Lizard's Fang-like Huge Jaws

The head didn't respond, but continued to slam into the bed plank.

"Can you keep it down for a second!" Lin An was somewhat angry, his eyes wide open as he stared at the head.

Finally, the head quieted down, rotated to adjust its angle, and lined up its hollow eye sockets with Lin An, opened its mouth filled with black teeth and black tongue, and wailed, "Return~my~eyes~"

Lin An rolled his eyes, his teeth clenched in frustration, "I have cataracts, just a minor surgery, not a corneal transplant. I never took your eyes!"

The head didn't listen, just continued to moan, "Return my eyes..."

"You..."

"Why can't you understand human language!"

Lin An raised his head fiercely and lay helplessly on the bed, blankly staring at the somewhat dim and dusty ceiling in the dark.

Boom boom boom~

The head was once again hitting his bed plank.

Slamming and slamming, it was irritating him to no end.

Eventually, Lin An kicked away the blanket on his legs with force, jumped off the bed, bent down to look under the bed, and then reached out to grab the head.

"So you're beyond help, huh?"

He grabbed with force, his fingers passing through the head's hair, with the sensation of touching sticky blood.

But he knew that it was all a hallucination; there was no blood, no head at all.

It was all fake, fake!

Eventually, he almost shoved his entire upper body under the bed, his eyes wide open as he looked at the head, quickly stretched out his arms, and grabbed a handful of the head's hair.

"Ow! That hurts, stop pulling my hair, how long has it been since you cut your nails? You scraped my ear, check if I'm bleeding!" the head wailed as it was yanked out.

Lin An crawled up from the floor, swung the head around in anger, wanting to smash it against the wall.

He really wanted to do that!

But in the end, he held back as there was a child living downstairs who was preparing for the most important exam of their life; he couldn't disturb them.

He took a deep breath, carried the head a few steps, placed it on the long table he used for dining, and glared at it, "I just want to get some sleep. Can't you be quiet?"

Truly, he had been extremely restrained, holding back from violent actions against these bizarre things, and from appearing eccentric to others.

The head ignored him, just twitching the skin of its cheeks that was somewhat rigid and tense, as if feeling around its ear.

"There's no blood!" Lin An said forcefully, "You don't have any blood at all!"

"Oh, is that so? Thank you!" the head seemed to sigh in relief and then resumed making a twisted, sinister expression on its face and started weeping, looking at Lin An and crying out, "Return~my~eyes~"

"Damn it!" Lin An couldn't hold back anymore and waved his hands frantically.

He gasped for air, walked to the corner of the room, and switched on the light.

Click, the room brightened up, and the head looked even uglier.

Lin An silently watched the head repeatedly chanting 'return my eyes' and felt powerless as he walked to the kitchen and opened the cupboard.

He paused for a moment, then took out a bottle of liquor.

It was erguotou, a strong 53-degree liquor. He unscrewed the cap forcefully, and a pungent smell came rushing out.

This was the only way Lin An had found to deal with these hallucinations.

To drink himself into a stupor, to numb himself, so he could escape these things and could…

Get a good night's sleep.

He didn't like to drink, especially hard liquor, as it was particularly harsh.

But he had to do it, it was his only option.

Holding the bottle, he returned to the table and sat down wearily. Lin An hesitated, then asked, "Can you be quiet for a while? Just let me get some rest. I really have been overwhelmed with work at the company recently. I'm almost dead beat."

The head kept on saying, 'Return my eyes.' It sounded almost as if it was humming a tune.

Lin An sighed, closed his eyes, brought the bottle to his mouth, and, despite his aversion to alcohol, tilted it back and drank gulp after gulp.

In one go, he downed half the bottle.

In just a moment, his cheeks flushed red; he felt his whole body start to become hazy.

"Burp~"

Lin An slumped in the chair, staring blankly at the head, "When will you ever leave me alone..."

He picked up the bottle and took another big gulp, "Do you know how tired I am?"

"Glug glug~"

"I'm already suffocating under the pressure of work and the mortgage, telling myself I'm still young, I can handle it…" Lin An rambled on to the head.

"Look at this place, just over forty square meters, it won't take too long to pay off..."

