The school management was in chaos, and the guy on the lower bunk directly brought his girlfriend back to the dormitory.
In the middle of the night, the bed kept creaking, and my mind was wandering.
Suddenly, a message came from the classmate across the hall: “Tell those girls in your dormitory to keep quiet. They’re crying and laughing. It’s so noisy!”
Several girls? I poked my head out and looked at the lower bunk. Didn’t my roommate just bring one girl back?
1
The lower bunk had the curtain drawn, and the bed was swaying rhythmically.
The message on the phone came again. “That’s enough.”
“All’s been going on for several days.”
“Every night, there are four or five girls, crying and laughing non-stop!”
I replied angrily, “There aren’t four or five fucking girls. There’s just one. That’s Wang Ze’s girlfriend, and she wasn’t crying or laughing either!”
The classmate across the hall immediately retorted, “Still being stubborn, huh?”
“You listen, what the hell is that noise.”
Then, he sent a recording over.
In the audio, there were the sounds of many women laughing, mixed with strange crying sounds, all blended together. There were also the sounds of shoes tapping on the floor as if someone was walking around. There were at least four or five people, or even more, because there was also someone constantly knocking on the door, trying to get in.
I was greatly surprised. He had indeed recorded the sounds of our dormitory, but how come I hadn’t heard such a big noise at all?
When did our dormitory have so many women? Could it be that someone secretly brought them back when I wasn’t in the dormitory?
I asked, “When did you record this?”
Classmate: “Just the other day. Every night at around two in the morning, you guys start. Alright, I’ve already reminded you several times. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
Reminded me several times? I quickly said, “I don’t have any impression at all.”
Classmate: “This is boring. Last night at around two in the morning, I went to your place, and it was you who opened the door. You promised that you’d be careful in the future. Have you forgotten?”
I was even more puzzled. I was at the Internet cafe all night last night.
I asked, “Did you recognize the wrong person? Last night, all four of us in the dormitory were at the Internet cafe all night. Who opened the door for you?”
The classmate across the hall sent an expression of speechlessness: “Forget it. Those girls in your dormitory are laughing again. It’s so loud. Just keep making noise and drive me crazy.”
It started again? I simply sat up. I looked around the room. The dormitory lights were already off, and it was very quiet. There was no sound of anyone laughing.
I was about to ask the classmate across the hall what exactly he had heard. Suddenly, the guy on the lower bunk poked his head out: “Brother Yu, did you hear any sound in the corridor?”
He was Wang Ze, who brought his girlfriend back to the dormitory a few days ago.
I felt bewildered and asked, “What did you hear?”
Wang Ze got excited: “There’s really a sound. I’m sleeping by the door, and I can hear it clearly. There are footsteps in the corridor outside! It’s been like this for several days!”
I said maybe someone was going to the toilet. Wasn’t it normal to have people in the corridor?
At this time, another roommate also sat up and said nervously, “No, it’s not someone going to the toilet.”
“It’s coming again.”
The dormitory head also sat up. The three of them in the dormitory all looked at me with gloomy faces. They hadn’t fallen asleep and had all heard the sounds in the corridor.
Plus Wang Ze’s girlfriend, Xiao Zi, also pulled the curtain open at this time and stared straight at me, making me feel creepy.
“You look at you guys. Is it necessary? It’s just someone…”
But before I could finish my words, I heard a burst of footsteps coming from downstairs. “Clack!” “Clack!” “Clack!”
It was the kind of sound of a woman’s hard-soled shoes stepping on the floor, getting closer and closer, as if climbing the stairs, from the first floor to the second floor… I immediately held my breath.
I checked the time. It was exactly two in the morning.
“Every day at this time.”
“There are footsteps in the corridor.”
“It’s like looking for something. It stops in front of each dormitory door for a while.” Wang Ze said in a low voice.
I quickly sent a message to the classmate across the hall: “Did you hear the footsteps?”
Classmate: “They’re coming up.”
After he said that, the footsteps just reached the third floor. That was our dormitory floor.
I was listening intently. Suddenly, the footsteps disappeared.
I turned to look at the others and said, “I told you it was someone going to the toilet…”
Only after I finished speaking did I notice that their faces were extremely ugly.
“Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack…”
Suddenly, a burst of rapid footsteps came without warning, as if someone was running wildly in the corridor. The most terrifying thing was that these footsteps stopped suddenly when they reached the door of our dormitory.
2
Xiao Zi and Wang Ze were sleeping by the door, and their faces changed at once.
I could clearly see that under the corridor light outside the door, there was a long shadow, and a bit of it seeped in through the crack of the door.
Someone… was standing right at the door.
At this moment, the sound-activated light in the corridor suddenly went out.
The whole dormitory was surrounded by darkness. This oppressive and unknown feeling made people feel even more horrified. I looked at the dark crack of the door, and as soon as I thought of someone standing outside, goosebumps immediately popped up all over my body.
“Damn it!”
In the dormitory, the dormitory head with the hottest temper suddenly punched the bed: “Who’s playing a prank on me? I’ll skin him alive!”
While speaking, he jumped down from the bed and walked straight to the door, reaching out to turn the doorknob.
Just when he was about to open the door, Wang Ze suddenly held him back: “Don’t. What if it’s the dormitory supervisor? Xiao Zi is here. If he finds out, we’ll both get punished…”
The dormitory head gave him an angry glare.
Just then, “Bang, bang, bang!”
Suddenly, there was a burst of rapid knocking on the door from outside, and the lights in the corridor also lit up.
The dormitory head’s face immediately became stiff, and he turned to look at us.
“Who is it! Are you crazy or something for making noise at night?” I cursed, trying to give myself some courage.
