Chapter 21
The person Li Yufen introduced was named Feng Lan. In less than an afternoon, she had scrubbed the vacant three-bedroom apartment next door until it sparkled.
It wasn’t just a surface job; she had meticulously cleaned every corner and crevice, both visible and hidden.
She even took down the curtains, which had gathered dust over time. Since there was no washing machine in the apartment, she told Luo Wenshu she would take them home to wash and bring them back to hang up either tonight or tomorrow.
When Li Yufen had contacted her, the agreed-upon rate was one hundred yuan per hour.
At the time, they thought it would just be Feng Lan, but later they discovered her young daughter had tagged along.
Feng Lan explained that her daughter just felt bad seeing her work alone and wanted to help, so she wouldn’t be charging for the extra pair of hands.
When it was time to settle the bill, Luo Wenshu had Luo Xingyu transfer eight hundred yuan.
Feng Lan was startled. “That’s too much, too much! Four hundred is enough!”
As she spoke, she tried to transfer half of it back to Luo Xingyu.
“The child worked hard too; there’s no need to refund it.” Luo Wenshu gently placed her hand on Feng Lan’s to stop her. After speaking, her gaze landed on the young girl standing to the side. “May I have a few words with Xiaohui?”
Xiaohui was Feng Lan’s daughter; her full name was Zhang Hui.
Feng Lan froze for a moment upon hearing this.
Although the two apartment buildings were adjacent and Feng Lan had lived here for nearly two years, she wasn’t familiar with Luo Wenshu. They hadn’t even crossed paths more than a few times. For Luo Wenshu to suddenly ask to speak with her daughter seemed strange. She subconsciously looked toward Li Yufen, seeking guidance.
In these two buildings, Li Yufen was the only person everyone trusted; even her husband, Fang Dahao, didn’t possess such approachability.
“It’s fine.” Li Yufen was actually a bit surprised too, but she instantly realized that Luo Wenshu likely intended to help Feng Lan’s child. She gave Feng Lan a reassuring look, then pulled her toward the door. “Come on, let’s go get those curtains washing.”
As they walked out, she said to Luo Wenshu, “Xiao Luo, go ahead and talk to the child.”
“Xiaoyu, you go play next door,” Luo Wenshu dismissed Luo Xingyu as well.
Only she and Zhang Hui remained in the room.
“Come, sit down.” There were two plastic stools by the window which the mother and daughter had wiped spotless, scrubbing even the legs.
Zhang Hui seemed ill at ease. She didn’t know what to call Luo Wenshu. Although this woman had a son, she looked very young, perhaps only a few years older than herself. Calling her “Auntie” felt weird, so she finally asked in a whisper, “…Sister, is something the matter?”
“No, I just wanted to chat with you about things at school,” Luo Wenshu said.
Within that short sentence, some specific word must have triggered Zhang Hui; her body suddenly stiffened, and her expression shifted, looking visibly frightened.
Seeing this, Luo Wenshu raised her hand and gently patted the girl’s shoulder, her tone gentle. “Don’t be afraid.”
Her voice seemed to possess a magical quality, causing Zhang Hui’s rigid body to slowly relax.
Luo Wenshu didn’t remove her hand. She continued to pat Zhang Hui’s shoulder lightly as she spoke. “Behind your school, there is a large mountain forest, right?”
Zhang Hui was surprised to hear this, but didn’t think too much of it, nodding in agreement. “Mn.”
Luo Wenshu continued, “The girls’ dormitory and the restrooms were built on the side facing the forest…”
She spoke as if she had been there personally, knowing even the minute details.
“…School is about to start soon. Have you started sleeping poorly again recently?” Luo Wenshu suddenly changed the subject.
Zhang Hui instinctively wanted to nod, but then she noticed the keyword—’again’. Her body stiffened uncontrollably, and she looked at Luo Wenshu with a mix of shock and fear.
“Sister, you…” Zhang Hui opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.
“Haven’t you told your mother about that incident?” Luo Wenshu asked.
The surprise and fear in Zhang Hui’s eyes intensified.
Although Luo Wenshu’s words lacked specific content, meeting those calm and gentle eyes gave Zhang Hui a strong feeling—she knew about that incident, and she knew exactly what Zhang Hui was afraid of!
“I… I didn’t know how to say it…”
Zhang Hui was fifteen years old this year and would be starting her third year of middle school (9th grade) at a private school in a town under Chunshan’s jurisdiction.
The school had both middle and high school sections. All students boarded on campus; there were no day students. They got a break once every half month, from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.
Zhang Hui lived in Room 407 on the fourth floor of Girls’ Dormitory Building 1. It was a room for ten people with bunk beds, located right next to the stairwell and a communal restroom.
Next to the dormitory building was the school’s public restroom building—two stories high, with the boys’ restroom upstairs and the girls’ downstairs.
Both buildings backed up against a desolate mountain forest, and Zhang Hui’s dorm room also faced the mountain side. She slept on a top bunk by the window.
One night at the end of the last semester:
Zhang Hui had forgotten her study materials in the classroom during evening self-study. She only remembered after returning to the dorm and washing up.
It was almost lights-out for the dormitory.
She hesitated for a moment but decided to run back to the classroom to get them. If she ran fast, she would be fine. So, she threw on some clothes and shoes and rushed out.
She retrieved her items quickly, but on the way back, she was suddenly hit with a severe stomach ache.
Finding a pack of tissues in her pocket, she ran into the public restroom building next to the dorms.
The light at the entrance was always on, but the inside used sensor lights, making the illumination quite dim.
