Ein wandernder Jugendlicher

Kapitel 15

Cheng Xu'an, male, born on April 18, 1950, committed suicide by cutting his wrists on the evening of October 23, 1966, on Nanhu Road.

"Luo Kangming, male, born on November 27, 1949, committed suicide by jumping from a building at No. 125 Nanhu Road in the early morning of October 24, 1966."

"Chen Xilong, male, born on October 12, 1949, committed suicide by hanging himself at home in the early morning of October 24, 1966."

"Li Hongqi, male, born on January 15, 1950, went missing in late October 1966."

"Huang Donghai, male, born on March 21, 1950, went missing in late October 1966."

After reading it, I felt a chill run down my spine. From October 15th to October 24th, 1966, in just nine days, including the two people that Teacher Yu mentioned, a total of eleven people committed suicide, and two others went missing. They had all gone to the basement and seen the Queen. Except for Teacher Yu, who did not continue to go there, the others all met with misfortune.

Ye Xiao slowly said, "Look closely, there are two peaks in the deaths. From the night of October 18th to the early morning of October 20th, a total of five people died. No one died on October 21st and 22nd, but from the night of October 23rd to the early morning of October 24th, which is only one night, four more people died. As for the two missing people, I estimate that they were probably classified as missing because their bodies were never found after they died."

"So, all the leads have gone cold?"

"More or less," Ye Xiao said with a wry smile. "I've decided to give up."

"What did you say?"

“Give up. I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of this. I don’t want to continue.” He lowered his head.

"We've put in so much effort, from the ghosts in the ancient tombs to the Eastern Tombs, to discovering the Empress's affair, and now, have all our efforts been in vain?"

He didn't answer, remaining silent for a long time. I didn't speak either; my room was deathly quiet. Suddenly he spoke, his voice very soft, uttering a few words in a low voice: "I'm very scared."

"Even the police are afraid?" I was puzzled.

“Enough. I’m human too. I’m really scared. From the very beginning, when I learned about this case, saw the information on the victims, went to the website of the Ancient Tomb Ghosts, went to the Eastern Tombs, and investigated those files and documents, I spent every minute of these things in extreme fear. You wouldn’t understand. I always pretend to be confident on the surface, but actually, I’m more fragile than you.”

"I need to rely on you."

“Listen, everyone has the right to be afraid.” He looked up at me, speaking slowly and deliberately. His eyes were wide, and sweat beaded on his forehead—an expression I had never seen before. A sudden, nagging fear gripped me. Could he also—

Ye Xiao continued, "Now, my last line of defense has finally collapsed. I have lost all hope. I want to live, to live. From the beginning, my so-called investigation was just my own decision. Now it's time to back out."

“You have really changed a lot. I remember when we were little, you never knew what fear was.”

Yes, I've changed a lot. Do you really need to know why?

"If you'd like to tell me."

"That was a nightmare, a nightmare I dare not recall. When I was studying at the Police University in Beijing, I had a girlfriend who was my classmate. We got along very well and were very happy together. Later, before graduation, we went to Yunnan for an internship with a narcotics squad. My girlfriend and I were together. During one of the raids, an unexpected incident occurred. The drug traffickers' strength far exceeded our expectations, and my girlfriend was taken into custody. A few days later, I found my girlfriend's body. It was horrific; she had been gang-raped, and her body was covered in needle marks." They injected her with a large amount of heroin, and she died in excruciating pain. At the scene, I arrested one of the drug dealers, handcuffed him, and pointed a gun at his head. My girlfriend's body lay beside me. I was furious; I hated those guys, hated them to the extreme. At that moment, I had only one thought: revenge, revenge for her. I almost pulled the trigger; the bullet was about to leave the muzzle and splatter that bastard's brains. But, in the instant before pulling the trigger, I thought—if I fired, I would be breaking discipline, even breaking the law, because he had already been... I caught him, he didn't resist, and I couldn't kill him. In that instant, I felt even more tormented. I was torn between revenge and carrying out my duty. I desperately wanted to see his brains splattered, because my girlfriend, the person I loved so deeply, had died such a horrible death. In the end, I didn't fire. I put down my gun and took him back to the police station. Later, I always found many reasons for myself, always comforting myself by saying I was law-abiding. But I knew it was all a lie. I was afraid. I was afraid of seeing murder, afraid of being discharged from the police force. Although I had the urge for revenge, this intense urge... My fear had no effect whatsoever. I was terrified, truly terrified; perhaps deep down, I am a coward. So, I didn't join the criminal investigation team; instead, I worked with computers in the information center, and I never touched a gun again. That's how I changed. I discovered what was buried deep within me—fear, dread, an innate fear. And since these recent strange events, my fear has grown stronger every day. I feel that fear tormenting me every night; I dream of my girlfriend's death almost every night now. I can't bear it. It's that simple.”