“It’s me, Ajie!”
Hearing Ajie’s voice, everyone in the dormitory let out a long sigh of relief. Ajie was the one who sent me the message just now.
I jumped out of bed and opened the door. When the dormitory head saw Ajie, he got angry: “I said, why aren’t you sleeping at night and wandering around in the corridor?”
Ajie: “I just came out to go to the toilet.”
“Why are you knocking on the door? Is there something wrong?” I asked him.
Ajie mysteriously looked into the room: “How many girls are hiding in your dormitory? There was so much noise just now. Tell them to be careful. Don’t let the dormitory supervisor find out.”
“And this!” Ajie stepped aside, revealing a pair of old-fashioned red patent leather high heels at the door, like those worn by noblewomen in cheongsams in the last century. They looked really outdated at the moment.
3
Ajie glanced at Xiao Zi who had opened the curtain: “These are your shoes, right? I’ve seen them placed at the door these days.”
While speaking, Ajie kicked the shoes in: “It’ll be troublesome if the dormitory supervisor sees them.”
I turned to look at Xiao Zi.
“Maybe she forgot.” Wang Ze replied casually.
After Ajie left, the dormitory head and I climbed back onto our beds. Xiao Zi stuck her head out, glanced at the pair of red high heels on the ground: “These aren’t my shoes. Who would wear such old-fashioned shoes.”
“Probably from other dormitories. There are quite a few girls living in the boys’ dormitory.” Wang Ze replied.
“If they’re not yours, throw them away tomorrow. They look creepy.” Someone in the dormitory mentioned.
I lowered my head and glanced at the pair of red high heels. The style was old-fashioned, and the red patent leather on them was dazzlingly bright. They just looked uncomfortable no matter how I looked at them.
In the middle of the night, I didn’t know what time it was. I heard some rustling sounds in the dormitory. In a daze, I saw a black shadow lying on the ground, with two hands groping around as if looking for something.
After being woken up, I complained impatiently, “What are you looking for? Can’t you look for it tomorrow?”
As soon as I finished speaking, the rustling sounds stopped. I was just about to go back to sleep.
Then, someone stood by my bedside.
“Shoes… where are the shoes?” It was Ajie’s voice.
What shoes? Were they those red high heels?
I was too lazy to open my eyes and casually pointed to the ground: “They’re right there!”
“Where? Brother Yu, I can’t see them. Please help me find them!” Ajie’s voice had a tinge of crying.
I felt helpless and slowly opened my eyes. I saw Ajie standing blankly by my bedside. His eyes were gone, and only two bloody holes were left. The black blood kept seeping out from the eye sockets, which was shocking.
He opened his mouth wide and walked towards me: “Where are the shoes? I can’t find those shoes!”
“Brother Yu, please help me find them! Please! I have to return these shoes!”
4
Seeing Ajie getting closer and closer to me, he even stretched out his hand, groping around by the bedside while calling my name, asking me to help him find the shoes.
What’s more, I saw that behind him, a wet thing slowly crawled out of the shadow and clung tightly to his back.
That thing slowly raised its head, its eyeballs rolled up white, its mouth slightly curved, with a half-smile that wasn’t a smile at all. It turned out to be a woman in a red cheongsam. Ajie seemed to have sensed her presence too…
He became even more terrified, crying loudly, with bloody tears flowing out from his eye sockets. He grabbed my hand: “I died for you guys!”
At the same time, the woman in the old-fashioned cheongsam on Ajie’s back narrowed her eyes and made a thin gurgling sound in her throat: “Found it!”
“Ah!” I screamed in horror.
Then, a dazzling white light appeared in front of my eyes, followed by the anxious voice of our dormitory head: “Get out of the way! Let me do it!”
“Slap!” “Slap!”
I felt like I was slapped hard twice. Then I vaguely heard someone saying that they were going to pour boiling water on me. I was so scared that I roared loudly and suddenly sat up. I was face to face with the dormitory head who was sitting on me. His raised hand stopped in mid-air. Another roommate, Zhao Ge, was holding a thermos flask. Seeing that I woke up, he awkwardly put the thermos flask behind him.
“Damn it, Yu Qin! Are you crazy? Cough, cough!” Wang Ze’s face was as pale as paper, and his eyes were full of anger.
I didn’t know what was going on.
The dormitory head walked over and stared at me for a while: “You almost strangled Xiao Zi to death just now.”
“Can’t be, right?” After I said that, I realized that I didn’t know when I had gotten out of bed. Xiao Zi and Wang Ze’s beds were in a mess, and the curtain had been torn down.
The whole dormitory was in chaos. Xiao Zi was sobbing with her back to me. Her clothes were torn in several places, and there were two red strangulation marks on her neck.
“What the hell! Are you crazy?” Wang Ze gritted his teeth and cursed at me.
“I… Did I do this?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Fuck you!” Wang Ze gave me a resentful look, then pulled Xiao Zi out of bed and slammed the dormitory door shut and left.
I vaguely saw that when Xiao Zi left, she seemed to be wearing those old-fashioned red high heels.
5
The nightmare from last night suddenly came flooding back.
Thinking of the two bloody holes on Ajie and the pair of red high heels he was looking for, I immediately asked, “Where’s Ajie?”
The dormitory head looked a bit surprised. He looked me up and down but didn’t say anything.
“Dead.” Zhao Ge replied.
For a moment, I felt dizzy: “Dead… Dead?”
I walked to the window and saw a police car and an ambulance parked downstairs in the dormitory building. The place was crowded with noisy students.
