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墨書 Inktalez
In the bathroom, hot water flowed over his body, steam enveloping Huang Haoran in a layer of hazy mist.
He lowered his head, gazing at his feet submerged in the water. The wrinkled skin turned slightly pale under the heat, and the flakes between his toes floated away with the current. Yet, that lingering foul odor persisted, subtly permeating the air despite countless washes.
This was the curse bestowed upon him by fate.
He looked at his feet, and memories long sealed began to surge in his mind—his birth.
"What on earth is this?!"
That was the first sentence he heard upon arriving in this world.
In the dimly lit delivery room, before the baby's cries could be heard, a horrific stench of Foot Odor erupted like a bomb! The air instantly turned murky, and the faces of the doctors and nurses changed dramatically. Before they could even cut the umbilical cord, they began to gag violently.
"Ugh... what is that smell...?"
"Hey! Open a window! Damn it, this isn't the smell of a newborn! This is—"
Before the doctor could finish his sentence, he could no longer hold back. Covering his mouth, he dashed to a corner, bent over, and started to vomit. The midwife frantically backed away, trying to escape this disaster-level stench, but the delivery room was small. The odor seemed to have a life of its own, infiltrating every corner. The suffocating Foot Odor transformed into an invisible black mist that tightly wrapped around everyone!
"What... what kind of monster is this?!"
Standing beside the delivery bed, the father’s face, once filled with joy, froze instantly. He turned stiffly to look at his wife—the woman who had just endured ten hours of painful labor. Her face was pale, lips trembling; there was no joy of motherhood in her eyes—only shock, fear, and even... disgust.
With a trembling voice, she asked, "H-Honey... is this our child?"
The father's face was filled with terror as he fought back nausea to look at the tiny life that had just entered this world—those feet!
The newborn, still wrapped in amniotic membranes, already emanated an earth-shattering stench from its feet! It was not an ordinary body odor but a twisted essence so strong it seemed to color the very space with decay. The entire room felt as if it had descended into an apocalypse of Foot Odor!
The doctor could no longer hold on and collapsed onto the floor, his face as pale as paper. "This is not scientific... This is absolutely not the scent a human should have..."
"This is not my child!" The mother suddenly screamed, gasping for breath, her emotions on the verge of collapse.
The father's face turned ashen, his teeth clenched as he glared at the newborn Huang Haoran, his eyes filled with an unmistakable mix of shame and hatred, as if standing before him was not a newborn baby but some ultimate curse upon their family!
"How could we possibly raise something like this?!"
No one responded, for everyone in the delivery room was still struggling to endure the foul stench. Some had even begun to feel dizzy, showing signs of fainting.
That night, the child was hastily stuffed into a cardboard box, a note affixed to it that read: "Please adopt, thank you."
The couple left the hospital under cover of darkness, disappearing without a trace, as if they had never given birth to this child.
On that day, his life was completely abandoned.
"This is not my child!" The mother's anguished scream seemed to echo in his ears. Huang Haoran snapped back to reality and realized he was still standing in the bathroom, water continuing to flow, steam covering the mirror with a layer of mist.
The orphanage building was old, the paint peeling from the walls like layers of skin eroded by time. Yet here was the only warm place in Huang Haoran's life.
Among the few "good things" in his life, his greatest fortune was Uncle Chen, the director of the orphanage.
At the entrance of the hospital, when everyone frowned and recoiled from that tattered cardboard box, only Uncle Chen did not step back.
He was a truly good man.
"Come back with me, child."
At that time, Uncle Chen was over sixty, with white hair and a hunched figure. He looked at the baby curled up in the box, his feet wrapped in a tattered cloth that was already soaked with his own sweat. Despite the horrifying stench that nearly made everyone take a step back, he resolutely bent down and picked up the child abandoned by the world.
The staff at the orphanage changed their expressions dramatically.
"Director, this... this child isn't even human! The smell is too terrible!"
"That's right! What will happen to the other children if we bring him back? This stench could drive even dogs mad!"
"Director, this isn't a joke! This child is a biological disaster!"
But Uncle Chen merely patted the baby in his arms and said softly, "What right does a child have to bear such a fate?"
He smiled slightly; despite the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, they still shone with warmth and brightness. "If everyone despises him, then I will love him."
Five years passed—brief yet filled with warmth and happiness. In this old orphanage, Huang Haoran spent the only period of his life that wasn't entirely tragic.
Even though every day his foot odor permeated the entire orphanage, forcing all the children to wear masks and keep their distance; even though wherever he went, he left behind an indelible trail of scent that occasionally caused the little dogs in the orphanage to faint—Uncle Chen never frowned at him.
Uncle Chen prepared the cleanest bed for him, gave him the best food, and even willingly washed his feet by hand—though that basin of foot-washing water always ended up a strange dark green.
Before he turned five, he lived healthily and relatively happily.
However, he did not know that his foot odor was not an ordinary smell but rather a powerful biochemical chronic virus.
The invisible toxins he inadvertently released even affected Uncle Chen, who cared for him day and night.
When he turned five, Uncle Chen fell ill.
At first, it was just ordinary dizziness and fatigue. Everyone thought it was simply due to old age, but soon, his body began to show signs of abnormality—his immune system collapsed, his lungs started to fibrose, and even some mysterious black spots appeared on his skin.
The doctors were at a loss; all the tests failed to explain what illness he had, only that his cells seemed to be gradually "decaying."
No one knew that the root cause of all this was Huang Haoran's innate "cursed feet."
On that day, Uncle Chen lay on the hospital bed, frail and aged, yet still smiled as he gently patted Huang Haoran's head.
"Haoran..." His voice was weak but still warm. "You must live well, do you understand?"
"No matter how the world treats you, even if you harbor countless grudges in your heart... do not look back."
"If a person is controlled by hatred, they will never be able to escape..."
Huang Haoran tightly grasped Uncle Chen's bony hand, unaware that his foot odor had quietly permeated the entire ward.
Outside the window, the dusk light illuminated the hospital bed. The corridor was silent, and the air seemed to be filled with an indescribable scent of decay.
He did not yet understand the true meaning of those words; he did not comprehend what kind of path hatred truly was.
But he knew—the only person in this world who loved him was about to leave.
The sound of water in the bathroom suddenly stopped. The steam from the hot water lingered in the air, like memories that had yet to fade, silently wrapping around him.
Huang Haoran lowered his head, standing in front of the mirror. His breathing was a bit rapid, and his eyes were slightly reddened, tears almost spilling over.
He suddenly closed his eyes, forcing himself to stop reminiscing, forbidding himself from thinking any further or looking back.
Because the memories that followed were filled with endless bullying, torment, and... an unending loneliness.
Those filthy fists, those venomous words, the malice that he could never escape no matter how hard he tried, were like an invisible net that had ensnared him since the day he left Uncle Chen. It held him tightly, leaving him unable to break free.
Enough. Enough.
He suddenly grabbed a towel and began to scrub his body fiercely, the force so great it felt as if he might tear his own skin apart!
Wipe it away...
Wipe away this innate curse...
Wipe away all this sin...
The towel rubbed against his skin back and forth, heedless of the pain, until his flesh was red and even faintly stinging. Only then did he finally stop.
Breathing heavily, he looked at himself in the mirror. The man staring back at him had cold eyes, the corners of his mouth slightly turned down, and an indescribable weariness and oppression etched between his brows.
This is who he was.
A person abandoned by the world, despised by everyone, built up from hatred and humiliation.
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