Chapter 9: Don’t Scare Me
It was so cold.
Why was it this cold? Lan Yu instinctively wrapped himself tighter in the duvet, but it felt much heavier than usual. It was damp and sodden, as if it were locking in cold moisture. The duvet, which should have been fluffy and soft, offered no warmth; instead, it seeped a bone-chilling cold into him bit by bit. Yet, despite the piercing chill, Lan Yu didn’t feel physically uncomfortable.
The faint sound of dripping water echoed in his ears—ethereal and distant, reverberating endlessly. The waves of sound drilled into his ears and then faded away, feeling so real that Lan Yu was forced to open his eyes.
Is the bathroom leaking?
The surroundings were pitch black. There wasn’t even the usual glow of light that would filter through the not-so-blackout curtains from the window. Lan Yu’s bed was close to the window; he scooted to the head of the bed, pulled back the curtains, and looked outside. Is there a power outage?
However, that single glance made Lan Yu’s hand on the curtain tremble slightly. Outside, there were no streetlights, no starlight—not even the silhouettes of buildings that should have been faintly visible were there.
The sound of water dripping into water reached his ears again. Behind him, it felt as if he could sense the ripples spreading out, ring after ring, reaching toward him after each drop fell.
Releasing the curtain, his hand unconsciously gripped the frame of the bunk bed. Everywhere his fingertips grazed was wet and cold.
Lan Yu got up, placing his uninjured foot on the floor to find his slippers. But the moment he stepped down, it was freezing. A layer of accumulated water had actually risen on the floor, almost submerging his slippers.
Lan Yu groped for his makeshift crutch at the head of the bed and walked to the switch to turn on the light. Click—click—click—
Even after flipping it back and forth several times, the light showed no intention of turning on.
Lan Yu’s fear began to climb. He felt his way to Duan Gaozhi’s bed. He reached out to touch the bedding, and it was ice-cold to the touch. Although Duan Gaozhi was there, he was as cold as a corpse.
“Brother Duan, Brother Duan, Brother Duan, wake up.” Lan Yu pushed Duan Gaozhi’s body anxiously, but Duan Gaozhi didn’t move a muscle.
He’s not dead, is he?
Lan Yu reached out with a trembling hand to check Duan Gaozhi’s breath. Fortunately, although weak, it was there.
He turned his hope toward Lin Zixi, but just like Duan Gaozhi, he couldn’t be woken up at all.
The bodies of these two were so cold that Lan Yu couldn’t tell if they were in a deep sleep or had fainted.
By now, Lan Yu had to face a reality with a very high probability—it was haunted again.
Cold sweat rolled down Lan Yu’s forehead. He turned around, wanting to feel for his phone to use the flashlight to check his surroundings, but the phone, which had been charging before he went to sleep, wouldn’t turn on at all.
“Don’t do this to me,” Lan Yu said with a sob in his voice, leaning on his wooden stick as he turned to push open the door of the boys’ dormitory.
Their shared housing was on a high floor of an old residential complex near the restaurant. There were eight units per floor, and Duan Gaozhi had rented three units on one side directly, simply renovating the original rough-cast apartments to use as dormitories. He had installed an iron gate at the entrance of the hallway to prevent random people from entering.
Exiting the boys’ dormitory, Lan Yu faced the girls’ dormitory, which was across the hall and next door. He felt his way to the door in the pitch black and immediately knocked hard. Although the loud sound of knocking echoed endlessly through the space—a hollow reverberation much emptier than usual—there was no response from the closed door of the girls’ dormitory.
Lan Yu turned, intending to open the iron gate that separated the dorm area and get out. If he could at least get to the road where there were people, maybe he could seek help. But the iron gate was locked tight and couldn’t be opened. Lan Yu’s hands gripped the bars of the iron gate, his whole body stiff with tension.
“Why… why is it haunted again?” He was already afraid of ghosts, and they kept coming one after another. Lan Yu was on the verge of tears.
It was too quiet all around. Aside from the sound of water, there was nothing. The atmosphere was so dead silent that Lan Yu was terrified to the point of being almost unable to make a sound. Just then, his pitch-black field of vision seemed to recover slightly.