Two medical staff were carrying a stretcher, and the person lying on it should be Ajie. He was covered with a white cloth, which was wet. Then they carried him into the ambulance.
“I died for you guys!”
Suddenly, Ajie’s words from last night and the image of the woman in the big red cheongsam with her eyeballs rolled up white on his back came to my mind.
“How did he die?” I looked at Zhao Ge.
Zhao Ge and Ajie were good friends and from the same hometown. He said sadly, “We don’t know the details. When we heard the noise in the morning, the ambulance had already arrived.”
“The teacher said it was sudden death from staying up late playing games.”
I couldn’t accept this explanation at all.
The dormitory head muttered, “What sudden death? It’s just the school trying to shirk responsibility. Zhao Ge, I, and Wang Ze, we all saw it.”
“Ajie didn’t die of sudden death at all! Could a person who died of sudden death look like that?”
6
Zhao Ge gave him a look: “Stop talking.”
The dormitory head knew that Zhao Ge was in a bad mood, so he didn’t continue talking about this matter. Instead, he started talking about my crazy behavior in the morning.
Basically, just after Ajie was carried out of the dormitory across the hall, Wang Ze returned to the dormitory and saw that I was strangling Xiao Zi to death.
He immediately called the dormitory head and Zhao Ge back.
“You were really scary at that time. Your eyes were rolled up white, and your hands were like iron pincers. We couldn’t break them apart no matter how hard we tried.”
“Xiao Zi’s face turned blue from being strangled. We were all terrified at that time. I thought you might be having a nightmare, so I had no choice but to slap you twice, and then you woke up.”
After listening to the dormitory head’s words, I subconsciously looked at my hands. There were several bloody scratches on them, but somehow, I didn’t feel any pain.
After Ajie died, the dormitory across the hall was empty. The counselor, in order to prevent them from talking nonsense, dispersed Ajie’s former roommates and stuffed them into other dormitories.
Perhaps because of resentment towards me or fear that I would do something out of line again, Wang Ze and Xiao Zi didn’t return to the dormitory for several days.
Until one night, Xiao Zi called me and asked me to meet her downstairs in the dormitory.
I agreed. Firstly, I wanted to apologize to her in person. Secondly, I always remembered that when she left the dormitory, she wore those red high heels, which made me feel uneasy.
As soon as I went downstairs, I saw Xiao Zi waiting for me.
Before I could say anything, she walked up to me in a hurry: “Where’s Wang Ze? Is he hiding from me and not seeing me?”
“What do you mean? Haven’t he been with you these days?” I was puzzled.
“Brother Yu, don’t pretend. Did he ask you to say this? Does he want to break up with me?” As she spoke, Xiao Zi actually had a bit of a crying tone.
At first, I thought Xiao Zi was just being fussy and making fun of me. But now it seemed that she was serious.
I quickly comforted her: “Don’t cry. I really don’t know where he is. He hasn’t come to class these days. We all thought he went to a hotel outside with you. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the dormitory head and Zhao Ge. He hasn’t returned to the dormitory at all.”
7
Seeing that I was serious, Xiao Zi stopped crying: “After we left the dormitory that day, we had a fight. Later, I couldn’t get through to his phone, and I haven’t seen him since then.”
I comforted her: “Well, I’ll help you find him and ask him to contact you.”
Xiao Zi nodded: “Okay, then I’ll wait for your news.”
Seeing her turn around to leave, I suddenly remembered something: “By the way, where are those shoes? The high heels you wore from the dormitory?”
“I wore them?” Xiao Zi, who had just been in a low mood, suddenly turned her head. Her eyes were slightly narrowed, and only then did I notice that her face was terribly white, like it was painted with a layer of white glaze, looking both dull and stiff.
My hands and feet felt cold.
“Don’t they look good?” She stretched out her feet, and under her feet were the very red high heels, the red patent leather still so dazzling.
“You said these shoes were old-fashioned. Throw them away.” I advised.
Xiao Zi didn’t answer my question. Instead, she raised her head and asked me a question: “Do you know how Ajie died?”
“Didn’t they say it was sudden death?” I frowned.
Xiao Zi shook her head: “No, he…”
“What is it?” I couldn’t hear clearly and was just about to lean in to listen carefully.
“Yu Qin!” The dormitory head suddenly appeared behind me and patted me hard.
I turned around, and before I could say anything, I felt something was wrong.
Behind me, there were a lot of people, and each of them looked at me meaningfully. Even someone upstairs opened the window, stuck their head out, and pointed at me.
“Yu Qin, who are you talking to?” The dormitory head looked at me solemnly, with a strange expression on his face.
“Xiao Zi.” I just finished speaking.
The dormitory head coldly said: “There’s no Xiao Zi.”
I thought she was just standing right behind me, but when I turned around, I found that there was no one there.
I was stunned on the spot.
8
The dormitory head looked at me for a while and asked: “Are you… okay recently?”
I smiled bitterly and asked him if he thought I was crazy.
He shook his head and said that wasn’t what he meant. He just felt that since Ajie died, I had been a bit strange.
I didn’t know how to explain Ajie’s matter to him, nor did I know how to bring up those red high heels.
After returning to the dormitory, looking at Wang Ze’s empty bed, my sense of guilt welled up again.
“Should we go look for Wang Ze? I haven’t seen him in class these days. I’m afraid something might have happened to him.” I asked.
Zhao Ge looked at the dormitory head.
The dormitory head thought for a while: “I’ve already told the counselor this afternoon. If we still can’t contact him tomorrow, we’ll call the police.”
In the middle of the night, I heard a burst of footsteps again, and then the door of the dormitory was opened. I opened my eyes in a daze and found Zhao Ge standing at the door of the dormitory. His face was a bit pale, just like Xiao Zi’s, the kind of white like ceramic pieces.
