Exorzismus - Kapitel 11
The lights were turned off before 11 p.m. that night.
Chunyu didn't stay huddled under the covers; instead, she opened her eyes wide in the darkness. She wondered if Xu Wenya across from her was asleep. The events of the past few days had tormented both girls, leaving them terrified.
The more this happened, the less Chunyu dared to fall asleep, because she was waiting...
Midnight.
The text message alert rang on time.
Sure enough, it was that mysterious number again—741111. The ringing was now very quiet; it shouldn't have woken Xu Wenya on the other end.
Chunyu immediately read the text message: "You have entered the third level of hell. After leaving the small building of the Jinshi Mansion in the deserted village, you will choose 1: the hall; 2: the underground palace."
This time, Chunyu hesitated for a moment, then pressed "2" with a trembling thumb.
She chose the "underground palace".
Just seconds after replying, a second text message arrived—"You enter a room in a deserted village, a hidden passage in the wall. You carry a kerosene lamp and enter the passage. You walk a long way underground until you reach the entrance to an underground labyrinth—" A labyrinth?
Chunyu stared blankly at the text message, wondering where she would end up.
Then her phone rang again, but to her surprise, this time it wasn't a text message, but a program request to download. After hesitating for a moment, Chunyu downloaded the program to her phone anyway.
Soon, an animation appeared on her phone screen. She rarely used such mobile apps and was momentarily at a loss.
The animation on the screen had a dark, muted color scheme, but the effect was extremely realistic, as if it had been filmed with a camera. Chunyu tried pressing the directional keys a few times, and the animation indeed started moving. It looked like she was walking through a tunnel, and after walking a short distance, she encountered a fork in the road, only able to choose one path. At this point, Chunyu understood; this was the animation of a maze. Controlling the animation using the phone's directional keys made it feel like she was actually walking through an underground maze.
Chunyu spent a full half hour wandering around in the animation, stumbling into several dead ends along the way. Just as her thumb began to ache from pressing the buttons, a large door suddenly appeared in the animation. She walked straight through the door, and the animation on the screen vanished instantly. "I've escaped the maze?"
Before Chunyu could even understand what was happening, her phone rang again with a text message. This time, she still hadn't expected it to be a multimedia message (MMS). She quickly tapped a few times and received an MMS image with the following text: "You have escaped the maze. You have received a painting as a reward."
Chunyu immediately opened the picture. On the small phone screen, a picture gradually appeared—judging from the colors, it should be an oil painting, but because the screen was so small, it seemed more like part of a painting. In the picture Chunyu saw, there was a blonde Western woman whose hands were tied behind her back and she was hanging from a large tree. A raging fire was burning under the tree, and the flames were scorching her feet.
Is this hell?
The picture disgusted Chunyu. She gripped the edge of the bed tightly and exited the MMS image. She gasped for breath and received the last text message—"You have passed through the third level of hell and entered the fourth level."
At seven o'clock in the morning, Chunyu woke up slowly. She touched her head; she hadn't slept so soundly in a long time.
When Chunyu climbed down from the top bunk, she found that Xu Wenya was gone. She touched Xu Wenya's blankets, which still seemed to be a little warm.
Her brows furrowed immediately, and she opened her dormitory door without even combing her hair. The corridor outside was as cold as an icebox.
The cold morning wind blew straight into her underwear.
Suddenly, a piercing scream came from the direction of the girls' restroom. Chunyu's heart leaped, and she immediately craned her neck to look in that direction. A girl came running out of the restroom in a panic, her disheveled hair a truly terrifying sight. When she reached Chunyu's dorm room door, Chunyu stopped her abruptly. Chunyu recognized the girl; she was a classmate in the same major. Upon seeing Chunyu's face, the girl screamed even more terrifiedly, as if she had seen a ghost. Being seen as a jinx was no pleasant experience. Chunyu suppressed her own pain and grabbed the girl's shoulders tightly, asking, "What did you see in the restroom?"
The girl's eyes widened and she said, "A ghost... there's a ghost in the toilet..."
Could the legend of the haunted toilet be true? Chunyu loosened her grip slightly, and the girl took the opportunity to break free and quickly ran out of the corridor.
Chunyu glanced in the direction of the restroom, put on her coat, and rushed out.