He cried. This was the first time I had ever seen him cry in my life.

"Ye Xiao, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you talk about these painful things." I wanted to comfort him.

"Okay, it's all over now that you've said it." He realized his outburst, wiped away his tears, shook his head, and stood up. "I'm leaving. I'm going back to sleep early. Remember, don't worry about this anymore. I don't want to lose you, brother." He hugged my shoulder, and we were like brothers. I felt like I had rediscovered that feeling from when I was a child.

I saw him to the door, told him to be careful on the way, and then I went back to my room.

Fear.

What is fear? Is it terror?

I looked at the white roses that Rose (Xiangxiang) gave me that day.

The roses have withered.

February 20th

I went online again, and I saw links to "Ancient Tomb Ghost" on the homepage of almost every general website I visited. The moment I saw those four words, I lost all interest. So, I dived into one of my favorite forums.

I noticed that almost every post today contained only five characters—"She's in the underground palace." The poster's name was "Ancient Tomb Ghost." Was Ancient Tomb Ghost spamming? Or was it someone's prank? I immediately posted a thread: "Please delete all spam posts, moderator." After posting it, incredibly, I found that my new post had changed to "She's in the underground palace," and my ID had changed to Ancient Tomb Ghost. There must be a problem with the server; it's been attacked by a virus.

What should I do?

I turned off my computer and thought quietly for over an hour. I thought about many things, about the unbelievable things that had happened in the past two months, and about the people who had died. I looked out the window at the dark night, just like the night before the winter solstice, the beginning of all my nightmares.

Perhaps even more people will die.

It must be stopped.

I finally entered the Tomb of the Ancient Ghosts.

The homepage was the same as before, but the pageviews had changed dramatically—"You are visitor number 1,072,982"; "3,197 people online." I was shocked. The pageviews had exceeded one million, whereas before it was only tens of thousands. It seems that the Tomb Raider's virus attacks on various websites have been remarkably effective.

Next, I went to the message board. It was flooded with posts. I read for a while; they were all from newcomers who seemed very excited and loved the place. Many were discussing how to play the final maze game. Then I refreshed the page, and a dozen more posts appeared. I checked the view count; a post from an hour ago had already surpassed a hundred views. Unbelievable.

I went back into the chat room, and it was the same: a dense multitude of names, at least a hundred or so, my hand was aching from scrolling through them. I didn't dare talk to them anymore, so I left and entered the Qing Eastern Tombs, one of the ancient tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Entering the Huiling Tomb, I saw the same five words again—"She's in the underground palace."

Enter the maze.

The system still remembered where I had been last time, so I continued forward. It was still a dark tunnel, with a faint light ahead, surrounded by black stone walls on all sides, and the sound of my own footsteps. At each fork in the road, I repeatedly crashed into the black walls, a very realistic "bang" coming from the speakers. I could almost feel a sharp pain in my forehead. I thought of the materials I had been studying these past few days, and the basement of the dark house on Nanhu Road. My mind was filled with the words "underground palace." Yes, the environment on the computer screen was indeed an underground palace; the fear I felt when I went down into the basement that day was the same as what I felt now. Perhaps I really was getting closer to her. I quickened my pace. I felt I was becoming more and more skilled; I could predictively avoid dead ends. If I chose the wrong path, I would wander into a tunnel with no way out, and then I would have to expend a great deal of effort to retreat. The black fog shrouding the topographical map to the left was gradually receding; an hour later, it had almost been half gone.

Suddenly, a figure appeared "in front of" me. The figure drew closer and closer until it stood in front of me, blocking my path. Could it be Ye Xiao again?

I typed a few words in the chat box below: Are you Ye Xiao?

Then the answer in the dialog box surprised me—

Xiangxiang: I am Xiangxiang.

Me: Xiangxiang, it's you! What are you doing here? Leave now, leave right away.

Xiangxiang: No, it's you who should leave.

Me: I won't leave, Xiangxiang, why did you leave me?

