pozo profundo

Capítulo 73

"Okay, I know it wasn't good to leave without telling you, but didn't you go out to eat with Juanzi too?" I said, looking at the little black cat yawning in the cardboard box. "You even brought a cat back with you!"

"I've told you several times already, Juanzi asked me to look after this cat!" Li Yang said, "She said that their dormitory recently got a very strict old lady as the dormitory manager, and she's afraid of being caught by her!"

"Why don't you take care of it yourself and make me do it?" I rolled my eyes at Li Yang. He clearly wanted to please the beautiful woman, but in the end, he threw this hot potato at me.

"Oh dear, didn't you know I'm allergic to animal dander?" Li Yang said, rubbing his nose.

"Then don't agree!" I said irritably.

"Hehe, you've already agreed!" Li Yang smiled and cupped his hands in a gesture of respect to me, saying, "Anyway, it's only for a few days. Once Juanzi finds a family willing to adopt her, everything will be fine."

"I don't know how to take care of cats!" I said, a little annoyed.

"Cats are easy to take care of, just feed them regularly!" Li Yang smiled and waved at me, saying, "Alright, alright, it's decided then. I'm going to sleep! Goodnight!"

"What? Hey~~~~!" Before I could even react, Li Yang had already slipped away, leaving me and the little black cat staring at each other.

Oh dear! What a miserable life! I sighed helplessly and gently pushed open the window. Although the moonlight was unusually bright tonight, it still couldn't illuminate the grove behind the guesthouse. The leaves rustled in the night wind. Even from the third floor, the grove in front of me still looked very tall, as if it could reach the sky.

This grove of trees has always been one of the forbidden areas on campus, once known along with this little villa as "Ghost Manor." If it weren't for the fact that the school is a nationally renowned landscaping school and claims to be increasing the green space ratio, I think it would have been transformed long ago. Looking down at the swaying trees, the moonlight and wind made it seem as if a demon was truly lurking within. This feeling made me uncomfortable. I closed the window and sat on the edge of the bed. The little black cat in the cardboard box meowed a few times, as if pleading. Looking into its golden eyes, I suddenly felt a little uneasy.

"Go to sleep," I subconsciously pushed the cardboard box a little further away. The instant I turned off the light, I seemed to see a pair of eyes that glowed with a faint golden light in the darkness.

I don't know how long I slept, but in my daze I suddenly felt a coldness rising from the soles of my feet, making the hairs on my body stand on end.

"Meow~~~~Meow~~~!" The little black cat, which had been asleep, suddenly started to hiss in a state of great fear and extreme defensiveness, and its voice was no longer as cute and affectionate as before.

"Kitten, stop meowing!" I mumbled sleepily, but the little black cat seemed to meow even more pitifully, its voice filled with fear, making my heart pound inexplicably. I reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, but no matter how I fumbled, I couldn't seem to find the switch. In my drowsy state, I saw the little black cat jump out of the cardboard box and dart towards the door.

"Kitten!" I quickly got up, only to see the little black cat just standing by the door, its whole body arched, its fur seemingly standing on end, and its pupils glowing with a frightening golden light. Its front paws were even pawing at the ground, poised to attack at any moment. But there was nothing in front of it except the door.

"Kitten, go back to sleep!" I wanted to hug it, but it hissed at me with a fierce glint in its eyes, making me involuntarily take a step back. I glanced at the door again. Was someone outside? I suspiciously looked through the crack under the door, but there seemed to be no one there.

"Meow~~~Meow~~~!" The little black cat meowed even more enthusiastically, so loudly that I was worried it might wake up Li Yang next door.

"Stop it, come here!" I coaxed the little black cat, picked it up, and it immediately snuggled into my arms, but its eyes were still fixed on the door, and it seemed to be struggling to meow hoarsely, its thin body trembling uncontrollably.

Standing by the door, I suddenly had a strange feeling, as if there really was something on the other side! Looking down at the little black cat in my arms, I couldn't resist reaching out and touching the doorknob. But this action immediately provoked a violent reaction from the little black cat. Its body, which had been obediently nestled in my arms, began to wriggle uncontrollably, its claws started scratching hard at my arm, and its hiss turned into pitiful whimpers, as if begging me not to open the door!

