When Chen Dong clutched the express box without a stamp, his fingertips first felt a biting coldness - the sender column was empty, and the delivery address read "Room 404, Building 3", but that building had been burned down to a black skeleton in a fire five years ago, and even the walls were charred.
He opened it and examined it. Inside was a yellowed elementary school graduation photo. The girl in a white dress had a crooked smile, but there were red marks like blood on the edge of the photo. That night, Sister Li from the courier station rushed to collect the "wrong package" and said that the photo was of her daughter who had died young.
Seven days later, Sister Li was hanging from the balcony of her home. In the photos scattered at her feet, the girl's face was painted black.
From that day on, the express delivery from "Room 404, Building 3" became Chen Dong's nightmare: a violin with broken strings was delivered, and a retired music teacher strangled his neck with the strings; unopened birth control pills were delivered to the door, a pregnant woman fell into the living room, and the express box was soaked with blood... Each recipient died within seven days in a manner related to the items in the package.
What made his hair stand on end was that his mother finally cried and confessed: "You are not our child. You were taken out of the fire of 404 - that family is your biological parents."
When the fourth express package arrived at his door, there was a photo of him as a child on the box, and there was only one line in the postscript: "Brother, it's time to go home." Chen Dong stared at the dark red fingerprints that gradually seeped out on the express delivery slip and realized that this curse of using his life as "delivery fee" was never directed at others, but him who slipped through the net in the fire five years ago.