It looked really uncomfortable.
He stood at the door of the dormitory and beckoned me to go to the toilet with him.
I happened to be a bit urgent to pee, so I went to the toilet with him. Our toilet was in disrepair for a long time, and the faucet was dripping. I went into the last cubicle to relieve myself and was about to go back to the dormitory.
But at this moment, I heard that most ear-piercing sound again.
“Clack!” “Clack!” “Clack!”
…
Outside the cubicle, there was the sound of high heels. It seemed that she was pacing back and forth outside and then stopped beside the first cubicle.
Then I heard the door of the cubicle being pulled open.
9
Then, the footsteps sounded again, and the door of the second cubicle was pulled open.
Immediately, I felt a thrill of horror in my heart and immediately locked the door of the cubicle, then grabbed the doorknob tightly with my hand.
Soon, the door of the third cubicle was also pulled open.
This time, the footsteps were particularly clear. I could feel that she had walked in front of me. There was only the door of the cubicle between us.
Then I felt the door being pulled once, but it didn’t open because the door was locked.
After that, the door was pulled again, and it still didn’t open.
Before I could feel relieved.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang!”
“Boom, boom, boom, boom!”
She suddenly knocked hard on the door of the cubicle from outside and kept pulling it outwards. The door panel and the door frame were shaking.
While I was scared, I could only hold the doorknob tightly. The noise outside was getting louder and louder, and there was even the sound of impatient breathing.
“Click!”
Even the lock core was violently pulled and fell to the ground. Seeing this, I could only hold the doorknob even tighter.
My persistence paid off, and the person outside finally gave up.
I felt that she let go of the doorknob, but there was no sound of footsteps. I guessed that she might still be standing in front of the cubicle.
Subconsciously, I took a deep breath and carefully leaned forward a little, looking out through the crack of the cubicle.
The light in the toilet was a bit dim. Under this yellowish light, I could only see a touch of dark red from the crack. It was the kind of old-fashioned cheongsam, but I couldn’t see it clearly.
I slowly crouched down. The gap under the partition was bigger, and I thought I should be able to see more clearly.
But when I crouched down and looked through the gap of the partition, suddenly a pair of half-open and half-closed eyes appeared, looking straight at me.
Her eyes were rolled up white, her expression was stiff, and the corner of her mouth was slightly raised, as if smiling, but that smile was so creepy.
10
“Are you there?”
I saw her mouth move.
It turned out that when people were extremely frightened, they couldn’t make any sound. I felt like my throat was choked, and I could only watch helplessly as she got closer and closer.
Fortunately, the gap under the partition was narrow, and she couldn’t crawl in.
But she still tilted her head, looking at me with those rolled-up white eyes. As she raised her head, the yellowish-brown liquid in her mouth flowed out, and a strong stench of decay and earth filled my nostrils.
I couldn’t control my inner fear anymore and kicked the door of the cubicle open.
“Boom!”
She was knocked down to the ground by the door. At the same time, I scrambled and crawled out of the toilet, running towards the dormitory.
I could even hear the “clack, clack” footsteps behind me. She was chasing me, but I didn’t dare to look back.
It wasn’t until I ran into the dormitory that the footsteps behind me disappeared.
I was gasping for breath.
Zhao Ge heard the noise and poked his head out of the bed, asking me what was wrong.
Seeing him lying on the bed as if nothing had happened, I felt extremely angry. I walked up to him and questioned: “You asked me to go to the toilet. Why did you run back alone? Don’t you know there’s…”
I wanted to say there was a ghost in the toilet, but I felt a chill on my back and didn’t dare to say that word.
Zhao Ge was confused: “What are you talking about? I went to bed at around ten o’clock. I didn’t ask you to go to the toilet.”
“Just now it was you…”
I suddenly realized something and couldn’t say another word. It wasn’t Zhao Ge who asked me to go to the toilet. It was her!
I lay on the bed, soaked in cold sweat.
I forced myself not to think about these things and just wanted to fall asleep as soon as possible. But the more I didn’t want to think about it, the more restless I became and couldn’t fall asleep.
Not long after, I heard those footsteps again.
They walked from the other side of the corridor, “clack, clack” all the way to the door of our dormitory.
Just when I thought that these footsteps would disappear in front of our dormitory door as usual.
“Creak!”
The door of the dormitory was opened, and a tall and thin figure walked in from outside.
11
By the dim light in the corridor, I saw that the person who walked in was Xiao Zi!
My mind went blank.
Xiao Zi was wearing those old-fashioned red high heels, “clack, clack” as she walked in. She walked past my bedside, even looked up at me, and then stretched out her hand and made a shushing gesture to me.
Her half-smile expression was almost exactly the same as the “her” I saw in the toilet.
Somehow, I was very conscious, but I couldn’t make any sound. I could only watch helplessly as she walked towards Zhao Ge’s bed.
Then she patted Zhao Ge.
Zhao Ge sat up and slowly climbed down from the bed, following Xiao Zi and walking towards the door.
When passing by my bedside, Zhao Ge’s footsteps paused for a moment. He reached out and grabbed the railing of my bed, but soon, Xiao Zi turned around and pried his fingers open.
The light in the corridor went out, and I saw Zhao Ge’s figure disappear completely at the door with Xiao Zi.
Was it a dream? Like last time, I hoped it was a dream.
I didn’t know what role Xiao Zi played in this, but she was wearing those old-fashioned red high heels, and something bad was bound to happen.
The dormitory head was sleeping soundly. I wanted to wake him up several times, but I held back.
