PD -Chapter 13 Black Dog Blood

“Mr. Zhu, it’s time for your injection.”

A woman in a nurse’s uniform entered the bedroom carrying medical equipment and stood to one side as she spoke to Zhu Shengxing.

Seeing this, Zhu Zhu got up and said she would take me to the mask gallery first. I nodded in agreement and left the bedroom with Tang Shanshan.

The moment I stepped out and turned back to close the door, I caught sight of Zhu Shengxing lifting his shirt, preparing for the nurse to give him the injection.

His pale belly was exposed beneath the raised shirt.

What shocked me, however, was that it was nothing like the full, round stomach of an overweight man.

The skin on Zhu Shengxing’s abdomen hung loose, covered in layer after layer of shriveled folds. The lowest fold drooped down like the ear of a Labrador, hanging so far that he had tucked it into his trousers.

It was easy to imagine that Zhu Shengxing had once been extremely obese.

But now it looked as though all the fat in his abdomen had been drained away, leaving only the loose outer layer of skin hanging from his body. The sight was both disgusting and unsettling.

Inside the room, Zhu Shengxing seemed to sense someone staring at him. He turned and glanced in my direction.

I immediately snapped back to my senses, shut the door, and hurried after Zhu Zhu and Tang Shanshan as they headed downstairs.

Catching up with Zhu Zhu, I lowered my voice and asked near her ear, “What exactly is wrong with your father?”

Zhu Zhu did not try to hide anything.

“My dad already has diabetes and high blood pressure. Every so often he needs an insulin injection to keep his condition under control, and he also takes a lot of medication for his blood pressure.

But I’ve never seen him collapse like this before, to the point where he can’t even get out of bed.

The cooks and housekeepers have been privately saying that his illness has something to do with the mask crying tears of blood. I started getting scared too. Then Shanshan told me about you, so I came looking for your help.”

She nodded as she spoke and led us toward a room at the end of the first-floor corridor.

This was Zhu Shengxing’s mask collection room.

The door to the gallery was already open.

The room covered roughly one hundred square meters.

Aside from a number of display cases used to showcase Zhu Shengxing’s collection, there was little in the way of decoration or furnishings.

Rows upon rows of masks of different styles hung on the walls.

And at this moment, without exception, every single mask bore two streaks of dark-red tears hanging beneath its hollow, lifeless eye sockets.