Xiangxiang: I'm sorry, I have my own reasons.

Me: Tell me the reason.

Xiangxiang: You can't know.

Me: I want to see you.

Xiangxiang: See you now.

The person in front of me on the computer screen gradually became clearer. The black fog disappeared, and I saw that person's face—Xiangxiang.

Suddenly the speaker went off, and Xiangxiang's voice came through: "Leave me, leave me forever."

I continued typing in the chat box: No, I must find you, no matter where you are in the world.

The speaker was silent for a moment, then spoke again: "You won't regret it?"

Me: I have absolutely no regrets.

Then, Xiangxiang's face on the computer screen moved closer and closer to me until the entire screen was filled with her face. In the center of the screen were her red lips, which were somewhat distorted, as if they were pressed against a camera lens. I understood; she was kissing me, and I could feel the warmth of her lips.

I also kissed her lips on the computer screen.

In an instant, her lips disappeared, and she vanished completely, leaving the tunnel ahead empty.

That might have just been a goodbye kiss.

I have no regrets. I will find her, and I will keep going. I can feel the atmosphere of the underground palace and the tomb more and more. I know that the door has been opened for me. Most of the space on the map has been revealed. In the center of the underground palace, I know that she is there.

I am coming.

I finally broke into the center of the underground palace.

It was a vast space, shrouded in black mist. The ceiling was black, the floor was black, and everything around it was black. In the center of this black world were two enormous black coffins.

I clicked on one of the larger coffins, and the lid opened. Inside, I saw a white skeleton dressed in the dragon robe of a Qing Dynasty emperor.

I know he was the Tongzhi Emperor.

So what's next?

What will I see?

I moved my mouse over the second coffin, paused for a moment, and my fingers seemed to be out of my control, stiffening for a while. Finally, I took a deep breath and pressed the left mouse button twice.

The coffin lid was opened.

The screen turned completely black, and in the center of the blackness, an eye appeared.

To be precise, it was a woman's eyes.

I could see that this eye had long eyelashes, a dark iris, a bright pupil, and a black hole-like pupil. I had that feeling again—that the pupil was like a bottomless pit, like a deep well.

The lights went out.

In an instant, all the lights in my room went out, including the TV's power light, plunging the room into complete darkness. What happened? Maybe it's a power outage? Oh God, I hope it's just a power outage. But instead, I felt a spontaneous fear creeping into every inch of my skin. Darkness is the root of fear; when trapped in darkness, everyone digs out their deepest, most buried fears. I didn't want to unleash this potential fear, but I couldn't resist it; I was powerless. Yet, I couldn't pinpoint exactly where this fear lay, but a sudden intuition struck me—fear was right behind me.

The eye on the computer screen disappeared and turned gray.

A dozen seconds later, a line of text suddenly appeared on the gray screen: "Look behind you."

I turned around.

A figure, I saw a figure standing behind me.

I placed my hand on my chest; I could feel my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I stood up and, using the faint gray light from the computer screen, looked at the figure behind me.

The figure moved forward a step. It wasn't my imagination; it was a real shadow, a woman's shadow, right in my room, right in front of me.

The gray light from the computer screen shone on that person.

It smells good.

She was dressed entirely in white, her face was pale and expressionless, and I could feel a chill emanating from her.

"Xiangxiang," I called to her.

She didn't answer, just stared at me. After a few seconds, she uttered a few words, one by one: "Give me—my—head—back—it—".

That wasn't her voice. I was certain it wasn't her voice, neither the voice of Xiangxiang when she was eighteen, nor the voice of my Rose. It was the voice of another woman. The voice was filled with sorrow and hatred. It didn't sound like it was coming from someone in my room, but rather from the ground, like the kind of sound you hear when you press your ear to the ground—abnormally muffled.

As soon as she finished saying those four words, suddenly all the lights in my room turned on.

In that instant, she vanished.

My eyes had just emerged from the darkness and hadn't recovered yet. I rubbed them hard and looked around my room again. She was gone, truly vanished, just like the air and the light.

I checked my computer again, and it had already shut down automatically.

I let out a long sigh and sat down again, my forehead covered in sweat. I knew I had been terrified. I didn't dare think about what had just happened. I quickly went to sleep.

I dreamt of a woman. She had full breasts, long arms and legs, and fair, smooth skin, but she was missing one thing—her head.

A headless woman.