I was afraid that something might happen to him too.
I lay on the bed, feeling my mind was so tired. I couldn’t connect the recent events together.
The only clue was those old-fashioned red high heels and… the woman I saw, the woman in the dark red cheongsam.
I couldn’t figure it out. I just felt my brain throbbing with pain.
After an unknown amount of time, the door of the dormitory was opened again. This time, it was Zhao Ge who walked in.
Zhao Ge was back!
His footsteps were stiff, as if he was dragging his feet on the ground. His body was wet. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I could see water droplets dripping from his chin to the ground.
He walked to the bed, tried several times but couldn’t climb up, and finally walked towards me, standing by my bedside.
12
Now, I could see his face clearly. It was pale and swollen. He stared at me intently, opened his mouth, and the yellow water in his mouth gushed out uncontrollably, flowing all over the floor.
I had never seen such a scene before, and my mind went blank.
I could only try my best to curl up backwards.
Suddenly, a hand stretched out from behind me. I subconsciously turned my head, and a pale face suddenly appeared beside my pillow.
Her mouth was wide open, the corners of her mouth almost reaching behind her ears. Her face was abnormally white, and her body was sticky. There was a gurgling sound in her throat.
As her face got closer and closer to me, everything went black in front of my eyes.
I felt like I was falling to the bottom of the water. I struggled desperately, but the harder I struggled, the faster I sank. Soon, the last glimmer of light above my head disappeared completely, and endless water poured into my lungs.
“Has it sunk to the bottom?”
“Fill the well!”
“You slut who has disgraced the family!”
Many people flashed before my eyes. Each of them had a venomous look on their faces and kept shouting.
Just when my consciousness was about to disappear, suddenly I heard a lot of rapid footsteps, followed by the sound of the curtain being pulled open. The dazzling white light brought me back to the world again. At the same time, I saw the dormitory head standing painfully in front of my bed: “Zhao Ge died last night.”
I was in a daze and couldn’t say a word.
The dormitory head pulled me off the bed: “He’s dead! Did you hear that? I said he’s dead!”
I shook off his hand and roared: “I know! I know!”
I rushed out like crazy and ran downstairs. There were already a lot of students gathered around the ambulance. Several teachers were maintaining order there. I pushed through the crowd and watched Zhao Ge being carried away from a distance.
Xiao Zi?!
Zhao Ge went out with Xiao Zi last night!
I ran into the girls’ dormitory like crazy. Amid the screams and curses of a group of girls, I kicked open the door of Xiao Zi’s dormitory.
There was still one of Xiao Zi’s roommates in the dormitory. She had just gotten up. When she saw me break in, she was stunned for a moment, and then she looked at me suspiciously: “Yu Qin?”
Fortunately, she knew me. Wang Ze had invited Xiao Zi’s roommate to dinner before, and I was there at that time, so we had met.
“Where’s Xiao Zi?” I must have looked really scary at that time, because Xiao Zi’s roommate almost immediately pointed to one of the beds with a curtain drawn.
I walked over and yanked the curtain down.
Empty.
The bed was neatly made, with a thin layer of dust on it.
“She hasn’t come back to live here for a long time. I remember she was staying in your dormitory with Wang Ze, right?”
“Hey, I’m talking to you. She hasn’t come to class these days either.”
“Did you hear me? I’m asking you.”
I walked out of the girls’ dormitory and left her words behind me.
When I returned to the dormitory, the counselor and several school leaders were also there. They said a lot, mainly meaning that we shouldn’t talk nonsense and wait for the school’s investigation results.
I replied numbly. It was almost noon when a teacher came in and said that Zhao Ge’s parents had rushed over from other places.
The school leaders were on high alert. After repeatedly telling us, they hurriedly walked out.
In the afternoon, the counselor called me and told me and the dormitory head not to go to class and not to run around, just stay in the dormitory.
The dormitory head remembered Wang Ze and asked me to tell the counselor again.
I told the counselor, and he said that he had already called Wang Ze’s parents and was going to call the police.
It was around seven o’clock in the evening. The dormitory head brought back dinner, but none of us had the appetite to eat.
He brought up Ajie again.
“Do you know how Ajie died?” The dormitory head asked me.
“I heard it might be from illness.” I replied.
“He drowned.” The dormitory head seemed particularly calm at this moment. “The school leaders withheld the autopsy report. I pried open the counselor’s cabinet and saw it.”
The dormitory head said that Ajie drowned in the mop sink on the third floor. When he was found, his whole head was plunged into the sink, and his facial features were swollen from being soaked. At that time, a lot of long hair was also fished out from the mop sink.
These hairs blocked the drain.
I knew that Ajie’s death was strange and must have something to do with those red high heels.
14
Now not only Ajie was dead, but also Zhao Ge. There had been no news from Wang Ze. Xiao Zi was wearing those red high heels. Would she also…
I felt more and more uneasy and panicked in my heart.
After the lights-out whistle blew, I took out my phone and looked at the group chat of the four people in our dormitory. There were still messages in it where Zhao Ge had @Wang Ze before, asking him where he was.
“Zhao Ge is dead.”
I typed these words in the dormitory chat box, and was just about to @Wang Ze to let him know the news.
Just when I was about to press the send button, my phone buzzed.
It was Wang Ze.
The dormitory head immediately sat up from the bed.
Wang Ze: “@Yu Qin @Yu Qin @Yu Qin”
Wang Ze: “@Yu Qin, you’ve killed us!”
Wang Ze: “You’ve killed us!”
Wang Ze: “@Yu Qin, look what I’ve found!”
Seeing the messages sent by Wang Ze, I immediately asked him where he was!
