to block the door. He hoped that the scene he had imagined with the doll knocking down the door wouldn’t really come true!

As he panted heavily in his anxiety, he saw a woman sitting in the living room. She was wearing a loose singlet and shorts, as well as black-rimmed gla.s.ses. In her hands was a cup of coffee and a catalog of who knows what. Then, she lifted her head to look, stunned, at the person who had suddenly intruded.

Jiang Ziya hurriedly covered his right eye and looked with his left eye… Thank heavens! She is human!

“You’re from next door?” The woman had obviously recognized him. Although they had not interacted, they did live next door to each other, after all, and would still see each other quite often. Most of the time, they would meet when they were taking out the trash.

“I-I… Anyways, let me hide here for a while!”

The woman tilted her head to look at Jiang Jiang and put down the coffee cup in her hand. Then, she took up a dagger that was on the coffee table at the side, before she said, “Not that I want to say this, but you really look like a strange uncle who is kidnapping a kid. Can I call the police?”

Where did the dagger come from?

Only now did Jiang Ziya manage to clearly see that that catalog was actually a weapons catalog. There were a bunch of handguns drawn on it. This place… F***!

There were two machetes displayed crisscross on the wall, and on top of the television cabinet, there was a katana. On the coffee table beside her, not only were there daggers on top of it, there was even a gun. He completely couldn’t tell whether that was a real gun or not, but anyway, it looked pretty real.

Who is this woman? A terrorist? Could it actually be safer to go out and stay with the doll Xiao Xue?

At that moment, the woman picked up the phone, looking as though she was really about to call the police.

“Don’t call the police!” Jiang Ziya immediately said, “I didn’t kidnap her! She is my sister’s child! She lives next door together with me!” When he finished speaking, he suddenly remembered something important and asked in a hurry, “R-Right, do you remember how many kids there are in my family?”

The woman shook her head, saying, “Kids? Don’t know.”

Jiang Ziya’s face looked defeated. At this moment, Jiang Jiang, who was in his embrace, squirmed a little, saying, “Yaya-gēge, Xiao Xue is outside. She says that she also wants to come in. Gēge, let Xiao Xue come in! Let Xiao Xue come in!”

When she was speaking, she even had an adorable smile on her face… This smile made Jiang Ziya feel that she looked more like a doll than a human. It really felt very strange. He couldn’t help but put Jiang Jiang on the ground.

At this point, the woman abruptly and coldly said, “I didn’t let you in, scram!”

Jiang Ziya was stunned for a moment, but an earth-shattering cry suddenly came from Jiang Jiang. It was so loud that his ears started to hurt, and his brain became blank. He could only hold his ears and try to endure that head-splitting pain. He held on with difficulty until the shriek vanished, and when he looked up…

Jiang Jiang is gone!

“Where’s Jiang Jiang?” Jiang Ziya completely couldn’t understand what was going on, but Jiang Jiang was his sister’s daughter! He roared, “What did you do to Jiang Jiang? Hurry and return her to me!”

He didn’t imagine that the woman would actually be even more enraged than he was as she shouted, “You barged into my place carrying that sort of thing, I still haven’t gotten even with you for that, yet you still dare to ask me for something first?”

“T-That sort of thing?” Jiang Ziya really became frantic. “She’s- She’s my sister’s child. That sort of thing is outside. Xiao Xue is the one who’s a doll…”

The woman tilted her head to one side, saying, “Your sister is the housewife next door right? When I was taking out the trash, I met her before. She said that she has a twin brother. If I see a boy with a blue patch in his left cornea, then that would be you.”

Jiang Ziya nodded his head. Not only did his left eye let him see strange stuff easily, but even its appearance was rather strange. On the upper-left corner of his black pupil, there was a tiny patch that had turned blue in color.

“She even said that she had gotten married a long time ago, and her partner was a high school teacher. At that time, matters had gotten out of hand, and her husband had even lost his teaching job because of it. After she graduated from high school, she got married to him. She really does love to talk. Not that I want to say this, but in that short time waiting for the garbage truck to come everyday, I’m already about to understand all eight generations of her ancestors!”

Errrr… It was true that his sister loved to chat. Jiang Ziya nodded his head

The woman tilted her head to one side, and with a shadow of a smile on her face, said, “However, I don’t remember that your family had children.”

Jiang Ziya froze.

“Children should be very noisy, right?” As if she was considering something, the woman said, “However, I have never heard any children’s voices coming from your place. I did, however, hear that she herself really likes kids. But after a check-up, they found out that her reproductive organs are very weak, and it’s very difficult to keep a child. She had a miscarriage once and was considering adoption. However, I don’t think you can adopt that kind of thing just now from an orphanage?”

At this moment, the front door swung opened. This made Jiang Ziya so frightened that he jumped, thinking that Xiao Xue had really knocked down the door and come in. He didn’t imagine that he would instead see the man he had seen just now… That man who is also a doll!

He opened his eyes wide. Though he wanted to escape, that man just happened to be blocking the only exit. There isn’t much point in retreating further inside the house, is there?

“H-H-He…. What exactly is he?”

The woman froze for a moment. She observed Jiang Ziya’s expression and answered as though she was deep in thought, “You really can tell the difference? How can this be? I thought that this butler’s disguise was already very perfect.”

Jiang Ziya was stunned for a while. At this time, that butler walked up to him with two more steps, frightening him so much that he dashed behind the woman’s back, screaming, “Don’t come over!”

The woman gave a sigh, and with a helpless tone, said, “Sit down. Do you want tea or coffee? I’ll make the butler leave the living room to prepare the drinks. That’ll be fine, right?”

“… Cola.”

“We don’t have that!”

Footnotes

1 “Jiang Ziya”: (姜子牙) It is actually the name of a famous Chinese military strategist. Which is, needless to say, a very odd name to name your child. It’s like naming your child Cao Cao/Zhuge Liang. For those who still don’t get it, it’s pretty much naming your child Sun Wu Kong /Monkey D. Luffy /Hitler or something.

2 “Jiang Yu”: (姜玉) Both of the twins use the surname “姜” (Jiang), which is a common surname and doesn’t really have much meaning to it. That means that her first name is only one character long, 玉 (Yu), which means jade.

3 “Jiang Qibing”: (江其兵) Jiang Yu’s husband uses the surname “江”, which is also Jiang, and means river. Their surnames sound exactly the same but are written with different characters.

4 “Yaya-gēge”: (牙牙哥哥) Yaya comes from duplicating the last character of Ziya’s name. It’s something that children tend to do, and it sounds cute. As for Gēge, it means brother in Chinese. Since this story is set in Taiwan, we will be keeping all Chinese names and Chinese honorifics.

5 “Jiěfu”: (姐夫) It is Chinese for “brother-in-law” and is used both as a t.i.tle and an honorific.

6 “Xiao Xue”: (小雪) It’s very common for Chinese to attach a “Xiao,” which means Little, to girls’ names. So basically her name means Little Snow. (If you have read ½ Prince, remember Xiao Lan?)

7 “Jiang Jiang”: (江姜) Jiang Jiang’s name is formed using the surnames of her father and mother, 江 and 姜.

8 “Grand Duke Jiang”: (姜太公) It is one of the nicknames for Jiang Ziya. (the ancient militarist) It seems to be a pretty commonly known nickname too.

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