He slowly looked up. What he saw across the iron gate was wet walls and wet ground everywhere, just like where he was now.
A black shadow slowly rose from beneath the water surface. The silhouette of the shadow gradually became clear—massive, grotesque, twisted, and shapeless. The continuously rising body of water gradually approached Lan Yu. The quiet water made a crashing sound due to the thing’s appearance, like the sound of shallow waves blown by the wind beating against a reef.
He wanted to run, but where could he run to? He was locked in the dormitory; was he supposed to jump directly from the twelfth floor?
Lan Yu was so tense that his hands gripping the iron gate hurt. However, after the rising water surface approached him, it enveloped his hands. The hard metal Lan Yu had been gripping tightly was replaced by the soft body of water. It felt like touching soft rubber, forcibly prying open Lan Yu’s hands that were clutching the gate.
It’s clearly so cold.
Why doesn’t it feel uncomfortable at all?
Lan Yu loosened his grip slightly, wanting to silently pull his hands back, but found that his hands were already wrapped in the water, as if his wrists were being held.
“Are you… going to eat me?” Lan Yu lowered his head, not daring to look. Based on the horror novels he had forced himself to read recently, he was really afraid that if he looked up, he would see countless skeletons or something wrapped inside the water. “If I die and become a ghost, and we’re both ghosts, it’ll be really awkward.”
Lan Yu felt that his hands didn’t seem to be clamped down; it was more like they were being cupped or held gently.
Strange sounds came to his ears, drop by drop, like water dripping onto different objects creating sounds of varying pitch and tone. These sounds converged, allowing Lan Yu to hear words.
“Hurry… go… home…” Lan Yu listened carefully. Because his attention was diverted, he actually calmed down a little, reading it out word by word. “Fam… ily… misses… you… very… much…”
The corners of Lan Yu’s mouth turned down.
Asking him to go home again?
“You… always… suffer… wro… wrongs? Mom… Dad…”
—Are very angry.
After calming down slightly, Lan Yu mustered a bit of courage and whispered, “I am living, super well.”
“GO HOME!!”
A rainstorm poured down instantly. The sound of rain falling in Lan Yu’s ears was like an explosion; the intense noise was like thunder. The voice, which had been quiet and ethereal just moments ago, was now so dense it sounded like countless living beings screaming in agony. Lan Yu’s eyes widened as he watched the massive torrent of water that suddenly erupted. That monstrosity, roaring with madness and rage, allowed Lan Yu’s fear to gain the upper hand once more.
Lan Yu was scared to tears.
“I, I know…” Lan Yu didn’t know if rain had gotten into his eyes, but he trembled, his voice full of sobs. “Don’t be angry, I know, I know, I’ll be obedient…”
The sound of the rain quieted down.
Lan Yu was soaked through from head to toe, though he didn’t feel cold at all.
Seeing the water flow that had leapt up like waves before his eyes gradually return to calm, his fear receded, and a sense of grievance welled up.
—You can’t take care of yourself. Come home.
This was the last sentence left by the water flow.
The water, glistening with light in the dark night, retreated bit by bit, gradually disappearing from beneath Lan Yu’s feet. It took away not only the water in the entire space but even dried the water on Lan Yu’s body.
Lan Yu knelt on the ground. Suddenly, he sensed the lights in the common area behind him turn on. Lan Yu stared at the lightbulb in confusion, unable to snap out of it for a long time.
As Lan Yu sat on the ground, under the not-so-dim light, a black shadow appeared.
The coiled black shadow seemed to be constantly devouring all the light. Lan Yu’s emotions, which had just stabilized a little, were about to collapse again.
Why… here it comes again…
Lan Yu knelt on the ground, watching as the shadow picked up his stick from the side.
While Lan Yu was bewildered, he was suddenly picked up in a princess carry.
Lan Yu: “??????”
The lights, which should have been voice-activated, dimmed again after a while. Lan Yu couldn’t see anything anymore.
His whole body was stiff, his vision completely deprived, his sense of direction lost. Lan Yu couldn’t tell if he was moving or being swallowed.