The dormitory head also started to make a voice call to him.
But after a long time, he didn’t reply.
It wasn’t until more than ten minutes later that he sent a video.
The video seemed to be shot in an old house. The old house was decorated as a hall, decorated with lanterns and colored streamers, looking very festive. The whole video was filled with bright red. The seats below were full of people.
But all of these people were in a daze. On this supposedly festive day, there was no emotion on their faces, nor any extra color. Without exception, they all had pale faces.
“I’m running out of time! Yu Qin, you must remember! You must!”
Wang Ze’s words stopped abruptly.
Then came a thin voice: “Found you…”
As this voice sounded, Wang Ze screamed in horror, and the video became blurry. But faintly, we could hear the “clack, clack” footsteps slowly approaching him. In the shaking camera, those old-fashioned red high heels flashed by.
15
The video ended there.
After that, no matter how we @Wang Ze in the group chat, or even sent him videos or made phone calls, Wang Ze didn’t respond at all.
He seemed to disappear again. I had a hunch that I might never see him again.
Looking at the messages he left, I pounded my head hard. Damn it, what had I forgotten? What had Wang Ze found?
Why did he insist that I remember?
My head throbbed with pain, but I had no clue at all.
Until the dormitory head called me: “Come and look at this.”
He imported Wang Ze’s video onto the computer and played it frame by frame in slow motion for me to see.
“See it?” The dormitory head looked a bit scared. I had never seen him look so uneasy before.
“What am I supposed to see?” I didn’t understand.
He paused the video and then slowly zoomed in!
My pupils shrank as if there had been an earthquake. I saw that among those expressionless, dull, and pale guests in the hall in the video, on a long bench in the corner, there were clearly sitting several people.
Ajie, Zhao Ge, Xiao Zi!
If we hadn’t looked carefully frame by frame, we wouldn’t have noticed them at all.
Unlike the dullness and daze of the other guests, their expressions clearly showed a bit of nervousness and fear, which made them stand out from the people around them.
The dormitory head and I looked at each other, and we both saw the intense fear in each other’s eyes.
“Can you find out where this video was shot?” I asked him.
At this time, I was already prepared. No matter what, I had to figure out what had happened.
What had I forgotten? Why did Wang Ze insist that I remember? And where was he? What had he found?!
“I… I’ll try.”
The dormitory head wasn’t sure either. Wang Ze’s video was very blurry, but fortunately, the hall of this old house had a distinctive architectural style. Based on the building structure, maybe we could find the place in the video.
“Got it!”
The dormitory head took a screenshot of the old house in the video and searched for it on the Internet.
Soon, dozens of pictures of the same type of upturned eaves and interlocking brackets appeared, but unfortunately, they were all only partial pictures and there was no specific location marked.
16
“Wait!”
I suddenly noticed something and snatched the mouse, zooming in on one of the pictures. There was a ridge beast on it, which was very special and looked very familiar to me.
Sure enough.
After zooming in again.
The words “Zhuangyuan Ya” appeared clearly on the computer screen.
I was really familiar with this place. It had a typical architectural structure of the Ming Dynasty. In the forty-seventh year of the Wanli period, Yu Jichang passed the imperial examination and ranked first in both the metropolitan examination and the palace examination. This was Yu Jichang’s residence.
Hundreds of years had passed, and the descendants of the Yu family still lived here.
And the reason why I knew it so clearly was that… Yu Jichang was my grandfather! The people living in Zhuangyuan Ya were all my elders.
Wang Ze’s video, that bright red hall, was shot in my hometown, in Zhuangyuan Ya.
He must have found something in my hometown! That’s why he left this video, and I must have forgotten or missed something.
“I’m going back.”
I had to figure out what had happened there and also had to figure out what I had forgotten.
The dormitory head looked up and asked: “Now?”
I nodded and started to put on my clothes, getting ready to go out.
The dormitory head hesitated for a moment: “I’ll go with you.”
I was just about to refuse, but his reason made me unable to say no. He said he was the dormitory head and we were all his brothers, and he couldn’t just ignore it.
I borrowed a motorcycle from the dormitory next door and set off with the dormitory head overnight.
My home was in a county more than seventy kilometers away from the school. Almost everyone in the whole county had the surname Yu, and the people living in Zhuangyuan Ya were the descendants of Yu Jichang, that is, the descendants of my grandfather.
Seventy kilometers wasn’t too far, but it was already very late when we set off.
When we arrived, it was already past two o’clock in the morning.
To my surprise, at past two o’clock in the morning, Zhuangyuan Ya was brightly lit. Almost all the people with the surname Yu in the county had gathered there, coming and going in an endless stream.
It seemed that something big was happening.
And for my sudden return, no one was surprised at all. They seemed to have expected that I would come back.
They all greeted me with smiles on their faces.
However, their smiles were very stiff and fake.
17
Walking into the yard, many people were already busy. The whole courtyard was filled with tables. The women were busy cooking, preparing food, and chopping firewood.
“Who’s getting married? Why is there such a big commotion in the middle of the night?” The dormitory head asked me in a low voice.
I said I didn’t know either.
Walking into the old house, the old house was decorated exactly the same as the video sent by Wang Ze, completely like a hall. Everywhere you could see was bright red.
The red was so deliberate, as if it was covering something up.
Before I had time to investigate carefully, when I turned around, the dormitory head was nowhere to be seen.
Then the sound of firecrackers came from outside, crackling.
Before the firecrackers finished, I was pulled into the inner room by several elders. They were chatting idly, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, so I just listened on the side.
“Although the bride’s family background is a bit inferior to ours, they’re still a wealthy family. This marriage is barely a good match.”
