Exorzismus

Kapitel 9

Why did I think of that? She silently scolded herself, then tried to regulate her heartbeat and breathing, hoping to fall asleep quickly. However, her text message alert rang again at that moment.

She quickly pulled her phone under the covers and turned the text message ringtone down to its lowest volume, so it could only be heard when held close to her. Only a small patch of blue backlight from the phone illuminated the sender's number—741111. Was it that number again? Chunyu's heart skipped a beat. She glanced at the time on her phone; it was exactly midnight. Sure enough, she had guessed the message's content—"You have entered the second level of hell. Leaving the backyard of the deserted village, you will have three choices: 1. The main hall; 2. The small building; 3. The underground palace."

Oh right, Chunyu remembered that last night, in the middle of the night, she entered the backyard of the deserted Jinshi Mansion through a text message, only to be pushed to the bottom of a well and listen to the tragic story of the pawned wife.

Now, she subconsciously chose "Xiaolou" and replied with the text message "2".

After waiting a few seconds in the dark bed, Chunyu received a second text message—"You walk up to the small building of the Jinshi Mansion in the deserted village and find a room with a dim light. You lick a hole in the window paper and peek inside. There is a candle burning in the room, and a woman in white is sitting next to an old dressing table."

Chunyu stared blankly at the text message. The backlight of the phone in the dark bed resembled the dim candlelight in an old room.

Immediately afterwards, another text message arrived—"You see her slowly combing her hair in front of the mirror, right hand holding the comb, left hand stroking her hair, her long, black hair cascading down like a waterfall. Now she turns around, staring straight into your eyes, her gaze fierce..."

In an instant, Chunyu felt those eyes appear before her, staring at her from the ancient room. The dim candlelight illuminated those mysterious pupils, as if they wanted to say something to her. Just as Chunyu was trembling in bed, she suddenly felt the bed frame shake, as if Qingyou had climbed to the lower bunk again. Had she returned? At that moment, a new text message arrived—"You were terrified, but instead of running away, you pushed open the door, only to find the room empty except for the still-burning candles, illuminating a four-panel vermilion lacquer screen with four paintings on it." That terrible memory resurfaced. Chunyu shook her head, unable to forget it no matter what.

The next text message came in quick succession—"But you still saw the woman in white from before. She's in the painting on the screen. Her name is Rouge." Just as Chunyu's mind was about to explode, Jay Chou's "East Wind Breaks" suddenly rang out—her phone's ringtone.

Almost as soon as the phone rang, Chunyu answered it, but a strange panting sound came from the other end. The person took deep breaths for a long time without speaking. Chunyu, huddled under the covers, tried to keep her voice down: "Hello, please speak? Who is this?"

After waiting a few more seconds, the other party finally replied—"Hello, Xiaozhi. My name is Rouge." "Xiaozhi?"

Chunyu was stunned again. At first, she didn't react, but then she remembered "Xiaozhi".

It was the nickname I'd entered last night. The woman's voice on the other end of the phone still sounded very strange. Was she the woman behind the screen? Compared to the concubine she'd spoken to in the middle of the night, Rouge had an even more classical air about her, truly like someone from hundreds of years ago. "Have you ever heard the sound of a flute in the dead of night?" "No, please don't say anymore. I know what story you're trying to tell me."

The phone was silent for a moment, then suddenly the same voice came through again—"Xiaozhi, your best friend is dead, isn't she?"

Hearing this, Chunyu trembled again: "How did you know?" "Of course I know, your friend's name is Qingyou."

The tone of voice was extremely strange, as if it came from a human mouth. Chunyu, lying in bed, was both shocked and frightened, but she still boldly asked, "Do you know Qingyou? Why did she die? Please tell me."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, then a voice that sounded neither male nor female, like a Thai ladyboy, suddenly uttered—"Pull out...the tongue..."

In an instant, Chunyu felt a dryness in her mouth. Just as she was about to speak, her teeth bit her tongue, causing her to almost scream in pain. The phone was still pressed against her ear, and a cold voice came through—"Now you know Qingyou's pain."

In an instant, Chunyu was speechless. She had only lightly bitten her tongue, and it was already in excruciating pain. Qingyou had actually bitten off her tongue. How much pain must she have endured?

By the time Chunyu understood what he meant, the other party had already ended the call.

Only then did she notice the phone number from before; it was still 741111. As the pain on her tongue gradually subsided, Chunyu...

My mind cleared up considerably—who exactly was the person hiding on the other end of the radio waves? Could it really be the "wife-selling" woman or the "rouge" behind the screen?

Just as Chunyu was thinking about this, her text message ringtone suddenly went off.

This is the last text message of the night—"You have passed through the second level of hell and entered the third level of hell."

It's 12:30 in the morning.

After receiving the last text message, Chunyu's phone went silent.

Her tongue still ached terribly, but she forced herself to peek out from under the covers. The dormitory was pitch black, and she couldn't see Nan Xiaoqin and Xu Wenya across from her. She could only hope that the phone call she'd made under the covers hadn't woken them up.