My hand stopped, and a rumor I'd heard before suddenly came to mind: cats and dogs, especially black cats, can see things that some people can't! Like ghosts! Thinking of this, I immediately took my hand off the doorknob and stood there dumbfounded, cold sweat dripping from my forehead. I was stunned for a moment.

***********

Generally speaking, unless it's an earthquake, Li Yang would never wake up from a dream, let alone in an extremely fantasizing erotic dream. But today, for some reason, he woke up inexplicably, covered in a cold sweat. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Li Yang got up and poured himself a glass of water to calm himself down.

Suddenly, a strange sound arose in the otherwise silent surroundings, like a panting breath or the sound of someone swallowing. Li Yang put down his water glass, unsure whether it was his own voice or his imagination. The air in May shouldn't be cold, but tonight it was chilly, making his hair stand on end. The cool moonlight filtered through the leaves outside the window, casting dappled shadows.

What was that sound? Li Yang tilted his head and listened carefully, a little suspicious. He initially thought it was Lin Xiao from next door, but upon closer listening, he couldn't hear anything.

He glanced at the door; all was silent outside. Yet, he felt as if something was standing there, silently watching him through the doorway. Li Yang hadn't put on slippers; the chill seeping from the floor made his heart skip a beat, and he gripped his water glass tighter. Something strange seemed to drive him to the door, his other hand already on the doorknob. Swallowing hard, Li Yang gritted his teeth and flung the door open.

There was nothing outside the door! Yet, it felt as if the water in the cup had stirred slightly on its own.

"It's so cold!" Li Yang shivered. Maybe the events of the day had made him too sensitive. He yawned and decided to go back to sleep. Just as he lay down, a dark shadow flashed past the table.

Who? Li Yang jumped out of bed, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to be just the moon's shadow cast by the swaying trees. Touching his chest, Li Yang felt unusually timid tonight.

He lay back down to sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes, the strange sound returned, this time right next to his ear. Li Yang's heart tightened. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't move at all. It felt as if a hundred pounds were pressing down on his body, and his breathing became rapid...

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 6: The Unsolved Case

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 6: The Unsolved Case

Whew! I let out a breath, stroked the still trembling little black cat, and sat down weakly on the bed. I looked down at the little black cat; it didn't seem very scared anymore, but rather looked very tired.

Was there really something behind the door just now? I'm wide awake now. If there really was something, was it a ghost? What could it be, and what was its purpose? I've escaped tonight, but what if it comes again tomorrow night? I touched my forehead, feeling a bit annoyed. Why do these things keep finding me? What a stroke of luck! I'm so unlucky; it looks like I won't be able to sleep tonight. Li Yang, on the other hand, must be sleeping like a log! Thinking of Li Yang, my left eye suddenly twitched. An ominous premonition made me glance towards the door.

If that thing can't get into my room, will it go to Li Yang? That kid is very impulsive, and without the little black cat to remind him, he'll probably open the door! Thinking of this, I immediately opened the door and rushed to Li Yang's room.

The corridor wasn't very dark; moonlight streamed in through the windows. Li Yang's room was quiet, as if nothing had happened. I hesitated, lowering my hand from knocking. What if it was just my imagination and nothing had actually happened? Wouldn't waking Li Yang now make him laugh at me?

But Li Yang wasn't fast asleep as I'd expected; instead, he was struggling desperately. The air around him seemed to have been sucked away, making him feel incredibly suffocated. Li Yang tried to move his arm, but couldn't even twitch a finger. In his panic, he felt something touching his body, starting from his waist and gradually moving to his chest. Just as it reached his neck, he suddenly felt a flash of blue light on his chest, and his eyes opened! He jerked his eyes open and saw a dark figure leap off him and dart towards the door.

Fine, let him laugh if he wants! I was really worried about Li Yang, so I finally reached out and knocked on the door.