Running through the cold winter morning corridor, Chunyu reached the restroom. She called out several times, "Is anyone there?", but received no response. She cautiously entered. The restroom seemed empty, filled only with the incessant dripping sound. All six stall doors were closed; she wondered what was inside.
Chunyu took a deep breath to calm herself down, then pushed open the first door, only to find it empty.
Then, she pushed open the other doors in the same way, and there was nothing unusual inside.
Now only one door remains.
Facing the dilapidated wooden door, Chunyu's heart inexplicably quickened, as if the legendary Hanako were hiding inside.
Finally, she mustered her courage, reached out, and slowly pushed open the last door.
A long-haired woman was squatting inside the door.
Chunyu couldn't see her face clearly, only a head of messy, disheveled hair covering a pure white nightgown, just like the clothes Sulan next door wore when she committed suicide.
If you were to unexpectedly push open the door and suddenly see someone squatting like this, you'd probably be scared half to death.
Suddenly, the person slowly raised their head, half of their face was covered by messy hair, only revealing one eye with more white than pupil—a toilet demon?
But Chunyu recognized her immediately. It wasn't a ghost at all, but the living, breathing Xu Wenya.
She shouted Xu Wenya's name, but to no avail. Xu Wenya remained crouched inside, coldly watching her with one eye. Chunyu couldn't take it anymore and pulled Xu Wenya out.
Xu Wenya's petite figure remained curled up, her long, disheveled hair covering her head, making it seem as if she had no face. The dripping sound from the toilet was irritating, so Chunyu could only help Xu Wenya out. Several girls who had reached the toilet door saw them like this and screamed in fright, fleeing back to their dormitories. Chunyu finally brushed the hair away from Xu Wenya's face, revealing that little girl's face, with a pair of terrified eyes staring at her, as if something was standing behind her. "Monkey! Monkey!" Xu Wenya finally let out a heart-wrenching scream, the sound seeming to no longer belong to her, but rather emanating from another dimension.
In that instant, Chunyu suddenly recalled the terrifying scene she had personally experienced six months ago. Could it be that Xu Wenya had also...?
At that moment, Xu Wenya waved her hands frantically, finally breaking free from Chunyu's support and running towards the other side of the corridor. Chunyu watched her small body; the way she ran made her look like a monkey. Several girls were probably woken up, but as soon as they stepped out of their dorm rooms, Xu Wenya knocked them to the ground. Chunyu was too exhausted to chase after her anymore; she could only lean against the corridor window, watching helplessly as Xu Wenya ran out of the girls' dormitory building, letting out strange screams as she ran, startling the girls around her. When Xu Wenya reached the cafeteria in front, she bumped into a tall male teacher.
The teacher immediately wrapped his strong arms around her, and no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't break free. At this moment, many students came out of the cafeteria and watched the spectacle as if it were the work of a mental patient.
With the help of several students, the teacher firmly grasped Xu Wenya and took her away from Chunyu's sight. Had Xu Wenya really gone mad?
Chunyu looked back down the corridor and saw many girls craning their necks and pointing at her. Feeling utterly ashamed, Chunyu lowered her head, but instead of returning to her dorm, she rushed to the restroom.
Because she wanted to figure out what had happened to Xu Wenya in the bathroom just now? Why did things suddenly become so terrifying?
Back in the toilet, filled with the sound of dripping water, Chunyu opened the door to the sixth stall again. She remembered that Xu Wenya was squatting in this spot, her head down as if looking at something.
Sure enough, on the cement squatting platform next to the sink, there was a silver Siemens mobile phone. Chunyu immediately recognized it as Xu Wenya's phone.
Chunyu took out a few tissues, wrapped them around the phone, and picked it up. The phone screen was still glowing, showing an unread text message.
With a gentle press of her thumb, Chunyu read the text message aloud, her voice trembling—Xu Wenya had indeed gone mad.
Early in the morning, the teachers took her to the school clinic, but she kept talking incoherently, repeatedly calling out "monkey." The school had no choice but to take Xu Wenya to the hospital.
After a preliminary diagnosis, the doctor found that Xu Wenya had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and needed to be hospitalized for treatment. The teachers came to question Chunyu again, spending the entire morning asking her questions. Although she explained everything, they were still not satisfied and couldn't explain why Xu Wenya had suddenly gone mad. Some even suspected that Chunyu had experienced something similar six months ago, and had infected her roommate Xu Wenya like a plague.