NOVPUB“Ethan...?”
Crap. She found me! What do I do?!
My teeth chattered uncontrollably. After seeing those things, how could I possibly stay calm?
Would Snowy gouge out my eyes next? Rip off my nails, sever my fingers, slice off my wrists, and add me to her collection here?
I should have known... I should have escaped sooner... I never should have followed her here!
I didn’t dare to turn around.
I was terrified that if I did, I’d see Snowy holding a blade, her crimson eyes fixed on me with murderous intent.
“Ethan...”
Was it just my imagination, or had her voice grown deeper? No, actually, Snowy’s voice had always been flat and monotone, a voice almost devoid of emotion, as if her words were background noise.
But now... it sounded like the whispers of a demon.
Am I about to be killed?! Like the protagonist in a horror movie, who gets murdered in the most gruesome way after witnessing something they shouldn’t have seen — now it’s my turn to be the next victim.
My back hit something hard and unyielding.
I’m screwed! I’m so screwed! This is it!
“For you.”
“Huh?”
For... for me? What is she giving me? Is she handing me a knife? Does she want me to fight her? But considering how she wielded that blade earlier, there’s no way I could win against her. Even if I had a gun, I doubt I’d stand a chance.
Then... is she telling me to end it myself?
Does she want me to commit suicide so she doesn’t have to dirty her hands?
Once a person starts thinking in a negative spiral, it’s almost impossible to stop. The worst-case scenarios keep coming, one after another, until the line between reality and delusion blurs.
I was scaring myself for no reason.
How do I know that? Because Snowy’s next actions made it abundantly clear that she had no intention of harming me.
“Clothes. For you.”
“Huh?”
For a moment, I didn’t understand what she meant. Clothes? Was she giving me armor to go with the weapon? And then I remembered — what clothes?
The only thing Snowy was wearing was...
Sure enough, when I turned around, Snowy had already taken off the shirt I had put on her earlier. Her bare skin was exposed to the frigid air, her white underwear stark against her pale skin. One arm was crossed over her flat chest, and the other hand held out my shirt.
In such a freezing cold storage room, she had removed the last piece of clothing she had and handed it to me.
“It’s... cold here.”
“You! If you give me your shirt, what are you going to do?! You’re wearing even less than me!”
I might be half-naked, but you’re practically... completely exposed! Underwear? That’s for modesty, not warmth!
“I’m... not cold.”
She said it so seriously.
Even though her body was visibly trembling, she still forced herself to say such an obvious lie.
“Heh...”
I let out a bitter laugh. How stupid could I be, jumping to such ridiculous conclusions just now?
I took the shirt from her and slipped it on, only buttoning the bottom two buttons.
Without asking for her permission, I picked Snowy up and pulled her into my arms, positioning her so that her legs wrapped around my waist like a sloth clinging to a tree. Only then did I close the shirt around her, covering both of us.
She didn’t resist, simply wrapping her arms around my neck and pressing her body against mine for warmth.
“Snowy, this room is...”
“It’s... a cold storage room.”
A cold storage room... Just as I suspected. And as for what’s being kept here, there’s no need to say it. It’s definitely those body parts.
“To... prevent...”
“To prevent the corpses from rotting?”
She nodded.
So, it’s really like that. The reason this storage room felt so cold wasn’t just a psychological reaction — the temperature was genuinely freezing.
To prevent the body parts from decaying, the room was deliberately kept at a low temperature, just like the morgue or a funeral home’s refrigerated storage.
Now that I had calmed down, the fear that had gripped me earlier started to dissipate.
Actually, I should be used to seeing things like this by now.
My father’s hospital had all kinds of medical specimens. And at my mother’s funeral home, I’d seen plenty of fresh corpses.
The only reason I felt so panicked was because I wasn’t seeing these things in the places they were supposed to be.
If Lillian Ji were here, she’d probably get excited instead of scared (laughs)... No, wait. Maybe she’d be furious? After all, this could be considered a desecration of the human body.
I still didn’t know why someone would keep these body parts preserved, and that uncertainty was what truly frightened me.
But now, to dispel that lingering fear, I had to ask her.
“These things... did you do this?”
Once I asked the question, there was no taking it back. No matter what answer Snowy gave me, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know.
“Just... specimens.”
Snowy turned her gaze toward the rows °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° of eyeballs and nails. Her expression remained blank, without a trace of excitement or madness.
That reaction struck me as strange — far too calm.
Just like that time at the graveyard when we encountered the zombies, Lillian Ji acted like she was possessed. No matter what I said, she wouldn’t listen. No matter how hard I tried to persuade her to leave, she refused to budge.
I’m certain that if I hadn’t risked my life to charge into the zombie horde again — an act that scared Lillian enough for me to seize the opportunity and drag her out of there — she would never have willingly left the graveyard.