“Nowadays, it’s too hard to find someone with a similar family background and similar age.”
“Anyway, it’s good to get married. It can be considered as fulfilling a wish. The bride’s side also said it’s a good marriage.”
…
I got the general idea. It seemed that someone in our Yu family had found a marriage partner. The bride was the daughter of a wealthy family, about the same age, and their birthdates matched well. It was a good marriage, so they decided to hold the wedding on a good day.
But in the middle of the night, was it a good day?
For this reason, I even took out my phone to check. After checking, I was shocked.
Today wasn’t a good day for marriage at all. It was a day to avoid weddings.
What was suitable was… burial.
I just showed my phone to the elders, and before I could say anything, their expressions turned cold and they looked at me sinisterly.
Just when I felt that I had said something wrong, the sound of firecrackers outside suddenly stopped, and then the sound of playing happy wedding music came.
“Oh, my young master, my dear ancestor, the bride has arrived. How can you still have time to chat here?” A matchmaker with a heavily made-up face walked in.
18
Before I could react, I was pulled out of the inner room by the matchmaker.
I said you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not the groom.
The matchmaker smiled: “Young master, you’re really joking. Besides you, who else in these ten miles and eight villages can have such good fortune to marry into this family?”
I said I’m still in school. Why would I get married?
She gave me a meaningful smile and pushed me hard into the hall.
Once I entered the hall, I was speechless.
Because the whole hall was filled with people, aunts, uncles, and all kinds of elders. Some younger ones who didn’t have seats just stood aside obediently.
They all had dull expressions, looking blank, with pale faces and a hint of uneasiness in their eyes.
Right!
Wasn’t Wang Ze’s video started recording from here?
If I remembered correctly, Zhao Ge and the others were also here.
I quickly looked towards the corner. Sure enough, in the corner, Ajie, Zhao Ge, Xiao Zi were all sitting quietly there. Different from last time, beside them were also sitting Wang Ze and… the dormitory head!
The five of them were sitting in a row neatly, with fear and nervousness in their eyes. I could feel that they wanted to tell me something, to convey some message to me.
My breathing became uncontrollably rapid.
I wanted to walk towards the dormitory head and the others, but the matchmaker’s strength was surprisingly great. She tightly gripped my arm: “Young master, it’s important to pay respects to heaven and earth. The bride is coming in.”
As soon as she finished speaking.
“Clack!”
“Clack!”
“Clack!”
There came a burst of footsteps from outside the door that I would never forget.
With the support of several bridesmaids, the bride, wearing a dark red cheongsam, stepping on red high heels and covered with a red bridal veil, walked in from outside.
19
On her bright red phoenix coronet and ceremonial robe, there was no “double happiness” character embroidered on the chest. Instead, there was a huge yellow chrysanthemum tied there, and two yellow silk ribbons were hanging down from her phoenix coronet, looking particularly strange.
I was led by the matchmaker to stand beside the bride.
“Time to pay respects to heaven and earth!”
The matchmaker shouted at the top of her voice.
Then I saw her walk to the bride’s side, use a small stick in her hand, and gently poke it under the bridal veil to lift the bride’s chin.
At this time, I noticed that the bride’s movements were very stiff.
She also stood rather unnaturally. The bride had bound feet. Although the heels of her high heels were not high, her body still leaned forward slightly and she was a bit unsteady on her feet.
I looked along her wide-fronted bridal robe and saw that inside her cuffs and lining were all thin wooden sticks. Her whole body was propped up by wooden sticks!
I was so scared that I took a step back on the spot.
And just at this moment, the matchmaker’s movement was a bit bigger, and suddenly the bridal veil on the bride’s head was lifted to the ground.
The wooden stick supporting the bride’s head suddenly broke.
Her head drooped onto my shoulder, her face covered with makeup was deathly pale and lifeless, her eyes slightly slanted upward, with the whites of her eyes showing as she looked at me sideways.
“Husband…”
She said softly, and yellowish water with a stench of corpses fell from her mouth onto my shoulder.
“Quick, quick! Send them to the bridal chamber!”
The matchmaker’s voice became urgent.
At this moment, the dormitory head, who had been sitting all along, suddenly stood up: “Yu Qin, you can’t do this!”
He rushed onto the stage in two or three steps. Surprisingly, no one stopped him. He grabbed me and ran towards the door.
The bride immediately fell to the ground on her back. The matchmaker collapsed on the ground and started wailing loudly at once.
The dormitory head didn’t know where he was going to take me. The sound of the suona behind us was getting farther and farther away.
20
After running for half an hour, he stopped in front of an old dry well and asked: “Do you remember? Have you remembered everything?”
“Yu Qin, only you can save us. Hurry up and remember! Hurry!”
The dormitory head urged me. He stared fixedly at the place behind me.
“Hurry up! Think quickly!”
He became more and more impatient and started to turn around and dig beside the dry well.
“What are you digging for? What’s in here?” I asked him.
The dormitory head said: “It was Wang Ze who told me. He found something here. He said that as long as you see it, you’ll be able to remember everything.”
Without hesitation, I immediately lay down on the ground and started to dig.
The soil here was very soft. It was obvious that someone had dug it before and then covered it up again.
After digging through the thin layer on top, a coffin appeared. The coffin was almost rusted through. Beside the coffin, I touched two nails.
Although the nails were rusty, the complicated talisman symbols drawn on them could still be seen clearly.
I had never seen anyone carving talismans on nails before.
“Husband… It’s time to pay respects to the hall.”
In the pitch-dark night, a voice came from the dry well.
I subconsciously looked at the dormitory head.