"Li Yang, open the door, it's Lin Xiao," I said. But there was still no sound from inside. Could this guy be sleeping that soundly? I didn't give up and continued to knock on the door, shouting, "Hey, open the door, Li Yang!" But no matter how I knocked or shouted, there was no response at all! This was too strange. Was he not in his room? That couldn't be possible; where would he be in the middle of the night? Something was fishy! I pushed the door, deciding to kick it down. Just then, a loud shout came from inside the door: "What's that?"

Then, with a loud bang, the door, which had been suddenly flung open, kissed my nose and forehead without mercy.

"Ouch!" That was my scream as Li Yang, who rushed out of the door, slammed me to the floor. I felt a blur of stars flash before my eyes.

"Lin Xiao? How come it's you?" Li Yang asked, panting heavily.

"What are you doing? I've been knocking on the door for so long and you didn't answer, and then you suddenly slammed it open?" I covered my burning nose, feeling as if some liquid was flowing out.

"I didn't hear you knocking at all! Oh dear, you have a nosebleed?" Li Yang pulled me up from the floor, and when I touched it, sure enough, I was injured.

"Come in, come in!" Li Yang helped me into the room, immediately took out a pack of tissues from his bag and handed it to me, saying, "How was I supposed to know you'd be behind the door?"

"Didn't I come here to find you?" I said irritably, covering my bleeding nose with a tissue.

"Looking for me? What do you want so late at night?" Li Yang asked curiously.

"Then what happened to you just now?" I asked.

"Just now?" Li Yang's face twitched strangely as he asked me, "Do you believe in being possessed by a ghost? If it weren't for this jade pendant, I think you would have been in grave danger." Li Yang touched the jade pendant around his neck.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "What did you see?"

"I don't know if I saw it or not." Li Yang touched his nose and began to slowly tell me what had just happened. I couldn't help but frown as I listened.

"Looks like I wasn't being paranoid." I sighed and told him why I had come to see him. Li Yang immediately looked regretful and said, "I really shouldn't have opened the door!"

"Was there anything special about the dark figure you just saw?" I asked.

"What's special about it?" Li Yang tilted his head and thought for a while, then said, "It seems like this place is empty, there's a hole." Li Yang pointed to his stomach.

"A hole in my stomach?" I asked, puzzled. "What the hell is this?"

"Why don't you just make a phone call and find out?" Li Yang pointed to the phone at me, and I knew he wanted me to call Fang Lei.

I glanced at my watch; it was two in the morning, not the right time to make a call. I said, "Never mind, it's too late today. I'll call tomorrow!"

"Huh? What do we do next?" Li Yang asked. "Should we change our accommodation?"

"Changing hotels in the middle of the night? Let's talk about it tomorrow morning!" I rolled my eyes at Li Yang, thinking to myself that I should go back to my room and continue sleeping. That ghost shouldn't come again tonight, right?

"What? You can still sleep?" Li Yang shouted, "I can't sleep at all!"

"Then what do you want?" I glared at Li Yang and asked.

"Shall we play cards?" Li Yang asked enthusiastically.

"No way?" I sighed, looking up at the sky. Looks like tonight will be another sleepless night...

************

"Wow, senior, how could you be so careless? You even bumped your nose into the door!" Juanzi said with a grin, looking at my injured nose.

"Isn't it because someone was being clumsy?" I touched my nose, then touched my coffee cup, and looked around. I was surprised that the school library had a coffee shop after only a few years.

"By the way, senior, didn't you call me out to ask me something?" Juanzi asked, resting her chin on her hand.

"Oh, is that so? Do you know the origin of the Demon Manor?" I asked.

"No way? Senior, aren't you from this school too? How come you didn't know?" Juanzi looked at me like I was an alien. This 'Haunted Manor' was one of the most widely circulated ghost stories on campus!

“Back then, all that person knew was how to read the classics!” Li Yang said, glancing at me with his eyes.