For zealots like her, that kind of response was the “normal” reaction. But Snowy... she showed none of that fixation.
She had no attachment to the severed limbs and dismembered body parts in the storage room. And it wasn’t because she lacked facial expressions. I could tell — she genuinely felt nothing for those body parts.
And then, as if confirming my suspicions, Snowy spoke her thoughts about the body parts.
“They’re...”
They’re what?
“Excess.”
Excess?
“Mm.”
She said nothing more.
I still didn’t quite grasp what Snowy meant by “excess.” Was she saying that those severed fingers, hands, and eyeballs were unnecessary parts?
But if they were unnecessary, then why go to the trouble of preserving them?
What kind of logic was that? Claiming she didn’t care about these “excess” parts, yet still keeping them meticulously stored and organized?
Snowy seemed reluctant to stay in the cold storage room any longer. She rubbed her cheek against my neck, her lips close to my ear as she whispered three words:
“Let’s go.”
But I didn’t move.
I felt like if I didn’t figure out Snowy’s perspective right here, right now, I might never get another chance.
“I don’t get it... Snowy, why do you keep these... uh, body parts in cold storage?”
I asked directly, the way I always do.
Snowy remained silent for a while. Realizing that I had no intention of leaving, she finally answered my question.
“I... killed them.”
She admitted it, just like that.
“They... deserved to die.”
And then, she revealed her motive.
“I kept their... hands and eyes.”
Snowy lifted her head and met my gaze. Those deep blue eyes — they seemed to be turning red again.
“To... cleanse their sins.”
To cleanse their sins — that’s why she kept their eyes and hands.
Her words struck a familiar chord, as though I’d heard them somewhere before. 𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑝𝘶𝘣.𝑐𝘰𝘮
Right... Isn’t that the same kind of rhetoric as “delivering divine punishment to sinners”? The kind of delusional justice where one takes it upon themselves to punish those they deem evil?
Has she been killing people under that belief all along?
But how does she determine who’s good and who’s evil?
I didn’t even need to ask. Snowy leaned in closer and whispered in my ear again.
“Those who kill... will be killed.”
“......”
A familiar phrase that answered all my questions.
Snowy only killed murderers. Maybe someone hired her to do it, or maybe she did it of her own volition.
Either way, it confirmed that she wasn’t the dismemberment killer the internet had been buzzing about.
Whether she was lying to me or not... I wanted to believe her. I had been doubting Snowy all this time, but this time, I didn’t want to doubt her anymore.
I wanted to believe that the people she killed deserved to die...
But...
But this kind of work shouldn’t be done by you, Snowy.
A sudden wave of pity surged through me.
How could anyone let such a petite, fragile girl do such a thing? It was too cruel.
I held her tightly in my arms, wrapping her up as best I could, and quickly carried her out of the freezing storage room. I didn’t want her to feel the cold anymore.
Back in her bedroom, I laid Snowy down on the bed and pulled the blanket over her. We’d stayed in the cold storage room for too long — her skin was icy to the touch. She needed to warm up immediately.
I opened the wardrobe and saw several sets of school uniforms hanging inside. I turned to Snowy and asked:
“Snowy, don’t you have any other clothes?”
“Other... clothes?”
“I mean, clothes other than the school uniform. Oh, forget it. Judging by your reaction, you don’t have any. Alright, just put on the school uniform for now.”
I grabbed a clean set of the school uniform and pulled out a pair of long, black socks from the drawer. Then I brought them over and slipped them into the blanket with her.
“Are we... going out?”
Snowy tilted her head in confusion, but she still took the clothes I handed her and began putting them on under the covers. The blanket rustled as she dressed, the sound of fabric shifting against her skin echoing in the room.
“Well, of course, we’re going out. We’re going to buy you some clothes!”
“Buy... clothes?”
“Yeah. You can’t just wear your school uniform all the time, can you? We’re going to get you some casual wear and a bunch of other stuff... Basically, we need to buy a lot of things.”
The house was well-furnished with appliances and furniture, but aside from Snowy’s clothing, there were almost no personal items or daily necessities.
Especially a lamp! Using candles at night is way too old-fashioned! I can’t stand it!
A few moments later, Snowy finished dressing, and I took her hand and led her out the door.
A strange feeling welled up in my chest.
Was I holding her hand like a big brother leading his little sister? Or a father taking his daughter out for a walk? Or was it more like a master leading his pet?
Probably the third one... Like that pet girl from Sakura House, who needed someone to take care of her.
But no, Snowy wasn’t incapable of taking care of herself. She just lacked some basic common sense.
If that’s the case, then I guess it’s up to me to teach her those basics.
I suppose I should consider it a way of repaying her for letting me stay here... And, uh, for that night when she let my hands... well...
Ahem.
Not that it wasn’t... satisfying, but...
Let me make one thing perfectly clear:
I am not a lolicon! Ahhhhhh!