"But I'm really tired, you know? My skills are just average, and it's only by luck that I landed this job. I feel like my boss could replace me with a cheaper, better graduate at any moment..."

"Gurgle gurgle..."

"I'm already so drained, why do you inexplicable things have to come and mess things up? I can barely hold on, you know..."

The head didn't speak because it was just a basketball.

"Burp~"

Lin An laughed heartily, placing the bottle next to the basketball with a thud and pointing at it while giggling stupidly, "See, I told you, you don't have any blood."

He staggered to his feet and headed towards the bed, then suddenly whipped his head around to look again.

Seeing that the basketball hadn't morphed back into a head, he sighed with relief. He pointed his finger and threatened fiercely, "Don't bother me again, or I'll throw you out!"

He wasn't really willing to throw away the basketball, after all, it was the only prize he ever won in a draw, and he considered it a symbol of luck.

Though his luck was never very good.

The first rays of the morning sun, accompanied by a loud, clear song, heralded a new day.

"Return my eyes, return~my~eyes, return~~~my~~~eyes~~~"

The last word 'eyes' grew dull as a pajama top was carelessly thrown over the grotesque head.

Lin An yawned, quickly pulled off the pajamas, and showered in cold water to wash away the lingering alcohol and fatigue.

Dressed in a loose linen shirt and casual slacks, after tidying up his hair, Lin An had a radiant smile for his reflection in the mirror.

"You can do it, keep going!"

He swung his fist with force, telling himself, these hardships, he would definitely get through them.

One day...

He would get used to these weird things being part of his life.

One day, he would be completely numb, completely accustomed!

With light steps, he ate a bowl of wonton soup and devoured two large steamed buns at a steam-filled breakfast place, his appetite fully opened.

He strode into the new day, full of energy...

Well, it would be nice if this subway wasn't a monster.

Lin An stood dumbfounded on the subway platform, watching as a gigantic lizard with a ferocious look charged out of the depths of the track and finally stopped in front of him.

With the sweet-voiced lady's announcement over the PA system, 'Huayuan North Road Station has arrived, please exit from the left side of the direction of travel, please mind your step...'

The lizard turned its head, opened its massive mouth, displaying teeth dripping with saliva.

And the people nearby, as if oblivious, walked straight into the lizard's gaping mouth.

"Ao wu!"

The lizard snapped its mouth shut with a crunch, accompanied by the screams and the spattering of blood from a middle-aged man with golden-rimmed glasses who had just entered.

Then, as the lizard opened its mouth again, others walked straight into its maw as if they noticed nothing amiss.

Lin An swallowed hard, gripping the strap of his laptop bag tightly, frantically telling himself it was all a hallucination, a hallucination.

He could do it, he could overcome it!

Don't run, don't act strange in front of others, be normal!

He breathed heavily, as the giant lizard's huge vertical pupils stared straight at him, making his skin crawl.

He was sure he could overcome it!

Clenching his teeth, he charged straight ahead.

Good, there was no feeling of being torn by fangs, no fishy monster breath or sticky sensations, nothing at all!

"Ouch~"

Lin An heard a yelp and realized he had accidentally bumped into someone while he was tense. He quickly stepped back with an apologetic face, "Sorry, sorry!"

It was a young mother pushing a stroller. She grabbed Lin An's arm and flipped up her tea-colored sunglasses to reveal a pair of sharp phoenix eyes staring piercingly at him.

"I didn't mean to..." Lin An had not finished speaking when his pupils suddenly dilated.

The noisy crowd in the train had vanished, leaving only a passageway filled with sickly flesh-colored folds, and the young mother's red body-hugging dress had turned into a loose robe with a crooked, pointed hat tilted to one side.

The stroller she had been pushing had become a large iron cage, in which a toad as big as a washing machine was pulsing its stomach and cheeks.

Lin An tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying hard to pretend he saw nothing, and continued with stiff politeness, "I really am terribly sorry."

The young mother tilted her head to look at him and finally nodded, releasing his arm.

Suddenly, the clamor of the train came rushing back to his ears.

"How can you eat instant noodles on the train, have some public decency..."

"Ah, you stepped on my foot..."