"Hehe!" Juanzi covered her mouth and chuckled, saying, "Alright then, I'll give you a little tutoring today!" She sat up straight, cleared her throat, and continued, "This guesthouse we're in now, I heard, used to be a dormitory for graduate students, but I don't know why it's been abandoned ever since. Twenty years ago, a graduate student couple got into our school, and I heard they eloped! At first, their relationship was great, but then one day the man suddenly disappeared without a trace, and they couldn't find him anywhere. Just as the police were about to list him as a missing person, another woman suddenly came to report that she had received something terrifying! Guess what it was?"

What is it? Li Yang and I exchanged a glance, then shook our heads simultaneously.

"Hehe!" Juanzi winked at us and said, "You'd never guess, it's that man's stomach!"

"What? Stomach?" Li Yang and I almost spat out the coffee in our mouths.

"Yes, the tests proved it was a human stomach." Juanzi nodded very seriously, it seemed she wasn't bluffing us.

"How do you know it's that man's?" I asked curiously.

"Because the woman who called the police was the man's lover. She insisted that this was the man's stomach and that his wife must have killed him. So the police questioned the woman, and unexpectedly, his wife immediately confessed, saying that she killed the man and removed his stomach," Juanzi replied.

"Then what does this have to do with that house?" Li Yang asked.

"Because the woman confessed that after killing the man, she dumped his body in the woods behind that house!" Juanzi said.

"I see?" I nodded as if I understood.

"But strangely enough, the police have never found the man's body!" Juanzi took a sip of coffee and said, "So ever since that incident, no one has dared to enter that forest. It's said that the man turned into an evil spirit and is haunting there, and the forest and that abandoned house have become known as the Evil Spirit Manor!"

"And what about that woman?" I asked.

"It seems that after a mental evaluation, she was deemed insane, and since the body was never found, there was no way to verify the facts, so the police sent her to a mental hospital. That case has been delayed and remains unsolved!" Juanzi said.

A stomach? A missing body? And a woman who's gone mad—it all sounds like a mystery novel. What surprised me most wasn't the stomach sent to her lover, but the missing body. From a certain perspective, without a body, there's no murder, but the stomach is indeed human tissue, so there are only two possibilities: either the stomach didn't belong to the man, and he never died, hence the body can't be found; or the stomach did belong to the man, but the woman has gone mad, and her description of where she disposed of the body is unreliable—the body must be somewhere else.

The shadowy figure from last night, the one without a stomach, made me think of that man. But if it was him, twenty years have passed; isn't it too late for him to become a ghost now? Or was this ghost already here, and we just happened to encounter it when we first arrived?

Ugh! This is so frustrating! I scratched my head, completely at a loss!

"Senior, you're not asking this because...?" Juanzi asked cautiously.

"Oh, it's nothing, I was just asking out of curiosity!" Li Yang quickly explained from the side.

"By the way, what happened to that hotel near the school?" I asked. I had originally planned to change my accommodation early in the morning, but I didn't expect that the hotel near the school that I used to live in was gone.

"It's been closed down for ages! What, you want to change hotels?" Juanzi said, "There aren't any other hotels around. The only one is that ** Grand Hotel, which is so expensive!"

"No way?" Li Yang exclaimed helplessly, "We're going to have to keep living in places like that?"

"Hehe, you two grown men aren't scared, are you?" Juanzi looked at us with disdain, as if we were cowards, but she was the one who was terrified that day!

"Scared? How could I be?" Li Yang puffed out his chest and said, "What's that place? We're going to stay here!"

"I was just kidding!" Juanzi smiled, stood up and said to us, "I have a class later, so I'll be going now! Thanks for the coffee, senior!" After saying that, she gave us a sweet smile and skipped away from the coffee shop.

After Juanzi walked away, I asked Li Yang, "Are you really determined to continue living here?"

"Can you take back what you've said once it's out in front of a beautiful woman?" Li Yang asked with a bitter face. The price of showing off in front of a beautiful woman is huge!

"I can't stand you!" I slammed the money on the table angrily and said, "Aren't you leaving?"

"Go? Where to?" Li Yang asked blankly.