Found You - Chapter 2

The moment I returned to the dorm, I rushed into the bathroom and took a cold shower.

Water pattered down, gradually extinguishing the heat inside me.

Looking down, I followed the trails of water to the tangled red marks winding over my legs and heaved another sigh.

The tentacles had begun appearing for no reason a week ago—in class, in the dorm, in my dreams… They clung to me like taffy.

They never did the things tentacle monsters did in horror movies, like strangling someone to death or opening a bloody maw to tear them apart and devour them.

Instead, they wound around me gently, neither too tightly nor too loosely, gliding over my body with a stubborn fixation on teasing every sensitive spot I had.

Strangest of all, they could touch me, but I couldn’t touch them. And I was the only one who could see them.

At first, I thought I had developed a mental illness and was hallucinating. But a hospital examination found nothing wrong.

After thinking it over, I decided I must be haunted.

It looked like I would have to return to my hometown once summer vacation began, even though Grandpa had told me that once I got away, I must never go back…

I let the icy water strike my face.

Suddenly, I remembered the man’s freezing hand in my dream.

The strange dream had begun at the same time as the eerie tentacles. Every time I fell asleep, I had it again.

Today, however, something had changed. The faceless man in the dream had spoken to me.

His soft, smiling words still circled through my mind.

Ranran…

I rubbed my throbbing temples and remembered what Grandpa had once told me.

“My boy, remember what Grandpa says. You must never tell anyone your old name.”

“And if anyone calls you by it, you must never answer!”

My name had originally been Jiang Shuran.

On my eighteenth birthday, Grandpa had overruled everyone. Ignoring my parents’ objections, he dragged me off to change my name, then found someone to recopy our family register.

I once overheard them arguing about it.

My mother’s voice shook with anger.

“Dad! How many times have I told you? That’s feudal superstition!”

“When Ranran got sick as a child, the high fever from the flu caused meningitis. The doctors cured him. It had nothing to do with whatever ridiculous thing you invited here!”

Grandpa had remained silent until her last sentence. Then, in panic, he clapped a hand over her mouth.

“You mustn’t disrespect the divine… You mustn’t disrespect the divine…”

“He… He’ll be angry…”

Only when my name change was official did he finally breathe in relief.

“My boy, from now on, your name is Jiang Qi’an.”

“With a new name, you’ll be safe. You will. You will…”

He held my hand and murmured the words over and over, and I couldn’t tell whether he was talking to me or to himself.

I knew the illness I had suffered as a child had frightened him badly. Now that he was older, he had grown increasingly anxious and fretful.

So I patted his hand and comforted him. “Don’t worry, Grandpa. I’ll definitely take good care of myself.”

When my college entrance exam results arrived, I originally planned to apply to a university close to home.

Grandpa, who had always doted on me, reacted with startling vehemence.

I still remembered his livid face and the way he glared at me, utterly unyielding. He wanted me to go as far away as possible.

His expression scared me into agreeing.

Fortunately, my score was high enough. In the end, I enrolled at Capital University, more than two thousand kilometers from home.

Before the semester began, I received a bank transfer on my way to the airport.

Staring at the string of digits in the text, I thought I had developed farsightedness at my young age. I counted the number several times before I dared believe it.

Another message followed.

“My boy, this is everything Grandpa has saved over the past few decades. Take it and build a good life for yourself in the capital.”

“Now that you’ve left, never come back.”

At the time, I found Grandpa’s words strange, but assumed they were merely the earnest hopes of an old country man for his grandchild.

Now, though, I had begun to suspect that the bizarre dreams and tentacles were somehow connected to all of it.