The dormitory head also heard this voice, but he didn’t have time to be afraid. His hands were already bleeding from digging, and there was sand and gravel in his fingernails.
But he still kept digging on the ground: “It’s here, it’s here!”
“I’ve found it!”
Just when he stood up from the ground holding something like a ceramic pot.
The bride also climbed out of the dry well.
“Husband… Go back to pay respects to the hall!”
The bride’s voice seemed to be right beside my ear. I watched her crawl towards me bit by bit, her eyes with the whites showing staring fixedly at me, and a thin laugh coming from her mouth.
“Giggle, giggle, giggle!”
This creepy sound, combined with the strange dark red wedding dress and that pale face, made me forget even how to run away.
The bride opened her mouth. Every time she crawled a step closer to me, the yellowish water in her mouth inevitably flowed down from the corners of her mouth.
She had already reached close to me, whining something in her mouth and stretching out her hand towards me.
21
“Boom!”
The dormitory head rushed towards me and knocked me flying: “Run! Take it and run as far away as you can!”
“Remember! You must remember who you really are!”
The dormitory head threw the thing he had just dug up into my hand.
Then I saw that the bride’s hand tightly gripped the dormitory head’s neck. The dormitory head’s veins bulged as he wrestled with her.
Soon, Ajie, Zhao Ge, Wang Ze, and Xiao Zi also appeared beside the dry well.
They tried their best to drag the bride bit by bit into the dry well.
“Must remember! Must remember! Yu Qin!”
They were all shouting at me desperately.
I stood there motionless, looking at the thing the dormitory head threw to me.
It was a ceramic pot about ten-odd centimeters long. I tore off the yellow talisman pasted on it, opened the lid, and a pungent smell of earth and dampness rushed to my nose.
I endured the stench and poured out the contents inside. It was a mixture of some fine bones and ashes.
The ashes had been soaked in water, sticky and stinking.
There were two wooden tablets inside. I picked up one of them. The words “Xie Xiaotong” were written on it, and the birth date was engraved on the back.
This should be the ashes tablet of the bride.
Before I could take a closer look, the bride, who had been dragged to the bottom of the dry well, climbed out again, shouting “husband, husband” and crawling crookedly towards me.
I forced myself to suppress the fear in my heart and looked at the other wooden tablet.
I had probably guessed the result already.
The words “Yu Qin” were clearly written on that ashes tablet.
I finally knew what I had forgotten…
I had forgotten that I was already dead.
22
During this summer vacation, I died in a car accident on my way home.
My parents wanted to fulfill a wish.
They wanted to arrange a yin marriage for me.
So someone made the connection and matched me with Xie Xiaotong, a woman who had died unjustly in the Xie family a hundred years ago, to be married in the underworld.
However, what they didn’t expect was that the person who made the connection deliberately concealed the cause of Xie Xiaotong’s death.
The Xie family was a prominent family a hundred years ago. But at that time, new ideas were emerging. Miss Xie Xiaotong of the Xie family advocated freedom in love, refused the marriage arranged by her family, and eloped with her lover.
A few months later, Xie Xiaotong returned to the Xie family, but she wasn’t alone. She also brought the child in her belly.
Having eloped with someone, being pregnant with an illegitimate child, and then being abandoned by her lover, the Xie family was very feudal at that time and hated the most when the family’s reputation was ruined. That night, they sank Xie Xiaotong into the well. Years later, they dug out her coffin again, nailed it with soul-suppressing nails, wanting her to never be able to turn over.
It could be seen how much the Xie family hated her at that time.
Xie Xiaotong, who died full of resentment, with two lives lost in one body, was trapped in the coffin by the soul-suppressing nails for hundreds of years. Her resentment and fierceness were unimaginably great.
Not long ago, someone dug her out again, opened the coffin, took out her bones, and buried them together with me, forming a yin marriage.
But I didn’t know that I was already dead and forgot that I was a ghost.
I went back to school again, and Xie Xiaotong, in order to find me, also followed me back to school… Since she couldn’t find me, she killed the people around me.
She forced me to go back to Zhuangyuan Ya and forced me to get married and be with her.
Everything was clear now. I remembered! I finally remembered.
Sorry, dormitory head, sorry, Zhao Ge, Ajie, Wang Ze, and Xiao Zi.
It’s my fault. I didn’t expect that I would be a ghost, a ghost who had a yin marriage with someone.
Looking at Xie Xiaotong getting closer and closer to me, I simply stopped struggling and embraced Xie Xiaotong in my arms.
23
Extra Story:
I’m the dormitory head of Room 303. Recently, I’ve encountered some strange things.
It all started after my roommate Yu Qin died in a car accident. At first, I always felt that he wasn’t dead. Sometimes, I even felt that he was still in the dormitory.
Until a few days ago, another roommate of mine brought a girl back to the dormitory.
They shook the bed all day long.
I might have been a bit neurasthenic from being tortured by that these days.
I actually had a very long and chaotic dream. First, I dreamed of a pair of red high heels, then I dreamed that my roommates died, and then I went to Yu Qin’s hometown in the middle of the night to attend a wedding, and then I went to dig a grave… and then I fought with a ghost.
Fortunately, it was just a dream.
Forget it. Wang Ze and Xiao Zi are being affectionate on the bed again. It’s so annoying.
If Zhao Ge hadn’t persuaded me to bear it, I would have joined them.
By the way, in the afternoon, I asked Ajie to pick up a package for me. I don’t know who sent it. It was a photo. The person on the left I knew was Yu Qin, and the girl on the right in the photo was in black and white, wearing a cheongsam from the Republic of China era. She looked really pretty.
Yu Qin, buddy, I miss you again.