It wasn’t until he was placed on a soft mattress—the familiar texture, the returning warmth, the comfortable duvet—it was his bed.
Lan Yu couldn’t see anything, only feeling something constantly and gently stroking his cheek, even touching his eyelids, forcing Lan Yu to close his eyes.
And in the next moment, Lan Yu felt his consciousness sinking into a profound darkness.
In this world resembling deep sleep, Lan Yu felt enveloped by something—not just his whole body, but his cheeks, his mouth, and nose as well…
As if resting in the safest place in the world.
“Achoo! Achoo! Ahhhhh-choo!”
Lan Yu was woken up by the sound of three consecutive sneezes. He sat up abruptly.
The bright morning sunlight illuminated the room. Lan Yu fumbled for his phone at the head of the bed.
He had slept for so long. He didn’t usually require much sleep, so he hadn’t expected to sleep for such a long time.
Thinking of what he had experienced at night, a violent shiver ran through him. Lan Yu’s mind went blank, and he couldn’t help but start trembling.
“Achoo… Mmm… ugh…”
When Duan Gaozhi and Lin Zixi woke up together, Lan Yu discovered that both of them had caught colds.
Lin Zixi was a bit better off, just having a stuffy nose and sounding muffled when he spoke, but Duan Gaozhi was in bad shape. Obviously, the constitution of a middle-aged man was worse than that of a young person. Although they didn’t have a thermometer, just the touch and the flush on Duan Gaozhi’s face were enough to show his abnormality—Duan Gaozhi had a fever.
“What’s going on? I felt incredibly cold yesterday but couldn’t wake up. Was I really frozen?” Lin Zixi’s voice was muffled; his nose got stuffed up after speaking just a couple of sentences, and he blew his nose hard. “How come you’re fine, Lan Yu?”
“I… um… uh…” It was hard for Lan Yu to say. He couldn’t exactly say, I’m not sick, but I saw a ghost, right? “I’ll go buy you guys some medicine.”
“Hey, stop, stop right there. You’ve got a broken leg, where are you running off to? Achoo…” Duan Gaozhi immediately stopped Lan Yu.
Lan Yu stood obediently in place. He couldn’t say something like, A ghost came to take me home, and as a result, the other two people in the dorm froze.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll go.” Although Lin Zixi wasn’t in great shape due to the cold, he wasn’t completely immobilized in bed like Duan Gaozhi. He found a mask and went out to buy medicine himself.
“I actually could have gone…” Lan Yu murmured guiltily.
“Let him go. He can’t work for the next couple of days anyway. We work in food service; having such a bad cold will infect the customers. Let him come back to work when he’s better in a few days… cough cough cough…” Duan Gaozhi started coughing as he spoke, lying on the bed half-dead. “Ah, this is torture. Why are so many things happening lately? Are we entangled with bad luck?”
Lan Yu went to the bathroom, soaked Duan Gaozhi’s towel in cold water to put on his forehead, and then grabbed some snacks to pad his stomach.
When Lin Zixi returned, he brought breakfast bought from the roadside, including a portion for Lan Yu. “The breakfast vendors weren’t even up at this hour. These are from the first steamer of buns, still hot. Eat up, quick.”
“You go to work.” Only after eating breakfast did Duan Gaozhi barely shake off his dying state, urging Lan Yu to go to work.
Their restaurant also served breakfast. Lan Yu was dragging a broken leg, so he would probably be slower and needed to leave earlier.
“Brother Duan, don’t you need to tell your family?” Lan Yu asked as he changed into his restaurant uniform.
“My wife is busy taking care of the kid. I’ll be fine after lying down for two days,” Duan Gaozhi said.
“If you don’t tell them, they’ll be worried,” Lan Yu said.
“That’s exactly why—to make them worry less,” Duan Gaozhi said, lying back down and waving his hand for Lan Yu to leave quickly.
Listening to the rising and falling sounds of coughing from Duan Gaozhi and Lin Zixi, Lan Yu rubbed his nose and leaned on his wooden stick to go to work.
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