It was already very late. There wasn’t a soul in the girls’ restroom, only the sound of water dripping—drip, drip, drip—which sounded unusually loud in that environment.
Zhang Hui was generally a brave girl. She entered the restroom and went straight to a squat toilet.
“…Halfway through, I thought I heard someone come in, but I didn’t think much of it.”
Perhaps due to the unique environment, although Zhang Hui didn’t deliberately pay attention, the footsteps were very distinct. They came in from outside, went toward the left, walked a circle, and then doubled back.
Zhang Hui started to feel it was a bit strange. It was late at night and the restroom was empty; any stall would do. Why did this person walk a full circle? Were they choosing a specific toilet?
Just as she was thinking this, the footsteps stopped.
“…It was too close. I couldn’t be sure if they stopped next to me, or right outside my door.”
Recalling the situation, Zhang Hui’s face couldn’t help but turn slightly pale.
When the footsteps first stopped, Zhang Hui still didn’t overthink it.
Her stomach was upset, so she squatted there for a while longer. During that time, there was no other sound.
The sensor light inside went out.
Zhang Hui was just about to shout to activate the light when she suddenly realized something—the footsteps had stopped abruptly. There had been no sound of a stall door opening next to her, nor any sound of walking away.
She began to feel a little scared and didn’t dare make a noise.
The stall she was in was near the entrance, where a half-wall blocked the view from outside. Some light from the entrance filtered in, so it wasn’t pitch black.
Zhang Hui subconsciously slowed her breathing. She squatted for a while longer, her legs growing slightly numb, but she still heard nothing.
“…I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, I just… just lowered my head and took a look…”
Zhang Hui at that moment had no idea that this single glance would become the source of her subsequent panic and dread.
In the dim light, through the gap beneath the stall door, she saw a pair of legs outside. They were wearing long trousers and what looked like high-top lace-up boots.
It was the tail end of June. Even at night, the weather was hot. Zhang Hui had never seen anyone at school dress like that.
And those shoes… they looked very large. They didn’t look like a girl’s feet.
“…I was terrified. My mind went blank. I didn’t dare make a sound, and I didn’t know what to do.”
After an unknown amount of time, when Zhang Hui’s legs were completely numb, voices suddenly came from outside.
“Li Xiaoxi, hurry up! Lights are about to go out!”
“I’m scared to go alone, come with me, please? Boo-hoo…”
“Oh, stop wailing. It’s just a few steps back to the dorm, yet you claim you can’t hold it…”
Talking amongst themselves, two girls walked into the restroom, and the sensor lights that had long extinguished lit up again.
“I told myself that it was too dark before and I saw wrong. Maybe there were brooms or mops placed outside…”
This wasn’t just Zhang Hui making things up to comfort herself; the cleaning lady often temporarily left cleaning tools in that spot.
But when she opened the stall door, she saw nothing against the wall.
She didn’t know where she found the courage, but she pushed open the doors of the stalls to her left and right. She saw nothing there either.
After that, Zhang Hui ran all the way back to the dorm. Just a few minutes after she climbed into bed, the lights went out. She lay there, taking a long time for her breathing to settle.
She had gone back to the classroom to get materials intending to study under a desk lamp, but after that accident, she had no mind for it and soon fell asleep.
Then, she had nightmares all night long. It was all dripping water, footsteps, and those legs seen through the gap beneath the door.
The nightmares continued for several days. Because she wasn’t sleeping well, Zhang Hui looked mentally exhausted and occasionally dozed off in class.
When the homeroom teacher noticed, she simply woke her up quietly without scolding her. Only after school did she call Zhang Hui to the office to ask if something had happened.
Zhang Hui didn’t know how to tell anyone about such a thing. In the end, she just shook her head and said she was a little nervous about finals.
The teacher didn’t suspect anything, comforted her, and sent her on her way.
Fortunately, Zhang Hui stopped having that nightmare afterward, but a new situation arose.
“After that, I would only go to that restroom during daytime breaks when there were lots of people…”
During school days, many people liked to go to the restroom together. While waiting outside, they would chat.
There was almost always the sound of talking in the restroom, but the terror of that night continued to loom over Zhang Hui like a shadow, following her everywhere.
That feeling kept Zhang Hui’s mental state poor, and her final exam grades slipped a bit.
After returning home for summer break, she remained in a state of fear and self-blame, which lasted nearly a month before improving. But now that school was about to start, the thought of returning to that environment and possibly encountering a similar situation brought the fear rushing back.
Zhang Hui hadn’t told her mother, Feng Lan, about this. Feng Lan simply thought she was sad about her grades slipping.
“I’m really so scared…” As Zhang Hui spoke, she began to cry softly.
She had hidden this matter in her heart for a long time, almost suffocating under the weight. Now that she had told Luo Wenshu, although fear remained, she felt a sense of relief.
“Sister, tell me, did I see wrong that night?” The young girl looked at Luo Wenshu, her eyes red and welling with tears.
Zhang Hui didn’t know what kind of answer she wanted to hear. If Luo Wenshu said yes, she wouldn’t truly believe she had hallucinated because no one else was there, and she had truly seen it.
If she said no, then she would be even more terrified.
“You probably didn’t see wrong, because there is still a trace of resentment lingering on you. Although it’s very faint, I can sense it,” Luo Wenshu said. Before Zhang Hui could react, she continued, “I’ll go to your school later to check the specific situation, and I’ll tell you when I get back.”
“…Sister?” Zhang Hui stared at her blankly.
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