Chunyu placed her phone beside her head and took a few deep, greedy breaths: she had almost suffocated herself while looking at her phone under the covers. It took her a while to calm herself down; although her tongue still ached slightly, she finally drifted off to sleep.

Chunyu's sleep only lasted a few hours. Around three or four in the morning, she woke up again, feeling an urgent need to urinate and a painful bloating in her lower abdomen. She finally managed to open her eyes, but it was still pitch black outside. She rarely got up to urinate in the middle of the night, so she held it in for a while until she couldn't hold it any longer and carefully climbed out of bed.

It was about four in the morning, the last darkness before dawn. Chunyu didn't notice the bed opposite her, put on her coat, and quietly went out.

The girls' dormitory corridor faced a row of large trees. In summer, the dense shade would stretch into the windows, while in winter, strange tree shadows would be cast on the walls. Chunyu hugged her shoulders, looking at the dim light outside the corridor window. The trees were all bare, and the shadows of their bare branches reflected on her face, making it look like she was wearing a mask. In the cold wind of the early winter night, she ran through the corridor like a small wild animal fleeing a hunter, and slipped into the innermost toilet.

The sound of dripping water is always in the girls' restroom, something Chunyu is all too familiar with, but hearing it in the middle of the night can easily trigger all sorts of terrifying associations.

The toilet light had never been on, so Chunyu could only listen to the dripping water as she cautiously made her way in. The building hadn't been renovated in many years, and the toilets were the traditional Chinese squat toilets, but they were divided into small cubicles by wooden partitions.

When Chunyu came out of the small room, she suddenly heard some kind of noise from the wooden door behind her. Her heart immediately jumped, and the scene of encountering a ghost in the toilet in the Japanese movie "Hanako-san" flashed through her mind.

Chunyu had often heard from her seniors that this girls' restroom was haunted, and many girls in the building would rather hold it in all night than go to the toilet in the middle of the night. Perhaps because she had experienced too much fear, Chunyu had become much bolder at this moment. She stood quietly in front of the wooden door, listening intently to the sounds inside—besides the endless dripping sound, there seemed to be some kind of panting sound. Now she was certain that something alive was hiding behind that door.

Suddenly, a text message ringtone sounded from inside the wooden door.

Chunyu immediately mustered her courage and opened the door. In the dim light of her phone's backlight, she could indeed see a shadow huddled inside. "Who's there?"

Although Chunyu's voice was somewhat distorted, the shadow still answered, "It's me."

Chunyu immediately recognized the delicate voice of a young girl: "Are you Xu Wenya?" "Yes."

Xu Wenya spoke almost in tears as she slowly stood up from the toilet stall. Her childlike figure truly resembled the legendary Hanako, the ghost doll lurking in toilets. Chunyu helped her out of the stall and, looking at the phone in her hand, said, "What were you doing hiding in the toilet in the middle of the night?"

The phone's backlight finally illuminated Xu Wenya's face. She looked around at the darkness with a terrified expression, muttering, "Monkey, monkey."

Seeing her like this, Chunyu was also startled: "A monkey? You saw a monkey again?" "The monkey is right behind you."

"A monkey behind me?" These words immediately sent a chill down Chunyu's spine. She quickly turned around, but all she could see was darkness. Chunyu shook her head, grabbed Xu Wenya's shoulders, and said, "How could there be a monkey here? What's wrong with you?"

At this moment, Xu Wenya seemed to have sobered up a bit. She sobbed and said, "I'm sorry, I was just afraid that sending and receiving text messages in the middle of the night would wake you up, so I had to hide in the toilet stall." "You're crazy! Sending and receiving text messages in the middle of winter?" Chunyu stopped there, not saying the second half of the rumor that the toilet was haunted. "Chunyu, please, please don't tell anyone."

Accompanied by the terrifying dripping sound, Chunyu remained silent for a moment before saying, "How long have you been hiding in the toilet?"

“It started around eleven o’clock.” “Oh my god, you’ve been hiding in the bathroom for four or five hours! Just sending and receiving text messages?” Chunyu’s teeth were chattering as she spoke. She remembered that she was also sending and receiving text messages at midnight, and Xu Wenya was hiding in the bathroom at that time.

Xu Wenya finally nodded and said, "Yes, I don't know why either, anyway..." "Anyway what?"

But Xu Wenya stopped talking, broke free from Chunyu's grasp, rushed out of the bathroom, and disappeared in an instant.

Chunyu followed closely behind, crossing the corridor in the early hours of the morning. However, when she passed the door of the next dormitory room, she noticed that the door was wide open. Chunyu found this strange; on such a cold night, leaving the door wide open was not only a risk of catching a cold but also very unsafe.

So, she curiously turned her gaze toward the doorway—in one corner of the dormitory room, a bedside lamp was still lit, its dim light like will-o'-the-wisps illuminating a long shadow in the center of the room.